Chapter 6 6

Managers have many jobs, and decision-making is only one of them.Managers usually do not need to spend a lot of time on decision-making, but decision-making is a specific task of managers.From this perspective, decision-making deserves a place in this book. Only when you become a manager do you need to make decisions.Because of his position or the knowledge he possesses, a manager is naturally expected to make decisions that have a profound impact on the organization as a whole, on its performance and outcomes.That's what being a manager is all about. Therefore, if he is an effective manager, he must be able to make effective decisions.

Effective managers view decision-making as a methodical process, one with clear principles and a definite sequence.But the process we are talking about bears no resemblance to the decision-making process that is described in many books today. Effective managers don't need to make many decisions, they only make decisions on important issues.Rather than saying that they want to "solve problems", it is better to say that they try to distinguish through thinking which are strategic problems and which are general problems.They are meant to make a small number of, but extremely important, decisions about matters of the highest order of rational understanding.They want to find out what doesn't change in every situation, so their decisions often need to be given a lenient time frame and not be rushed.They see the skill of juggling many changing things at once as a lack of order in thought.They want to know how their decision will affect various aspects, and what underlying realities this decision must meet.They value the outcome of a decision, not the skill of the decision; they want the decision to be reasonable, not the ingenuity of the decision.

Effective managers know when to base decisions on principles and when to base them on facts.They have learned to distinguish between right and wrong, and know that the most delicate decisions involve some kind of compromise between right and wrong.They also understand that the most time-consuming link is not the decision itself, but how to implement the decision.If a decision cannot be translated into action, it is not a decision, it is at best a good intention.That is to say, if effective decision-making is based on high-level rational knowledge, then the actions to implement this decision must be as close to reality as possible and easy to operate.

Theodore? Weil is not yet a well-known American entrepreneur.But he was the most effective decision maker in the history of American business.From 1910 until the mid-1920s, he was the general manager of the Bell Telephone Company (BellTelcphone system).During this time, he built Bell into one of the largest and fastest growing companies in the world. Telephone companies are privately run, which is a matter of course in the United States.Bell's business in North America is mainly concentrated in two provinces with relatively concentrated populations in the United States and Canada: Quebec and Ontario.Except for the United States and Canada, long-distance communications in other developed countries are all operated by the government.Bell is the only utility that has weathered the risks and continued to thrive despite its monopoly in this key area and a saturated market.

Bell's success is not due to good luck, nor is it due to the role of "US protectionism".The main reason for the success is also due to the four strategic decisions that Weir has taken during these 20 years.Weil had discovered early on that Bell had to do something different if it wanted to remain private and operate autonomously.Telephone communications throughout Europe are in the hands of government agencies, who face neither problems nor risks.If the Bell Company is only ambiguously preventing itself from being taken over by the government, it is at best a delaying tactic, and it will inevitably be taken over by the government in the end.Besides, merely adopting a passive defensive stance will inevitably fail in the end, because doing so will drain the energy of management.Bell needed to develop a policy that would allow itself to look after the public's interests better than government agencies.It was this consideration that led to Weir's early decision that Bell Telephone Company must anticipate and meet the public's hopes and demands for its services.

"Providing services to the society is the fundamental goal of our company." Weil put forward such a slogan as soon as he took office.At the beginning of this century, it would have been considered heresy to propose such a slogan.However, Weil not only advertised his point of view everywhere: the company must provide a service, and the task of management is to make this service possible and to profit from it.Moreover, he also personally worked out a unified standard to measure the level of managers and operations.He used this yardstick to check how good their service was, but he never emphasized the situation of profit completion.The manager is only responsible for the quality of the service.As for the management of the company and the raising of funds, that is the task of the top management. How to transform the company's best service into the best economic benefits is the top management's job.

At the same time, Weir also realized that his communications monopoly should not be free enterprise in the traditional sense, or a private enterprise that can be unfettered.He believed that "public management" was the only alternative to government takeover.Effective, fair and principled public governance is beneficial to Bell Systems and is essential to its continued existence. Although the concept of "public management" is not unfamiliar in the United States, it was quite difficult to implement it when Weir came to the above conclusions.Due to the firm opposition of the business community and the lack of support of the courts, the legal provisions on public management were finally made impossible to implement.The public management committee is underfunded and understaffed, and its committee positions have been occupied by third-rate political servants who can be bought with money, and soon become idle positions that only pay a salary and do nothing.

Weir made it a goal of Bell to achieve public management, and he made it his primary task for the heads of regional subsidiaries to make this goal their own.Weir asked them to take it upon themselves to revive public management institutions, innovate management concepts, and class accreditation concepts in order to be fair and reasonable.That is to say, while the company expands its business, it must also pay attention to protecting the interests of the public.Because the managers of the affiliated companies are members of Bell's top management, there is a fairly positive attitude to public management throughout the company.

The third decision of Vail is to establish the most successful scientific experiment treasure in the industry-Bell Labs within the company.The basic starting point of this decision is to make Bell, a private monopoly, survive.But this time he asked himself: "How can a monopoly like Bell gain real competitiveness?" Obviously, since Bell is a monopoly, it has no normal competitive environment and no competitors.Under such circumstances, enterprises can easily become rigid and rigid, often unable to adapt to changes and seek their own development. Weir also believes that even if a monopoly enterprise has no competitors, managers can still regard the "future" as an opponent and let the future compete with the present.In a technological field such as long-distance communication, the hope for the future lies in the development of different and more advanced technologies.Bell Labs was established under this guiding ideology. It is not the first industrial laboratory in the world, and it is not the first in the United States.But Bell Labs took it upon itself to update existing products, which at the time were doing well and were still profitable for the company.From the point of boldly updating existing products, Bell Labs can indeed be said to be the unique first in the world.

Founded during World War I, Bell Laboratories was considered a major industrial initiative at the time.In order to obtain better benefits, the scientific research in the laboratory must not only create a different future, but also act as a "destroyer of the old world" and a negation of "today".Even today, not many people in the corporate world really understand this.At that time, the vast majority of industrial laboratories took maintaining "today" as their own responsibility, and they were engaged in a kind of "defensive research", but Bell Labs had a clear-cut banner from the beginning: resolutely not to engage in defensive research topics .

