美国有一位荆柯式英雄

面对共同基金的种种恶行，美国杀出纽约州检察长斯彼特慈尔，一位为股民请命的孤胆英雄     

Why entrepreneurs don't scale

It's well known that many executives who excel at starting businesses or projects fizzle out--in other words, they fail to "scale"--as their ventures grow. But the reasons have remained fuzzy. In this article, leadership coach John Hamm identifies four management tendencies that work for small-company or business-unit leaders but become Achilles' heels as those individuals try to run larger organizations. The first tendency is loyalty to comrades. In entrepreneurial mode, you need to lead as though you're in charge of a combat unit on the wrong side of enemy lines. But blind loyalty can become a liability in managing a complex organization. The second tendency, task orientation, is critical in driving toward a big product launch, but excessive attention to detail can cause a large organization to lose sight of its long-term goals. The third tendency, single-mindedness, is important in a visionary unleashing a revolutionary product or service on the world but can limit the company's potential as it grows. And the fourth tendency, working in isolation, is fine for the brilliant scientist focused on an ingenious idea. But it's disastrous for a leader whose expanding organization increasingly relies on many other people. Leaders who scale deal honestly with problems and quickly weed out nonperformers. They see past distractions and establish strategic priorities. They learn how to deal effectively with diverse employees, customers, and external constituencies. And, most important, they make the company's continuing health and welfare their top concern.     

HMOs don't have to fail

One of the bright spots in the sometimes black picture that is painted of our national health care system is HMOs. Health maintenance organizations provide health services to an enrolled group of patients for a fixed, prepaid fee. This arrangement induces HMOs to try to keep patients healthy for a competitive rate. Because of its special nature, however, an HMO cannot be managed like a fee-for-service hospital or group practice. And because few managers fully understand them, more and more HMOs are failing. The authors of this article say, however, that some failures can be avoided. Good management techniques can help HMO managers-whether they are community-spirited citizens or seasoned executives-overcome many of the problems that plague HMO plans: out-of-control utilization rates, growth that can occur overnight, conflict between the values of HMOs and of the physicians that staff them, and competitors in the health field.     

Dogs don't bark at parked cars

The following essay, by the Past President of the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), was presented as the Opening Keynote Address to the WFSF World Conference ‘Coherence and Chaos in our Uncommon Futures’, Turku, Finland, 23 August 1993.     

Why leaders don't learn from success

What causes so many companies that once dominated their industries to slide into decline? In this article, two Harvard Business School professors argue that such firms lose their touch because success breeds failure by impeding learning at both the individual and organizational levels. When we succeed, we assume that we know what we are doing, but it could be that we just got lucky. We make what psychologists call fundamental attribution errors, giving too much credit to our talents and strategy and too tittle to environmental factors and random events. We develop an overconfidence bias, becoming so self-assured that we think we don't need to change anything. We also experience the failure-to-ask-why syndrome and neglect to investigate the causes of good performance. To overcome these three learning impediments, executives should examine successes with the same scrutiny they apply to failures. Companies should implement systematic after-action reviews to understand all the factors that led to a win, and test their theories by conducting experiments even if "it ain't broke."     

Why change programs don't produce change

Faced with changing markets and tougher competition, more and more companies realize that to compete effectively they must transform how they function. But while senior managers understand the necessity of change, they often misunderstand what it takes to bring it about. They assume that corporate renewal is the product of company-wide change programs and that in order to transform employee behavior, they must alter a company's formal structure and systems. Both these assumptions are wrong, say these authors. Using examples drawn from their four-year study of organizational change at six large corporations, they argue that change programs are, in fact, the greatest obstacle to successful revitalization and that formal structures and systems are the last thing a company should change, not the first. The most successful change efforts begin at the periphery of a corporation, in a single plant or division. Such efforts are led by general managers, not the CEO or corporate staff people. And these general managers concentrate not on changing formal structures and systems but on creating ad hoc organizational arrangements to solve concrete business problems. This focuses energy for change on the work itself, not on abstractions such as "participation" or "culture." Once general managers understand the importance of this grass-roots approach to change, they don't have to wait for senior management to start a process of corporate renewal. The authors describe a six-step change process they call the "critical path."     

