经济与社会科学2014insead.edu
注定失败：老板如何造就自己的差员工（1998）
Set Up to Fail: How Bosses Create Their Own Poor Performers (1998)
入门 · 约 30 分钟读完前置知识：组织行为学基础、绩效管理常识、管理沟通
导读
这是 INSEAD 学者（Manzoni 与 Barsoux）1998 年关于“被设局失败综合征”（Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome）的经典论文：管理者对某些下属形成“表现不佳”的标签后，会不自觉地加强监控、减少授权与反馈，下属因此真的表现变差，形成自我实现的恶性循环。论文主张管理者应检视自己对下属的预设，并主动打破这一循环。
HN 关注点：HN 读者对“老板如何亲手制造差员工”这一职场痛点有强烈共鸣，讨论集中在管理培训缺失、晋升机制与绩效管理实践上。
后来怎么样
提出“被设局失败综合征”这一概念，成为管理学界和管理者培训中描述管理者偏见如何造成下属绩效下滑的常用框架，并扩展为 2002 年同名专著。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：补充 3 亲历 1
亲历亲历者自述：承认自己就是那种老板，解法是给成员自主的独立项目、放弃“人人等价”的 scrum 假设，并及时认可成果。
很不幸，我曾是那样的老板。我没受过管理“能力不对称团队”的训练，所以这篇论文读起来就像在描述我和我团队当时的行为。后来我明白，只要给每个人独立、由他们自己定义的项目，每个人都能发光，而不是所有人拉同一根绳子、争谁出力最多。这正是 scrum 团队的一个误区：默认每个人都同样能干任何 story、point 估算对谁都一样，这预设了“人人都是可互换的天才克隆”。我基本放弃了这一假设，让一些人自己主导项目，他们交付得很好。管理者还必须停下来为每项成果鼓掌，确保每个人的付出被看见——在忙碌的环境里这很容易被忘掉。
snorkel查看英文原文
Unfortunately I was one of those bosses. I was not trained in the art of managing a team with asymmetric talents, so this paper read exactly how my team and I were acting. Eventually I figured out that each person on the team can shine if they're given independent projects that they themselves had spec'd out rather than having everyone tugging on the same rope and fighting over who is pulling the most. This is one of the unfortunate fallacies of the scrum teams that everyone is equally capable to take any story and the point size will be the for everyone, that just sets up the false expectation of everyone can do every story just as fast. I essentially dropped the everyone is a talented clone aspect of scrum and just let some people drive hard on their own project, and they delivered good stuff. The manager also has to stop and applaud each accomplishment, make sure everyone's effort is recognized, it's easy to forget that in a busy environment.
补充批评晋升机制：技术能力或派系关系无法预测管理能力，好管理者需要理解每个人的动机。
人员管理是企业层级中最被误解、也做得最差的职能之一。技术组织里的中层大多因“技术能力强”或“是自己人”而晋升，而这两条标准都不是做好人员管理所必需的。顶尖的管理者是“战略生理学家”：他们懂情绪与动机，同时深入了解每个员工，清楚每个人各有其激励画像；并且始终记得员工是人，不是机器。
KeepTalking查看英文原文
People management is one of the poorly understood and performed roles in a corporate hierarchy. Most middle management ( in technical organizations ) is promoted either due to 'Technical competence' or 'In-the-club'. Unfortunately either of these 2 selection criteria are not necessary functions for good people mgmt skills. Ace people managers are strategic physiologists. They understand emotion and motivation while developing a great understanding of their employees. Each employee has a profile that determines what motivates them and these managers have a good holding of this. All this while knowing that their employees are humans and not robotic machines.
