海爾的去海爾化試驗 After 17 Harvard case studies Haier starts a fresh spin cycle

Zhang Ruimin has many of the attributes of a leader of the new corporate China. He has a deferential entourage, a willingness to make visionary public speeches, and he figures in a much-cited morality tale from the early days of Haier the white goods company he heads. The story goes that he ordered staff to drag 76 faulty fridges on to the street and smash them to pieces with sledgehammers, sending a strong signal of the group’s commitment to quality.

張瑞敏身上具有很多新時代中國企業領袖的特質。他待人謙和，願意發表具有遠見的公開演講，在自己領導的白色家電企業海爾(Haier)早期一則廣爲傳頌的關乎道德的故事中擔任主角。故事是這樣的：他命令員工將76臺有缺陷的冰箱拖到大街上，用大錘砸成了碎片，爲企業的質量承諾發出強烈信號。

But if his latest radical plans to transform the management structure of Haier are pursued to their logical end point, Mr Zhang will not be giving the orders any more.

但如果張瑞敏轉變海爾管理架構的最新激進計劃最終實現預想目標的話，他將不會再發號施令。

Asked if he will put himself out of a job if he pursues the decentralisation of Haier, Mr Zhang is silent for 20 seconds before he responds, through an interpreter: “If one day companies no longer exist, CEOs will also disappear. But I believe organisations will still exist and there may be some role for a person to design the way organisations work and how they grow. Maybe my title can be changed to something like ‘designer for the organisation’.”

當被問及如果追求海爾的權力下放、他是否會讓自己沒活幹時，張瑞敏沉默了20秒，然後才通過翻譯回答道：“如果有一天企業不再存在了，CEO也將消失。但我相信，組織仍將繼續存在，或許可以給某個人安排某個職位去設計組織運行和成長的方式。或許，我的頭銜可以改成‘組織設計者’之類的。”

The 66-year-old, an avid student of western management models, has already run through several designs for the manufacturer of electrical goods he has headed since 1984. That was when the young municipal official took charge of the city of Qingdao’s fridge factory. Haier now generates Rmb200bn of revenue, has listed subsidiaries in Shanghai ( Qingdao Haier ) and Hong Kong (Haier Electronics) and has become one of China’s most analysed companies. It is lauded by Gary Hamel, among other management thinkers, and has been written up in 17 Harvard Business School case studies since 1998.

66歲的張瑞敏是西方管理模式的忠實追隨者，自1984年開始領導這家電器製造商以來，他已經完成了對企業的多次設計。那時，還是一名年輕政府官員的張瑞敏接手了這家青島冰箱廠。如今，海爾年收入已達2000億元人民幣，擁有兩家分別在上海和香港上市的子公司——青島海爾(Qingdao Haier)與海爾電器(Haier Electronics)，並已成爲被研究最多的中國企業之一。包括加里哈默爾(Gary Hamel)在內的多位管理思想家都對海爾稱讚有加，而且自1998年以來，海爾已被寫入了17個哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)案例研究中。

But no sooner do staff, management scholars and authors think they have understood the blueprint Mr Zhang is working from, than it is torn up and redrawn. Bill Fischer, a professor of innovation management at IMD business school in Lausanne, co-wrote Giants about the Haier model, published in 2013. But, he says: “Before we even finished the book, they were saying to us, ‘We’re moving on’.”

但是，在員工、管理學者和作家剛覺得自己理解了張瑞敏所依據的藍圖時，藍圖就被他撕毀並重繪了。瑞士洛桑國際管理髮展學院(IMD)創新管理學教授比爾費舍爾(Bill Fischer)與人合著了關於海爾模式的《顛覆巨人》(Reinventing Giants)一書，並於2013年出版。但他說：“甚至在我們完成這本書之前，他們就對我們說，‘我們又改進了’。”

One revolutionary element of Haier’s approach was, until recently, its self-managing teams and “communities of interest”, which competed internally to run the next production or design project. Haier now wants to break down even these basic building blocks.

直至最近，海爾模式的一個革命性要素還是自我管理型團隊與“利益共同體”，他們在公司內部相互競爭以負責下一個生產或設計項目。如今，連這些基本的企業組成單元，海爾也希望打破。

In its home country, the group is itself again as a set of open “entrepreneurial platforms”, serving — and served by — hundreds of “micro . Not only will these micro-enterprises compete to design, build and distribute products Haier users say they want, but they will also be able to vie with one another for staff and for capital, from Haier and from outside investors. Haier is, in Prof Fischer’s words, “de-Haierising”.

在國內，海爾集團正再一次顛覆自我，化身爲一組開放的“創業平臺”，既服務於成百上千的“小微企業”，同時也接受後者的服務。這些小微企業不僅將競相設計、製造並分銷海爾用戶想要的產品，他們還能夠通過彼此競爭從海爾以及外部投資者那裏獲得員工和資本。用費舍爾教授的話說，海爾正在進行“去海爾化”(de-Haierising)。

Its 20 platforms include its “diet ecosystem” (based around smart fridges), its “atmosphere ecosystem” (air conditioners and purifiers) and Goodaymart Logistics, a distribution network that is the key to fulfilling the company’s promise that it can deliver anywhere in China within 24 hours. Goodaymart now operates independently, in partnership with Alibaba, the ecommerce group, distributing goods for Haier’s competitors as well as its original parent. It works through some subcontracted “vehicle micro-enterprises” (truck-owners, in other words).

海爾的20個平臺包括基於智能冰箱的“飲食生態系統”、基於空調和空氣淨化器的“空氣生態系統”，以及日日順物流(Goodaymart Logistics)——實現公司24小時內全國直達承諾的關鍵分銷網絡。獨立運營的日日順如今正與電商集團阿里巴巴(Alibaba)合作，爲海爾及海爾的競爭對手分銷商品。日日順通過分包的“車小微”（即貨車車主）進行配送。

Mr Zhang has absorbed and put into action the maxim of Peter Drucker, whom he reveres, that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. At the Global Peter Drucker Forum, a conference held earlier this month in honour of the late management thinker, he made clear he wanted to go further. He says the arrival of the internet makes it vital to free Haier to respond directly and at speed to users’ demands, and to customise goods that others mass-produce.

張瑞敏將自己崇拜的彼得德魯克(Peter Drucker)的格言——企業的使命是創造並留住客戶——徹底消化並付諸實踐。上月，在爲紀念這位已故管理思想家而舉辦的全球彼得德魯克論壇(Global Peter Drucker Forum)上，他明確表示想更進一步。他說，網絡時代的到來使得如下這點至關重要：解放海爾，使之能夠直接、快速響應用戶需求，並對其他企業大規模生產的產品進行個性化定製。