????

??? 兩位作者探討了各種棘手的組織問題，其中一個就是激勵。這個問題相當麻煩。比如說，如果有一群英國農場工人被告知，他們獲得的薪酬將取決于自己相對于其他工人收獲的作物，他們會有什么反應？結果是他們都會降低勞動效率。顯然，所有的工人會相互串通，對付雇主，放慢收獲草莓的速度。

????如何準確衡量和獎勵警察和情報專家在預防犯罪方面的表現？在巴爾的摩，警察的表現評估取決于逮捕人數——因此警方逮捕了很多人，不過這些違法行為都微不足道，比如沒有安裝自行車燈，又或者忘了隨身攜帶身份證。與此同時，巴爾的摩的犯罪率依然居高不下。菲斯曼和沙利文為我們提供了許多實例，表明不恰當的激勵會帶來很多麻煩，有時甚至是災難性的影響。只要想想貸款審批和家庭抵押貸款危機，你就能明白這個道理。

??? 兩位作者還詳細介紹了升職帶來的困擾，尤其是在管理層中間。你可能在目前的工作中表現良好，但是誰會知道你在下一份工作中依然出色？他們把著名的彼得原理（Peter Principle）用于招聘管理者——“在組織架構里，每位員工都會不斷晉升，直到他不能勝任的崗位為止”——他們指出，即使是谷歌公司（Google）也受到了這個問題的影響。

????與此同時，菲斯曼和沙利文研究了現代辦公室文化中經常受到攻擊的特征——會議、中層管理者、開支報告和格子間——探討了這些特征存在的合理原因。他們表示，如果沒有這些特征，組織將進一步惡化。人們會中斷交流，財務狀況會一團糟，員工會被趕到沒有窗戶的大房間工作。

????談到組織問題，就連金色降落傘、首席執行官天價薪酬和商務客機也有某種意義。離職補償金原本就是給首席執行官的獎勵，因為他們在公司合并中失去了自己的工作。從某種程度上來說，首席執行官的薪金在美國證券交易委員會（SEC）關于“同業薪酬”的文件中有所夸大。如果公司沒有位于旅游交通樞紐，那么商務客機降低了企業的出行成本。這本書可能讓人們對管理者的看法有所改觀。

????兩位作者也做了出色的工作，分析了最近幾起災難性的組織失誤——911事件、金融危機、英國石油公司（BP）漏油事故。讀者可能不會就此釋懷，但是他們會更細致入微地看待這些事件，明白最初怎么會出現這些失誤。

????菲斯曼和沙利文的文筆輕松隨意、引人入勝，這種風格讓他們的著作（別忘了，這本書是關于組織經濟學的）容易閱讀，給人留下了深刻的印象，不過在某些情況下，他們的筆調過于隨意（比如，他們把馬丁?路德簡稱為“馬丁”）。也許在某些人看來，他們討論了太多不相干的主題。

????在某些地方，兩位作者似乎急于得出結論。在關于首席執行官薪酬不斷上漲的段落中，菲斯曼和沙利文認為，董事會成員給首席執行官豐厚薪酬的一個原因是為了避免他們由于薪酬太低，在會議或鄉村俱樂部中出現不愉快的交流。這也許能說得通，不過在這本書里，每個細節都經過精心論證，獲得調查研究的支持，這種邏輯似乎過于懶散，進行了不必要的引申。

????那么組織的未來將會如何？菲斯曼和沙利文認為，組織將發展為無紙化辦公，也許有一天，我們會在街角的星巴克（Starbucks）里遠程工作。可以預計，組織會出現更多運行失常的情況，更多的合作與讓步，以及更多能給組織帶來良好秩序的日常瑣碎工作。請牢記這段寧靜祈禱文。(財富中文網)

????譯者：凌云

????One of the thornier organizational issues the authors explore are incentives, which can be quite tricky. For example: When a group of agricultural workers in Britain were told they'd be paid according to how much they picked relative to others, how did they respond? By collectively being less productive. It appeared that all the workers colluded against their employers to harvest strawberries at slower rates.

????And how do you accurately measure and reward performance of police and intelligence professionals who are in the business of preventing crime? In Baltimore, officers were evaluated by number of arrests -- so they made many arrests, but for infractions like not having a bike light or failing to carry I.D. Meanwhile Baltimore's crime rate remained persistently high. Fisman and Sullivan give us example after example of misaligned incentives that lead to troubling and sometimes disastrous effect. Think loan approval and the home-mortgage crisis.

????The authors also detail the trouble with promotions, particularly within managerial ranks. You may be a star in your current job, but who's to know you'll be any good in the next? They apply the famous Peter Principle to hiring managers -- "In a hierarchy each employee will rise to the level of his incompetence" -- and point out that even Google suffers from this problem.

????At the same time, Fisman and Sullivan take on some of the favorite punching bags of modern office culture -- meetings, middle managers, expense reports, and the cubicle -- and argue why there's good reason for them. Organizations would be worse off without them, they say. Communications would break down, finances would be a mess, and employees would be corralled into a windowless bullpen.

????Even golden parachutes, sky-high CEO pay, and corporate jets make some sense when you hear them tell it. Severance packages were born as an incentive for CEOs to merge companies even though they'd lose their jobs. CEO salaries, to some extent, have been inflated by SEC filings on "peer group pay." And corporate jets lower costs for companies in non-travel hubs. It's a book that might just soften one's heart for managers.

????The authors also do a fine job unpacking some of the most catastrophic organizational failures of recent times -- 9/11, the financial crisis, and the BP oil spill. Readers may not find forgiveness, but they will come away with a more nuanced view of events and a sense of how these failures could ever have happened in the first place.

????Fisman and Sullivan write in a casual, engaging fashion, a style that makes their book (let's not forget it's about organizational economics) an impressively easy read, but in some instances a touch too cute (such as when they refer to Martin Luther simply as "Martin"). Perhaps for some, they may also go off on too many tangents.

????In a few places, the authors also seem too eager to make a point. In a passage about the rising salaries of CEOs, Fisman and Sullivan suggest that one reason board members reward chief executives so lucratively is to avoid unpleasant interactions at meetings or the country club if their compensation is too low. That may be true, but in a book where almost every detail is well-argued and backed by studies and research, this logic seems a lazy and unnecessary stretch.

????So what's in store for the orgs of the future? Fisman and Sullivan doubt it will involve paperless-ness or a day in which we all work remotely from the corner Starbucks. You can look forward to more dysfunction, more give and take, and more daily grind that brings order to the org. Hold on to that serenity prayer.