原文標題Bartleby The bottleneck baneAn unlikely topic for a thriller is a timeless one for managers巴托比專欄瓶頸禍根一個不太驚悚的話題，對管理者來說卻是一個永恒的主題"The Goal" is a 40-year-old book with a topical message《目標》是一本有40年歷史的書，其中包含了熱門信息[Paragraph 1]“THE GOAL” is a notable business book for two reasons. 《目標》是一本值得注意的商業書籍，原因有二。The first is its unusual genre. First published in 1984, it is a management tomedressed up in the clothes of a thriller. 第一是體裁新穎。該書首次出版于1984年，是一本披著驚悚小說外衣的管理巨著。The book, written by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox, tells the story of Alex Rogo, a plant manager who has to overhaul his factory within three months or face closure.該書由埃利亞胡.戈德拉特和杰夫.考克斯編寫，講述了工廠經理亞歷克斯.羅格的故事，他必須在3個月內對工廠進行全面整頓，否則將面臨關閉。

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To the objection that this is not thrilling at all, consider that it could have been a lot worse (“Alan Key must format a slide deck by midnight or he won’t get enough sleep to function properly the next day”).

有人提出反對意見，說這本書一點都不驚悚，那請想想以下更糟糕的情景（"艾倫.基必須在午夜前整理好幻燈片，否則他會睡眠不足，第二天就無法正常工作"）。

And Rogo’s efforts to reduce excess inventory and win over Bill Peach, his hard-driving boss, are weirdly entertaining.

而羅格為減少過剩庫存和贏得他強硬老板比爾.佩奇的認可所做的努力，這故事很有趣。

In any case readers lapped it up. “The Goal” sold millions. It has been reprinted several times. It even got turned into a graphic novel.無論如何，讀者都對這本書贊不絕口。《目標 》賣出了數百萬本，已重印多次，甚至改編成了漫畫小說。

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Its second contribution was to popularise thinking about bottlenecks.

這本書的第二個貢獻是普及了對瓶頸問題的思考。

The novel was written to get across Goldratt’s “theory of constraints”, a method for identifying those resources whose capacity does not match the demands placed on them.

戈爾德拉特寫這部小說是為了傳播他的 "約束理論"，這是一種識別那些與需求不符資源的方法。

(This definition comes from one of the book’s protagonists—Jonah, a brilliant, globe-trottingbusiness adviser whose resemblance to a real person seems unlikely to be coincidental.)

（這個定義出自書中主人公之一喬納之口，他一個才華橫溢的環球商業顧問，他與作者本人的相似之處不太像巧合）。

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Bottlenecks are often thought of as physical constraints.

瓶頸通常被認為是物理約束。

In Rogo’s factory, for example, the bottlenecks are two particular machines whose through-put must be increased in order to ship orders faster.

例如，在羅格的工廠里，瓶頸是兩臺特殊的機器，必須增加它們的吞吐量才能更快地運送訂單。

In recent years the pandemic has increased awareness of such bottlenecks in the wider supply chain, whether because of the impact of semiconductor shortages or the effect of backlogs at congested ports. 近年來，無論是由于半導體短缺的影響還是擁擠港口積壓的影響，疫情都提高了人們對更廣泛的供應鏈中此類瓶頸問題的認識。

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Policies can be bottlenecks, too. The pandemic also forced vaccine manufacturers to ditch normal patterns of working.

政策也可能導致瓶頸問題。疫情還迫使疫苗制造商放棄正常的工作模式。

In “Vaxxers”, a book about their work to develop the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 jab, Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green describe how they did more “at risk” work, doing things in parallel that would usually have been done sequentially.

在《Vaxxers》一書中，作者莎拉.吉爾伯特和凱瑟琳.格林描述了原本按順序就能進行的工作，現在得做更多的 "風險 "工作才達到相同的效果。

That would have meant wasted work if they had hit a problem, but also that scientists got stuff done much faster than usual. Bill Peach would have approved. 這意味著如果他們遇到問題，就得重做很浪費時間，也意味著科學家們要比平時更快才能完成工作。老板比爾.佩奇會同意的。

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People are also bottlenecks. Within organisations, managers themselves are frequently the points at which things get bunged up.

人也導致瓶頸問題。在組織內部，管理者本身經常是把事情搞砸的關鍵因素。

That might be because executives simply have too much to do.

這可能是因為高管們有太多的事情要處理。

Estimates vary on how many direct reports a manager should ideally have. But if they don’t all fit in a lift, you almost certainly have too many. 關于一個經理人最多該有多少個直接下屬，人們的估計不盡相同。但是，如果人數多到一個電梯裝不下，那就太多了。

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It might be their own fault—if they are micromanagers, say, offering up helpful opinions on everything from font sizes to office furniture.

這可能是他們自己的錯--如果他們是事無巨細的管理者，比如對字體大小、辦公室家具等一切事物提意見。

It might be because no one is comfortable making a decision for fear of beinghauled over the coals later by their own boss.

這可能是因為沒有人愿意做出決定，因為他們害怕以后會被自己的老板斥責。

It might be because there is jockeyingand confusion over who has the right to make a call (an “upward status disagreement”, if you like jargon; a “pissing contest”, if you don’t).