The development of the last 10 to 15 years has fully proved how correct Weir's concept is.First of all, due to the development of telephone communication technology by Bell Laboratories, the automatic telephones of the entire North American continent were finally connected.Then, the laboratory extended its telephone technology system to fields that Weir and his descendants could not imagine, such as the broadcast of TV programs and the transmission of computer data.and communication satellites.Most of the scientific and technological developments that made these new transmission technologies possible originated at Bell Laboratories, such as mathematical information theory, new products and production processes of transistors, and computer logic and design. Finally, in the early 1920s, just as his tenure was coming to an end, Weil made his fourth major decision: the creation of a mass capital market.The starting point of this decision is to allow Bell to continue to exist as a private company. Businesses are often taken over by the government because they cannot get the funds they need, not because of socialist considerations.During the period from 1860 to 1920.European railway transportation companies have been taken over by the government successively, the main reason is that they cannot raise the required funds.Therefore the device cannot be updated.The British coal mining industry and the electric power industry were nationalized successively out of such considerations.After World War I, there was inflation.Continental power companies were nationalized during this period, largely for this reason.These power companies cannot raise the funds necessary to develop and update equipment because they cannot increase the electricity rate income to offset the losses caused by currency depreciation. Whether Weir saw this problem when he made the above decision, we can't find evidence in the files, but he did clearly realize that the Bell Corporation faced the following situation: the company needed large, stable and continuous funds. supply that was not available from the capital markets that existed at the time.Some other utilities, notably electric companies, attempted to sell shares to attract the only public investors at the time (in the 1920s)—speculators who wanted to run risky businesses.They form holding companies and try to make the parent company's stock somewhat speculative and attractive, while the day-to-day financing of the company is largely obtained from traditional sources such as insurance companies.Weir believes that the risk of basing a company's source of funds on such a foundation is great. The common stock of AT&T is a stock carefully designed by Weir in the early 1920s, and its purpose is to solve the above problems.This kind of stock is both legal and risk-free, and it is a stock specially issued for the general public.The middle class was on the rise, and "Aunt Sally" had some spare cash on hand that they wanted to invest but couldn't afford to take the risk of.The stock of AT&T that Weir designed was in their arms.This kind of stock dividend is guaranteed, which is very suitable for those orphans and widows who need fixed interest.At the same time, this common stock can also enjoy the benefits of asset appreciation, which can protect investors from losses in the event of inflation. When Weil designed this financial measure, the "Aunt Sally" type of investor team had not yet formed.A middle class with enough money to buy stocks has only recently emerged.Aunt Sally's still had the old habit of depositing money in the bank, buying insurance or applying for a mortgage to buy a house.If one wanted to venture further, some people went into the speculative stock market of the 1920s, which is really not where they should be.Of course, Aunt Sally Investors was not created by Weir. He just helped them become investors and mobilized them to invest their savings in causes that would benefit both Bell and Bell.This decision allowed Bell to raise hundreds of billions of dollars over nearly 50 years.Since then, AT&T common stock has become a staple of investment schemes for the American and Canadian middle class. Vail has a unique way of implementing his ideas.Bell is not dependent on Wall Street for funding.For too long, they have raised their own capital and done the work of selling the securities themselves.Weir's main assistant, Walter Gifford, was in charge of financial design, and later became the main leader of Bell Corporation, and eventually became Weir's successor. Weil's decisions were all targeted, all aimed at solving the problems the company and he was facing at the time.However, behind these decisions, Weir has some basic ideas, and it is precisely these ideas that fully embody what are real and effective decisions. Alfred? P? Sloan is also - an obvious example.Sloan was the designer and builder of General