告別專業領域的"孤狼"

A colleague who headed an overseas editorial bureau of the Financial Times once called me to ask my advice: did I think he should devote more time to managing the journalists in his team or to writing front page scoops?

有一次，一位領導英國《金融時報》海外分社的同事打電話徵詢我的建議：他到底應該投入更多時間管理他團隊裏的記者，還是投入更多時間撰寫頭版獨家新聞？

Easy, I replied. Unless the bureau was so dysfunctional that its output dried up, he should concentrate on news gathering. A similar answer still applies to a whole range of professions, from consulting to law to accounting, where successful lone wolves are celebrated, workhorses tolerated and managers quietly denigrated.

我回答說，很簡單。除非分社無法正常運作，以至於文章的產出都枯竭了，否則他應該專注於新聞採寫。類似的答案也適用於諮詢、法律和會計等一系列專業領域。在這些專業領域，人們讚美成功的“孤狼”，容忍“老黃牛”，暗地裏則詆譭管理者。

Rainmakers fighting among themselves for clients feed a whole genre of film and television, including The Good Wife (for law) and House of Lies (for consulting), full of back-stabbing professionals politicking for superiority in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust. Collaboration, by definition, makes for poor drama. But it does yield excellent results, according to a study of a range of professions, by Heidi Gardner of Harvard Law School. Summarising the work in the latest Harvard Business Review, she writes that when specialists work together across their areas of expertise, their employers “earn higher margins, inspire greater client loyalty and gain a competitive edge”.

互相爭奪客戶的企業干將們爲一類電影和電視劇提供了素材，包括《傲骨賢妻》（The Good Wife，法律業）和《謊言屋》（House of Lies，諮詢業）。這些影視作品中充斥着專業人士們彼此暗中加害，在一種互不信任的氣氛下謀求上位的劇情。本質上，協作帶不來勁爆的故事情節。但協作確實能帶來好結果，這是哈佛法學院(Harvard Law School)的海迪•加德納(Heidi Gardner)對一系列專業領域進行研究後得出的結論。這篇研究論文刊登在《哈佛商業評論》(Harvard Business Review)上，加德納在文中總結道，如果專才們能夠跨越自己的專業領域通力合作，他們的僱主能“賺取更高的利潤，增強客戶忠誠度，獲得競爭優勢”。

As the caricature consultants in House of Lies might say: “What’s not to like?” Plenty, in fact. Getting specialists out of their own silos is hard enough; persuading their fellow partners to let them into theirs even harder. Making collaboration work also requires professionals to pay more attention to what my bureau chief colleague decided to ignore: management.

就如《謊言屋》中形象誇張的諮詢師所說的：“有什麼理由不喜歡這樣呢？”事實上，有很多理由。讓專才們從自己的領地裏走出來就夠困難了；再說服他們的夥伴允許他們進入自己的領地就更困難了。要真正實現協作，還需要專業人才更加重視我那位同事決定忽略的東西——管理。

Professional services groups try to project an image of collaborative harmony to the outside world. But Prof Gardner says 23 groups have invited her to talk about her work in the past six months because their leaders said they were struggling to persuade partners to share their expertise.

專業服務公司試圖向外界傳達一種和諧合作的形象。但加德納教授表示，過去6個月有23家企業邀請她講授她的研究，因爲這些企業的領導者表示，他們難以說服合夥人分享自己的專業技能。

“I don’t want it to come across as though these people are complete assholes, just looking after themselves,” Prof Gardner told me last week. “They’re legitimately primed to think in this way.”

“我不想給人這樣一種感覺，好像這些人都是徹頭徹尾的混蛋，只顧他們自己，”加德納教授上週告訴我說，“他們這樣思考有相當合理的原因。”

Short-term incentives, such as bonuses based on how much income individuals generate, or how many clients they acquire, skew behaviour towards the selfish. The hassle of getting together with colleagues is simply not worth most partners’ while. Many groups favour “the rock star, not the whole band”, as one person interviewed for the Harvard study said.

