重塑中层管理岗位，摆脱夹缝生存窘境

Gary M. Stern | 2011-09-23 16:58

中层管理者处境尴尬，这一点可谓名符其实。不过，越来越多的公司希望通过给与中层管理者更多时间，来指导下属，从而更好地发挥他们的价值。

我们可以想象一下中层管理者所处的窘境：既要取悦老板，保证上令下达，完成财务指标；还要为员工做绩效评估，而员工业绩评价往往是最棘手的工作；最后还要想方设法迎合千变万化的工作目标。现在就来讨论一下中层管理者如何在夹缝中生存。

虽然中层管理者的工作量激增，但职位数量却正在缩减。上个世纪90年代中期，许多公司决定削减中层管理者人数。《重新定义管理者》（Manager Redefined ）一书的作者、韬睿惠悦咨询公司（Towers Watson）的顾问汤姆•达文波特和史蒂文•哈丁说，在1994年，经理级员工只占员工总数的8%，但被裁掉的管理职位却占裁员总数的18%。

在许多公司，职责过重和时间匮乏导致很多中层管理者面临着“不可能完成的工作任务”。与此同时，许多企业经常将最佳员工提拔至管理岗位，却无法保证这些“管理者”具有胜任该职位所必备的技能。

根据2010年韬睿惠悦咨询公司针对2万名全球大型公司员工进行的研究报告，48%的受访者称，他们的顶头上司在履行职责中面临时间短缺问题，或者不具备应有的管理技能，改进落后员工的工作表现。

针对这一情况，达文波特和哈丁为中层管理者提出了几项改良措施。达文波特说，最有效的管理方式是“后台管理”。后台管理着重“治理总体环境，而非具体的人员”。传统的中层管理者在员工之间苦苦周旋，难免落入“微观管理”的桎梏，且大多依靠独裁和权威式的管理方法。

后台管理者更像是一位戏剧导演。“导演创造一个良好的环境，而自身却退居幕后，让每个人在其中自由地发挥，”达文波特说。

哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）教授、《进步定律》（The Progress Principle）的合著者特丽莎•阿玛贝尔说，中层管理者好比“夹心饼干”，他们处于高层管理与普通员工利益博弈的夹缝。

阿玛贝尔还说，最有效的中层管理者能够制定清晰的目标，阐明每位员工的工作价值，为共同的目标服务；同时赋予员工自主权，提供必要的协助，帮助他们完成工作。

过去，中层管理的主要作用是将高层管理人员的决策下达至下级员工，而过去二十年间发生的通信革命已极大地改变了中层管理者的这部分职能。

与传统的独裁式管理者相比，“后台管理者们”或许有更多的机会和员工进行交流，但这种交流是为了“创造更好的工作环境，培养员工的独立工作能力”，达文波特说。

Imagine the plight of the middle manager. She's trying to please her bosses, interpret their messages and convey them to her staff, meet financial targets, give consistently tricky performance reviews, and grapple with ever-changing goals. Talk about being caught in the middle.

As middle managers' workloads have intensified, their ranks have dwindled. In the mid-1990s, many companies decided to lay off their middle managers. According to Manager Redefined by Towers Watson consultants Tom Davenport and Stephen D. Harding, cuts in supervisory positions in 1994 accounted for 18% of layoffs even though managers made up just 8% of the workforce.

Overwhelmed by responsibilities, never having enough time to do the work, the middle manager's job at many companies became too complex for anyone to handle. At the same time, companies often promote their best performers to managerial roles, and there's no guarantee that these workers possessed the right skills to succeed.

In a 2010 Towers Watson study of 20,000 global employees of large firms, 48% of the respondents said their immediate manager didn't have enough time to handle their responsibilities or possess the right skills to improve poor performers.

In response, Davenport and Harding have proposed several changes in how middle managers should operate. Davenport describes the most effective style of leading as "offstage management." Offstage managers focus on "managing the environment, not the people." The old-fashioned manager hovered over the employee, often lapsed into micromanaging, operated autocratically and ruled by fear.

The offstage manager operates more like a theatrical director. "The director creates an environment for everyone to succeed and then steps out of the way,"Davenport says.

Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of The Progress Principle, says middle managers are in a "sandwich situation." They're squeezed between the interests of upper managers and employees.

Amabile says the most effective middle managers provide clear goals and explain how individual efforts contribute to a purpose. They also give their staffers the autonomy and support to do their jobs.

In the past, middle managers mainly served as tools for senior executives to pass along information to subordinates. The communications revolution at work over the past two decades has vastly changed that part of a manager's job.

These offstage managers may have more contact with employees than the old-fashioned autocratic managers, but the communication "creates the circumstances for individuals to work with high independence," says Davenport.

