Thomas D. Gorman: Ok.
Jim Collins: But, then you couldn't explain Gordon Moore of Intel, right? And you couldn't explain, Bill Gates and you couldn't explain David Packard, you couldn't explain, Akio Morita of Sony. These are people who were entrepreneurs, who then became company builders.
So my first point that really relates to your question is, we'll get to the succession piece in a moment, but the first task for those that are young, for those that are building a company, for those that are entrepreneurial, first thing they need to do is to make the shift, to say, I am shifting from being an entrepreneur into being a company builder, and the greatest ones do that.
They make that shift from what Jerry Porras and I called the difference between the time teller and the clock builder, right? And that's a conscious shift, it's not a temperament, it's a decision.
You look at Sam Walton, he was an entrepreneur, he started with a single dime store and over the course of his very long career, he was meeting on his deathbed with store managers at the very end. He spent his whole life doing this but, he became a company builder, and like he'd like to say, "I have the personality of a promoter, but I have the soul of an operator."
And so he really had that clock building trait and then he eventually, he became a company builder, so you have the entrepreneur, who gets this great machine going. So, Sam Walton, does that, but then he doesn't stop, he goes on and himself becomes a company builder.
Grows it to, at that time, somewhere on the order of 30 or 40 billion dollars in revenues. But the whole time he's also worried about the next generation, because he knows he won't be there forever. He's watching people from within and he's starting to identify, a few people, not all of them proved to be the ones to succeed. And then he made a very smooth handoff, to David Glass.
And David Glass, was a very different package, back to that thing: it's not the personality, right? If you looked at David Glass, who was almost the "anti-Sam" on the outside. But on the inside they were very similar. Very different person, I think what Sam was doing, was deliberately demonstrating that the success of the company wasn't a personality. It was somebody who could build and lead a company, which may come in multiple packages.
How do you prove that?
You give the company to David Glass. Very smooth transition and what happened? Then we look at Wal-Mart today and it is, what? Almost four hundred billion dollars in revenues. When Sam, who is one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American business history, died, it was less than a hundred billion.
So it just keeps right on going, why?
Because he did really great succession planning, he went from entrepreneur to company builder, to somebody who passed the company on to someone else.
He started worrying about that, not months before, not years before, but decades before. Because he was building a company and he wanted it to be successful beyond him.
So the answer is, it's absolutely essential and I would point to two things about it.
The first is, that your report card as a company builder, or an entrepreneur, or as a CEO, doesn't come in until your successor succeeds. You don't get to say, your report card is in when you're done. So if you haven't set up your successor, like Sam did, then if your successor fails, you have failed.
This is a very important point. If your successor fails, you have failed. And so, if you come at it as if, I don't want to fail, so therefore, I have got to figure out who to pick, and then what I need to do, is set them up to be successful, rather than to set them up to fail.
Now, how do you do this? How do you start preparing for this? And there are a couple of things that I would point to.
We're going to come to this a little bit later.
But, succession planning is probably 20% of the equation; the other 80% is just a relentless nonstop effort to continue to fill your key seats with great people. Because ultimately what you have to have, are a pool of people who you have empirically tested.
Why was Lou Gerstner able to pass it on to Palmisano? Why was Sam Walton able to pass it on to David Glass? Why was Anne Mulcahy able to pass it on to Ursula Burns? Because they had someone in place that they had seen, they had watched, they had worked with, they had been empirically tested, validated, they knew how they would work. And so when they passed off to that person, it was a proven quantity.
Well, you have to have the people in the company to be the proven quantities. Then your problem is, I've got five great people. Question is, which one am going to pick?
To what extent in those examples that you cite that there was a successful or phenomenally successful transition. To what extent was the process transparent at some stage? Or, was it pretty much-closed loop in that the company builder had to just figure it out and announce when the decision was made?
It's actually very interesting how it happened in different situations; there was actually quite a range.
Sometimes it's just a growing span of responsibility and you can really see who's coming up. I think by the time that David Glass became Chief Executive of Wal-Mart, it wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone.
