海尔的去海尔化试验 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.

张瑞敏身上具有很多新时代中国企业领袖的特质。他待人谦和，愿意发表具有远见的公开演讲，在自己领导的白色家电企业海尔(Haier)早期一则广为传颂的关乎道德的故事中担任主角。故事是这样的：他命令员工将76台有缺陷的冰箱拖到大街上，用大锤砸成了碎片，为企业的质量承诺发出强烈信号。

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.

但如果张瑞敏转变海尔管理架构的最新激进计划最终实现预想目标的话，他将不会再发号施令。

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’.”

当被问及如果追求海尔的权力下放、他是否会让自己没活干时，张瑞敏沉默了20秒，然后才通过翻译回答道：“如果有一天企业不再存在了，CEO也将消失。但我相信，组织仍将继续存在，或许可以给某个人安排某个职位去设计组织运行和成长的方式。或许，我的头衔可以改成‘组织设计者’之类的。”

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岁的张瑞敏是西方管理模式的忠实追随者，自1984年开始领导这家电器制造商以来，他已经完成了对企业的多次设计。那时，还是一名年轻政府官员的张瑞敏接手了这家青岛冰箱厂。如今，海尔年收入已达2000亿元人民币，拥有两家分别在上海和香港上市的子公司——青岛海尔(Qingdao Haier)与海尔电器(Haier Electronics)，并已成为被研究最多的中国企业之一。包括加里哈默尔(Gary Hamel)在内的多位管理思想家都对海尔称赞有加，而且自1998年以来，海尔已被写入了17个哈佛商学院(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，在员工、管理学者和作家刚觉得自己理解了张瑞敏所依据的蓝图时，蓝图就被他撕毁并重绘了。瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院(IMD)创新管理学教授比尔费舍尔(Bill Fischer)与人合著了关于海尔模式的《颠覆巨人》(Reinventing Giants)一书，并于2013年出版。但他说：“甚至在我们完成这本书之前，他们就对我们说，‘我们又改进了’。”

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，海尔模式的一个革命性要素还是自我管理型团队与“利益共同体”，他们在公司内部相互竞争以负责下一个生产或设计项目。如今，连这些基本的企业组成单元，海尔也希望打破。

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”.

在国内，海尔集团正再一次颠覆自我，化身为一组开放的“创业平台”，既服务于成百上千的“小微企业”，同时也接受后者的服务。这些小微企业不仅将竞相设计、制造并分销海尔用户想要的产品，他们还能够通过彼此竞争从海尔以及外部投资者那里获得员工和资本。用费舍尔教授的话说，海尔正在进行“去海尔化”(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).

海尔的20个平台包括基于智能冰箱的“饮食生态系统”、基于空调和空气净化器的“空气生态系统”，以及日日顺物流(Goodaymart Logistics)——实现公司24小时内全国直达承诺的关键分销网络。独立运营的日日顺如今正与电商集团阿里巴巴(Alibaba)合作，为海尔及海尔的竞争对手分销商品。日日顺通过分包的“车小微”（即货车车主）进行配送。

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.

张瑞敏将自己崇拜的彼得德鲁克(Peter Drucker)的格言——企业的使命是创造并留住客户——彻底消化并付诸实践。上月，在为纪念这位已故管理思想家而举办的全球彼得德鲁克论坛(Global Peter Drucker Forum)上，他明确表示想更进一步。他说，网络时代的到来使得如下这点至关重要：解放海尔，使之能够直接、快速响应用户需求，并对其他企业大规模生产的产品进行个性化定制。