????上周，埃隆?穆斯克在底特律車展上明確表示，特斯拉電動(dòng)汽車有望達(dá)到最高的性能水平，從靜止到時(shí)速60英里只需3.2秒——這完全是麥克拉倫賽車的加速水準(zhǔn)。穆斯克還說，在他的調(diào)教下，員工們個(gè)個(gè)都很努力。

????穆斯克對(duì)《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》表示：“如果你在打仗，親臨前線的效果要好得多。”他說，用“微管理”來形容自己還不夠確切，他對(duì)員工的管理達(dá)到了更細(xì)致的“納米級(jí)管理”。

????《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》報(bào)道稱，在特斯拉公司，穆斯克“事必躬親，無論是日常運(yùn)營(yíng)，還是汽車設(shè)計(jì)的細(xì)節(jié)，他都會(huì)親自過問”。穆斯克認(rèn)為，這種描述其實(shí)并不夸張。穆斯克在他創(chuàng)辦并運(yùn)營(yíng)的SpaceX火箭公司，他的管理風(fēng)格也是如此。

????穆斯克是很多人羨慕的對(duì)象。這當(dāng)然很好理解，這位億萬富翁結(jié)過兩次婚，而且娶的都是美艷動(dòng)人的女明星。他還打算在將來的某一天去火星逛逛，并且經(jīng)常兜售他的“超回路高鐵”理念。小羅伯特?唐尼扮演的鋼鐵俠，就是以他為原型塑造的。不過，在大批高管試圖嘗試“納米級(jí)管理”理念之前，我們必須提醒他們：這種管理并不能發(fā)揮員工的最大潛能。

????我在克萊蒙特研究大學(xué)的同事保羅?扎克認(rèn)為，只有在所謂“高度信任的環(huán)境”下，勞動(dòng)者的工作表現(xiàn)才是最好的。扎克在神經(jīng)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)研究中心領(lǐng)銜的的研究團(tuán)隊(duì)對(duì)約50家公司的5000余名員工進(jìn)行了調(diào)查。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，處于高度信任狀態(tài)的員工的生產(chǎn)力要比處于低信任狀態(tài)的員工高出19%。扎克解釋稱，“高信任狀態(tài)”的一個(gè)重要方面，就是要讓員工自由地“選擇自己想從事的項(xiàng)目”。

????如果人們?cè)诼殘?chǎng)中的自主性被剝奪，他們就會(huì)覺得自己失去了控制力，這會(huì)令他們的大腦產(chǎn)生一種被威脅感。這種感受將提高員工感知的壓力，從而導(dǎo)致他們的工作效率進(jìn)一步下降。耶魯大學(xué)神經(jīng)生物學(xué)與心理學(xué)教授艾米?阿恩斯坦指出：“覺得自己具有控制力，哪怕那只是一種幻覺，是保持完整認(rèn)知能力的關(guān)鍵所在?！?/p>

????優(yōu)秀的管理者通常都知道搞“一言堂”的后果。美國(guó)制動(dòng)蹄有限公司總裁小威廉?B?蓋文在其1949年的經(jīng)典著作《自下而上的管理》中指出，要想成功地激勵(lì)員工，需要的是“教育，而非說教”。

????在當(dāng)今快速變化的世界中，這句經(jīng)典之談?dòng)绕渲匾?，因?yàn)槠髽I(yè)需要從上至下的所有人不斷貢獻(xiàn)新鮮的想法。圣母大學(xué)商學(xué)教授F?阿瑟斯?瑪?shù)倌崞?赫雷斯指出：“你施加的控制越緊，創(chuàng)新程度就越低”。在2011年進(jìn)行的一項(xiàng)研究中，赫雷斯和兩名同事研究了賭場(chǎng)員工在不同管理壓力下的工作表現(xiàn)。他們的結(jié)論是：“在那些‘嚴(yán)格監(jiān)管’的業(yè)務(wù)部門，員工往往不愿進(jìn)行創(chuàng)新嘗試，而選擇盡量不偏離明確的上級(jí)決策指導(dǎo)。”因此，他們學(xué)到服務(wù)顧客的新方法的機(jī)會(huì)也就更少。

????當(dāng)然，也有一些例子顯示按章辦事的文化更可取。尤其是在從事那些以安全為第一考量的任務(wù)時(shí)，更需要加強(qiáng)對(duì)員工的管理。比如發(fā)生危機(jī)時(shí)，管理層的手腕要更強(qiáng)硬一些。

????一般來說，所有員工都需要有人指明方向。破解“納米級(jí)管理”的良方并不是放棄所有管理手段，實(shí)現(xiàn)“垂拱而治”，而是要像古馳集團(tuán)CEO羅伯特?波萊特所說的那樣，為員工提供“框架內(nèi)的自由”。

????克里斯?葉是Wasabi Ventures公司的一般合伙人，曾經(jīng)與領(lǐng)英公司董事長(zhǎng)里德?霍夫曼以及本?卡薩諾卡合著了《結(jié)盟：在網(wǎng)絡(luò)時(shí)代管理人才》一書。他指出，最優(yōu)秀的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者“會(huì)設(shè)立極高的客戶體驗(yàn)和產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，然后會(huì)提供詳細(xì)的輔導(dǎo)和具有可行性的反饋意見”。