How We Invest

In this chapter from their new book, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet, the founder of Bloomberg LP and former mayor of New York City collaborates with the former executive director of the Sierra Club in showing how the pursuit of profit by companies and their investors is playing an important role in the battle against global warming. Climate change is shown as posing a series of discrete, manageable challenges—such as accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy—that have spurred a search for solutions that promise to make our society healthier and stronger. National governments, the authors argue, are not the best places to create or carry out these solutions. Rather, it is the mayors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, activists, concerned citizens, and other local actors who have the strongest incentives as well as the power and means to win the battle against climate change—and in ways that have already begun to generate economic growth and improve public health. State governors and mayors of cities around the U.S., in red and blue states alike, have been responsible for much of this progress. Cities and states have negotiated contracts with local utilities to provide greater amounts of clean energy, and used combinations of public and private capital to fund rapid transit, waste‐water treatment, and other infrastructure programs. But an equally important if not larger role is now being played by business. Companies large and small, with the backing of a growing number of environmentally conscious but resolutely profit‐seeking investors, are finding ways to reduce waste and strengthen worker protection and morale throughout supply chains that are providing increasingly climatefriendly products and services. The authors' bottom line, then, is that preventing climate change will require more than goodwill and government regulation. It will take the profit motive, a force that that many environmentalists have long viewed with suspicion. While acknowledging the past efforts of socially responsible investment funds that have shown a willingness to sacrifice returns, the authors conclude that the enlightened self‐interest of value‐seeking investors may well prove more effective than the “beneficence” of social investors and philanthropists in producing investments of sufficient scale and practical efficacy to meet the challenges of global warming.     

股市需要“真牛”

一脚踏入7月，2009年已经过半。盛夏的大地仍交错着高温与暴雨，但是，任何一种极端的天气都不可能永远持续，就像股市不可能永远只是单边上扬或下跌。     

What you don't know about making decisions

Most executives think of decision making as a singular event that occurs at a particular point in time. In reality, though, decision making is a process fraught with power plays, politics, personal nuances, and institutional history. Leaders who recognize this make far better decisions than those who persevere in the fantasy that decisions are events they alone control. That said, some decision-making processes are far more effective than others. Most often, participants use an advocacy process, possibly the least productive way to get things done. They view decision making as a contest, arguing passionately for their preferred solutions, presenting information selectively, withholding relevant conflicting data so they can make a convincing case, and standing firm against opposition. Much more powerful is an inquiry process, in which people consider a variety of options and work together to discover the best solution. Moving from advocacy to inquiry requires careful attention to three critical factors: fostering constructive, rather than personal, conflict; making sure everyone knows that their viewpoints are given serious consideration even if they are not ultimately accepted; and knowing when to bring deliberations to a close. The authors discuss in detail strategies for moving from an advocacy to an inquiry process, as well as for fostering productive conflict, true consideration, and timely closure. And they offer a framework for assessing the effectiveness of your process while you're still in the middle of it. Decision making is a job that lies at the very heart of leadership and one that requires a genius for balance: the ability to embrace the divergence that may characterize early discussions and to forge the unity needed for effective implementation.     

另一种角度看金融改革

经济要持续稳定发展，金融改革要跟上，中国经济和改革的发展再也不能容忍金融改革的相对滞后，以注资国有商业银行为标志，深度的金融改革已经上路，随之而来的是关于金融改革的各种对策建议．比如产权、法人治理结构等等。值得关注的还有一种声音．还有一种角度，这就是科技的角度．或者说是信息化的角度。前不久．本刊记者采访了中国惠普有限公司副总裁兼专业与支持服务集团咨询与集成事业部总经理王小维．请他就这个问题谈了看法     

亚行专家：无需太多担忧通货膨胀

2009年,在强劲的扩张性财政和货币政策的推动下,中国经济呈现V字型复苏。但是,这种经济反弹能否转为持续平稳的发展？中国经济发展面临哪些风险？政府如何应对影响经济可持续发展的突出矛盾等问题,会不会发生通货膨胀？特别是对于房地产市场如何看待？是否存在泡沫？对此,专业各方解读不一。前不久,亚行召开了《2010亚洲发展展望》发布会,亚洲开发银行驻中国代表处首席代表罗伯特·魏图（Robert Wihtol）、经济部主任冯幽兰（Yolanda Fernandez Lommen）和高级经济学家庄健就后危机时代中国经济的发展发表了他们的看法。     

我们依然信赖美元

今年的早些时候,正如大家所预期的那样,美元开始急剧下滑.自从1995年相对于其他货币急升50%以来,春季美元下滑的动力来自美国经济疲软的信念,这是对会计丑闻、低利润预测、高预算赤字以及害怕另一次恐怖袭击的反应.