全新主题大学的英语读写译教程4-5.docVIP

Book 4 Unit 5 Key to Success Section A Pre-reading Questions 1. What is BMW known for? 2. What does the initial letters “BMW” stand for? 3. Do you like BMW cars and what characteristics do BMW cars have? BMW stands for top quality cars. Its continuing success is certainly attributable to its “top quality” management which seems to be running on the verge of chaos a lot of times. The Secret of BMW’s Success 1 At 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, when most German workers have long departed for the weekend, the mini-cafés sprinkled throughout BMW’s sprawling RD center in Munich are jammed with engineers, designers, and marketing managers deliberating so intently that it’s hard to hear above the din. Even the cappuccino machine is running on empty. It’s an atmosphere far more Silicon Valley than Detroit. 2 “At lunch and breaks everyone is discussing ideas and projects all the time. It’s somewhat manic. But it makes things move faster,” says BMW chief designer Adrian van Hooydonk. 3 The intense employee buzz at BMW is hot management theory in action. Top consultants and academics say the kind of informal networks that flourish at BMW and the noise and borderline chaos they engender in big organizations are vital for innovation — especially in companies where knowledge sits in the brains of tens of thousands of workers and not in a computer server. Melding that brain power, they say, is essential to unleashing the best ideas. 4 Hands Across Divisions? 5 “Cross-functional teams look messy and inefficient, but they are more effective at problem solving,” says James M. Manyika, a partner at McKinsey Co. in San Francisco who has studied the effectiveness of such networks. Companies such as BMW that leverage workers’ tacit knowledge through such networks “are widely ahead of their competitors,” Manyika adds. 6 BMW is one of a handful of global companies including Nokia (NOK) and Raytheon (RTN) that have turned to networks to manage day-to-day o