????蓋洛普公司職場(chǎng)管理與福利事務(wù)首席科學(xué)家杰姆?哈特也認(rèn)同這種觀點(diǎn)。他的研究顯示，當(dāng)員工明確了他們應(yīng)該負(fù)責(zé)產(chǎn)出哪些成果，然后被擺在一個(gè)理想的位置上利用他們的長(zhǎng)處來實(shí)現(xiàn)這些成果時(shí)，員工的參與度是最高的。

????也就是說，成功管理的關(guān)鍵不是事無巨細(xì)，不是“過度管理”。據(jù)《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》報(bào)道，“由于穆斯克堅(jiān)持按他的路子做事，有些高管與穆斯克反目之后，主動(dòng)辭職或被公司解雇”。這也符合扎克的研究成果：在信任度高的公司，員工的工作滿意度和人才保留度會(huì)比信任度低的公司分別高出70%和69%。因此，一名管理者必須要在“鋼鐵俠”和“隱形女”之間找到最佳平衡。

????本文作者Rick Wartzman是克萊蒙特研究大學(xué)德魯克研究院的執(zhí)行董事，曾出版五本著作，他目前正撰寫的一本新書，其主題是二戰(zhàn)后美國(guó)雇主和勞工之間的社會(huì)契約變遷史。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：樸成奎

????審校：任文科

????Elon Musk roared into the Detroit Auto Show last week and made plain that it’s not only his Tesla TSLA 2.42% electric cars that are expected to meet the very highest performance standards, gunning from zero to 60 miles per hour in a McLaren-like 3.2 seconds. He rides his employees awfully hard, as well.

????“If you are fighting a battle, it’s way better if you are at the front lines,” Musk told the Wall Street Journal, describing himself not as a mere micromanager but as something far more intense—a “nano-manager.”

????Indeed, Musk makes no apologies for what theJournal described as “a hands-on obsession with the tiniest operational and car-design details at Tesla.” It’s safe to say that his domineering style doesn’t differ at SpaceX, the rocket company he founded and runs.

????Musk is the envy of many—and why not? He’s abillionaire. He was married (twice) to a beautiful actress. He has plans to visit Mars someday. He nonchalantly tosses around the word “Hyperloop.”Heck, he’s the model for Tony Stark, the swashbuckling genius played by Robert Downey Jr. in the “Iron Man” films.

????But before legions of executives start trying to be nano-managers, here’s a note of caution: This is a terrible way to get the most out of your people.

????Workers perform best when they’re in what Paul Zak, my colleague at Claremont Graduate University, describes as a “high-trust environment.” By looking at some 5,000 employees at about 50 companies, Zak and his team at the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies have found that those in high-trust situations are 19% more productive than those in low-trust workplaces. One crucial aspect of being in a high-trust setting, Zak explains, is having “the freedom to take on projects the way you choose to.”

????When people’s autonomy in the workplace is sharply curtailed, they feel as if they’ve lost control—and, in turn, their brains react as if they’re being threatened. That raises their level of stress, which often causes them to perform poorly. “Feeling in control, even if it’s an illusion, is key to … cognitive ability staying intact,” Amy Arnsten, a professor of neurobiology and psychology at Yale, has pointed out.

????Great managers have always known the trouble with dictating to employees. Successfully motivating employees “involves teaching rather than telling,” William B. Given Jr., the president of American Brake Shoe Co., wrote in his 1949 classic Bottom-Up Management.

????This dynamic is especially important in today’s fast-moving world, when organizations need everyone, from top to bottom, to continually come up with fresh ideas. “The tighter the controls you enforce, the lower the innovation,” says F. Asis Martinez-Jerez, a business professor at Notre Dame. In a 2011 study, he and two colleagues studied casino workers under different degrees of management oversight. Their conclusion: “Employees in ‘tightly monitored’ business units face strong implicit incentives to experiment less by deviating less often from explicit decision guidelines.” As a consequence, they “have fewer opportunities to learn” new ways to serve their customers.

????There are, of course, instances where a by-the-book culture is appropriate. Tasks in which safety is a paramount concern may demand a tighter leash, for example. Managing during a crisis may also require a heavier hand.

????More generally, all employees need direction. The antidote to micromanagement is not to abdicate all management and disappear. Rather, the ideal is to offer employees what former Gucci Group CEO Robert Polet liked to call “freedom within the framework.”

????The best leaders set “extremely high standards when it comes to things like the customer experience and the design of the product,” says Chris Yeh, general partner at Wasabi Ventures and co-author with LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha of The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.“They provide detailed coaching and actionable feedback.”

????Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist for Workplace Management and Well-Being, agrees. His research shows that employees are most engaged when it’s been made clear to them what outcomes they’re responsible for—and are then put in an optimal position to use their strengths to achieve those results.

????The trick is to not push it too far—to not “over-manage,” as Harter puts it. The Journal reported that at Tesla, “some high-level managers quit or were fired after clashing with the chief executive over Mr. Musk’s insistence on doing things his way.” This jibes with Zak’s studies: High-trust companies, he says, boast 70% greater job satisfaction and 69% higher job retention than low-trust ones.

????In the end, a manager’s role is to find that sweet spot between Iron Man and Invisible Woman.

????Rick Wartzman is the executive director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University. Author or editor of five books, he is currently writing a narrative history of how the social contract between employer and employee in America has changed since the end of World War II.