要招到这样的“后台管理者”，公司必须转变用人标准。公司不能再简单地把业绩最佳的员工任命为中层管理，而是在招聘时挑选善于处理矛盾冲突的人选。“培养具有同情心和换位思考能力的经理人不能寄希望于学校，”达文波特说。

举例说，在美国西南航空公司 (Southwest Airlines)，管理者需训练行李处和登机口的员工，帮助他们掌握飞机晚点或其他应急事件发生时的处理方法。因此，后台管理者的职责是为员工提供指导，帮助他们自主解决问题，而不是亲手示范。得益于此，西南航空的工作运转十分有效，公司业绩也节节攀升。

思科系统公司（Cisco）是达文波特作为韬睿惠悦公司咨询顾问在2010年服务的客户之一。达文波特介绍说，思科系统公司在中层管理工作方面进行了大刀阔斧的改革。改革之前，思科的中层管理用于员工管理的时间占全部工作时间的25%，而用于编写代码及处理软件相关工作的时间占75%。2010年的培训结束后，中层经理们意识到，之前用于实施员工管理的时间远远不够。于是，思科改变了中层管理的工作性质，设立专门的认证机制，并按照新方案实施管理者培训。

“要想成功，就不能同时扮演球员和教练这两个角色。实际上，这么干的人绝大多数最后都以失败而告终，”达文波特说。

改革之后，思科的中层管理人员花在管理上的时间占到了75%，而处理软件工作的时间只占25%。达文波特说，中层管理者将工作重点转移到管理上，思科公司也因此提高了整体生产效率，留住了许多普通员工和经理人。然而，思科公司依然决定进行大规模人员重组，并宣布在当年的夏季裁员6,500人。

几年前，位于加州圣拉菲尔的设计软件提供商欧特克公司（Autodesk）进行了一项客户调查，欧特克公司的销售培训总监布莱恩•克拉雷称，该项调查主要研究最出色的销售经理所具备的共同技能。这项调查显示，为公司创造最高效益的销售经理每月为每位员工做一对一工作指导的时间是四个小时。如今，欧特克公司重新定义中层管理人员的工作内容，让他们拿出更多的精力用于制定销售策略和推进销售进度。而在此之前，销售经理的绝大部分时间都用在自身的销售工作上，用于帮助其他员工的时间非常有限。

克拉雷说，现在欧特克公司雇佣的经理级员工必须符合这样的标准：“富有合作精神，善于聆听，对客户需求了如指掌”。此外，许多繁杂的行政工作已经实现自动化管理，中层管理者终于可以从中抽身，用更多的时间来指导其他人的工作。

“那些为员工扫清工作障碍，并给予慷慨激励的管理者实现了毕马龙效应（人们会不自觉地接受自己喜欢、钦佩、信任的人的影响和暗示，从而获得一种积极向上的动力）。这就是正面心理暗示在工作中的积极影响，”达文波特说。

译者：富来细特\汪皓

For offstage leaders to do their jobs well, companies must hire differently. Rather than naming the best producer as a manager, more companies ought to hire managers that understand how to handle conflict. "You can't send a manager to empathy school," Davenport says.

Southwest Airlines' (LUV) managers, for example, train baggage and gate staff to know exactly what to do if planes are late or other problems arise. Hence, the offstage manager provides the tools for employees to solve problems on their own; the manager doesn't have to be there to lead the way. Provided with these resources, the Southwest employees know how to keep the planes moving, which in turns helps Southwest boost its business.

Cisco (CSCO) made major changes in how their middle managers operate, says Davenport, who consulted for the company in 2010 as part of Towers Watson. Previously, most Cisco managers spent about 25% of their time managing staff members and 75% of their time writing code or doing software-related work. When Cisco managers went through training in 2010, they realized they didn't have enough time to manage their staff. So Cisco changed the nature of the job and created its own certification program to train managers based on this new approach.

"You can't be a player coach and win. Most player coaches lose," Davenport says.

Cisco changed how their middle managers did their jobs, and they now spend 75% on managing others and only 25% of their time keeping their pulse on software. By having managers focus on managing, Cisco boosted its productivity and retained managers and staff longer, Davenport says. However, that didn't prevent the company from announcing plans to lay off 6,500 employees this summer as part of a larger reorganization.

Several years ago, Autodesk, a San Rafael, Calif.-based producer of design software, performed customer research on what skills its highest producing sales managers possessed, says Brian Cloughley, Autodesk's director of sales training. The research showed that managers who spend four hours per month coaching each sales employee generated the highest revenue for the company. Autodesk redefined the job so managers could focus on presales planning and how to close deals with their customers. In the past, managers spent most of their time selling and only paid a limited amount of attention helping other employees.

Autodesk now hires managers who are able to "collaborate, listen, and understand client concerns," Cloughley says. Many of the manager position's more burdensome administrative tasks were automated, freeing middle managers to coach others.

"The managers that clear obstacles and encourage staff create a Pygmalion effect. That's the influence expectations have on performance," Davenport says.

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