【英文书短读】Good to Great (10)

【英文书短读】Good to Great (10)

“First who” is a very simple idea to grasp, and a very difficult idea to do and most don’t do it well. It’s easy to talk about paying attention to people decisions, but how many executives have the discipline of David Maxwell, who held off on developing a strategy until he got the right people in place, while the company was losing $1 million every single business day with $56 billion of loans  underwater? When Maxwell became CEO of Fannie Mae during its darkest days, the board desperately wanted to know how he was going  to  rescue  the  company. Despite the immense pressure to act, to do something dramatic, to seize the wheel and start driving, Maxwell focused first on getting the right people on the Fannie Mae management team. His first act was to interview all the officers. He sat them down and said, “Look, this  is  going  to  be  a  very hard challenge. I want you to think  about  how demanding this is going to be. If you don’t think you’re going to like it, that’s fine. Nobody’s going to hate you.” 

Maxwell made it absolutely clear that there would only be seats for A players who were going to put forth an A+ effort, and if you weren’t up for it, you had better get off the bus, and get off now. One executive who had just uprooted his life and career to join Fannie Mae came to Maxwell and said, “I listened to you very carefully, and I don’t want to do this.” He left and went back to where he came from. In all, fourteen of twenty-six executives left the company, replaced by some of the best, smartest, and hardest-working executives in the entire world of finance. The same standard applied up and down the Fannie Mae ranks as managers at every level increased the caliber of their teams and put immense peer pressure upon each other, creating high turnover at first, when some people just didn’t pan out. “We had a saying, ‘You can’t fake it at Fannie Mae,’ ” said one executive team member. “Either you knew your stuff or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you’d just blow out of here.”

Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae both illustrate the idea that “who” questions come before “what” questions—before vision, before strategy, before tactics, before organizational structure, before technology. Dick Cooley and David Maxwell both exemplified a classic Level 5 style when they said, “I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.”

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

“首先是人选”是个“知易行难”的问题，想要做好更是难上加难。要重视人事决定，往往是说起来容易做起来难。很少有人有大卫·麦克斯韦那么好的克制力，在没有得到合适的人才之前，就绝口不提公司发展问题。要知道，当时公司每个营业日的损失是100万美元，要还的债务更是有560亿美元之巨。麦克斯韦在联邦国民抵押协会最为困难的时期担任CEO，董事们都迫切想知道他有什么高招，可以救公司于水深火热之中。面对强大的压力，以及要求采取措施，赶快运作起来的呼声欲高，麦克斯韦还是首先把精力放在组建一支高水准的领导队伍上。他的第一举措是与所有的中层管理者谈心，他让他们坐下，并推心置腹道：“瞧，这将是一个非常严峻的挑战。我希望你们可以认真考虑一下，将面临的工作要求有多高。如果你确定自己不喜欢这个样子，这没有什么。没有人会恨你。”

麦克斯韦明确传达了自己的意思，只有愿意全力以赴的优秀球员才会有一席之地。如果能力有限，无法胜任，最好是及早走人，而且是越快越好。一位新近跳槽到公司的主管找到麦克斯韦，表达了自己的想法：“我仔细考虑了你那番谈话，我觉得我不适合这份工作。”就这样，他离开了，从哪儿来回到哪儿去。最后，26个主管中有14个人离开了，但随即就由整个金融界中最为精明、能干和勤奋的一群主管补缺。同样的标准被运用于全公司，自上而下来了一次全方位的调整。一位主管说：“我们流行这样的说法，在联邦国民抵押协会，你根本没法弄虚作假。要么知道自己在干什么，要么不知道。不知道的话就趁早离开。”

富国银行与联邦国民抵押协会的例子都体现了“谁”的问题要高于“什么”的问题，即那些远景、战略、战术、组织结构和技术问题。迪克·库利和大卫·麦克斯韦都提到了第5级领导管理模式，他们说：“我不知道将会把公司带到何方，但我知道只要以合适的人才为起点，通过问他们一些正确的问题和让他们进行热烈的讨论，我们完全可以找到一条令公司繁荣昌盛的道路。”