Corporate jungle may claim another species as victim
It may be too early to put them on the endangered species list, but chief operating officers are a breed that, like frogs and songbirds, you just don't see as often.
For every handful of companies that appoints a COO to take the strain off an over-worked chief executive - recent examples include Sprint, the telecoms group, and Wrigley the chewing-gum maker - a slightly larger handful abolishes the position.
Companies that have decided to do away with the position include Capital One, the credit card group, Reuters and Sun Microsystems.
Julie Wulf, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "Statistically speaking, companies are less likely to have chief operating officers than . . . a decade ago".
Her conclusion is based on a detailed study of 300 large companies over 14 years, based on data supplied by Hewitt Associates, the pay and benefits consulting firm.
She and Professor Raghuram Rajan, of Chicago University business school, say the most likely explanation is that chief operating officers are falling victim to "delayering", by which companies reduce the number of steps between the top and bottom of the organisational ziggurat.
The theory that the CEO, the ultimate boss, seems to be shouldering more responsibility for direct oversight of the business is strengthened by their finding that the average big-company chief executive had seven people reporting to them at the end of the 1990s, against four in 1986.
This was not because companies were getting bigger; the average number of employees per company fell slightly over that time.
Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, exemplifies the trend. When Denis Nayden quit as GE Capital chairman last year, he was not replaced. Instead, the heads of its four business units report directly to Mr Immelt.
Mr Immelt said then: "The reason for doing this is simple - I want more direct contact with the financial services teams." Thus a management layer was removed, and the CEO gained a net three additional reports.
Where GE goes, other US companies are sure to follow. But is it healthy that today's chief executives are increasing what management theorists call their "span of control"?
Opinions are mixed. While management lore is that the best chief executives are steeped in operational detail, countless CEOs owe their downfall, at least in part, to a tendency to "micro-manage".
Steve Milunovich, technology analyst at Merrill Lynch, believes Sun Microsystems is in danger of falling into this trap. Last week he urged the troubled computer company to recreate the COO's position to counter the tremendous influence of Scott McNealy, chairman, chief executive and founder.
Prof Wulf believes that many companies have found a compromise where the CEO is closer to the action, yet divisional managers have more decision-making authority.
She says these managers are more likely to be appointed "officer" of the corporation in companies that have eliminated the position of COO. This suggests they inherit at least some of their former bosses' authority.
Technology could be helping to create this new status quo. "Enterprise resource planning" systems of the kind many US companies implemented in the 1990s make it easier for CEOs to get information about the performance of individual business units.
But such systems also let divisional managers get the data needed to make informed decisions without having to rely on the corporate bureaucracy.
That said, delayering and CEO aggrandisement are not the only factors behind the increased "span of control" today's CEOs enjoy. Another part of the explanation is the proliferation of "C-suite" executive positions.
For example, a decade ago it was rare to find the chief information officer reporting directly to the CEO. Today, after years in which IT spending has accounted for nearly half of all capital spending by US corporations, the CIO is a more powerful figure.
Similarly, US companies are more likely to have chief marketing officers, chief human resource officers, chief competitive officers and chief learning officers.
In some cases these are new positions. In others they are old jobs with new titles and additional status.
In other words, if delayering is destroying the natural habitat of COOs, the evolution of new C-level positions has increased competition for scarce resources.
The most precious resource of all remains the ear of the CEO, the species perched right at the top of the organisational food chain.
