Lincolnandleadership林肯和领导能力.docx

Lincoln and leadership 林肯和领导能力Outsiders can make the best leadersand also the worst局外人既可以成为最好的领导，也可能变成最糟的领导IN MAY 1860 the Republican National Convention met in Chicago, in the teeth of the worst crisis since the revolution, to choose a presidential candidateor, rather, a president, since the Democratic Party had split asunder. The candidates included two of the most experienced politicians in AmericaWilliam Seward and Salmon Chasebut the delegates bet instead on a one-term congressman who had failed to win a Senate seat for his native state, Illinois, and who suffered from debilitating depressions.1860年五月共和党全国党代大会在芝加哥召开，当时美国正面临独立革命以来最可怕的危机。该党代会旨在选出一位总统候选人。由于当时民主党已经完全分裂成两派注1，这次党代会推选出来的候选人很有可能会当选总统。会上的提名名单中包括两位当时美国资历最深的政治家威廉塞沃德（William Seward）和萨尔蒙蔡斯（Salmon Chase）但党代表们最终把希望押在了一位众议员身上。他在众议院内只呆过一届，在他老家伊利诺伊州的参议院竞选中曾经败下阵来，而且患有非常严重的忧郁症。Abraham Lincoln now regularly tops historians lists of the greatest American presidents. But he owes his greatness partly to the fact that he was an outsider on whom no sensible man would have bet. He made a series of bold movessuch as sending ships to supply Fort Sumter, thereby forcing the South to fire the first shot of the civil warthat his more experienced rivals might not have made. And he gave a series of nation-defining speeches that nobody else in the country could have delivered.他就是亚伯拉罕林肯（Abraham Lincoln），现在常被历史学家视为美国历史上最伟大的总统。但他的伟大有部份原因在于他是个局外人，任何有理智的人本都不会在他身上押注。他做出了一系列非常大胆的行动，如果换上他在初选中那些政治经验更丰富的对手当任也许就不会那么做，例如他派船队向萨姆特堡运送物资，从而迫使南方打响南北战争的第一枪注2。而且他进行了一系列划时代的演讲，确立了今天我们所知的美国，当时美国除他之外无人可以做到这一点。It is no surprise that the leadership-cum-management industry has embraced the outsized figure of Lincoln. Donald Phillipss study, “Lincoln on Leadership”, bears the subtitle “Executive Strategies for Tough Times”. Nor is it surprising that Steven Spielbergs film, “Lincoln”, is boosting the lessons-from-Lincoln trade. Executives are once again practising the Gettysburg address before their mirrors and reading the book that gave Mr Spielberg his inspiration, Doris Kearns Goodwins “Team of Rivals”.因此领导及管理行业推崇林肯这位重要人物也就不足为奇了。唐纳德菲利普斯（Donald Phillips）的著作林肯论领导能力的副标题就是“困难时期的执行战略”。同样的，斯蒂芬斯皮尔伯格（Steven Spielberg）执导的电影林肯进一步增进了“学习林肯”行业的生意兴隆。执行总裁们再一次开始在镜子面前练习葛底斯堡演讲，并阅读斯皮尔伯格那部电影的灵感来源多利斯科恩斯古德温（Doris Kearns Goodwin）所著的政敌团队。Most of this is nonsense. Mr Phillips uses Lincoln to illustrate well-worn nostrums such as the virtues of managing by walking around (Lincoln spent a lot of time walking around battlefields). Ms Goodwins advice about “teams of rivals” would produce havoc in the average corporation. Any boss who imitated Mr Spielbergs Lincoln and roared that he was “clothed in immense power” would soon find himself out of a job. “Towering genius disdains a beaten path,” Lincoln once said, which limits what can be learned from his example.这些风潮大多是胡闹。菲利普斯利用林肯来阐述一些毫无新意的管理方式，如走动式管理（林肯在战场上花大量时间四处走动巡视）。古德温在政敌团队中提出的建议用在普通公司内会引起一片大乱。要是有哪位老板效仿斯皮尔伯格电影里的林肯，大声叫嚣自己“身披权力的大氅”，那他很快就得拍屁股走人了。林肯自己曾说过：“天纵之才不屑踏足熟悉的道路”，这就意味着别人从他身上能学到的东西其实有限。But not all Lincolnology is tosh. In his new book, “Indispensable”, Gautam Mukunda, of Harvard Business School, uses Lincoln to examine one of the liveliest debates in modern managementwhether insiders or outsiders make better bosses. Before the financial crisis the consensus was strongly in favour of insiders. But it is shifting, partly because so many insiders made a hash of things and partly because companies are casting around for a way to reignite growth. In an annual study of 2,500 companies Booz & Company, a consultancy, calculates that the proportion of chief-executive posts going to outsiders rose from 14% in 2007 to 22% in 2011. In Europe the share went from 14% to 31%. On November 26th Britain broke with precedent by appointing a Canadian, Mark Carney, to run the Bank of England.但“林肯学”并非一无是处。哈佛商学院的古塔姆穆昆达（Gautam Mukunda）所著的新书不可或缺里就用林肯作为例子，讨论了现代管理学里最激烈的辩论之一到底局内人还是局外人当老板更好？在金融危机之前业界的普遍看法强烈支持局内人。但这种看法现在已经开始转变，这一方面是因为很多局内人把公司管得一团糟，另一方面是因为很多公司现在正急于寻找重新让公司业务增长的方法。博斯咨询公司每年都会调查2500家公司，根据他们的计算，首席执行官交给公司外部人士接任的比例从2007年的14%上升到2011年的22%。在欧洲该比例更是从14%上跳到31%。11月26日英国打破先例，委任加拿大人马克卡尼（Mark Carney）出任英格兰银行行长。