【中英双语】让利益相关者参与战略

Executives, Let Stakeholders Drive Your Strategy

CEO及其高管团队如何制定战略？公认的过程就像是让等式的两边相等起来一样。一边是组织的外部环境及其所有变化和趋势；另一边是组织及其所有内部能力。战略就是设法使两边保持一致。 How do CEOs and their executive teams develop strategy? The accepted process is like coupling two sides of an equation. On one side sits the organization’s 

external

 environment, with all its changes and trends. On the other side sits the organization with all of its 

internal 

capabilities. Strategy is about how you align the two. 自1965年商业战略的概念提出以来，这种“制定”战略的分析性，甚至是机械的方式就是它的构思和教授方式，也是战略管理教科书上展示的方式。作为一名曾经的管理学教授，我一直为自己曾经遵循这种方法而感到内疚。 This analytic, even mechanical, way to “develop” strategy is how it has been conceived and taught since business strategy’s conception in 1965, and it’s the way strategic management textbooks lay things out to this day. As a former professor of management, I’ve been guilty of following this approach myself. 问题是这种“分两边”的方法不会产生战略；它只是对之加以解释。打个比方，解释画家如何将颜料涂在画布上与创作艺术作品并不是一回事。管理人员要做的是战略创建，而不是战略解释。但前者可能具有挑战性。 The problem is that this “two sides” approach doesn’t 

produce

 strategy; it 

explains 

it. To use an analogy, explaining how a painter puts paint on a canvas is not the same as creating the work of art. Managers are in the strategy creation business, not in the strategy explanation business. But the former can be challenging. 例如，我最近为一位CEO和他来自美国各地的11名高管团队成员主持了一个战略会议。这个组织，我称之为Combine，他们为食品饮料、水和化学品等一系列行业的公司制造泵。我们作了有关于行业变化和趋势的陈述，他们讨论了公司的使命、愿景和价值观。 For example, I recently facilitated a strategy session for a CEO and his 11 executive team members from across the U.S. The organization, I’ll call Combine, makes pumps for companies in a range of industries including food and beverage, water, and chemicals. We had presentations about industry changes and trends, and they’d discussed the company’s mission, vision, and values. 早期的会议很热闹，参与度很高。但当谈到战略和未来方向时，团队突然陷入了沉默。 The early sessions were boisterous and participation was high. But when the time came to talk strategy and future direction, the group came to an abrupt silence. 是因为他们在等CEO讲话吗？不，我环顾四周后得出结论。这是某种特殊时刻吗？不，也不是。原来，这是因为他们不知道企业应该如何为未来的成功定位自己。然后坐在后面的“弗兰克”插话道：“我不知道我们为什么每年都这样做。结果总是一切如常。” Was it because they were waiting for the CEO to speak? No, I concluded looking around. Was it the time of day? No that wasn’t it either. It became clear that it was because they didn’t have a clue about how the business should position itself for future success. Then “Frank” piped up from the back of the room with: “I don’t know why we do this each year. It always turns out to be business-as-usual.” 虽然房间里的许多人都认为“这只是弗兰克”的想法，但他说得很对。与一群高管一起制定由内而外的战略可能更多是运营层面而非战略层面的，更可能重复过去而非创新。 While the comment was dismissed by many in the room as “that’s just Frank,” he was spot on. Developing strategy inside-out with a group of executives is likely to be more operational than strategic, more continue-as-before than innovative.

从“开发”转向“发现”

Move From Develop to Discover

对于Combine和许多其他公司而言，大部分问题在于，团队不知道该采取何种方式来面对环境的快速变化——向在线业务的转变、快速启动的创业企业的崛起、引入数字营销、消费者通过社交媒体施加的巨大压力，以及新商业模式的出现等。这些并不是1965年商业战略概念被提出时的情况。 Much of the problem, for Combine and many other firms, is that executive teams don’t know which way to turn in the face of rapid change — the shift to online business, the rise of swift-footed start-ups, the introduction of digital marketing, the intense pressure from consumers via social media, and the emergence of new business models. These were not the conditions under which business strategy was conceived in 1965. 因此，如果你打算在战略领域取得突破，我鼓励你改变方法。停止猜测，开始询问。按照我们最终在Combine上采取的做法进行吧。 So, I encourage you to shift your method if you intend to make breakthroughs in the strategy space. Stop guessing and start inquiring. Follow the path we eventually took at Combine. 我们首先列出了企业的主要利益相关者，以便从他们那里发现一些线索。名单中包括最终用户、经销商、供应商、员工和股东。从外面看，利益相关者非常擅长提供想法。作为客户，他们会问这样的问题：“你不认为他们会……？”“他们怎么没有……？”“他们为什么不……？”这些问题的答案真是战略变革的建议。这是你可以利用的资源。 We started by listing the business’s key stakeholders in order to discover some pointers 

from them

. The list was end users, distributors, suppliers, employees, and owners. Stakeholders, being on the outside looking in, are very good at providing ideas. As customers they ask questions like: “Wouldn’t you think they’d … [fill in the blank]?,” “How come they haven’t …?,” “Why don’t they …?” The answers to these questions are suggestions for strategic change. This is a resource you can tap. 然后，Combine高管的任务是向确定下来的利益相关者组织的代表提出一系列问题。这些问题涉及每个利益相关者群体如何决定使用Combine而不是竞争对手，他们如何定义产品质量等“战略因素”，他们如何评价Combine在这些方面的表现，以及Combine可能为提高竞争力而做出的任何改变等。 Combine’s executives were then tasked with asking a series of questions of representatives from the identified stakeholder organizations. These questions concerned how each stakeholder group came to the decision to use Combine rather than the competition, how they defined these “strategic factors” such as product quality, how they rated Combine’s performance on these and any changes Combine might make to improve competitiveness. 重要的是，被指派进行访谈的是高管。这些数据不是通过电子邮件问卷收集的，也不是由市场研究公司整理的。这是为了避免对消息进行任何过滤。 Importantly, 

it was the executives who were assigned to do the interviewing.