Motors, the largest manufacturing industry in the world.Sloan became the top leader of the conglomerate in 1922, just as Weir was about to retire.He was a completely different person from Will, and he was in a completely different situation.But his most memorable decisions—decentralization at General Motors—were of the same nature as Weir's earlier decisions at Bell Telephone Systems. In his most recent book, "My Years Wnh General Motors," Sloan tells us that when he took over General Motors in 1922, the company was like a collection of separate kingdoms a loose federation.The heads of those independent kingdoms each managed the business that had belonged to them a few years ago.They go their own way, and they don't pay attention to the head office at all. There are two traditional ways to solve this kind of problem.One is that after buying a company, immediately remove the head of the original company from their posts.John "D* Rockefeller used this method when he formed the "Mobil Oil Company". Although J*P* Morgan was a few years ahead of Sloan, he also used this method when he was preparing for the "U.S. Steel Company" The other way is to keep the original owners in the leadership positions, and the head office should not interfere as much as possible. This is anarchism mixed with option trading, and they do it because they think these leaders are for their own economic Interests, will do their best to ensure the overall interests of the company. The founder of General Motors, Durant, and Sloan's predecessor, Pierre DuPont, both adopted this strategy. However, when Sloan took over General Motors After the company, the heads of the independent kingdoms who were hard-nosed and stubborn refused to cooperate with the head office, and the General Motors Corporation was brought to the brink of destruction. Sloan knew that this kind of problem didn't arise because of mergers. It was a common problem in large companies.He found that large enterprises need to have a consistent direction and unified leadership, therefore, the top management of the enterprise must have authority.At the same time, the operation of the enterprise also needs to be dynamic, and all responsible business managers should have the freedom to choose their own operation methods.Not only should they have responsibilities, but they must also have corresponding powers.They should be given a place to use their talents, and if they have achieved something, they should be encouraged accordingly.Sloan realized early on that this approach would become more and more important as the company ages, because the company must rely on these strong managers to give full play to their talents so that the company can better complete its tasks. Sloan's predecessors all saw the problem as a personnel problem, which could only be resolved through a power struggle.Sloan, on the other hand, believed that the problem lay in the system, and that the problem could only be solved by creating a new structure.The decentralized management proposed by Sloan can not only guarantee the operating autonomy of the branch, but also reflect the direction and policy guidance of the head office. The best way to understand whether this solution works is to do a comparison.Let's start by looking at one area where GM hasn't done well over the years.Since the mid-1930s, General Motors has done a poor job of predicting and judging the political mood of the American people and the policies of the US government.And this is precisely the only area where the company has not engaged in "decentralization".Since 1935, almost all of General Motors' senior management voices have been conservative Republicans, and it's not hard to see the problem from this alone. Although Weil and Sloan's decision-making is aimed at different problems and solves them in different ways, they have important commonalities between them.For example, they both try to approach problems at the highest conceptual level.They first try to theorize what problem the decision is trying to solve, and then develop principles for dealing with it.In other words, their decisions are based on strategic considerations, rather than adapting to the ad hoc needs of the time.These decisions are innovative and, therefore, often controversial.The above five decisions were all contrary to the traditional ideas of the people at that time. When Weir first became president of Bell, he was fired by the board once.His conception of "service" as the company's main business activity had struck the directors as mentally ill.For them, the only purpose of business is to make a profit.Weir firmly believed that crowd management was in the best interest of the company and was necessary for its continued survival.The board, on the other hand, considered his ideas a little rash, if not ill-intentioned, because they "believed" that mass management was "on the way to socialism."For