企业丛林法则的牺牲品
现在就将首席运营官(COO)记入濒危物种名单或许还为时过早，但是，他们就像青蛙和歌鸟，已经没有那么常见了。
每当少数几家公司任命COO时，同时就有数量略多的企业取消该职位。企业任命COO，目的是帮助过度繁忙的首席执行官(CEO)完成部分工作，减轻他们的压力。最近，电信集团斯普林特(Sprint)和口香糖制造商箭牌(Wrigley)等公司任命了COO。
已决定取消COO职位的公司则有信用卡集团第一金融(Capital One)、太阳微系统(Sun Microsystems)和路透社(Reuters)等公司。
宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(Wharton School of Business)的助理教授朱莉?沃尔夫(Julie Wulf)表示：“从统计数据看，现在的企业设置COO职位的可能性小于……10年前。”
根据翰威特咨询公司(Hewitt Associates)提供的数据，朱莉?沃尔夫在对300家大型企业14年的情况进行仔细研究后，才做出上述结论。翰威特咨询公司是一家薪酬和福利咨询公司。
朱莉?沃尔夫和芝加哥大学商学院(Chicago University business school)教授瑞占(Raghuram Rajan)表示，最可能的原因是，COO正成为“精简管理层级”的牺牲品。企业有着类似梯形金字塔形状的组织结构，它们希望取消COO职位，藉此来减少组织中高层和底层间的层级。
有理论认为，CEO是企业的最终管理者，他似乎应更多地承担直接监督企业的职责。朱莉?沃尔夫和瑞占的研究成果巩固了这个理论。他们的研究显示，20世纪90年代末，平均每个大企业有7个人向CEO汇报，而1986年只有4个人。
这并不是因为公司规模扩大了。在此期间，平均每家公司的雇员人数还略有下降。
通用电气(General Electric)董事长兼首席执行官杰弗里?伊梅尔特(Jeffrey Immelt)例证了这一趋势：去年通用金融(GE Capital)董事长丹尼斯?内登(Denis Nayden)辞职后，公司没有任命其他人接替他，而是改为通用金融四个业务部门的主管直接向伊梅尔特先生汇报。
伊梅尔特先生接着说：“这样做的原因很简单：我想同金融服务团队进行更多直接的交流。”因此，一个管理层次被撤消，而CEO净增了三个直接向他汇报的人。
通用电气怎么做，其他美国公司肯定跟着学。但是，如今的CEO正在扩大管理理论家所谓的“控制范围”，这是否有好处呢？
对此，各人看法不一。虽然根据管理学理论，最好的CEO往往忙于运营细节，但无数CEO的失败，至少部分是因为他们倾向于“微观管理”。
美林(Merrill Lynch)的科技分析师史蒂夫?米卢诺维奇(Steve Milunovich)认为，太阳微系统公司有可能落入这个圈套。上周，他敦促这家陷入困境的电脑公司重新设立COO的职位，来制衡司考特?麦克尼利(Scott McNealy)的巨大影响力。麦克尼利是公司的董事长、CEO和创建者。
沃尔夫教授认为，许多公司已找到一个折衷方法，即让CEO进一步负责执行事务，而部门经理享有更多决策权。
沃尔夫教授说，在那些撤消了COO职位的公司里，这些部门经理更有可能被任命为公司的“某某官”。这表明他们至少继承了他们前任上司的一些职权。
科技的发展可能推动了这一现象的产生。很多美国企业在上世纪90年代采用了“企业资源规划”(ERP)等管理系统，借助这些系统，CEO们获得各单个业务部门的业绩信息变得更加容易了。
但这类系统也让部门经理们无需再依赖企业管理层，就得到了作出明智决策所必需的有关数据。
尽管如此，今天CEO享有的“控制范围”虽然增加了，但并不仅仅是因为精减管理层级和CEO权力扩大所致。另一个原因是“首席某某官”职位的泛滥。
例如，10年前很难找到直接向CEO汇报的首席信息官，但在过去数年里，IT支出已渐渐占美国企业所有资本开支近一半比例，今天的首席信息官已经是个权力更大的人物了。
类似的，美国企业以后更有可能出现“首席营销官”、“首席人力资源官”、“首席竞争官”以及“首席学习官”等新职位。
有些情况下这些都是新的职位，有时则就是换了个新头衔、多了个新身份的老职位。
换句话说，如果说精减管理层级的作法正在破坏COO的生存环境，那么新的“首席某某官”职位的产生便增加了对稀缺资源的竞争。
当然，最珍贵的资源仍然是对CEO施加影响，因为他们高坐在公司职位“食物链”的顶端。