 The data wasn’t gathered via an emailed questionnaire or conducted by a market research company. This was to avoid any filtering of messages. 根据我的经验，很少有高管团队愿意放下他们的骄傲去这样做。相反，他们想根据直觉和猜测来推行战略“制定”，害怕承认他们不知道利益相关者真正想要什么。 In my experience, very few executive teams are willing to swallow their pride and do this. Instead, they want to press on “developing” strategy based on gut feel and guesswork, afraid to admit that they don’t know what their stakeholders really want. 在Combine，关键发现涉及其与经销商和最终用户的关系。在内部，Combine的高管团队在定价问题上感受到了压力，主要是由于从海外进口的产品价格较低。来自经销商的消息是，Combine需要在价格上能与进口产品匹敌。然而，Combine的产品显然质量更高。 At Combine, the key discovery involved its relationships with its distributors and end-users. Internally, Combine’s executive team felt pressured on price, largely caused by cheaper imports from overseas. The message 

from distributors

 was that Combine needed to match the imports on price. Yet Combine’s product was clearly of higher quality. 该研究首次让Combine与最终用户深入互动。他们以前依靠经销商来告诉他们最终用户的需求。令Combine惊讶的是，对最终用户的访谈发现，价格对他们来说并不重要，但泵的可靠性（产品质量）才是重要的。正如一位最终用户所说：“价格并不重要，因为任何一次运行中断的每小时成本都超过了泵的价格。” The research had Combine engaging deeply with end-users for the first time. They’d previously relied on distributors to tell them about end-user needs. To Combine’s surprise, the end-user interviews uncovered that price wasn’t major for them but that the reliability (product quality) of the pumps was. As one end-user put it “price is not critical because the cost per hour of any outage outweighs that.”

这一令人瞠目的结果给Combine带来了回旋空间，让他们得以教育其分销链了解其产品的真正价值。现在，它可以向最终用户证明，多付一点钱，使用更高质量的产品可以大大提高过程的可靠性。它可以提供一个商业案例，表明Combine产品的整体成本效益比竞争对手的产品更好。它可以谈谈以技术建议和帮助的形式提供的客户服务。它可以将其互补产品范围告知最终用户。它可以提高其品牌的知名度。总体结果是，最终用户在与经销商的合同中指定了Combine的产品，然后经销商开始增加Combine的系列产品的库存了。 This eye-opening result provided Combine with the wriggle room to educate its distribution chain about the real value of its products. It can now demonstrate to end-users that, by paying a little extra, process reliability is greatly enhanced by employing a higher-quality product. It can provide a business case which shows that overall cost effectiveness is better with Combine’s products than with competitors’ products. It can talk up the customer service it provides in the form of technical advice and assistance. It can inform end-users about its complementary product range. And it can boost awareness of its brand. The overall result is that end-users specify Combine’s products in its contracts with distributors and, as a consequence, distributors stock Combine’s product range.

是时候进行战略转变了？

Time for a Strategy Shift?

引入外部利益相关者改变了Combine的战略制定状况。Combine的高管们并没有抢着表现自己，提一些中规中矩的想法，而是开始质疑他们所相信的东西，并开始以新的方式看待世界。由此导致的是，他们对新的想法更加开放。他们不再将战略制定视为用数据绘图，而是将其视为真正的创造性过程。 Bringing in external stakeholders transformed strategy-making at Combine. Instead of competing to look smart and impose their ideas within the bubble, Combine’s executives started to question what they believed and came to look at the world in a new way. As a result, they became more open to new ideas. They stopped treating strategy-making as painting by numbers and came to see it as a genuinely creative process. 如果你对战略制定过程产生的结果感到满意，那请继续。但我很确定你不会期待那些重分析、轻创造力的战略评论。 If you’re happy with the results that your strategy process is producing, then press on. But I’m pretty sure you don’t look forward to those strategy reviews — heavy on analysis, short on creativity. 我的建议是改变方向。停止尝试做所有繁重的工作吧，那是没有生产力。相反，访谈你们组织的利益相关者，让他们去除一些艰苦的工作。然后做一名法医科学家，像我们在Combine所做的那样调查你的结果。寻找意料之外的断开之处；这些发现可以使你的战略朝着新的成功方向 发展。 My suggestion is to change direction. Stop trying to do all the heavy lifting; it’s not productive. Instead, get your organization’s stakeholders to remove some of the hard work by interviewing them. Then become a forensic scientist to investigate your results like we did at Combine. Look for disconnects that come as surprises; these discoveries could tip your strategy in a new and successful direction. 格雷厄姆·肯尼是KMS Education and Strategic Factors 的CEO、公认的战略和绩效衡量专家，他在私营、公共和非营利部门帮助经理、高管和董事会创建成功的组织。他曾在美国和加拿大的大学担任管理学教授。 格雷厄姆·肯尼（Graham Kenny）| 文 时青靖 | 编辑