不冒险的后果

“透视领导力”是一个在线社区，最具思想和影响力的商界人物会在此回答关于职业发展和领导力的问题。今天的问题是“怎样鼓励公司内部的创造性思维？”和大家分享心得的是Americas Trading Group首席执行官Arthur Pinheiro Machado。

要想知道怎样鼓励创造性思维，必须先要了解大公司三个固有特点：

维持现状

虽然许多企业可能都会努力创新并提升活力，但大多数大公司基本上都是保守派,只想保持现有收入水平，维持现状并避免影响到既有产品。大公司往往会通过设置指标和梳理流程来提高效率，过程中慢慢变成官僚化的巨无霸。因此，大多数公司都奉行渐进主义，现在还没有以后也会变成渐进主义，所有的新产品或新项目都紧密围绕着旗舰产品或已有产品系列，主要目标不是创新，而是提高组织和经营效率。

这实际上是我的个人经历。我曾在巴西一家顶尖证券经纪公司担任中台部门负责人，工作覆盖产品、渠道、项目和流程。巴西一家大银行随后以超过5亿美元的价格收购了这家公司。尽管这家公司曾是行业中最擅长创新的成员之一，也曾是各种机构的标杆，但由于担心收入规模下降，后来还是被改造成了一家循规蹈矩、缺乏活力的公司。

创造力受到限制

另一个经常限制创造力的因素是中层管理人员的态度。理论上，中层管理者应该像个过滤器，区分好主意和坏主意然后向上级汇报。理想情况下，他们应该向高层推荐创新和新业务，并保持自己所在部门的发展方向和公司的整体战略一致。

可惜的是，实际情况并非如此。控制结构和个人利益，再加上办公室政治和做出保守决策的天然倾向作祟，管理者变得不敢冒险。没有人想革新，目标都是稳定发展。受系统结构影响，管理者成了内部冲突调解人，他们更关注日常问题，不再想着打造新产品。

断层始于最高领导

随着公司里更多职位整合起来，许多最高层管理者最终会脱离日常事务。他们不会从外界角度观察公司，反而把思维局限于管理数字和业绩。慢慢地，他们跟不上社会和文化的变化，逐渐成为局外人。除了管理人员汇报的情况，大多数管理者也都看不到别的东西，对日常经营活动以及公司面临的挑战也可能失去掌控。

那么，我们怎样才能扭转不良倾向并鼓励创造性思维，又不影响效率呢？

挑战现状

灯泡不是通过改进蜡烛发明出来的。虽然一家公司首先要维持现有系统并提高产品质量，但这并非真正的创新。促进创新意味着建立开放的环境，以便大家可以挑战、批评甚至放弃此前一直追捧的产品或做法。在Americas Trading Group，董事会每个月的会议都要处理一个具体的题目或问题，比如“怎样才能在市场中创造出有竞争力的产品或服务？”或者“下一代消费者有哪些特征？”

取消等级制度

法国哲学家吉尔•德勒兹和费力克斯•加塔里的“根茎”理论是从植物学借鉴而来的认识论模型。模型中各个组成部分并未遵循原先设计的等级制度，也不是根装结构。每个枝节都是独立的，而且自行决定发展路径，这和决策由上而下影响个人的等级结构不同。当然，所有影响某个“根茎”的变化都有可能影响到整个体系，但根茎结构基本上都是独立的。

继续分析下去，对两个德语词汇的语言学分析可以揭示出按指令执行和独立执行的区别。任务（mission）在德语里有两种译法，分别是Befehl和Auftrag。前者的意思是发出详细指令以便严格按要求执行，后者则代表一种思路或精神以及独立的执行。创新型公司应该具有根茎式的结构和Auftrag精神。

打造新市场

保持创新精神的最佳途径是积极管理，把开发新市场作为首要任务。拒绝现状之后，思想自然会变得开明。必须警惕设置监管或保护主义障碍的做法，因为这样会限制创新。说到底，如果不自己动手淘汰产品，别人就会淘汰你。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question: How do you encourage creative thinking within your organization? is written by Arthur Pinheiro Machado, CEO of Americas Trading Group.

To understand how to encourage creative thinking, you must first understand three characteristics inherent to large companies:

Retaining the status quo

While many may strive for innovation and dynamism, most big companies are, ultimately,conservative. They become focused on keeping their current level of revenues, maintaining the status quo, and avoiding tampering with their own products. These companies tend to implement metrics and organize processes to become more efficient, which can turn them into bureaucratic mammoths. Therefore, most companies are — or will become — incrementalist, and any new product or project is a satellite orbiting around the company’s flagship product or family of products. The main goal, instead of innovation, becomes organization and operational efficiency.

This was my own experience, in practical terms, from my time spent as head of the middle office —units covering products, channels, projects and processes — at one of Brazil’s largest brokerage firms, which was subsequently sold to a major Brazilian bank for more than $500 million. Although the firm was once one of Brazil’s most innovative players in its line of business and a benchmark for various institutions, it was transformed into a straight-laced business lacking vitality due to the fear of its volume revenues declining.

Creativity is limited

Another factor that tends to limit creativity is the attitude shown by middle managers. In theory, a middle manager is expected to act as a filter, separating good ideas from bad ones and reporting back to their superiors. Ideally, middle managers should be promoting innovation and new business to upper management while steering the direction of their own departments in line with the company’s overall strategy.

Unfortunately, that is not what actually happens. Control structures and personal interests combine with office politics and a natural tendency toward conservative decision-making evolves, causing managers to avoid being risk-takers. Nobody wants to stir a revolution; the aim is steady evolution. Due to these systemic structures, managers become mediators for internal conflicts who are more focused on everyday concerns than creating new products.

Disconnect starts at the top

As companies consolidate more positions, many top managers will end up being detached from routine business. Instead of looking at their company from the outside, they narrow their thinking to management numbers and results alone. This can lead to a lack of understanding about ongoing social and cultural changes, leading them to gradually become out-of-touch. Most company executives don’t see beyond the facts submitted by managers, and they can lose their grip on the day-to-day operations and challenges of the business.

So how can we fight against these tendencies and encourage creative thinking, without losing efficiency?

Challenge the status quo

Light bulbs were not invented by improving candles. While a company has to prioritize maintaining its systems and enhancing its products, this is not true innovation. Fostering innovation means creating an open environment in which people may challenge, criticize, and even destroy products or practices that have previously been praised. At ATG, all of our monthly board meetings deal with a specific topic or question, such as “How can we create a competitive product or service in our market?” or “What does the next generation look like for our markets?”

Remove the hierarchy

The rhizome is an epistemological model adapted from botany by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guatari. In this model, the components do not necessarily follow a previously designed hierarchy and are not grounded in a root-like structure. Each branch is independent and free to decide how to grow, unlike a hierarchical structure in which decisions influence and affect people from the top down. Of course, any changes that affect a rhizome may interfere with the structure as a whole, but rhizome structures are almost autonomous.

In a similar vein, a linguistic analysis of two German words reveals the difference between mandated vs. independent execution. There are two ways of translating the word ‘mission’ into German,Befehl and Auftrag. The former means issuing detailed orders to be fulfilled exactly as given. The latter imparts an overall idea or spirit and execution goes ahead independently. Innovative companies should be structured as rhizomes and embody the spirit of Auftrag.

Shape new markets

The best way to retain an innovative spirit is to have proactive management and prioritize developing new markets. A tendency to reject the status quo will always lead to more liberalism. One must be wary of attempts to create regulatory or protectionist barriers that restrict innovation. Ultimately, if you don’t make your own product obsolete, somebody else will.