2023年经济学人 公司里最有价值的人是谁?（在线收听）

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

The ranked organisation

等级制组织

Why asking which person matters most in your firm is a useful exercise.

为什么问问自己公司里谁最重要是一个有用的练习。

Questions are usually more interesting than answers.

问题通常比答案更有意思。

If you had to identify the most important person in your organisation, there is an obvious answer, a trite-and-untrue answer and a wrong-but-useful answer.

如果你必须找出组织中最重要的人，会有一个显而易见的答案、一个常规但并不真实的答案、一个错误但有用的答案。

The obvious answer is “the chief executive”.

显而易见的答案是“首席执行官”。

No cheese is bigger, no dog is more top.

一人之下，万人之上。

The most important decisions about the long-term direction of a company lie with the CEO; the hardest calls land on their desk; and the biggest pay cheques head their way.

关于公司长期发展方向的最重要的决定权握在CEO手中，最艰难的决策摆在他们的办公桌上，最丰厚的薪酬支票也发给他们。

A board of directors might control their fate but no one wields more power.

董事会可能会掌控CEO的命运，但没有人比他们拥有更大的权力。

That is especially true of a startup: up to a certain point in its history, founders are the company.

对于初创公司来说尤其如此：在创业史上的某个时刻，创始人就代表着公司。

The trite answer to the same question is “the customer”.

对于同样的问题，常规的答案是“客户”。

This is the kind of thing someone delivering a TED talk would say, after a suitably meaningful pause.

这是在TED上做演讲的人会说的话，说出答案之前会有意味深长的停顿。

It is the kind of thing that people in the audience would nod wisely at.

这也是观众会心领神会地点头赞同的答案。

An analysis of earnings-call transcripts of S&P 500 firms by Nandil Bhatia and Stephan Meier of Columbia Business School finds that executives talk about customers ten times more than they do about employees.

哥伦比亚大学商学院的南迪尔·巴蒂亚和斯蒂芬·迈尔对标准普尔500强公司的收益电话会议记录进行了分析，发现高管谈论客户的次数是谈论员工的十倍。

But it is also untrue.

但这个答案也不符合事实。

The customer is patently not in your organisation.

客户显然不在你的组织内。

Many employees care more about who took their mug from the kitchen than anything else.

许多员工最关心的是谁从茶水间拿走了他们的杯子而非客户。

There is a reason why firms sometimes have someone play the role of “customer advocate” in meetings.

公司有时让某些人在会议上扮演“客户支持者”的角色，这是有原因的。

The third category of answer will almost certainly be wrong but it will be the product of an instructive thought process.

第三类答案几乎肯定是错误的，但却是具有启发性的思维过程的产物。

Firms routinely identify their most talented people across departments, and offer retention bonuses to get them to stay.

公司通常会找出各个部门最有才干的人，并提供留任奖金，让他们留下来。

But they don’t usually ask what might qualify someone for the title of most important person in an organisation (setting the CEO to one side).

但他们通常不会问是什么让某人有资格成为组织中最重要的人(暂且不论CEO)。

If you think customers trump everything, then you might start by looking at the people who interact most with them.

如果你认为客户压倒一切，那么你可以从与客户互动最多的人开始。

In some industries—rainmakers at investment banks, for instance—these folk have lots of status.

在一些行业--比如投资银行里拉业务的人--这些人有很高的地位。

But in many others, front-line employees suffer from low wages, job dissatisfaction and burnout.

但在其他许多行业，一线员工饱受低工资、工作不满和职业倦怠的折磨。

The effects can be pernicious, particularly in the public sector: turnover among child-welfare workers in America is persistently high, to take one example, and associated with worse outcomes for kids.

其影响可能是有害的，尤其是在公共部门：比如，美国儿童福利工作者的流动率一直很高，这也与儿童的处境更糟相关。

Your search might lead you to the cutting edge: an executive, programmer or researcher working on your most promising new product.

你在寻找答案时可能也会把目光放到前沿领域：负责做出最有前途的新产品的高管、程序员或研发人员。

It might also take you back in time.

你的目光也可能回到过去。

The vital employee might be someone who knows the technology equivalent of Sanskrit.

最重要的员工可能是通晓如梵语般古老的技术的人。

A report published in 2021 found that almost half of the British government’s tech spending was devoted to maintaining outdated IT systems.

2021年发布的一份报告发现，英国政府近一半的科技支出是用于维护过时的IT系统。

A 60-year-old programming language called COBOL is still in widespread use in many banks; according to Reuters, the average cobol programmer is between 45 and 55 years old.

一种有60年历史的编程语言COBOL仍在许多银行广泛使用，据路透社报道，COBOL程序员的平均年龄在45岁至55岁之间。

Your products might owe their character to one person in particular: the designer who makes the curves of a luxury car distinctive, say.

你的产品的特色可能主要出自一人之手：比如让一款豪华汽车的曲线与众不同的设计师。

Or, if you think the secret sauce of your company lies in something amorphous like its culture, you might alight on people who embody it.

或者，如果你认为你的公司的成功秘诀在于某种无形的东西，比如企业文化，那么你可能会想到体现了企业文化的人。

Amazon anoints a special cadre of interviewers known as “bar raisers”, whose purpose is to participate in hiring processes as a kind of culture warrior.

亚马逊打造了一支特殊的面试官队伍，被称为“标准提升者”，他们的目的是以一种企业文化勇士的身份参与到招聘过程中。

Their job is to ensure that successful candidates embrace the firm’s code of leadership principles.

他们的工作是确保面试成功的候选人信奉公司的领导原则。

You might think of importance in terms of influence within the company—the person who may not have the longest title but does have the most tacit knowledge and social capital.

你可能会从公司内部影响力来考虑重要性：这个人可能没有最长的头衔，但却拥有最多的隐性知识和社会资本。

They have the ear of the boss on important issues, but they also know everyone and everything: who is a nightmare to work with, why the firm cut ties with that supplier and who can help you order a new laptop.

在重要问题上他们在老板那里说得上话，但他们也了解所有人和所有事：与谁合作是一场噩梦、公司为什么和那家供应商断绝了联系，以及谁可以帮你订购一台新笔记本电脑。

They are the Panama Canal of the organisation.

他们是组织里的巴拿马运河。

Things can get done without them, but it takes a lot more time.

没有他们，事情也可以做成，但会花费更多时间。

This thought exercise is no more than that.

这个思维练习并非到此为止。

As with organs in the body, the fact is that most departments have to run well for the whole company to thrive.

就像人体的器官一样，事实是大多数部门都必须运转良好，整个公司才能蓬勃发展。

You may not think much about your spleen but you would miss it if it suddenly disappeared; the same goes for your head of compliance.

你可能不会经常想到你的脾脏，但如果它突然消失了，你肯定会想念它，同样的道理也适用于你的合规负责人（注：负责保证企业行为遵守法律法规）。

And the obvious answer is almost certainly correct: the CEO does matter more than anyone else.

显而易见的答案几乎肯定是正确的：CEO确实比其他任何人都重要。

But asking the question might lead you to adjust a bonus here or document how things work there.

但问自己这个问题可能会引导你去调整一下这个部门的奖金，或者记录一下那个部门的工作情况。

It might lead you to spot a gap between where value is created and where it is being recognised.

也可能会引导你去发现创造价值的地方和价值得到认可的地方之间的差距。

Just don’t tell everyone where they rank.

不要只是告诉人们他们的级别排在哪里。