them, this is something that must be done with all their might.A few years later, around the turn of the century, the board panicked at the growing wave of nationalization.Of course, they had reason to panic, because at that time the calls for the nationalization of the telephone communication industry were getting louder and louder, so the directors Will decide to bring Will back again.But Weir decided to spend money on updating the processes and technologies that were making big money for the company at the time, decided to build a big research laboratory to realize his idea, decided to establish his own financing organization, and was not going to raise money in the way that was popular at the time. funds.All three of Vail's decisions have been resisted by the board of directors, who believe that Vail's ideas are outlandish and undesirable. Alfred Sloan's decentralized decision-making was also unacceptable at the time, because it was too far from the general perception of the people at the time. In corporate America, Henry Ford was a recognized radical leader.Even in Henry's eyes, Weir and Sloan's decision-making was a little too "wild".Henry believes that the T-shaped car designed by Ford will be far and away favored by users.Weil's deliberate efforts to make his company's existing production technology obsolete simply baffled him.At the same time, he is also convinced that only with the greatest degree of centralization can the company produce benefits.So, in his view, Sloan's decentralization approach could only lead to self-destruction. The really important features of Weir and Sloan's decisions were neither novelty nor because they were contentious, but the five most important ones: 1.Clear thinking.If the problem is of a general nature, it can only be resolved by a decision establishing a rule or principle; 2.set boundaries.Define the boundaries that must be met in order to solve the problem.This is the so-called "boundary condition"; 3.Repeatedly scrutinize.It is necessary to scrutinize what is "right" and what conditions must be met by the solution to the problem.Only after these issues have been considered clearly can a series of other measures such as appropriate compromises, concessions and moderate changes be considered.The purpose of taking those measures is to make the decision acceptable to everyone; 4.Implement measures to turn decisions into actions that can be implemented; 5.Emphasis on "feedback" to verify the correctness and effectiveness of decisions. The above are the five elements of effective decision-making, which are described as follows: 1. As an effective decision-maker, he must first ask himself: "Is this incident a routine or an exception?" "Will this incident cause a series of other incidents? Or is this incident just a case with Different special events, need to take special measures to deal with?" If it is a routine, it should be solved by general rules or general principles; if it is a special case, it can only be solved by special methods solve. Strictly speaking, what happens tends to fall into four categories, not just routine and practice.The first category is routine, but some of the things that happen in it are just symptoms. Most of the problems that managers encounter in their daily work fall into this category.For example, the inventory decision in an enterprise is not actually a real decision, because it is just a change measure, and it is a general problem.This situation is even more common in production activities. Generally speaking. A product management and engineering group probably handles hundreds of these things every month.However, with a little analysis, it is not difficult to find that most of them are just superficial phenomena, some superficial phenomena that reflect the basic situation.The process management engineer working in a certain department of the factory or the engineer responsible for the production of the product often does not see this.What they encounter is maybe a few times a month that the joints of the steam pipes or hot water pipes are out of order.Only by combining and analyzing the problems encountered by the engineering team over the past few months can he see which problems have commonalities.Only after that, he could understand that the temperature and pressure of the equipment were too high, and the joints connecting the various pipes needed to be redesigned to allow greater flow to pass through smoothly.But before doing this analysis, he couldn't see the real problem, and spent a lot of time fixing the interface, often to no avail. The second type of problem may be a specific problem for individual units, but it is actually a problem with common characteristics. If a company has accepted a merger with another large company, it will not have to accept other companies' merger proposals.For the company, and for its board of directors and