公司領導太多到底是好是壞？

Who’s the boss? Many workers say they have more than one, and that’s causing frustration and confusion in the office.

誰才是老板?許多員工表示自己的老板不止一個，讓人困惑，令人沮喪。

More than two-thirds of employees around the world say they have to consult with more than one boss to get their jobs done, according to a Gartner survey, and nearly as many waste significant amounts of time waiting for guidance from senior leaders. The lack of clear goals has caused some employees to try to manage their managers.

Gartner Inc.的一項調查結果顯示，在來自世界各地的受訪者中，逾三分之二的公司職員表示自己在完成工作任務時必須向不止一個老板征詢意見，而認為自己在等待上級領導指示時，浪費了大量時間的職員占比也接近這一水平。由于缺乏清晰的目標，部分職員必須反過來嘗試“管理”他們的管理者。

A few years ago at a prior job, Girish Rishi had a boss who got distracted by every minor crisis or triumph, leading to “whiplash” for his subordinates, says Mr. Rishi, now chief executive of JDA Software, of Scottsdale, Ariz.

JDA軟件集團高管吉里什?瑞希(Girish Rishi)稱，在幾年前的上一份工作中，他的老板總是因一些小得小失而分心，導致下屬們忽東忽西，無所適從。JDA是總部位于亞利桑那州斯科茨代爾市的一家供應鏈軟件供應商。

“If there was news about a competitor, it would take up half your day,” he says. “If there was a customer win, the celebration would go on too long. Focusing on structure and priorities was missing.”

“如果出現(xiàn)了關于某個競爭對手的新聞報道，這會耗上你半天時間，”他說，“如果簽下了一個客戶，慶祝的時間往往持續(xù)得過長。對架構和優(yōu)先次序的關注不復存在。”

Mr. Rishi says he tried his best to insulate his team from the chaos. He also developed his own management system based around efficiency. At JDA, a maker of supply-chain software, he requires meetings to be intensely focused and only eight or 30 minutes long, and he asks participants to submit materials 48 hours in advance.

瑞希稱，當時他盡全力讓自己的團隊避開這種混亂局面。他還圍繞效率的提升創(chuàng)建了一套自己的管理體系。在JDA公司，他要求各會議高度緊湊，且只持續(xù)8分鐘或30分鐘，同時他要求與會者提前48小時提交材料。

While that isn’t always possible, Mr. Rishi says, he finds that for roughly 70% of all meetings, “people come prepared, they’ve summarized their thoughts and they’ve given us adequate information.”

雖然不可能次次盡善盡美，但瑞希表示，他發(fā)現(xiàn)在約70%的會議上，“大家都有備而來、闡述核心觀點且言簡意賅。”

Bosses now manage, on average, nine direct reports, up from five in 2008, according to Gartner, which can spread leaders so thin that they don’t have a close grasp of what their employees are doing. Only about 35% of employees surveyed in the Gartner poll last year say their manager understands their day-to-day work.

根據(jù)Gartner提供的數(shù)據(jù)，目前各企業(yè)管理人員平均每人管理九名直接下屬，較2008年的五名大幅增長。在這種情況下，管理者們分身乏術，無法詳細掌握下屬們工作情況。在接受Gartner調查的企業(yè)職員中，僅有約35%的人認為上司了解自己的日常工作情況。

“Managers are less likely to provide good feedback and coaching when they don’t understand what that employee’s workflow is,” says Brian Kropp, human-resources-practice leader at Gartner.

“在不了解員工日常工作流程的情況下，管理者們提供有效反饋和指導的可能性有所降低，” Gartner公司人力資源管理實踐負責人布萊恩?克洛普(Brian Kropp)指出。