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Bartleby

巴托比专栏

The art of delegation

放权的艺术

How to entrust decisions to subordinates and not regret it.

如何把决策权交给下属，而且事后不后悔。

Delegating well is the six-pack of management: widely desired and harder to achieve the older you get.

在管理中做好放权，就像在健身时获得六块腹肌：人人都想要，但年龄越大就越难实现。

In theory, handing appropriate decisions off to people lower down the corporate ladder means greater satisfaction all round.

从理论上讲，适当地把决策权交给公司里职级较低的人会提升各方的满意度。

Bosses get more time to concentrate on the issues that really deserve their attention.

老板们有更多时间专注于真正值得他们关注的问题。

Middle managers and workers enjoy a greater sense of autonomy.

中层管理者和员工享有更大的自主权。

And the organisation benefits from faster decision-making on the part of people who are better informed about the matter at hand.

组织也会受益，因为更熟悉手头事务的人会更快速地做出决定。

In practice, however, delegation is a minefield.

然而，在实践中，放权是一个雷区。

Some bosses do not even try to delegate.

有些老板甚至连尝试放权都不愿意。

They may mistrust people below them or crave control.

他们可能不信任下属或渴望控制权。

Their career success may simply have persuaded them of their own genius.

他们事业上的成功可能只是让他们相信自己才是天才。

But there are kinder explanations, too.

但也有其他解释，老板可能没有这么坏。

Startup founders are conditioned to do everything, at least until firms get to a certain size.

初创公司的创始人习惯于凡事亲力亲为，直到公司达到一定规模。

Plenty of managers shoulder more work than they should in order to protect their teams from overload.

许多经理为了不让团队超负荷工作，而自己承担了许多分外的工作。

Other managers do delegate but they do so for the wrong reasons.

其他经理确实会放权，但他们放权的原因是错误的。

Studies suggest that people are likely to hand off decisions when choices are hard, when the consequences affect others and when they want to avoid being blamed for a bad outcome.

研究表明，当要做出艰难的抉择、当后果会影响他人、当人们想避免因结果不好而受到指责时，人们可能会让其他人做决定。

In a paper from 2016 by Mary Steffel of Northeastern University and her co-authors, volunteers were told that they had to book hotel rooms at a conference, either for their own use or for their boss, and asked them if they would like to reserve the rooms themselves or delegate the task to an office manager.

东北大学的玛丽·斯特菲尔及其合著者于2016年发表了一篇论文，其中志愿者们被告知，他们要为参加会议而预订酒店房间，要么是给自己订，要么是给老板订，并询问他们是愿意自己预订房间，还是将这项任务委托给办公室经理。

When they were choosing for the boss and the hotels were ropey, people were more likely to pass the job to the hapless office manager.

当他们给老板选房间而且酒店都很差时，人们更有可能把订酒店的工作交给倒霉的办公室经理。

A new study, by Victor Maas and Bei Shi of Amsterdam Business School, reaffirms this bleak picture of human motivation.

阿姆斯特丹商学院的维克多·马斯和贝石（音译）的一项新研究再次确认了这种不甚光彩的行为动机。

It found that people were more likely to hand work off to subordinates when the performance targets for that particular task were demanding; they were much happier to keep hold of tasks with targets that were easier to attain.

研究发现，当任务的绩效目标要求很高时，人们更有可能把这项工作移交给下属，人们更乐意把目标更容易实现的任务留给自己做。

If a habitual micromanager unexpectedly asks you to take the lead on something, in other words, run for the hills.

如果一个平时习惯微观管理的经理突然要求你带头做某事，那么这相当于是在说，他们在逃避这个任务。（注：微观管理指密切操控员工的一举一动。）

The great mass of managers fall into a greyer area.

大部分经理处于一个较为灰色的区域。

They may be full of good intentions to leave decisions to others but still find it hard to do so.

他们可能心里面很愿意让其他人自行决定，但实际上依然发现很难做到这一点。

What if you put trust in your team members but then discover you violently dislike the choices they make?