governing body, acceptance of this recommendation can only be a one-off.It is a specific problem.However, as far as the merger itself is concerned.It's just a recurring, generic problem in the corporate world.Therefore, when considering whether to accept the merger proposal.It is necessary to consider some general rules, that is, to refer to many ready-made experiences of others. The third category of problems are the real exceptions, really special events. The November 1965 blackout in the northeastern United States was interpreted as an accident at the time.It darkened the entire region from the St. Lawrence to Washington. In the early 1960s, pregnant women taking thalidomide caused many birth defects.To this tragedy, people also say it was an accident.It is said that the probability of such an event happening is one in ten million or one in billion. Once such a thing has happened once, it is unlikely to happen again. However, true accidents do not happen very often.When something like this happens, he has to ask himself, "Is this an accident, or the first manifestation of a new class of problems?" And the first manifestation of this new general problem is precisely the fourth, or last, category of problems that decision-making procedures have to deal with. We now know that the blackouts in the Northeastern United States and the tragedy of thalidomide were only the first manifestations of failures that are likely to recur under the conditions of modern electrical technology and modern medicine.For such accidents, only by finding out some general solutions can they effectively prevent their recurrence. All but really special events require a general solution, such as a rule, a measure, or a principle.Once such a correct principle has been formulated, we have an effective principle for dealing with various manifestations of the same type of problem.In other words, just apply the principles to various specific events.However, for truly special events, special handling must be carried out.For special events, the light application of the principles will not work. Effective decision makers often spend a lot of time determining which of the four types of problems they are dealing with.He knew that if he had misclassified the problem, he would not have made the right decision. The first (and most common) type of judgment error is treating a general event as a series of specific problems.That is to say, when he lacks a general understanding of the problem and a principle of dealing with the problem in his mind, he will inevitably adopt a pragmatic attitude, and this approach will inevitably lead to frustration and frustration. fail. The best illustration of this is President Kennedy's domestic and foreign policies.Although there were many outstanding talents in the Kennedy administration, most of the domestic and foreign policies of the administration were defeated.The only one that succeeded was dealing with the Cuban missile incident.Apart from this, the Kennedy administration achieved very little else.The main reason for this situation is what they call "pragmatism" point of view.This point of view leads them to abandon the study of rules and principles, and to approach each event on its own merits.Everyone knew, even members of the Kennedy administration knew in their own minds, that the basic assumptions on which their policy was based, their basic assessment of the postwar situation, both in international issues and in domestic policy, had become increasingly more and more divorced from reality. The second type of judgment error that often occurs is to treat a new matter as an old problem, and try to solve the new problem by using the old rules. That's why a local blackout on the New York-Ontario border can quickly spread throughout the Northeastern United States.The electrical engineers in New York had adopted the correct principles for dealing with general overloading, yet their meters had already shown that this was not the case.They should have taken ad hoc rather than routine countermeasures to solve the problem. By contrast, President Kennedy had great success in handling the Cuban Missile Crisis.This is because he accepted Khrushchev's challenge and was able to seriously consider the matter as a special event.Once a decision is made.He was able to make the most of his vast resources, including his intelligence and courage. A third common mistake is making plausible interpretations of some fundamental problem.Please see the following example: Since the end of World War II, the U.S. military has failed to retain trained medical personnel.The military has conducted many investigations and studies on this problem, and has also proposed various solutions.Unfortunately, all of these studies start with the wrong assumption that the crux of the problem is compensation.The real problem lies in the military's traditional medical