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托马斯库集团CEO:失败让我无所畏惧

托马斯库集团CEO:失败让我无所畏惧

Colleen Leahey 2013年07月03日
她11岁时,父亲被诊断出脑瘤,到了她14岁那年,父亲去世。正是这段经历养成了她无所畏惧的强大心灵。她说,职业生涯最坏的结果不过是失败,而这跟生死比起来简直不值一提。凭着这股大无畏的勇气,她成功地扭转了托马斯-库克集团濒临破产的命运。她是财富最具影响力商界女性哈莉特•格林。

    她确实经历过失败。历史系毕业的她表示,她犯过的错误帮助她形成了如今的策略。格林记录下自己的整个职业生涯(她的工作安排都是电子格式,但她会在Molskine笔记本上用笔记录下自己的想法和经验),而且经常会引用自己记录的想法。她对自己为托马斯-库克制定的愿景充满信心,原因正在于这些笔记本,以及其中包含的许多案例研究。格林痴迷于科技——她最近批准与旅游探索平台Triporati合作成立一家合资公司——源于她在担任艾睿电子北欧业务高级副总裁期间错过的一次机会。瞬息万变的市场放缓了她的脚步:她支持了错误的流程控制环境和以太网解决方案,结果浪费了大量时间。“不能没有抱负。在那种环境中,不能错过技术变革。”

    在撒哈拉以南非洲并购那四家公司的时候,她也曾遇到困难。她当时决定将四家公司集中到一个地方,而且在同一天就启动了新电脑系统,确定了商标。但来自员工的压力还是多多少少对业务集中造成了一些负面影响。她解释道:“有时候我在想,作为一名负责变革的CEO,你会以为所有人都会承受相同的压力,以相同的步调,拿出相同的精力来工作。”在托马斯-库克,她很清楚组织能力的限制,并以一种更温和的方式对待他们。“你要记录(自己的失败),回过头来认真思考总结。”

    格林把托马斯-库克看作是自己的患者:她先从心理学着手——员工、银行、客户是怎么样的感觉,然后转移到生理学——公司的神经末梢、血液流和系统进程。只有这些领域有所改善之后,再去看解剖学——即公司的组织结构。不过,格林依然担心托马斯-库克可能走回原先的老路。她说:“有一项惊人的统计发现,许多处在癌症缓解期的患者,会恢复到原先的饮食和行为方式。如果我们沾沾自喜,永远不可能达到我为这家公司设想的目标。”

    五月的那个晚上,托马斯-库克获得投资之后,员工们去酒吧庆祝;格林回到办公桌前,精心编写了一篇笔记,其中写着公司需要做的其他事情。她宣布:“在未来20天、40天、60天,令人兴奋的是没有人可以放松。我的灵魂里没有哪怕是一丝‘满足’的想法。”

    现在,格林的主要工作是实现当初对银行做出的所有承诺。在托马斯-库克再融资期间,银行进行了投资。格林准备采用一切手段来实现这些承诺。“当你在为扭转一家公司的颓势而努力时,必须让自己相信:只有死去,才可以休息。”(财富中文网)

    译者:刘进龙/汪皓

    And fail she has. The former history student says that her mistakes have shaped her current strategies. Green documents her entire career (her to-do lists are always electronic, but she pens her thoughts and experiences in Molskine books) and often refers to her extensive collection. She's confident in her vision for Thomas Cook because of those books and the many case studies they contain. Green's obsession with technology – she recently approved a joint venture with travel discovery platform Triporati – springs from a missed opportunity while she was senior vice president of Arrow's Northern Europe business. The changing market slowed her pace: she backed the wrong process control environment and ethernet solution, wasting a considerable amount of time. "Don't be unambitious. Don't miss technology changes in that environment."

    Green also struggled while bringing together those four sub-Saharan African companies. She decided to move them to a new singular location, and also launch a new computer system and branded name all on the same day. Employee stress shadowed any sort of focused momentum. "I think sometimes when you're a transforming CEO, you think everyone can work with the same pace and energy and stress," she explains. At Thomas Cook, she understands the limits of the organizations' abilities and has treated them with a gentler hand. "You have to record [your failures] and go back and think about them."

    Green thinks of Thomas Cook as her patient: she's worked on the psychology – how are employees, bankers, customers feeling – then moved to the physiology – the company's nerve endings, blood flows, and systems processes. Only after those areas improve can you look at the anatomy – the organizational structure – Green says. And even still, Green worries Thomas Cook could revert to its old way. "There is a staggering statistic about the number of people in remission from cancer who go back to their old way of eating and behaving," she says. "If we get complacent, we'll never get to what I think this company can do."

    After the May night Thomas Cook raised new capital, the employees went to the pub to celebrate; Green returned to her desk and crafted a note of all the additional things the company needed to do. "What is so exciting about the next 20 and 40 and 60 days is no one can relax," she declares. "I don't have a thread of complacency in my soul."

    Now focused on delivering all the promises that hooked the bankers who bought into Thomas Cook's refinancing round, Green's prepared to do whatever it takes. "When you're doing a turnaround, you have to believe you can sleep when you're dead."

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