What is a bad institution?

We know that cecum is essential for higher animals. But it is redundant for us human beings, but evolution has not completely freed us from this useless (even confusing) thing. So most of us ignore its existence, until one day when its abdomen hurts, we suddenly think of it.

Similarly, in this era, there are a large number of books and papers about all aspects of managers' work, but why do they pay so little attention to "effectiveness"? Is it because it is painless cecum in our institution?

One reason for this negligence is that effectiveness is a special skill of managers in an organization, but until recently, such "effective" workers were still extremely scarce.

For manual workers, we only need efficiency; That is, you only need the ability to do things well, not the ability to choose to do the right thing. Manual labor can be judged according to the correct and specific product quantity and quality, such as how many pairs of shoes are made and how good the quality is.

In the past century, people have worked out how to measure the efficiency of manual labor and determine the quality of its products, which has led to an amazing increase in the number of workers' products.

In the past, in all institutions, both machine operators and frontline soldiers were dominated by manual workers, and only a few effective workers were needed. People in high positions give orders, and others follow suit. Those who give orders account for only a small part of the total number of workers, so we can admit their effectiveness, whether this statement is correct or not. We can believe in the gift of "nature". Among those who work hard, there are always very few people who will know something that others must know through hard work.

Not only enterprises and the military. Today, it is difficult for us to understand that in the American Civil War more than 100 years ago, the word "government" only meant a small number of people. Lincoln's wartime cabinet consisted of no more than 50 civil servants, most of whom were neither administrators nor policy makers, but only communication operators. During President Roosevelt's time, there were about 1900 people in the entire federal government of the United States. Today, they can work comfortably in any building near the government.

In the past, hospitals didn't know any "health service professionals", such as X-ray and laboratory technicians, nutrition directors and therapists, social workers, etc. Statistics now show that 250 such people will be employed for every 100 patients. In the past, in the hospital, except for a few nurses, there were only cleaning women, cooks and maids. At that time, the doctor was the manager and the nurse was his assistant.

In other words, until recently, the main problem of institutions was the efficiency of manual workers in completing their work. They often did what their superiors told them. Managers are not the majority in the organization.

In fact, in the early days, only a few managers were members of the organization, and most of them started their own businesses as professionals, and only hired one clerk at most. Whether they are effective or not concerns not only themselves, but also themselves.

In any case, a huge knowledge organization is the reality of today's society. Nowadays, society is made up of huge organized institutions. In every organization (including military service organizations), the emphasis has shifted to managers, who work with their brains instead of physical strength and skills. Those who are trained to apply knowledge, theories and concepts to their work instead of physical strength and skills are more and more in the majority in public institutions, and only by making contributions can they be effective.

Now, effectiveness is no longer just recognized as mentioned above, and it will never be ignored now.

From engineering to quality control, we have established a perfect inspection and measurement system for manual workers, which is not suitable for managers. Nothing is more sad and ineffective than the beautiful blueprint for the engineering department to produce the wrong products quickly. Only by choosing the right things to do, this is effective knowledge work. This cannot be measured by the size of manual workers.

It is not appropriate to supervise managers strictly or carefully, but only to help them. But they must set a direction for themselves and ask themselves to move forward in the direction of completing the task and making contributions.

There is a cartoon that is very interesting.

There is an office in the picture, and the door of the office reads: "charles smith, general manager of Aijie Soap Company". There is only a big slogan "Xiang" on the office wall. People in the office put their feet high on the table and slowly sprayed smoke rings on the ceiling. Two old men walked by the door. One of them said to the other, "How can we be sure that Smith is thinking about soap?"

People are really not sure what the manager is thinking, and thinking is his special job, so Smith is really "working". Where is the effectiveness of this kind of work?

The efforts of managers are inseparable from the effectiveness and achievements of their work. If his work lacks effectiveness, then his guarantee of work and contribution will be disillusioned, and he will also become a time killer, just perfunctory from 9 am to 5 pm.

Managers do not make things that are effective in themselves, or do not produce material products such as a ditch, a pair of shoes, a machine part, etc. They produce knowledge, opinions and information. These "products" are not available in themselves, but when a knowledgeable person absorbs these "products" and transforms them into his own products, they have practical significance. The greatest wisdom that is not applied to practice is also meaningless information, so the manager must provide his "effectiveness". He can't rely on the original performance of the product. Unlike a pair of high-quality leather shoes, they are very easy to use.

Managers are a kind of "factor of production", and today's highly developed society and economy (for example, in the United States, Western Europe, Japanese and growing China) compete and maintain the competitive momentum through this factor.

The productivity of managers means the ability to choose only the right things to do. This means effectiveness. Become great and beautiful

—— Quoted from Yanbian People's Publishing House Management Rules for Highly Effective Persons.