也許是因為在決策方面存在爭權奪利和混亂，不清楚誰有權做出最終決定（這種情況有時被形象地稱為“內斗”或者“權力游戲”）。

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Bottlenecks can stem from good behaviour as well as bad.

瓶頸可能源于好的行為，也可能源于壞的行為。

Collaboration is normally celebrated, but it can easily result in more delays if people’s time is being soaked up on non-essential tasks.

協作通常是值得贊揚的，但如果人們的時間都花在了非必要的任務上，很容易造成更多工作延誤。

Similarly, the person who responds to every message quickly and clears their inbox every night looks like the very opposite of a bottleneck, but that depends on two things: on what work they are not doing while they manically check their email, and on whether those messages are about trivialthings.

類似地，快速回復每條信息并每晚清理收件箱的人看起來與瓶頸截然相反，但這取決于兩件事：一是他們在瘋狂檢查電子郵件時沒做的其他工作，二是這些信息是否是關于瑣碎的事情。

If people are responding at great speed on matters of zero importance—especially if they are high up the ladder and colleagues are therefore likely to respond to them in turn—they are probably creating trouble of some sort. 如果人們以極快的速度回復一些無關緊要的事情--特別是如果他們的職位很高，因此反過來同事們也很可能快速地回復他們--他們很可能陷入某種不良循環中。

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Whatever the causes of congestion, the costs can be material.

無論瓶頸原因是什么，其代價都是巨大的。

Daniel Ek, the boss of Spotify, attributed a recent restructuring at the music-streaming company to the need to make faster decisions.

Spotify的老板丹尼爾·埃克認為，該音樂流媒體公司最近的重組原因是為了能夠更快地做決策。

Consultants at McKinsey have estimated that about 530,000 days of managers’ time each year may be wasted on broken decision-making processes at a typical Fortune 500 company. 麥肯錫的顧問估計，在一個典型的財富500強公司中，每年可能會有約53萬天的管理時間因為決策制定流程失靈而被浪費。

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“The Goal” is not the greatest thriller ever. No one dies. The only real violence done is to the English language (“It’s not until I’m busy with my delicious vealparmesan that my thoughts start to crystallise”).

《目標 》不是史上最精彩的驚悚小說。沒有人死亡。唯一真正被傷害的只是英語語言本身（"直到我吃美味的牛乳干酪時，我的思維才開始變得清晰起來"）。

But it is a lot more readable than most business books, and it makes you think about a subject that is relevant not only to supply-chain managers and operations managers but to bosses everywhere.

但它比大多數商業書籍更具可讀性，這本書引發人們思考的話題不僅與供應鏈經理和運營經理有關，而且與所有領域的老板都有關。

Bottlenecks abound. They just need to be found. 瓶頸無處不在，只要找到它們就能找到方法。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量826左右）原文出自：2023年5月20日《The Economist》Business版塊

精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene本文編輯校對: Irene僅供個人英語學習交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網絡）《The Goal》，成書于1984年，作者是大名鼎鼎的TOC（Theory of Constraints）約束理論的提出者 —— 以色列物理學家、企業管理顧問戈德拉特博士。用小說的形式講述一家工廠的廠長羅格（Rogo）如何在一位物理學家喬納（Jonah）的指導下將其起死回生的過程。主人公羅格剛開始面臨極大的挑戰，如果在三個月之內不能將其持續虧損的工廠扭虧為盈，那么就會被他老板關閉。如何有效管理一家工廠的基本框架，以及基于TOC的持續改進方法，對管理者非常有啟發意義。約束理論Theory of Constraints是企業識別并消除在實現目標過程中存在的制約因素（即約束）的管理理念和原則。以色列物理學家、企業管理顧問戈德拉特在其開創的最優生產技術基礎上發展起來。認為在一條業務鏈中，瓶頸節點的節拍決定了整條鏈的節拍，即任何一個多階段生產系統，如果其中一個階段的產出取決于前面一個或幾個階段的產出，那么產出率最低的階段決定著整個系統的生產能力。約束即阻礙企業有效擴大產出能力、降低庫存和運行成本的環節。撒尿比賽Pissing contest（無意義的競爭，自我滿足的競爭）是一個俚語，通常用于形容兩個或更多的人之間的競爭，這種競爭是無意義的、愚蠢的和自我滿足的，通常涉及到展示權力、地位或優越性等方面。這個詞匯的字面意思是“撒尿比賽”，強調了某些競爭可能變得幼稚和可笑。【重點句子】（3個）Policies can be bottlenecks, too. The pandemic also forced vaccine manufacturers to ditch normal patterns of working.政策也可以導致瓶頸問題。疫情還迫使疫苗制造商放棄正常的工作模式。People are also bottlenecks. Within organisations, managers themselves are frequently the points at which things get bunged up.人也導致瓶頸問題。在組織內部，管理者本身經常是把事情搞砸的關鍵因素。Bottlenecks can stem from good behaviour as well as bad.瓶頸問題可能源于好的行為，也可能源于壞的行為。

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