Somewhere today, a group of staff from General Motors will meet as part of the "Go-Fast" programme, and hammer out a new initiative to cut costs and bureaucracy. They may focus only on wiper-blades, or staff appraisal, or showroom design. But by this afternoon, there should be an outline savings plan, which will,when implemented, be measured carefully for signs of success. The aim is to transform GM from a lumbering leviathan into the corporate equivalent of a sports car. The intention is not just to be big-GM is one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world-but to be fast, particularly in its responsiveness to the market. The success of the programme is reflected in the large number of suggestions being introduced-far more than in the old days, when every change had to come from senior managers focusing on the "big picture".

今天，通用汽车的一群员工在某个地方，将作为“快速计划”的一部分，敲定一项新的消减成本和消除官僚作风的新措施。他们可能只关注雨刮器的设计，员工评估，或展示厅的设计。但到今天下午，应该会有一个节流计划的大纲，在实施时，将仔细衡量是否成功。他们的目标是把通用汽车公司从一个庞然大物的公司转变成一个如同运动跑车型（速度迅速）的公司，通用汽车的目标不仅仅是做大-通用公司已经是世界上最大的汽车生产商，-而要快速，特别是它对市场的反应。这个计划的成功反映了大量的建议被引入，远远超过过去，那时候的每项变化都来自于专注“大局的”高级管理人员。

The progress made has transformed investor perceptions of GM. Before the Go-Fast programme was introduced, the conventional wisdom was that GM's market share was in permanent free fall and its organisation incapable of doing anything about it. Now, the decline has been turned around, and the senior managers' change of approach has led to the company being energised with a winning spirit that has unlocked long-dormant capabilities. That it took a firm of consultants to help devise the programme is perhaps a sad reflection of the danger of corporate thinking becoming inflexible.

取得的进展改变了投资者对通用汽车的看法。在"快速"计划引入之前，传统的看法是通用汽车的市场份额处于永久性的自由下跌中，并且公司对此无能为力。现在，下降的趋势已经被扭转，同时高级管理人员的方法导致了公司变得充满胜利的精神， 这种精神激发了长期潜藏的能力。这样花了很多咨询公司来设计这样的计划也许是一种悲哀的反应，它反映了企业思维变得僵化的危险。

The shareholders's support of GM's strategy to become more outward-looking and innovative is something of a luxury, though in the long run sucess would convince even the most sceptical shareholders. The strategy includes bearing down on costs and extracting maximum synergies from GM's numerous alliance partners, such as its tooling suppliers, and exchanging ideas and management tools with other corporations of widely differing sizes,sectors and nationalities. Having such input is one thing, but its value would be undermined without a coherent mechanism to put ideas into practice,and this is where the consultants proved invaluable.

股东对通用汽车向外拓展和创新的战略支持是一种奢侈，尽管从长远来看，成功甚至能说服最持有怀疑态度的股东。这一战略包含了降低成本，从通用汽车众多的合作伙伴种获得最大的协同效应，比如工具供应商，并与其他规模，行业和不同国籍的公司交换想法和管理工具。有这样的投入是一回事，但如果没有一个将想法付诸实践的连贯机制，其价值将会收到损害，而这正是顾问证明是无价的地方。

In the car industry, however, there was plenty of scepticism about the programme when it was first announced, with many convinced that only much smaller organisations stood a reasonable chance of making such a transformation, particularly when it involved changes to the company culture. Surprisingly, perhaps, this fear was not shared by the consultants who helped senior management to design the programme and ,crucially, effect a change in leadership skills;rather, they were more concerned about the impact that pockets of opposition within GM might have.

然而，在汽车行业，当该计划首次宣布时，人们对它充满了怀疑。许多人相信只有小规模的公司才有合理的机会进行这样的改变，特别是当它涉及到改变公司的企业文化时候。出人意料的是，帮助高级管理层设计项目，并至关重要的影响领导技能的顾问并没有这种担忧。相反，他们更关心通用汽车内部的一些反对意见可能产生的影响。

The results of the scheme so far give rise to cautious optimism. No aspect of GM's work can hide from scrutiny, and initial fears of a lack of "joined-up thinking" about the impact of one change on other areas soon dissipated, as the " leadership panels" responsible for approving and implementing changes took a broader view. But while internal management has improved dramatically, many analysts are sceptical that the initiatives can outweigh GM's mountainous pension obligations. The company is still suffering the effects of poor decisions in the past, such as the choice of certain alliance partnerships, and a major change of strategy might be necessary to recover from these. If this were to take place, the company's core car manufacturing would need to be much more firmly rooted than it is at present, to ensure it didn't suffer from lack of focus. However, the architects of the scheme are confident that GM will be far more outward-looking and innovative in the near future.

迄今为止，该计划的结果引起了谨慎的乐观。通用汽车的工作中没有任何一个可以躲避审查，随着负责批准实施变革的领导小组从更广阔的视角出发，人们对最初对一项变革对其他领域影响缺乏整体思考的担忧很快就消散了。但是，尽管内部管理已经显著改善，但许多分析人员怀疑，这些举措能否抵消通用汽车堆积入山的养老金义务。公司仍然在遭受过去糟糕决策的影响，比如说对选择某些合作伙伴的关系，并可能需要对战略做重大的改变才能从中恢复过来。如果要做到这一点，公司的核心汽车制造将需要比目前更加稳固，用来确保他不会因为关注而损失。然而，该计划的设计者相信，通用汽车在不久的将来更加的外向和创新。