The better angels of our nature我们天性中善的一面Mr Mukunda divides leaders into two types, “filtered” and “unfiltered”. The filtered are known quantities: insiders who have been subjected to a succession of tests designed to reveal their strengths and weaknesses. The unfiltered are enigmas: outsiders like Lincoln who have never been tested by high office; insiders like Winston Churchill who have fallen out of favour; or transplants like Mr Carney who have made their reputations in alien organisations. Filtered leaders tend to make little difference: the other insiders on the shortlist might have done just as well. But unfiltered leaders can make a huge difference, sometimes for the better as Lincoln and Churchill did, but more often for the worse.穆昆达将领导分为两类：“滤后领导”和“未滤领导”。“滤后领导”为众人所熟知：他们是局内人，经历过一系列旨在曝露其优缺点的继任测验。“未滤领导”则如同一个迷团：他们有的像林肯一样是局外人，从未在高级职务上经过考验；有的和温斯顿丘吉尔（Winston Churchill）一样是一度失宠的局内人注3；有的则和卡尼一样是在其它机构打出自己名声的外来者。“滤后领导”选谁其实无关紧要，候选人中任何一个上任都会干得差不多。而“未滤领导”的选择则至关重要，偶尔你可能会碰到像林肯或是丘吉尔那样的人才，但把局面搞得更糟的例子其实更为常见。Another recent book from the HBS stable, William Thorndikes “The Outsiders”, reinforces Mr Mukundas argument about the possible advantages of unfiltered leaders. Mr Thorndike examines eight bosses whose firms outperformed the S&P average by more than 20 times over their business careers and finds that they were all outsiders who brought fresh perspectives to their industries. Katharine Graham of the Washington Post was a widow who had not had a paid job for years, Bill Anders (General Dynamics) was a former astronaut, Tom Murphy (Capital Cities) had never worked in the media before he took over a struggling television station and Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) is Warren Buffett.同样来自哈佛商学院的威廉姆索恩戴克（William Thorndike）最近也有一本新书出版。局外人进一步对穆昆达关于“未滤领导”可能存在优势的论据进行了补充。索恩戴克列出8所在某一总裁治理期间业绩表现超出标准普尔平均值20倍的公司。他发现所有8位总裁都是为自己行业带来崭新视点的局外人。华盛顿邮报的总编凯瑟琳格拉哈姆（Katharine Graham）上任时是一位已经多年没有正式工作的遗孀。通用动力公司的总裁比尔安德斯（Bill Anders）之前是宇航员。首都通讯公司的总裁汤姆墨菲（Tom Murphy）在临危受命于该电视台之前从未在媒体业干过。而伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的老板华伦巴菲特（Warren Buffet）嘛你懂的，他是华伦巴菲特。But for every successful outsider there are a dozen failures: think of Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard, John Sculley at Apple, Bob Nardelli at Home Depot, Richard Thoman at Xerox or Jeff Skilling at Enron. Al Dunlap leapt from company to company, cutting jobs and boosting short-term profits as he went, until the Securities and Exchange Commission forced him to put his chainsaw away. Booz points out that in 2009-11 34.9% of outside bosses were sacked, compared with only 18.5% of insiders.但每一个成功的局外人故事都对应着十几个失败的故事：想想惠普的卡莉菲奥丽娜（Carly Fiorina），苹果的约翰斯卡利（John Sculley），家得宝的鲍勃纳尔得利（Bob Nardelli），施乐的理查德索曼（Richard Thoman），还有安然的杰夫斯其林（Jeff Skilling）。阿尔邓洛普（Al Dunlap）注4从一间公司跳到另一间，每到一间公司就大肆裁员，推高短期利润。最后美国证券交易委员会勒令他停止使用其重组伎俩。博斯公司的数据显示2009至2011年间共有34.9%的局外人总裁被解职，而局内人总裁中这个比例只有18.5%。This suggests that it is best to avoid outsiders if things are humming along fine. It is much easier to go from good to bad than it is to go from good to great. But if things have stopped hummingif your company is in crisis, like General Motors, or your industry is being reshaped, like telecomsthen you should look for an outsider. The standard method is to choose a star from another organisation, but many turn out to be duds. One alternative is to appoint an “insider-outsider”, such as a high flyer who has left to do something else. Tony Hall, appointed to the BBCs top job to replace a man ousted after 54 days in the post, fits that bill: he was a BBC man who left the corporation to run the Royal Opera House. Another option is to draft in someone to do a senior job for a while before deciding whether to give him the top slot. Mr Mukunda suggests that you take informal soundings from any prospective hires colleagues rather than rely on formal interviews. The reason why companies tend to bet on insiders is not that they think they might be “clothed in immense power” but that they know what they look like in their underwear.这意味着如果业务一帆风顺，最好还是避免雇用局外人总裁。把好摊子搞砸要比更上一层楼容易得多。但如果局面已经开始失衡，如你的公司和通用汽车那样正身处险境，或是你所在的行业像电信业那样面临翻天覆地的变化，那么你应该找一位局外人总裁。寻找局外人的标准方法