The small company disease of big companies: de-institutionalization and flattening, big companies are not getting younger but degenerating

My friend is in a construction group company. The company is top 1 in the segmented field. It is developing very rapidly. There are already more than 6,000 people, and the business is growing at a rate of 40 to 50 percent every year. The boss of the company has learned a lot after attending many courses in business schools and president classes, and proposed that the company needs to change and improve management. Then the boss canceled the company's three-level governance structure, which means that the company headquarters manages dozens of project departments across the country, no branch offices are set up, and various departments of the group company are re-merged, from more than a dozen departments to 7 departments, and Later, the streamlining and cancellation of many processes were successively promoted. The boss said that this is Phoenix Nirvana, the second start-up, and the company should be as efficient, streamlined and low-cost as when the company was small.

But less than two months after the implementation, there were many problems. For example, after the streamlined department became flat, the directors of various management departments and even the president himself were struggling with various approvals, signatures, and communications every day. These executives should have Finished work, business deployment, but no time to think about it. At the same time, because of the streamlining of many management departments and subsidiary companies, there were many omissions in management, and some project departments lost a lot of materials. In the end, the company had to give up the idea of ​​"going back to when the company was young" and restore the original management mechanism.

Many large companies have this situation. They use some advanced management concepts in the management reform and management thinking of large companies, but they do things that hurt the company. They want to make the company "small", as efficient and as small as a small company. Flexible, but in the end, because it became a little bit that no small business should have, it broke out a bunch of situations that were never expected. This is the small business disease that many large companies commit in their management.

The small company disease of big companies: de-institutionalization and flattening, big companies are not getting younger but degenerating

Generally speaking, the small company disease committed by large enterprises has the following situations:

1. De-institutionalization

Institutionalized management is more like a restraint from the perspective of many small businesses. This depends on the control system of management. When the company is very small, for example, there are only a few people, the boss manages the whole company, which is to implement the management of these people, ranging from employee attendance reimbursement to employee promotion and business management. Development, etc., the boss is very clear in his heart, so there is no need for reimbursement process, no need for strategic planning, no need for promotion assessment, etc. These are all clearly seen in the boss's mind, so the problem is solved with a stroke of a pen.

However, when the enterprise grows to 10,000 people, the business and management are infinitely enlarged. The boss cannot focus on multiple fields, or even implement management in functional fields. He can only manage professional managers and let professional people manage the profession. The management process is extended to the management process system, and the enterprise develops on the time axis of gradually increasing management from small to large.

Therefore, large enterprises must have many management systems that small enterprises do not need and cannot do, but at the same time, large enterprises cannot institutionalize management like small enterprises, because bosses, professional managers, and managers of each functional line It is impossible to work in a large company without a system, because there are too many people, and the system needs to be used to coordinate, and the boss cannot see all the details.

The small company disease of big companies: de-institutionalization and flattening, big companies are not getting younger but degenerating

At present, many companies are too bloated and inefficient, so they think of streamlining their organizations and de-institutionalized management. They call it more flexible and more humane management, which eventually leads to more extreme management problems.

One of my friends used to have four or five interview procedures for recruiting in the company. This year, the boss wants to improve efficiency and institutionalize it, so he will reengineer the process. At present, the interviews are only conducted by HR and the director of the employing department. The meeting with the general manager and the direct superior (manager supervisor, etc.) interview of the employing department have been removed. But more contradictions arose. Other business processes have also been streamlined to improve efficiency, but problems have increased.

Because management is a balance between efficiency and risk. If the risk is to be the lowest, then there must be more management and control links and people. If the efficiency is high, there will be fewer people in the management and control. However, for large enterprises, small problems will be magnified hundreds of times due to the huge size of the enterprise. Therefore, high efficiency is also risky. high.

The final answer is to find a suitable degree in business process optimization. The essence of process optimization is to remove excess rather than debone.