structure.The medical system in the military has always only paid attention to general doctors who can see all kinds of diseases, which runs counter to the development trend that people pay more and more attention to specialist doctors today.When you come to the army to be a military doctor, the way to promote your position is from medical professional to medical administrative work, which actually separates medical staff from medical research and medical practice.Therefore, some young and promising doctors now feel that it is a waste of their time and skills to serve in the army, because they either have to be general doctors or have to be office administrators.What they want is to develop their medical talents, apply the knowledge they have learned, and have the opportunity to become a specialist. So far, the military has failed to confront this fundamental problem.Is the military willing to allow their medical institutions to be reduced to second-rate institutions filled with quack doctors? Or are they planning to overhaul the medical structure of the military? Only when the military accepts this new, genuine policy will the military Only the young doctors in China can stay. The final mistake is to define the problem incompletely. This largely explains why the U.S. auto industry came under sudden sharp attack in 1966, and why people began to accuse them of making cars that were unsafe, while they themselves were unprepared and somewhat ignorant. measures.To say that the automobile manufacturing industry does not pay attention to safety issues is indeed a bit of an exaggeration.The automobile manufacturing industry in the United States not only attaches great importance to the safety of automobiles, but also makes a lot of contributions to the design of roads and the training of drivers.It is also unfair to say that driving accidents are caused by unsafe roads or driver's mistakes in general terms.In fact, all units related to driving safety, from highway patrol to driving training schools, regard safety as the primary goal of their activities.These activities have already paid off.On those roads that are built to be safer, there are not too many accidents; drivers who have undergone safety training have relatively few accidents.However, while the accident rate per thousand vehicles or miles traveled has been declining, the total number of accidents and their severity have continued to rise. A situation that should have been very clear is that about 5% of drivers drink and drive, they have "intention to cause accidents", and about two-quarters of driving accidents are caused by them.For these people, safety training can't solve the problem at all. Even if they drive on the safest road, accidents will happen.We should have known.Measures must be taken to solve the driving safety problems of these people.This means that in addition to maintaining road safety and driver training, we must also try to ensure the safety of at-fault drivers.However, the automotive industry has not yet understood this. The above examples fully demonstrate that interpretations taken out of context are often more dangerous than interpretations that are completely wrong.All parties concerned with safe driving (including automakers, state highway boards, driver associations, insurance companies, etc.) are reluctant to admit that accidents are inevitable, feeling that acknowledging this is tantamount to tolerance (if not encouragement) Unsafe driving behavior.It's like the old grandmother's generation, who thought that doctors who treated STDs were abetting immorality.Objectively, there is a tendency to confuse "plausible mistakes" with "moral concepts", which makes some statements taken out of context very dangerous and difficult to correct. Therefore, the decision-maker who pays attention to efficiency always starts by considering things as general problems. He always feels that what attracts his attention at the beginning is often only the superficial phenomenon of things, and what he is looking for is the substantive problem behind the phenomenon.He was not content with solving superficial problems. If the event is indeed unusual, experienced decision makers wonder whether the event will signal a new underlying problem, whether the seemingly unusual event is actually just some new general The first outward manifestation of a problem. This also explains why effective decision makers always try to find solutions at the highest conceptual level.He will not solve the immediate funding problem by issuing random securities, even though such securities will sell for the best prices in the next few years.If he feels the need for a capital market, he will try to cultivate a new kind of investor, and he will design a security that is suitable for the public capital market, which unfortunately does not exist at present.If he wanted to bring a bunch of competent but