企业不必雇佣多面手

Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT, told me last week more than a third of the telecoms group’s staff are now engineers – a higher proportion than ever. But whereas their expertise once covered mainly the maintenance and repair of an analogue telephone network, he now expects them to do more.

英国电信(BT)首席执行官伊安·利文斯顿(Ian Livingston)上周告诉我，如今他们公司员工里工程师所占比例超过三分之一，比以往任何时候都要高。但在以前，工程师的专业技能主要包括维护和修理模拟电话网，现在利文斯顿却期望他们能够承担更多任务。

At BT, the ideal field employee – who used to need “craft and mechanical skills, according to another executive – must combine in-depth expertise in a particular domain with broad knowledge of other areas.

在英国电信，理想的雇员必须既要精通某一特定领域，又要具备广博的知识。而另一名高管指出，以前只要“有手艺并会操作机器，就算是理想雇员了。

But while the drive to employ such “T-shaped workers makes sense, it also makes me anxious – and not only because I think of myself as a generalist journalist, another category doomed to extinction.

虽然企业竭力招揽这种“T型员工有其道理，但这也让我心生焦虑——不仅仅因为我认为自己是一名全能型记者，而这是一个注定要消亡的行当。（译者注，用字母“T来表示知识结构特点，其中“—表示知识的广博，“|表示知识的深度。）

Specialist skills are in high demand, particularly in fast-growing economies. McKinsey reports that the number of highly educated workers needed by 2020 in China and Brazil could exceed supply (by 23m, in China’s case). Attempts to fill these gaps could create a generation of narrow experts. It will fall to companies to improve their staff’s breadth of knowledge through training, while workers will have to be as adaptable as possible.

专业技术人员需求量巨大，尤其是在快速增长的经济体中。麦肯锡(McKinsey)报告称，到2020年，中国和巴西教育程度高的工人将供不应求（以中国为例，需求量为2300万）。填补缺口的努力可能打造出一代技能单一的熟练工。一方面，企业有义务展开培训，拓展工人的知识面，另一方面，工人们也必须尽可能地提高自身的适应性。

To respond to these contradictory pressures, big employers need to know what skills are required for the future and whether the experts who can help reach those goals already work for the company.

为应对上述相互矛盾的压力，大型雇主必须知道未来需要什么样的技能、现有的专家能否帮助实现这些目标。

Alcatel-Lucent, for instance, has an internal job market to ensure the telecoms equipment group capitalises on employees’ existing skills. Such initiatives help retain staff and cut the cost and risk of recruiting externally. But it is easier to put specialists on the front line and give them the flexibility to work across different disciplines than it is to find senior managers who strike the perfect balance of breadth and depth.

例如，电信设备集团阿尔卡特-朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)开设了内部就业市场，以保证员工的现有技能得到充分发挥。这样的计划能够留住员工，降低从外部雇佣人员的成本和风险。但是，把专家放到一线，让他们灵活地在不同工种之间工作，比找到完美地平衡了知识的广度与深度的高管更加容易。

Companies obviously believe such paragons exist. Barclays implies Antony Jenkins was picked as chief executive because, despite a career in retail banking, he is a “T-shaped man, able to understand the priorities of the whole group. Singapore is basing the next phase of its economic growth in part on the development of T-shaped professionals and executives, who possess “both deep skills in their area of expertise and broad knowledge of horizontal skills. General Electricwants its leaders to demonstrate expertise, but also such attributes as external focus, clear thinking, imagination and courage. By definition, if they aspire to lead GE itself, they will also need to know enough to interrogate

企业显然认为，世上确实存在这样的理想人眩巴克莱(Barclays)表示，挑选安东尼·詹金斯(Antony Jenkins)担任首席执行官(CEO)的原因是，尽管他出身于零售银行，但他是一名“T型人才，能够理解整个集团发展的轻重缓急。为了保障下一阶段的经济增长，新加坡正加紧培养“T型专业人员和管理人才，这些T型人才“既在自身所属领域拥有深厚的技能，又掌握十分广博的技能。通用电气(GE)希望其领导人既能展现出专业技能，又拥有关注外部、思维清晰、想象力丰富和胆气过人的特点。按照定义，如果他们渴望领导通用电气，他们还必须拥有广博的知识，足以与公司内部的喷气发动机技术或抵押贷市场方面的专家进行交涉。

in-house experts in jet engine technology and mortgage markets.

招聘企业自然喜欢雇佣多面手。如果你新招来的财务总监能讲四种语言，拥有法学学位，还在亚洲工作过，那就再好不过了。

Recruiters naturally love to hire all-rounders. If your new finance director also speaks four languages, has a law degree and Asian experience, so much the better.

但这正是我的担心所在。首先，并非所有的多面手都像企业认为的那样全能。如果你迫切需要人来从事财务工作，不要想当然地认为新来的首席财务官以前的经验将必然使她能够治理上海或者成为法律总顾问。

But here is where I start to worry. First, not all all-rounders are as rounded as companies may believe. If you urgently need to fill a post in finance, don’t assume that the new CFO’s previous experience will necessarily equip her later to run Shanghai or become general counsel.

其次，为了实现完美平衡，用人单位提高了对高管的要求，希望他们能达到想招纳的T型人才标准，可能的结果领导者的知识既不够广，也不够深。这些团队领导在每个方面分摊的精力比以往更少了，进一步增加了压力。英国电信工程师比例提高的一个原因是，利文斯顿加大了削减该集团管理人员的力度。

Second, in aiming for perfect balance, employers risk crucifying senior staff on the very T-shape they want them to adopt, ending up with leaders who are neither broad enough nor deep enough. Adding to the stress, these team leaders are spread more thinly than they used to be. One reason the proportion of BT engineers has risen is that Mr Livingston has cut more deeply into the group’s managerial staff.

T型管理人员的定义相当混乱。2001年，莫腾·汉森(Morten Hansen)和博尔科·冯厄廷格(Bolko von Oetinger)用这个词来描述那些“通过打破传统的公司等级，在组织中自由地分享知识来展开合作的高管。但从巴克莱、通用电气和新加坡政府设定的目标来看，如今该个词指的是具有广泛能力的领导者。

The definition of a T-shaped manager has also become rather confused. Morten Hansen and Bolko von Oetinger used the term in 2001 to describe executives who collaborated by “breaking out of the traditional corporate hierarchy to share knowledge freely across the organisation. But as the goals set out by Barclays, GE and the Singapore government suggest, the term now defines leaders with a wide range of capabilities.

汉森教授告诉我，他建议企业不要想当然地认为高管必须样样精通：“你必须得有一个特别精通的领域，能够拿上台面——否则就只是一个协调人了，但同时你对其他技术领域也必须足够了解，这样才能与别人协作。

Prof Hansen tells me he counsels companies not to assume executives have to be good at everything: “You have to have an area of expertise and bring that to the table – otherwise you are just a facilitator – but at the same time you need to know enough about other skill areas so you can collaborate with others.

目标依然不失为一个美好的目标。但有些企业必须开始考虑，他们最多能够安全地要求高管拓展多远。随着经营大型组织的复杂程度与日俱增，有些企业会变得涉及面过于宽泛，即便是最优秀的T型高管都难以驾驭。

The goal remains a good one. But some companies must start considering how far they can safely ask senior managers to stretch. As the complexities of running big organisations multiply, a few may become too broad for even the most T-shaped executives to embrace.