The small company disease of big companies: de-institutionalization and flattening, big companies are not getting younger but degenerating

2. Excessive flattening

Organizational flat management is a "popular trend" in the management of many companies, as if companies don't know or think about the company's flat management is a kind of outdated management thinking. Of course, flattening itself must be favored by bosses and management decision-makers in improving management efficiency and making the best use of people, but bosses who do not know much about management simply understand flattening as removing the middle layer, which ultimately leads to low management. Effective or similar CEO.

A building materials company has a CEO, the CEO has a vice president, and the vice president has directors of various departments. Some departments have a large number of people and a wide range of businesses. There are also managers at the manager level and supervisor level. The building materials industry is not very good this year. The boss intends to optimize some people in terms of personnel, and at the same time optimize and re-engineer the organizational structure, and finally cancel the arrangement of the vice president to other business of the boss, and cancel all manager and supervisor levels, the entire company structure. Above is the CEO and director and general staff.

The boss said that such a hierarchy looks refreshing.

However, in actual operation, the original director of the marketing business department gave three managers different management of sales, branding, and planning. Now there is no such middle layer, and the director alone manages more than 200 people, and everyone just asks for leave and travels every day. The director of application, reimbursement, etc. can't finish it, and it is impossible to make a decision to carry out the specific business.

In the end, the director of each department had to go to the boss to get back to the original state.

Many companies use this method to flatten and eventually make big companies sick of small companies. The essence of flattening is also to decentralize and remove the middle management, to achieve the rapid sinking of management goals and the rapid transmission of front-line information to managers, but there is a degree of flattening. Eight people need to have a manager.

That is to say, every 8 subordinates should have a manager to manage them, thus forming a 1+8 management hierarchy. In the actual situation, 8 is not necessarily so accurate. It is affected by the management ability and management tools of managers. Now various information management tools are very mature. The management range of 8 is obviously much smaller, but one manager manages hundreds of people. Obviously, there will be the opposite effect - reducing management efficiency. Or management and the middle level that was cancelled on the surface, but managers still privately set up some unofficial internal levels such as group leaders in order to achieve management, which did not improve the management effect in essence.

Therefore, the flat management of large enterprises should be tailored to suit the needs of the enterprise, and the organizational design should be carried out according to the ability of the management personnel of the enterprise, the use of management information tools, etc. Generally, 10-20 people will be the management range with better management efficiency and effect.

The small company disease of big companies: de-institutionalization and flattening, big companies are not getting younger but degenerating

3. The boss intervenes excessively in the business

As the company grows, there are professional people working in various fields. The boss's position is to manage the management team of the company. However, some bosses are unwilling to be lonely or have to intervene in various business management in order to have power. Just like when the company was small, reaching in so that the boss can feel at ease.

Company A has grown to a scale of more than one billion, and it is considered a large company in the industry. The boss of the company is very centralized. She once tried to recruit a group of professional professional managers to prepare for the company's growth, including the financial director, personnel director, engineering director, economic director, business director, etc., but the boss found that these directors came in a lot. The business no longer goes through me, and the information and materials I get are also on the approval side. The boss doesn't know what's going on inside each department.

The proprietress felt that she could not rest assured that the company was completely handed over to the director who was a stranger. In the end, she installed her own cronies, relatives and friends as deputy directors of each department. On the surface, she was assisting the management of each department, but in fact she was involved in the business of each department. Manage and supervise various departments, and even participate in the management of the department in person for some department bosses who have no staff. The director of each department stopped playing with her after a few months, and all of them left, leaving a bunch of so-called deputy directors who didn't understand business. In the end, the company's business plummeted.

This is also a small business disease that big companies are prone to commit. It is still a truth that management is a balance between risk and efficiency. If you are determined to choose a professional manager, then in the company's cultural soil, you must create conditions that allow managers to exert their value, and these risks will be taken firmly. Failure to do so will always lead to a roundabout in a predicament.