disobedient department managers to heel, he would never have done so by removing the most disobedient managers and then paying off the rest.He would propose a concept of a large organization.If he felt that his business must be turned into a monopoly, he would never have taken the approach of condemning socialism.Caught between the irresponsible competition of private enterprise and an out-of-control government monopoly, he is ready to fight his way out of public management. Some ad hoc decisions tend to last longer, which has become an obvious phenomenon in social and political life.For example, regulations on the opening hours of taverns in England, rent control rights in France, and regulations on temporary government buildings in Washington.这三条原先都是在第一次世界大战期间作出的临时性规定，原先只准备试行几个月，却想不到几十年后的今天这些规定仍然有效。讲究效益的决策者懂得这个道理。尽管他们也会做出一些临时性的决策，但是每次在做这样的决策时，他们总要问一下自己：“如果这一决定会被长期执行下去，我是否会很乐意?”假如回答是“不”，那么他就会继续努力地去寻找一个更加带有普遍性的、更加理性化的、更加包罗万象的解决方案。只有这样的方案才包含了解决问题的正确原则。 这么说来，卓有成效的管理者一般不会有很多的决策要做。这倒不是因为这样的决策太费时间，其实做这种决策通常并不见得比按照表面现象或临时需要来决策更费时间。说管理者不需要做很多的决策，是因为他已经有了解决一般性问题的规则和政策，因为他可以运用有关的规则来解决绝大多数的问题。有一条法律方面的谚语这样说：“法律越是复杂，律师越是无能。”他们试图把各种问题都当成特殊的现象来加以对待，殊不知它们只是一般法律规则下的一个特殊的例子罢了。同样的道理，如果—个管理者一天到晚忙着做决策，那恰恰说明他是个懒惰而又低能的管理者。 决策者也总在留意，是否有异常规象发生。他总会提出这样的问题：“我的解释能否说明已被观察到的事件?能否解释一切其他事件?”他会将解决方案应该起到的作用写出来(比如，消除汽车行车事故)，接着就定期留心观察实际效果到底如何。如果发现异常情况，如果发现有些现象他的解释说明不了问题，如果事件的发展偏离了他原先的没想，那么他就会重新考虑这个问题。实际上，这些规则早在两千多年前已由古希腊医生希波克拉底(HippocrateG)作为医学诊断规则提出来了。后来经过亚里士多德系统整理，并由意大利科学家伽利略于300年前进一步证实，这些规则终于成为当前进行科学观察的一些规律。换句话说，这些规律是古老的、尽人皆知的、经受了时间考验的、人人都能学会的，也是人人都可以系统地加以应用的规律。 2.决策的第二个要素是必须对决策所要达到的目的有十分明确的说明。决策要达到什么目的?目标的最低限度是什么?实现目标必须具备哪些条件？这些因素在科学上被称之为“界限条件”。一项有效的决策必须要能满足这些界限条件，能够实现其预定的目标。 界限条件越是清楚和明确，决策有效的可能性就越大，实现其预定目标的机会就越多。相反，如果未能对界限条件作充分的阐述，那么不管决策看上去有多聪明，到头来肯定是效果不佳。 “解决这个问题，至少应该有哪些条件?”这通常就是探索界限条件的一种办法。“如果取消部门负责人的自主权，”艾尔弗雷德?P?斯隆大概会这样问自己：“能否满足我们的需要?”很明显，答案是否定的。他所面临的问题的界限条件是要让业务部门的负责人有领导权和责任感。这种领导权和责任感几乎与总部的统一行动和统一管理同样重要。他所需要的界限条件是从机构的结构上解决问题，而不是在机构的人事问题上进行调整。就是出于这样的考虑，斯隆才使他的解决方案站住了脚。 要找出相应的界限条件并不总是一件容易的事。即使是聪明人对此也不一定会有一致的看法。 就在美国东北部大停电的第二天早上，《纽约时报》还是照常印了出来。因为他们将印刷任务迁到了哈得逊河对岸的纽瓦克地区去执行，纽瓦克属新泽西州，那里的发电厂还在发电，当地的印刷厂除印刷本地的《纽瓦克晚报》外，还有很大的潜力。《纽约时报》的管理部门预定要印100万份，结果却只印出了不到一半。因为就在报纸校样送去付印前(至少当时有这样的传说)，执行编辑与他的二位助手对一个复合字的连字符号应该怎么使用发生了争执。据说，争执持续了48分钟，等到争论结束，一半的印刷时间已经过去了。这位编辑坚持认为，《纽约时报》应该是美国书面英语的样板，因N此．是绝对不能发生什么语法错误的。 假定这一说法是真实的(我确实不敢肯定)，人们也许会问时报的管理部门对这一决策会有什么想法?考虑到执行编辑对该报宗旨的理解以及该报纸自以为是的态度，毫无疑问该报做出这样的决策是一点也个奇怪的。因为他们的界限条件很清楚：不是每天早上必须要销掉多少张报纸，而是必须保持该报作为英语语言的权威形象。 卓有成效的管理者心中明白，任何不考虑界限条件的决策，不但是无效的，而且也是不合时宜的。它甚至要比符合错误的界限条件的决策更为有害。当然，这两者都是错误的，但对后者人们往往还可以进行修正，而对前者这种不考虑具体情况的决定，它只能带来麻烦，除此之外它不会给人们带来任何好处。 对界限条件保持清醒的认识，这在实际上是极为必要的，因为它能提醒人们什么时候必须要放弃某个决定。我们可以举出两个例子，一个是界限条件含糊不清的决策；另一个的界限条件十分清楚，因此，管理者就可以用新的决策来取代原先那没有击中要害的决策。 第—次世界大战爆发前夕，德军总参谋部所制订的《施利芬计划》便是一个例子。该汁划的宗旨是让德国能够在东、西线同时开战而又不致分散兵力。为达此目的，《施利芬计划》主张对东线较弱的俄国只派出象征性的部队进行对抗，而将其主要兵力都集中在西线向法国发起闪电袭击，等拿下法国之后再回过头来对付俄国。certainly.执行这样的计划将意味着在战争一开始，必须要有让俄国军队深入到德国领土的思想准备。可是，当战争爆发后不久(1914年8月)，德国军方觉得俄军深入德国领土的速度超出了原先的预料，再加上东普鲁士的贵族地主们看着自己的世袭地盘被俄国人任意蹂躏，心中难以平静，于是就大声疾呼，要德军来对他们加以保护。 施利芬本人对他计划中的界限条件是十分明确的。可是他的那些继承人都是一些技术人员，他们既不是战略家，也不是决策者。所以他们抛弃了《施利芬计划》中最根本的东西一—必须集中德军的主要兵力。在这种情况下，他们原本应该放弃这一计划，但是他们却继续执行这一计划，最终自然就难以达到目的。他们分散了西线的兵力，使西线初期的胜利未能进一步开花结果，而东线的兵力虽有增加，但也还不足以将俄军赶出德国领土。最后终于导致了一种僵持局面，而这种僵持局面恰恰就是《施利芬计划》所要极力避免的。它使战争成了一场消耗战，在这种局面下，决定战争胜负的已不再是战略优势，而是人力优势。自那以后，实际上已没有什么战略可言，取而代之的只是激昂的措辞、前后矛盾的临时性决策以及渴望奇迹的发生。 第二个例子正好与此相反，那就是富兰克林*D?罗斯福于1933年当了总统后所采取的行动。早在竞选总统期间，罗斯福已拟就了一个“经济复兴汁划”。执行这样的计划，必须要以金融保守主义和预算平衡为前提。可是，就在罗斯福宣誓就职前，美国的经济垮了。在这种情况下，即使罗斯福的经济政策还能挽救美国经济的话，那么在政治上也还是过不了关的。 于是，罗斯福立刻提出了新的政治目标以取代他原先的经济目标。他从“经济复兴”转向了“政治改革”。新计划要求有政治上的动力，因此，自然要求将原先较为保守的经济政策完全改成激进的、革新型的政策。这样一来，界限条件变了，罗斯福不愧为一位伟大的决策者，他立刻意识到：如果想取得效益，他必须完全放弃原先的汁划。 要从许多决策中识别哪些决策的风险最大，管理者就必须对界限条件保持清醒的认识。否则，就难以识别那些比如只有在万事顺利的条件下才能达到目的的决策。那些决策看上去也总有一定的道理，但当管理者仔细考虑过那些决策必须要满足的要求之后，他就会发现有些要求从本质上说是互不相容的。要让这样的决策获得成功，不是说毫无可能，只是可能性不大而已。毕竟奇迹不是经常能够发生的，把希望寄托在发生奇迹上是行不通的。 一个典绍的例子便是肯尼迪总统在1961年“猪湾事件”上的决策。在这项决策中，有一项要求是要卡斯特罗下台。同时，它也还有另一项要求，那就是不要使人觉得美国的武装力量正在干涉另一个美洲国家的内政。这第二个要求显得十分荒唐，而且在整个世界上也不会有人相信这次入侵全是古巴内部起义的一个结果，但是美国的决策各并不理会这些。对他们说来，不干涉内政仿佛是一条合理的、必要的条件。然而，这样的两个要求若要能协调起来，那除非是古巴内部反卡斯特罗的武装暴动已使古巴军队处于瘫痪的状态。这种情况当然不能说完全不可能，但是从当时的实际情况看，这样的可能性显然是微乎其微的。因此，美国所面临的选择是：要么放弃整个计划；要么就应全力支持这一入侵行动，以保证入侵的成功。 我这样说并不是对肯尼迪总统有所不敬，他的错误不在于像他所说的那样“听从了专家和顾问的意见”，他的真正的错误是未能仔细地考虑清楚他的决策必须要满足哪些界限条件。他不敢面对这—令人不快的现实：一个必须要满足两种从本质上说互不协调的界限条件的决策，实际上算不上是什么决策，它最多只是一种希望出现奇迹的祈盼罢了。 不过，对重要的决策而言，要确定界限条件和提出要求，光靠“事实”是不行的，那要看他怎么来领会问题，那是一种充满风险的判断。 每个人都可能会做出错误的决策，实际上谁都免不了会在某个时候做出错误的决策。但是，谁都不应该去做根本无法满足其界限条件的那种决策。 3.由于考虑到最终难免需要作些妥协．管理者在决策时必须先从是非标准出发，千万不能一开始就搞凑合，更不能以人来论是非。假如管理者搞不清楚什么是正确的界限条件及要求，那么他自然也弄不清楚什么是正确的妥协、什么是错误的妥协，到头来很可能会作出错误的妥协。 我在l 944年开始搞首次大型咨询项目时就学到了这一点。那是要对通用汽车公司的管理结构及管理方针作一次调查研究。艾尔弗雷德?P?斯隆是当时通用公司的董事长及总经理。调查刚开始，他就把我叫到了他的办公室，对我说道：“我不给你规定需要研究什么，写什么，应该得出些什么结论，那都是你的事情。我的唯一指示是：把你认为正确的东西写下来，不要担心我们会有什么反应，也不必顾忌你的看法是否合我们的胃口。你只管提建议，不必为我们必须采取的妥协措施而操心。本公司的管理者人人部懂得要采取妥协措施。不过，他们都不知道如何采取'正确的'妥协措施，除非你先告诉他们什么才是“正确的'。”每位正在考虑决策的管理者都应该把斯隆先生的这段话当作座右铭。 肯尼迪总统从“猪湾事件”的彻底失败中吸取了教训。因此，在两年后的“古巴导弹危机”事件中取得了胜利。