Gadiesh O, Gilbert J L
Harv Bus Rev. 2001 May;79(5):72-9, 164.
When CEOs push decision making out to the far reaches of an organization, good things happen: fleeting business opportunities are seized quickly and workers are motivated to innovate and take risks. But it's tricky to achieve both decentralized decision making and coherent strategic action at a company. If everyone is a decision maker, things can spin out of control. In this article, Bain consultants Orit Gadiesh and James Gilbert explore the concept of the strategic principle--a memorable and actionable phrase that distills a company's corporate strategy into its unique essence and communicates it across an organization. If it's devised and disseminated properly, a strategic principle can empower employees to seize business opportunities but also focus everyone in an organization--executives and line managers alike--on the same strategic objectives. The authors outline the three defining characteristics of a good strategic principle--it should force trade-offs between competing resource demands, it should serve as a test for the strategic soundness of a particular action, and it should set clear boundaries for employees to operate within even as it grants them freedom to experiment. They explain how managers can create a strategic principle, how they should test it, and when they should revisit it. The authors present real-world examples of how companies use their strategic principles. For instance, they describe how South-west Airlines stopped flying to Denver after it measured the high costs of providing flight service in that part of the country against its strategic principle of offering customers short-haul air travel at fares competitive with the cost of automobile travel. This tool is increasingly useful in today's rapidly changing business environment, the authors conclude, and it is likely to become even more crucial to corporate success.
当首席执行官将决策权力下放至组织的各个角落时，会产生诸多积极影响：能迅速抓住稍纵即逝的商业机会，还能激励员工创新并勇于冒险。但要在公司实现分散式决策与协调一致的战略行动并非易事。若每个人都是决策者，事情可能会失控。在本文中，贝恩公司的顾问奥里特·加迪什和詹姆斯·吉尔伯特探讨了战略原则的概念——这是一个令人难忘且可付诸行动的短语，它将公司的企业战略提炼成独特的精髓，并在整个组织中进行传达。如果战略原则设计和传播得当，它能使员工有能力抓住商业机会，同时让组织中的每个人——高管和一线经理等——都聚焦于相同的战略目标。作者概述了一个好的战略原则的三个决定性特征——它应在相互竞争的资源需求之间进行权衡，应作为对特定行动战略合理性的检验，并且应在给予员工实验自由的同时，为其设定明确的行动边界。他们解释了管理者如何创建战略原则、应如何对其进行检验以及何时应重新审视它。作者列举了公司运用战略原则的实际案例。例如，他们描述了西南航空公司在衡量了在该国该地区提供航班服务的高昂成本与为客户提供短途航空旅行且票价与汽车旅行成本具有竞争力这一战略原则相悖后，停止飞往丹佛的情况。作者总结道，在当今快速变化的商业环境中，这一工具愈发有用，而且它对企业成功可能会变得更为关键。