补充对比三种组织应对方式（调岗、密集辅导、立即开除），指出多数人能找对位置但招聘失误也需被正视。
确实如此，而且在不同组织里表现不同。我工作过的一家大型消费品公司，做法是把方枘塞进圆孔——人只能靠“表现好”才能换到好岗位。在一家实行 up-or-out 的咨询公司，我们对绩效差的人进行严格的微观管理，出乎意料的是有一半的时候真管用，但要耗费管理者大量精力。在一家软件公司，老板一有表现不佳的苗头就开人，理由是“人就是不会变好，只会浪费管理者的时间”。经历前两家之后，我开始有点同情第三种做法了。理想是找到一个人人都能找到自己的位置发光的环境，但办公室政治让这很难。现实是大多数人在某个地方都能茁壮成长，但仍有小部分人处在错误的位置；同时也要注意招聘环节出的错。
mathattack查看英文原文
Very true. This can play itself out different in different organizations. At a large consumer products company I worked at, the solution was trying to fit square pegs in round holes. People could only "perform" their way into new good positions. At a consulting firm with an up-or-out policy, we had rigorous micromanagement of poor performers. Surprisingly it actually worked half the time, though it took a lot of managerial attention. At a software firm that I worked at, the boss fired people as soon as there was a hint of misperformance. "People just don't turn around, and you waste a lot of time of managers." Unfortunately after the first two experiences, I began to have sympathy with #3. It would be great to find an environment where everyone is allowed to find their niche to shine. Office politics make this difficult. The reality is MOST people can thrive somewhere, but there is still a small subset that is in the wrong place and spot. It is important to note where the hiring mistakes happened too.
补充指出论文对应已有的 LMX 理论，并补充其“不公平”争议与“尽早进入核心圈”的实务建议。
这篇文章很大程度上描述的是“领导—成员交换”（Leader-Member Exchange, LMX）理论，维基百科有概述。对 LMX 模型的经典批评是“这不公平”；而 LMX 一方的回应通常是“重点不是公平，而是现实”。最好的建议大概是给了解 LMX 的员工：尽快进入核心圈子（inside track）。
theologic查看英文原文
In large part the article describe Leadership-Member Exchange interaction. Wikipedia has summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader%E2%80%93member_exchange_theory. The classic criticism of the LMX model is that "it isn't fair." Generally those of LMX say "it isn't about fair, it is about reality." The best advice probably goes to the worker that understands LMX, "Get on the inside track immediately."
相关资源
从这篇论文所有 HN 讨论帖的全部评论里整理出来的链接。
历次讨论
- 2014Hacker News 讨论帖187 分 · 60 评
同领域还值得读
一切的回报率，1870–2015
The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015
利用1870–2015年多国的长期数据，估算股票、住房等各类资本的回报率，并将其与经济增长率进行比较。
经济与社会科学2019 · 487 分 · 260 评进阶 · 约 100 分钟编辑精选一切资产的回报率，1870–2015
The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015
构建了 1870–2015 年 16 个国家的长周期资产回报数据集，覆盖股票、住房、政府债券和短期票据，系统比较各类资产的真实回报与波动性。
经济与社会科学2018 · 215 分 · 151 评进阶 · 约 120 分钟编辑精选一切资产的回报率，1870–2015（2019）
The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 (2019)
这篇发表于《经济学季刊》的论文构建了 1870–2015 年间 16 个主要发达国家的股票、债券、房地产等资产收益率的长周期数据库。
经济与社会科学2024 · 190 分 · 148 评进阶 · 约 80 分钟编辑精选想法是否越来越难找？
Are ideas getting harder to find?
探讨“想法是否越来越难找到”：通过衡量多个领域的“研究生产率”，发现维持相同的增长需要投入指数级增长的研究资源，即研究效率在持续下降。
经济与社会科学2016 · 182 分 · 106 评入门 · 约 60 分钟编辑精选比特币与区块链的经济极限
The Economic Limits of Bitcoin and the Blockchain
芝加哥大学 Eric Budish 的论文从经济学角度分析比特币与区块链的根本限制：核心论点是只要攻击网络（双花或砸盘做空）的收益超过挖矿成本，51% 算力攻击就有利可图，而挖矿…
经济与社会科学2018 · 176 分 · 37 评进阶 · 约 90 分钟编辑精选