在那次事件上，他坚定不移地把握住决策必须达到的界限条件，因此看清了什么样的妥协是可以接受的(比如，美国的空中侦察显示实地核查已无必要，所以美国不声不响地放弃了实地核查的要求)，什么样的事情是必须坚持到底的(比如，苏联的导弹必须拆除并运回苏联去)。 妥协有两种不同的性质。第一种妥协就好比古谚语所说的那样：“半块面包总比没有面包来得好。”另一种妥协就像所罗门王判案故事中所说的那样，孩子的母亲清醒地意识到：“与其要回半个死孩子，还不如将孩子送给对方为好。”在前一种妥协里，界限条件得到了满足，面包的作用是提供食物，而半块面包当然也是食物，也能起到同样的作用。然而，半个孩子就不—样了，那只是半个死尸而已。 如果在决策时，一味担心人家是否能接受，害伯有些内容是否会引起别人的反对，那样做只会浪费时间，是毫无意义的，因为这种情况压根儿就不可能发生。而有些想不到的困难及阻力倒会突然出现，成为难以逾越的障碍。换一种说法，如果决策者一开始便向自己提出这样的问题：“哪些东西人家才能接受?”那么他做出来的决策肯定不会有好结果。原因很简单，决策者在回答这一问题的过程中，由于害怕别人反对，将会删去最最重要的内容，从而使自己的决策失去了效益，失去了正确性。 4.必须将决策转化为行动，是决策的第四个要素。如果说考虑界限条件是决策过程中最困难的环节的话，那么要将决策转比为有效的行动通常则是最费时间的环节。除非从一开始便将承诺和义务都包括在决策中，要不这个决策便毫无意义。 事实上，只有当贯彻落实决策的具体措施变成了某个人的具体工作和责任时，做决策才显得有真正的意义。如果情况不是这样，那么根本就谈不上是什么决策．至多只是个良好的愿望罢了。 过多的政策说明令人厌烦，尤其是在业务单位里更是如此。这种政策说明都不包含行动上的承诺，因此对如何落实的问题没有专人负责。难怪机构里的工作人员会将这种政策说明当作笑科，如果还不至于将它们当作高层管理根本不准备去执行的官样文章的话。 若要将决策转化为行动，必须先明确无误地回答下列问题；决策必须要让谁知道?必须采取什么行动来贯彻落实?应由谁来采取这一行动?这一行动应该包含哪些内容，以便让执行决策的人可有所遵循?在这些问题中，第一个问题和最后一个问题往往容易被人们所忽略，从而造成灾难性的结果。 在运筹学者中，流传着这样—个故事，它倒可以说明“决策必须要让谁知道?”的重要性。一家制造工业设备的大厂商几年前决定暂停制造某种型号的设备。好多年来，这种设备一直是机床类产品中的标准产品，其中不少产品至今仍在继续使用。因此，公司同时也决定在未来的二年中继续向该设备的老用户提供此型号的机器，以满足他们更换的需要。三年之后，公司就不再生产和销售达种型号的机器了。对这种型号机器的订单近几年来一直有下降的趋势。们当老客户得知这种别号的产品不久将不再供应时，订单反而突然大增。可是，没有人提出“必须把停产的决策告知哪些人”，于是谁也没想到要去通知采购部负责采购该部件的人员。采购员所得到的指令还是按当前销售的比例购进该型号机器的部件，没人对他说过需要修改这一指令。二年过去后，当公司准备停止生产该产品时，却发现：仓斥里的库存装配件多到了足够他们使用8—10年，于是也只好白白浪费了。 决策行动也必须与执行决策者的能力相适应。 一家化工企业近年来发现有两笔相当大的资金被冻结在两个西非国家里。为了避免损失，公司决定用这两笔资金在当地办企业。公司的原则是：所办企业对当地的经济应有所贡献；企业不必从国外进口原料；如果经营成功的活，还可在当地金融政策解冻时将其转售给当地的投资者，再将钱汇出来。为此，公司开发了一种保存热带水果的简单化学工艺。那两个国家都盛产水果，在过去，出于缺乏加工保存的手段，这种水果企运往西方销售的途中均有严重的损耗。 所办企业在两个非洲国家都取得了成功。但是—个国家的当地经理把企业的标准定得太高，它需要由技术高超的、受过西方技术训练的管理者了来进行管理，而这样的人才在当地是很难找到的。在另一个国家的那位企业经理，由于考虑到了最终将要经管这个企业的人的实际能力，所以尽量地简化企业流程，并从一开始就在企业的上上下下雇用当地人才。 几年以后，这两个国家升始允许资金汇出境外了。然而，那家高标准的企业尽管十分兴旺发达，但却怎么也找不到当地的买主，因为当地人根本就不具备管理该企业的技术能力。于是这家企业只好被清盘处理，经济损失在所难免。而在另一个国家的那家企业．却吸引了许多当地的企业家，因此，公司不仅收回了原先投入的资金，而且利润还相当可观。 这两家企业的产品及生产流程基本上是相同的，可是在前一家企业里，没人提出过诸如此类的问题：“能执行决策的现有当地人才到底具备哪些条件?他们到底可以胜任哪些工作?”结果，决策就设法被顺利地贯彻。 如果—项决策要成为有效的行动，那么有关人员就必须要改变自己的行为、习惯和态度。在这种情况下，如何使决策行动适合决策执行人的实际能力就显得特别地重要。管理者应该设法落实如下两条：行动的责任要落到人头；负责落实的人必须要有足够的能力。管理者对其下属的考核方式、考核标准及奖励办法都应该作出相应的调整。要不的话，有关人员将会陷入到内部感情冲突的游涡之中而不能自拔。 西奥多?维尔如果没能设计出可以用于衡量管理绩效的服务标准的活，那么他的关于服务就是贝尔公司最向宗旨的决策恐怕就会落空。贝尔公司的经理们一向习惯于用单位盈利或者成本作为衡量工作成绩的标准。维尔的新标准迫使他们很快地适应了新目标。 下面是个完全相反的例子。 —家历史悠久、规模颇大、一向引以为豪的美国公司的一位十分能干的董事长兼总经理为了公司的生存和发展，采取了革新公司结构、树立公司新目标等措施，可惜最近失败了。公司里的人都认为革新措施是必要的。在很长一段时间里，该公司一向是此行业的领头羊，可是近来却出现了明显的老化趋势。几乎在各个主要领域，公司都受到了那些较新、较小但却有更大进取心的竞争对手的挑战。为使他的革新措施能得到更广泛的支持，这位董事长将一些最引入注目的老派代表人物提升到最重要和薪酬最高的职位上去，特别是将其中二位提升为执行副总裁。这一做法给公司里的工作人员留下了一个印象：'他们不是真想改革。 " 如果对违背新做法的行为给予最高的奖励，那么人人都会得出结论：这种与革新背道而驰的行为就是高层管理人员所推祟的和所要嘉奖的。 并不是每个人都能像维尔那样有本事将决策的执行与决策本身融为一体。但是，某项具体决策需要哪些行动承诺?承诺之后还有哪些工作要做?由谁来执行该项决策比较妥当?这些是人人都可以考虑的问题。 5.最后一条是必须将反馈信息充分考虑进决策中去，以便能根据实际情况不断地验证决策的预期目标是否合适。 决策是由人来做的，人难免会犯错误。再了不起的决策也不可能是永远正确的。就是最英明的决策也很可能会有毛病，最有效的决策总有一天也是会被淘汰的。 如果需要这方向的例证的话，那么维尔和斯隆的决策便是最好的例子。尽管他们有很大的魄力和想像力．在他们众多的决策中，只有—项决策时至今日仍然管用．那就是维尔关于“服务是贝尔电话公司的宗旨”这一决策。至于美国电话电报公司的公众股的投资性质早已在50年代随着新情况的出现而不得不作了很大的改动。当时出现了一种机构投资人，诸如养老基金和互助基金，这些基金便成了当时中产阶级投资的新渠道。虽然贝尔实验室还在发挥它的重要作用，但由于新技术的发展，特别是激光和空间技术的发展，使得任何一家通信公司都无法 通过自身的能力来满足所有技术和科学上的需求。与此同时，由于技术的发展，75年来第一次出现了这样的情况：电话将会面临新的长途通信手段的严峻挑战；在信息及数据等通信领域，没有任何一种通信媒介可以保持其统治地位，更不要说保持垄断地位了。而在过去很长一段时间里，贝尔公司在这方面—向是处于垄断地位的。尽管公众管理仍然是私营长途通信公司生存所必要的手段，而当年维尔所极力推崇的那种公众管理(由各个州自己负责的公众管理)与当前的全国性甚至是国际性的通信公司这么一种现实越来越格格不入了。而这种由联邦政府负责的公众管理的出现不但是必要的，而且也是不可避免的。这种管理可不是贝尔公司提出来的。相反，贝尔公司还试图通过某种拖延战术来反对这种由联邦政府负责的公众管理措施，尽管维尔本人很不愿意参与这一行动。 至于斯隆在通用公司所推行的分权决策，现在仍在实行。只是已有迹象表明、这一决策不久将会被重新加以考虑。斯隆设想的一些基本原则已被多次修改，目前恐怕早已面目全非了。比如，原来被给予自治权的汽车制造部门，现在对制造和装配汽车正在渐渐地失去控制权，所以也就难以对生产的结果负全部责任。各种型号的汽车，从雪佛兰到卡迪拉克，也已不再橡斯隆一开始所设计的那样，可以代表某种身份。更为引人注目的是，斯隆设计了一家美国公司，虽然不久它在国外有了了公司，但从组织和管理结构上来看，它仍然只是一家美国公司。可是，今天的情况完全不同了，通用汽车公司已明显地成了一家国际性的跨国公司。公司在国外的部分——特别是在欧洲的那部分——已取得了巨大的发展，获得了重要的机会。对这家跨国公司来说，如果没有正确的原则和正确的组织机构的话，继续生存和发展就会成为问题。斯隆在1922年上台时所推行的分权制管理方法并不会永久地持续下去。不久的将来也会对其进行重新考虑。可以这么预言，一旦企业面临经济困难时期，对改革当前做法的要求将会变得更加迫切。如果不作彻底的改动，斯隆的方案很可能会成为挂在通用汽车公司脖子上的一块盘石，会越来越成为公司成功的绊脚石。 当艾森豪威尔当选总统时，他的前任哈里?s?杜鲁门曾说道：“可怜的艾克，他在当将军时，一道命令下去，贯彻起来畅行无阻。现在他得坐在那间大办公室里了，他若再发布命令，惯彻起来恐怕就不会再像在军队里那么顺当了。” 出现这种现象，并不是说将军的权力要比总统的大。这是因为军队机构早已了解：如果不去核查命令落实的情况，那么大多数命令都会落空的。他们早就知道，亲自下去看一看，这是取得反馈信息唯—可靠的办法。汇报的办法——这是总统想要了解情况的唯一手段一—帮不了太多的忙。军队的指挥官都明白，命令下达之后，必须亲自下去检查命令是否已被执行。至少他也应该派遣其助手下去了解情况，他决不可以只听信执行命令的下属的一面之词。这倒不是不信任自己的下属、因为经验告诉他不可轻信这种形式的汇报或沟通。 这就是为什么当营长的总是要亲自到食堂里去，亲口尝一下饭菜的滋味的道理。当然，他也可以不下去，可以看看菜谱，或者叫别人把菜谱拿来检查，但是他没有这样做，他总是会走进士兵用餐的食堂．亲自去尝一尝土兵们吃的东西的味道到底怎么样。 随着电脑时代的到来，了解实际情况会变得更加重要，因为决策者与决策执行者之间的距离可能会进一步增大。除非他真能接受这样的观点；最好要亲自去现场看—看，否则的话，他无疑会越来越脱离实际。电脑处理的都是一些抽象的概念，而这些概念只有经过具体实践的检验之后才是可靠的，要不的话，这种抽象概念肯定会把我们引入歧途。 若想了解赖以做出决策的前提是否仍然有效，或者已经过时，那么亲自下去看一看，如果这不能算是唯一的方法的话，那起码也该是最佳办法了。这种前提迟早是要过时的，因为现实决不会一成不变。 不愿下去了解实际情况，这往往就是坚持己不再合理、不再合适的行动的一种理由。这种情况在企业决策中存在，在政府部门的政策决策中也同样存在。这在很大程度上也可以说明为什么斯大林的欧洲政策失败了；为什么美国面对戴高乐为首的欧洲独立运动，未能适时调整其欧洲政策；为什么英国迟迟不能接受“欧洲共同市场”这个现实。 信息反馈应该是经过加工的，应该有数字和报告。如果管理者未能将信息反馈建立在现实的基础之上，如果他不强迫自己走下去亲自看一看，那么他肯定会犯教条主义的毛病，什么决策也就不会有好的效果。 以上这些便是决策的要素。至于怎样才能使决策产生效益，我们将在下一章里讨论这个问题。