Whatever economic trauma besets the rest of Japan, its pop culture never ceases to throw up surprises. The latest is a novel about high school baseball shot through with lessons from Peter Drucker. Yes, that Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive; Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices; Managing for the Future and fistfuls of other managerial rip-snorters. The book, titled What if the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s ‘Management’ by Natsumi Iwasaki has sold 2m copies over the past year and is now being turned into a manga comic and anime television series.
不管日本其他领域遭遇到什么样的经济创伤，其流行文化总能给人带来惊讶。最新的例子是一本关于中学棒球队的小说，书中处处可见彼得•德鲁克(Peter Drucker)的思想。没错，就是那个彼得•德鲁克，著有《卓有成效的管理者》(The Effective Executive)、《管理：使命、责任、实务》(Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices)、《管理未来》(Managing for the Future)等若干管理畅销书。这本书名为《如果高中棒球队女经理读过德鲁克的“管理学”》(What if the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s ‘Management’)，作者是岩崎夏海(Natsumi Iwasaki)，过去一年已售出200万册，现在正要改编成漫画和动画电视连续剧。
On my first visit to Japan a couple of years ago, I was amazed to see how Drucker’s books still dominate the business sections in Tokyo’s bookstores. In the US and Europe, one is hard-pressed to find managers under 45 who have more than a passing acquaintance with Drucker. In Japan his works are holy writ.
几年前第一次去日本时，我惊讶地发现，德鲁克的著作在东京各书店商业类图书中仍然占据着主导地位。在美国和欧洲，很难找到对德鲁克有着稍微深入了解的45岁以下的经理人；而在日本，他的作品被奉为经典。
There are swaths of Drucker’s encyclopedic oeuvre that no longer resonate. They reek of the hair tonic and smoky rooms of 1950s manufacturing companies. But The Essential Drucker, edited and introduced by the man himself, is still remarkably fresh. The essays, a series of incontrovertible meditations on the art of management, are shot through with humanism. Drucker was never a headbanger and rarely a bore.
德鲁克包罗万象的著作中，有许多已经不再能引起共鸣，它们散发着上世纪50年代制造公司里生发水和烟雾缭绕的房间的味道。不过德鲁克本人编辑并作序的《德鲁克管理思想精要》(The Essential Drucker)，味道仍然十分清新。书中收录的文献是管理艺术进行了一系列无可辩驳的思索，贯穿着人性的光辉。德鲁克从来都不狂热，也很少枯燥无味。
His enduring popularity started me thinking about the difference between those Gods of Management who endure and those who go stale. Who deserves to hold their place on Olympus alongside Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Drucker, and whom do we throw off the mountain?
德鲁克的长期流行不禁让我开始思考，是什么让一些人成了经久不衰的管理之神，而另一些人却被时代淘汰。谁应该和马基雅维利(Machiavelli)、孙子、德鲁克一样，在奥林匹亚山(Olympus)上拥有一席之地，谁又应该被抛下山去？
My top candidate for eviction is Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric. It seems an eternity ago that Fortune magazine named him the best CEO of the 20th century. His yappy, aggressive style is woefully out of sync with contemporary business culture. And his status as the champion of shareholder value was destroyed when he made off from GE with a retirement package both outlandish and petty. Did a man worth hundred of millions of dollars really need to insist on his former company paying for the electricity at his various holiday homes? Welch once seemed a guru for the ages but is now fossilised.
我认为，首先应该除名的是通用电气(GE)前首席执行官杰克•韦尔奇(Jack Welch)。《财富》(Fortune)杂志提名他为20世纪最佳CEO，似乎已经是很久以前的事了。他张扬而富有侵略性的风格与现代商业文化格格不入，而他离开GE时索取的怪异而又微不足道的退休福利，也毁了他维护股东价值的声誉。一个身家数亿美元的富翁，难道真的有必要坚持让前公司支付其各个度假别馆的电费吗？韦尔奇曾经有很长一段时间都像是一位管理专家，但现在已变成了老古董。
No business writer has had greater influence over the past decade than Malcolm Gladwell. The ideas contained in The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers come up in conversations between businesspeople as often as the travails of Tiger Woods. Sheer Tipping Point exhaustion, and a streak of writer’s jealousy, had me pondering Gladwell’s status on the managerial Olympus, but then I felt obliged to keep him up there. As a storyteller and synthesist, he is peerless. He provokes a huge audience to think in original ways, without being bossy. My guess is that in 50 years, people will be reading The Essential Gladwell and the Japanese will have turned him into animé.