短期激勵措施，比如依據個人收入貢獻、或者個人爭取到的客戶數量派發的獎金，會使行爲趨向於自私。對大多數合夥人來說，費心與同事們一起工作根本不值得。正如接受加德納訪問的一個人所說的，許多企業更愛“搖滾明星，而非整個樂隊”。

Even if professional services firms can convince individuals to work together, the sight of more than one partner in the room can spook clients, who may suspect they are being cross-sold more expensive partner time. To overcome this hurdle, the lawyers or accountants really have to agree to absorb the short-term cost. Once the benefits of collaboration start to become clear, including the payback to partners when they share leads with colleagues (mapped by Prof Gardner), objections raised by customers and senior professionals should fall away.

即使專業服務公司能說服個人相互合作，但看到房間裏不止一個合夥人，客戶可能會被嚇退，懷疑公司向他們交叉銷售更昂貴的合夥人服務。要克服這個障礙，律師或者會計師必須願意共同承擔短期成本。一旦協作的好處開始顯現，包括（加德納教授提出的）與同事分享客戶資源能提高合夥人回報，客戶和資深專業人士的反對應該也會隨之消退。

In research published in 2013, Laura Empson of Cass Business School described one firm that claimed to have achieved such seamless co-operation between partners, partly by using the recruitment process to reinforce the need for collaboration, partly by paying partners on a “lockstep model” by seniority, regardless of performance. One partner memorably likened the culture to “the Borg”, an alien race in the Star Trek series: “The Borg is a collective. They are this mass of things that go forward. If bits drop off, like limbs and heads, it’s completely replaced. And that’s us.”

卡斯商學院(Cass Business School)的勞拉•恩普森(Laura Empson) 2013年發表的研究論文描述了一家公司，該公司稱在合夥人之間實現了這種無縫合作，部分手段是通過招聘過程加強協作需求，部分手段是採用不問業績、只憑資歷的“同級同薪”制。一位合夥人的說法讓人印象深刻，他把這種文化比作《星際迷航》(Star Trek)系列裏的外星種族“博格人”(Borg)：“博格人是一個集體。他們一齊向前進。如果有一些部分脫落，比如四肢或者頭腦，這些東西會被完全替代。這就是我們。”

But at less cult-like organisations, leaders have to work harder to achieve such a state, weeding out toxic candidates for partnership before they pollute the culture, reducing friction that impedes co-operation, restructuring pay and bonuses, and underlining the value of cross-disciplinary work.

但在不那麼崇尚集體的組織裏，要達到這樣一種狀態，領導者需要付出更多努力，在“壞蘋果”毒害整個企業文化前就淘汰這樣的候選人，阻止他們晉升合夥人，減少阻礙合作的摩擦，重新設定薪資和獎金結構，強調跨學科工作的價值。

Easier said than done. Partners still prefer client work to leading, while outside managers lack influence. One partner damned them to Prof Empson as “functionaries”, adding faint praise: “That’s not to denigrate [them] because they are very talented . . . but culturally we have a snobbery about lawyers being superior.”

說起來容易做起來難。比起承擔領導工作，合夥人們更喜歡的還是客戶工作，而來自專業領域以外的管理者又缺乏影響力。一位合夥人在恩普森教授面前稱這類管理者是“雜務人員”，又蒼白無力地補上讚美：“這不是貶低（他們），因爲他們很有才能……但在文化上，我們有種律師才最高等的優越感。”

Such ingrained attitudes are hard to break. As one person with 32 years of consulting experience has written in an online comment on Prof Gardner’s suggestion that leaders should turn away selfish rainmakers: “Yeah, right.”

這種根深蒂固的態度很難打破。正如加德納教授建議領導者應對自私的能人說不時，一位有32年諮詢業經驗的人發表了一條網絡評論：“是嗎，說得真對啊。”