如果你选择信任你的团队成员，但发现你非常不喜欢他们所做的选择，那该怎么办？

What if you want to hand over some decisions but you know that your own bosses will hold you personally responsible for them?

如果你想把一些事交给其他人决定，但你知道老板会让你自己对这些决策负责，那该怎么办？

These problems can easily result in “faux-tonomy”—a lip-service version of delegation in which managers do not actually leave their teams to get on with things or underlings use their freedom solely to guess what the boss would like.

这些问题很容易导致“伪自主”，即口头上说要放权，但经理们实际上不会让团队自己处理事情，或者下属们只能揣测老板的心意。（注：faux表示假的，faux-tonomy读音类似autonomy，autonomy表示自主权。）

One way to navigate such problems is to use an explicit decision-making framework that tries to make it clear who is on the hook for what.

解决这些问题的一个办法是使用一个明确的决策框架，说明什么人要为什么事负责。

These frameworks are not perfect.

这些框架并不完美。

Project managers often use something called the RACI model.

项目经理经常使用一个名为“RACI模型”的框架。（注：此模型用于分配人员的责任，Responsible表示执行，Accountable表示负责，Consulted表示咨询，Informed表示告知。）

Its first two letters sort those who are “responsible” from those who are “accountable”, a distinction which normal people may find “confusing” and “incomprehensible”.

R和A表示将“负责”和“承担责任”的人区分开，C和I表示普通人会发现这二者的区别“令人困惑”和“无法理解”。

Other, clearer frameworks are available.

还有一些其他更清晰的框架可以使用。

They have punchy names like DACI, DARE and DICE: you might be choosing a cloud-computing vendor but you get to feel a little like you are in the special forces.

这些框架都有很响亮的名字，比如DACI、DARE和DICE：用这些框架来选择云计算销售商时，这些代号会让你感觉仿佛身处特战部队。

As well as working out who does what, it helps to have a way to parse what kinds of decision can be delegated and what not.

除了弄清楚谁去做什么，找到一种办法去分析哪些决策可以放权、哪些不可以，这也是很有助益的。

Before Jeff Bezos started hanging out in spacesuits and doing laughable photoshoots in Vogue, he liked to articulate his management philosophy in annual letters to Amazon’s shareholders.

在杰夫·贝佐斯开始穿着宇航服到处闲逛、开始在《Vogue》杂志上拍那些滑稽的照片之前，他喜欢在给亚马逊股东的年度信函中阐明自己的管理理念。

In 2015 he made a useful distinction between type-1 decisions (“one-way doors”) that are important and irreversible, and type-2 decisions (“two-way doors”) that can be reversed if they do not pan out.

2015年，他区分了第一类决策(“单向门”)和第二类决策(“双向门”)，这个区分是很有用的。第一类决策是重要的、不可逆的决策，而第二类决策如果进展不顺利，是可以撤销的。

Type-1 decisions warrant slow, deliberative processes; type-2 decisions should be taken quickly by smaller groups.

第一类决策需要经过缓慢的、深思熟虑的过程，而第二类决策应该由小型团队迅速做出。

Having a theory of decisions improves choices on what to delegate and reduces the chance of regrets.

形成一个决策理论可以让人们更好地选择哪些事情应该放权，并减少后悔的几率。

Delegating well requires a lot of judgment, too.

做好放权也需要各方面的判断力。

Delegation is not all-or-nothing.

放权不是要么全放，要么一点都不放。

A detached boss can be as demotivating as a micromanager; you have to stay informed on decisions and, on occasion, override them.

甩手掌柜可能会像微观管理者一样挫伤员工的积极性，你必须时刻了解员工的决策，偶尔也需要否决员工的决策。

But checking in at the right cadence, and letting people proceed with decisions that you would not have made yourself, demands self-restraint and discipline.

但是在恰当的时刻介入决策，并且放手让人们继续做出你不会做出的决策，这需要自我克制和自律。

Just like those abs.

想练成腹肌也需要这些品质。

来源：经济学人