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专栏 - 财富书签

电信大亨通往成功的桥梁

《财富》 2011年09月07日

《财富》书签(Weekly Read)专栏专门刊载《财富》杂志(Fortune)编辑团队的书评,解读商界及其他领域的新书。我们每周都会选登一篇新的评论。
本周,《财富》记者塔拉•摩尔带来了《改变你的命运》( You Can Get There From Here)的书评,本书是科瓦德通信公司(Covad)前任CEO鲍勃•诺林的回忆录,讲述了自己从困苦的童年一路走向电信业巅峰的传奇历程。

    

    很多商业类书籍都标榜揭示了个人和职业的成功诀窍。然而,事实上这些书给出的建议往往只是泛泛之词,或者陈腔滥调。现在鲍勃•诺林也出书了,他是一名电信业宿将,曾领导过科瓦德通讯(Covad Communications)、Simdesk科技(Simdesk Technologies)等美国通信巨头,并见证了互联网的泡沫和破灭。

    诺林在美国中西部一个非裔家庭长大,家庭成员众多,但经济状况却捉襟见肘,生活窘迫。虽然成长历程艰辛,但经历了一系列痛苦的蜕变之后,他终于成功登上全球电信领域的巅峰。鲍勃•诺林的这本回忆录《从谷底到巅峰》(You Can Get There From Here)可谓引人入胜,充满感召力。

    诺林不是读者心目中典型的公司领袖——他并非名门之后,也不是拜金主义者。他给出的职业建议非常简单:“一切成功源自于对事业的热爱。”一言蔽之,他给人的印象是兼具信仰与美德,同时又具有卓越的领导才干。这年头,美国企业界像诺林这样德才兼备的人物并不多见。

    诺林攀上顶峰的旅途充满了磨难,尤其甚至包括种族歧视。书中写道,曾经有一位小学校长用戒尺抽打诺林的后背,让他足足挨了三十分钟的“板子”,而原因却是这位校长觉得诺林的行为“让他更加坚信允许黑人孩子与白人孩子共校是大错特错。”出人意料的是,诺林对此并未表现出任何怨怒与仇恨,他只是淡淡地说,经历了这些苦难,之后商场中的挫折对他来说就像“小儿科”。

    归结起来,这本回忆录让读者和诺林一道重新思考道德和价值观的话题,怀念曾经影响他人生中重要决策的人物。他在书中谈到个人经历与职业生涯时,反复用到了“搭建桥梁”这个比喻。谈到人生目标,他在书中写道:“我愿将勇于改变的信心洒向世界……告诉愿意和我共同进步的人们:努力工作,诚实为人,善待他人不止是口号,更是一种伟大的生活方式。”

    翻译:富来细特/刘进龙

    Many business books claim to offer the keys to personal and professional success. All too often, these promises yield little but generic advice and platitudes. Then there's Bob Knowling, a veteran telecom CEO who ran Covad Communications, Simdesk Technologies, and other big industry players, both during the Internet bubble and after its collapse.

    Knowling grew up in the Midwest, in a large African-American family that had little money and plenty of dysfunction. From this unpromising beginning, he climbed to the top of the global telecom industry during a period of wrenching change. His memoir, You Can Get There From Here, is an engrossing and often inspiring read.

    Knowling isn't your typical corporate chieftain. He wasn't born on third base, and he doesn't appear to have been motivated by money. His career advice is very simple: "The will to win must be at the heart of your career." Overall, he comes across as a man of faith and morality with a knack for effective leadership. That's a rare combination in corporate America these days.

    The journey was riddled with hardships, including racial injustice. Knowling recalls an elementary school principal paddling him across the back for 30 minutes because the child's behavior "reinforced his belief that it was wrong to have black children in school with white children." Yet Knowling seems impressively free of hatred or the desire for vengeance, merely noting that his difficult personal life made business challenges seem like "child's play."

    In the end, Knowling's memoir is a meditation on morality, values and the many people who influenced his decisions along the way. He repeatedly uses the metaphor of bridge-building in talking about his personal and professional life. His goal, he writes, was to "spread the message of transformation around the world … tell people who looked up to me that hard work, honesty, and treating people well was more than just a slogan. It was a way of life."

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