过去十年，没有哪位商业书籍作家的影响力能超过马尔科姆•格拉德威尔(Malcolm Gladwell)。《引爆点》(The Tipping Point)、《决断2秒间》(Blink)与《异类》(Outliers)等图书中的观点，在商界人士对话中出现的频率就和老虎伍兹(Tiger Woods)的苦痛出现的频率一样高。对《引爆点》纯粹的审美疲劳，以及处于一丝作家的妒意，我一度对格拉德威尔在奥林匹亚山上的席位有所犹豫，但最后觉得必须保留他的位置。在讲故事和演绎推理方面，无人能出其右。他引导了无数读者进行独立的原创性思考，却又没有说教的意味。我猜想，50年后，将会有一套《格拉德威尔精选集》供人们阅读，而日本人也会以他为主角制作动画。
Gladwell, like Drucker, has the advantage of not being a business practitioner. He can observe impartially. Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great and most recently How the Mighty Fall is similarly impartial, but the case studies in his books, as in many of those written by business school professors, risk ageing poorly. He would do well to follow the example of Tom Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence in 1982 but has never stopped reinventing himself and developing new material, becoming a blogger and Tweeter at an age when many gurus would rather retire to their herbaceous borders. Peters is on Olympus. Collins has more to prove.
和德鲁克一样，格拉德威尔的优势在于他不是业内人士，因此在观察时不会带有偏见。《从优秀到卓越》(Good to Great)的作者吉姆•柯林斯(Jim Collins)同样没有偏见——他的最新作品是《巨人如何倒下》(How the Mighty Fall)——但和许多商学院教授的著作一样，他书中的案例有过时的风险。他满可以学习汤姆•彼得斯(Tom Peters)——彼得斯在1982年写成了《追求卓越》(In Search of Excellence)，但从未停止自我改造和开发新素材的脚步。在这个许多大师宁愿归隐的年代，他开了博客，还成为一名Tweeter。彼得斯在奥林匹亚山上拥有一席之地，而柯林斯还需要进一步证明自己。
Gary Hamel may now be one of the world’s most sought after strategic advisers, but his career was nearly snuffed out after he acclaimed Enron as a model of strategic innovation. Hamel, though, earns his place on the coat-tails of his frequent co-author C.K. Prahalad, who brought us both core competence and the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.
加里•哈默尔(Gary Hamel)现在或许是全球最受追捧的策略咨询师之一，但他将安然(Enron)誉为策略创新的榜样，几乎扼杀了自己的职业生涯。不过，依靠经常与其合作写书的C•K•普拉哈拉德(C.K.Prahalad)的提携，哈默尔还是在奥林匹亚山上赢得了一席之地。普拉哈拉德为处于金字塔底部的人带来了核心能力和财富。
Last year’s Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson has the rare virtues in a management book of brevity and provocation. Big company managers should worry. Their entire management models are going to be kicked apart by companies following Rework’s refreshing creed, which says ignore the hyperbole and hyperactivity that consume many businesses. Fried and Heinemeier Hansson earn junior divine rank.
詹森•弗里德(Jason Fried)和大卫•汉尼梅尔•汉森(David Heinemeier Hansson)去年出版的《重来》(Rework)一书，有着商业书籍罕见的简练风格和煽动力。大型企业的管理人员应该感到担忧。他们的管理模式将被遵循《重来》中新纲领的企业彻底踢个粉碎——新纲领要求人们抛弃让许多企业精疲力竭的夸大其词和大张旗鼓。弗里德和汉森应该得到低级神灵的位置。
As does Freek Vermeulen of the London Business School for his ornery and entertaining book Business Exposed, a rigorous challenge to many business assumptions from the hollowness of strategic planning to the value of indecisiveness.
同样应该得到这个位置的还有伦敦商学院(London Business School)的弗里克•韦穆伦（Freek Vermeulen），为他赢得这项殊荣的是那本粗俗有趣的《商业揭秘》(Business Exposed)，这本书有力地挑战了从战略规划的空洞到优柔寡断的价值等诸多商业假设。
I realise I have admitted more gurus than I have expelled. Blame it on the lingering Christmas spirit. If I were Jack Welch, I’d have fired the bottom 20 per cent.
我突然发现，我承认的大师要比除名的更多。要怪就怪这挥之不去的圣诞精神吧。如果我是杰克•韦尔奇(Jack Welch)，就会把倒数20%的人开除。
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