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The paper provides three lessons, beyond the hoary one that incentives matter. The first is that agency problems can occur wherever power is delegated. A decentralised organisation often makes a ton of sense, but it also risks introducing layers of competing interests.
除了激励很重要这个老掉牙的道理之外，这篇论文还提供了三条经验。首先，只要有权力下放，就可能出现代理问题。组织去中心化通常都很合理，但这也有引入多层利益冲突的风险。
Another recent paper by Ingrid Haegele, then of the University of California, Berkeley, found that German managers at a big manufacturing company tried to hoard the best workers for their own teams.
加州大学伯克利分校的英格丽德·黑格勒最近的一篇论文发现，德国一家大型制造公司的经理试图为自己的团队囤积最好的工人。
When managers are themselves about to move into new positions, they have less incentive to discourage good employees from job-hopping. Ms Haegele found that workers’ applications for internal promotions more than doubled during these temporary periods of selflessness.
当经理们自己即将担任新的职位时，他们就没有那么多的动力去阻止优秀员工跳槽。黑格勒发现，在经理的这段短暂的无私时期，员工申请内部晋升的数量增加了一倍以上。
The second lesson is that middle managers deserve respect more than ridicule. The type of behaviour observed by the academics is possible because these managers have valuable private information: they know who is thinking of leaving the company and who is worth keeping.
第二个经验是，中层管理人员更值得被尊重，而不是被嘲讽。学者们观察到的行为是可能的，因为这些经理拥有宝贵的私人信息：他们知道谁在考虑离开公司，谁值得留住。
People in corner offices and boardrooms are usually too distant from the action to have this kind of insight.
坐在角落办公室和董事会议室中的人通常离这些行动太远，无法了解这些信息。
All of which means that middle managers can have a hugely beneficial effect on the performance of the workforce if the incentives are right. The third lesson from Shahi Exports is that money is not always the root problem.
所有这些都意味着，如果激励措施得当，中层管理人员可以对员工的表现产生巨大的有益影响。沙希出口公司的第三个教训是，问题的根源并不总是钱。
Its middle managers were making their training recommendations to avoid the extra work that comes from higher churn.
该公司的中层管理人员推荐人选参加培训，目的是避免更高的员工流动性带来额外工作。
That might make them sound lazy. In fact, they are suffering from a common problem.
这可能会让他们听起来像在偷懒。事实上，他们正遭受着一个共同问题的困扰。
“Power to the Middle” is a forthcoming book on middle managers by Emily Field, Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger, a trio of consultants at McKinsey. It argues that a lack of time and resources bedevils these unfortunate souls everywhere.
麦肯锡的三位咨询师艾米丽·菲尔德、布莱恩·汉考克和比尔·沙宁格即将出版一本关于中层管理者的书，名为《给中层以力量》。这本书认为，缺乏时间和资源困扰着各个地方的不幸的中层管理者。
A survey of 700 middle managers conducted for the book finds that they are spending one full day a week on administrative tasks. Replacing good workers is never fun, but it is a lot worse if a manager is already running on empty. You don’t need to be a theorist to work that out.
这本书对700名中层管理人员进行了一项调查，发现他们每周有一整天的时间花在管理任务上。找人接替优秀的员工从来都不是什么有趣的事情，但如果一个经理的位置一直空着，那情况就更糟了。就算你不是理论家，也能想通这个问题。
