????長久以來，在經濟和商業領域，發展壯大都是第一要務。在世界人口突破70億大關，并且很快將會超過80億甚至90億的大背景下，一個越來越清晰的趨勢是，最優秀的公司和國家將不再以絕對規模取勝，而是以清晰的目標、戰略眼光和果斷行動所帶來的速度與敏捷性著稱。隨著人類組織的規模達到前所未有的程度，未來的人、公司和國家要想成為贏家，必須要做到：專注于對其核心利益相關者最為重要的事情；快速處理新信息，并從中學習，然后在錯綜復雜的形勢中采取周全、慎重的行動。

????就以房屋租賃社區Airbnb為例。這家公司經歷了爆炸式增長——而且并非通過收購或建設更多物業這類傳統方式。該公司之所以能夠實現快速增長，是因為他們清楚對預定酒店房間的人來說真正重要的是什么，還因為他們認真研究了“分享經濟”的崛起。雖然沒有大量有形資產，但他們果斷地創建了一種新模式來滿足傳統需求——這種模式也是通過規模化來實現競爭優勢，但并非傳統意義上的實際控制物業。事實上，Airbnb不僅創建了一種新模式，也創造了一個新市場。

????在如今這樣一個全天候運轉的全球化市場上，傳統的準入壁壘正在消失，傳統的增長觀念，即擴大規模和控制范圍，正在失去其效能。市場進入和客戶接觸變得越來越簡單；產品與創意的生命周期正在縮短，因為各種理念、數據和知識可以通過互聯網迅速而公開地傳播。通過昂貴的產品創新獲得的競爭優勢無法持久。數據、理念和情感觸發器(emotional trigger)正在激烈爭奪人類的關注、忠誠度和支出，其結果是，品牌正在喪失客戶黏性。

????鑒于這些變化，《財富》500強公司（Fortune 500）紛紛采取新方法來推動增長，這并不意外。例如，一些傳統的強勢公司最近紛紛選擇瘦身，其中包括摩托羅拉（Motorola）、卡夫食品（Kraft）和雅培（Abbott）。這些公司的CEO之所以選擇將公司規模（與控制范圍）縮小一半，就是為了提高專注度，加快增長。出于同樣的理由，產品組合合理化也變得非常普遍，這樣做的公司包括寶潔（Procter & Gamble）、ITW集團和聯合利華（Unilever）。就在最近，包括伊頓（Eaton）和艾伯維（Abbvie）在內的一些公司甚至開始頻頻采用昂貴的稅收倒置策略。

????實際上，這些巨無霸公司的CEO們正在將分割和徹底變革各自的組織，以推動這些公司的發展。他們不得不這么做，因為Airbnb和租車公司Uber的成功證明，規模更小、基礎設施更簡單、更靈活的公司，可以取得成功——看看這些資產幾乎可忽略不計的公司的市值，你就會恍然大悟。當然，這并不意味著擴大規模和并購不再是推動增長的重要因素。隨著“更大總是更好”這種理念不再是主流意識，公司必須更加慎重地考慮規模化和并購這些傳統策略。

????那么，誰將領導未來的公司？我們需要的領導人，必須對公司的市場、客戶和能力有深刻見解；能夠創建和利用更加靈活的架構，進行聯合和合作；能夠基于自省、創新和建立意料之外的合作關系的能力，培養公司文化；能夠抓住新的市場機遇，跟上更激進的投資者的步伐；能夠啟發新的增長模式。

????本文作者薩利?勃朗特為西北大學凱洛格商學院院長。（財富中文網）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????Growth has long been the imperative in economics and business. As the world’s population tops 7 billion, and soon 8 and 9, it’s becoming clear that the best performing organizations, and perhaps countries, will be less defined by absolute size and more defined by the speed and agility that comes from clarity of purpose, strategic insight and decisive action. As the scale of human organizing expands to unprecedented levels, the winners will be those people, organizations, and countries that can: focus on what matters most to their core stakeholders; rapidly process new information, learn from it, and then thoughtfully and deliberately act amid the complexity.

????Think Airbnb. They’ve experienced explosive growth – and not by the traditional means of buying or building more properties. They did it by understanding what really mattered to those booking hotel rooms. They did it by studying the emergence of the “sharing economy.” And, absent a vast footprint of physical assets, they did it by acting decisively to create a whole new model for meeting this traditional need – a model that delivers competitive advantage through scale but not in a traditional sense of physically controlled properties. Indeed, Airbnb not only created a new model, it created a new market.

????In today’s global marketplace that operates 24/7, the traditional barriers to entry are falling, and traditional conceptualizations of growth as increasing in size and span of control are losing their potency. Market and customer access have become easier; product and idea life cycles are shrinking as ideas, data, and knowledge travel fast and openly across the Internet. Competitive advantage gained from expensive product innovations is shorter-lived. And brands are losing their stickiness amid an onslaught of data, ideas and emotional triggers that compete for human attention, loyalty and spending.

????In light of these changes, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing new approaches to driving growth throughout the Fortune 500. One example is the recent spate of mammoth splits at traditional powerhouse firms including Motorola , Kraft and Abbott. In each case, powerful CEOs chose to divide the size of their companies (and spans of control) in half in order to increase focus and speed growth. For the same reasons, portfolio rationalizations are now commonplace; e.g., Procter & Gamble, ITW and Unilever . And even more recently, expensive inversions have become in vogue, including firms like Eaton and Abbvie.

????CEOs of traditional mega-conglomerates are literally slicing up and uprooting their organizations in order to fuel growth. And they have to because the successes of companies like Airbnb and Uber have shown that smaller firms with simpler and more nimble infrastructures can win – just look at the market caps being attached to these asset-lite firms. This is not to suggest that building scale and pursuing acquisitions are no longer important drivers of growth. It does mean however that these strategies will be held to greater scrutiny as the idea that “bigger is always better” becomes quaint.

????And who is going to lead these firms of the future? We’ll need leaders with deep insight into their organizations’ markets, customers and capabilities; leaders who create and leverage more flexible architectures for connecting and collaborating; leaders who foster cultures based on constant self-scrutiny, innovation and an ability to forge unexpected partnerships; leaders who can keep pace with new market opportunities and ever-more-aggressive investor herds; leaders who can inspire new kinds of growth.

????Sally Blount is dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.