【英文书短读】Good to Great (4)

【英文书短读】Good to Great (4)

奇文：在Smith 任职后，公司从原来股票跌至低于市场水平的36%，到后来股票累计收益是市场平均的4.1倍。一举击败直接竞争对手斯科特纸业和宝洁公司。任职20年期间，从事真正实现了从优秀到卓越的跨越。但是，你去下面读他的行为和表现，读的我挺感动的。什么样的管理风格能让你成功呢？什么样的处事方式能让你变优秀呢？什么样的生活能让你更幸福呢？我想只有一个答案，那就是简单、努力和诚实坚定的做真正喜欢的自己。

It was an impressive performance, one of the best examples in the twentieth century of taking a good company and making it great. Yet few people - even ardent students of management and corporate history - know anything about Darwin Smith. He probably would have liked it that way. A man who carried no airs of self-importance, smith found his favorite companionship among plumbers and electricians and spent his vacations rumbling around his Wisconsin farm in the cab of a backhoe, digging holes, and moving rocks. He never cultivated hero status on executive celebrity status. When a journalist asked him to describes management style, Smith, dressed unfashionably like a farm boy wearing his first suit bought at J. C. Penney, just stared back from the other side of his nerdy-looking black-rimmed glasses. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he said simply: "Eccentric." The Wall Street Journal did not write a splashy feature on Darwin Smith. 

But if you were to think of Darwin Smith as somehow meek or soft, you would be terribly mistaken. His awkward shyness and lack of pretense was coupled with a fierce, even stoic, resolve toward life. Smith grew up as poor Indiana farm-town boy, putting himself through college by working the day shift at International Harvester and attending Indiana University at night. One day, he lost part of a finger on the job. The story goes that he went to class that evening and returned to work the next day. while that might be a bit of an exaggeration, he clearly did not let a lost finger slow down his progress toward graduation. He kept working full-time, he kept going to class at night, and he earned admission to Harvard Law School. Later in life, two months after becoming CEO, doctors diagnosed Smith with nose and throat cancer, predicting he had less than a year to live. He informed the board but made it clear that he was not dead yet and had no plans to die anytime soon. Smith held fully to his demanding work schedule while commuting weekly from Wisconsin to Houston for radiation therapy and lived twenty-five more years, most of them as CEO. 

― Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

这是一个令人钦佩的业绩，是20世纪实现从优秀到卓越跨越的最佳范例之一。但即便是这样，也很少有人——包括学管理和公司历史专业最勤奋的学生——知道史密斯的任何事情。也许他倒乐于这样：史密斯不是一个妄自尊大的人，他喜欢与管道工、电工们结伴。他的假期都是在威斯康星州的农场上度过的：驾驶一辆锄耕机轰隆隆地绕着农场转，挖坑，搬石头。他从不将自己塑造成一个英雄或知名企业家的形象。当一名记者问及他的管理风格时，他只是透过那笨拙的黑框眼镜盯着那名记者。他当时的穿着就如一个农场男孩第一次穿上从J·C·潘尼服装店买来的西服一样不自在。在一段漫长、拘束的沉默之后，他仅仅说道：“特立独行。”《华尔街日报》也没有为史密斯写过任何引人注目的专访。

但如果你就此认为达尔文·史密斯就是个温顺的人，那就大错特错了。他于笨拙害羞和不事做作中流露出一种强烈的、决不向命运低头的决心。史密斯从小在印第安纳州的一个农场上长大，家境贫寒，因此他半工半读念完大学：白天在国际收获者农场（International Harvester）打工，晚上在印第安纳大学上课。一天，他在工作中失去了一个手指。据说他那天晚上去上了课，第二天照样工作。虽然这可能有些夸张，但他确实没有因为失去一个手指而放慢毕业的进度。他依然白天工作，晚上上课，并获准进入哈佛法学院。后来，在他成为首席执行官两个月后，医生诊断出他患有鼻咽癌，并预言他活不过一年。他将病情告知了董事会，同时声明他还没死，也不准备马上死。史密斯依然坚持完成满满排在日程上的工作，同时每星期往返于威斯康星和休斯敦之间接受放疗。结果，他多活了25年，而且大部分时间担任首席执行官。