There are other situations that we all know about, the great decisions within General Electric and their whole process that had selected Jack Welch. Welch was kind of a surprise when he was picked. Surprise or not a surprise, Greg Jones went to a lot of effort in these different people, and he was testing, and the different interviews and finally a selection. And while the process may have been somewhat transparent, it wasn't clear who would win.
So it could be either way, I think that the critical thing is, however it is done, is picking the right person and then making sure that the transfer of power is smooth.
In "How the Mighty Fall" where we looked at companies that fell.
Remember I started out as a leadership skeptic?
I grudgingly came along to see how important these level 5 leaders are, and ok, I accept what it is. Now, were looking at the decline side and seeing something more.
And I still don't believe a single leader makes a great company. I don't think the evidence supports that, not a big enough company; it has to be more than that.
But, I do believe that the wrong leader vested with power can bring them down.
And so, there are very few mistakes that you cannot afford to make, you can recover from most. Getting your successor wrong is one you cannot make. |
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高德思：是的。
吉姆·柯林斯：但如果这个理论成立，你就无法解释英特尔公司（Intel）的戈登•摩尔（Gordon Moore），对吗？你也无法解释比尔•盖茨（Bill Gates），无法解释惠普（HP）的创始人大卫•帕卡德（David Packard），无法解释索尼（Sony）的盛田昭夫（Akio Morita）。这些人都是企业家，后来成长为了企业建设者。
所以我们稍后再谈接班人的问题。因为对于那些年轻的企业家，那些正在试图建立一家企业的人，那些有着企业家精神的人来说，他们的第一要务是要实现这一转变，也就是从企业家转变为企业建设者。那些最卓越的领导者都会这样做。
这一转变也就是我和杰里•波拉斯所说的“报时人”和“造钟者”的区别。对吗？这是一种有意识的转变，这与气质性情都无关，而是一种决策能力。
比如沃尔玛的创始人山姆•沃尔顿（Sam Walton）。他是一位企业家。他由一个小小的廉价商店起步，经过漫长的职业生涯，到临终时，手下已经有了无数个店铺经理为他工作。他把一生的精力都奉献给了沃尔玛，最终成为了一名企业建设者。就像他所说的：“我有一个推销员的性格，但我有一个运营者的灵魂。”
他具备了“造钟者”的特质，作为企业家能够让一台巨大的商业机器运转起来，并最终成为了企业建设者。山姆•沃尔顿就是这样一步不停地完成了转变。
在他的领导下，沃尔玛在当时发展成了一个收入300亿到400亿美元的巨型企业。但他也一直担心下一代的问题，因为他知道自己不可能永远执掌沃尔玛。他从内部观察，然后开始挑选一些优秀的人才。这些人并非都具备接班人的潜质。最后他将权力平稳地交接到了大卫•格拉斯（David Glass）的手上。
刚才说到的气质性格并不重要，作为印证，大卫•格拉斯和山姆就是非常不同的人。从外在来看，他和山姆•沃尔顿截然不同。但在内心，他们却非常相像。山姆之所以要选择一个和自己截然不同的人，就是要证明公司的成功并不依赖于领导者的个性。更为重要的是选择一个能够在各个方面建设企业并带领企业前进的人。
怎么证明这一点呢？
首先，他将公司交给了大卫•格拉斯。交接过程非常平稳，然后发生了什么呢？今天我们再看沃尔玛的业绩，我们看到了什么？沃尔玛如今的年收入高达4000亿美元。山姆•沃尔顿是美国商业史上最伟大的企业家之一。但在他去世时，沃尔玛的年收入还不到1000亿美元。
那么沃尔玛为什么可以一直保持良好的发展势头？
因为山姆•沃尔顿的接班人计划（succession planning）做得非常出色，他从企业家转变成了企业建设者，变成一个可以将企业传承下去的领导者。
他并非在权力交接前几个月甚至几年前才开始挑选继承人，而是在几十年前就开始关心这一问题了。因为他在建造一个卓越的企业，他希望这个企业在他离世之后依然能够成功。
因此，接班人的选择无疑是非常重要的。对于这个问题，我想指出两点：
首先，无论你作为企业建设者也好、企业家也好、CEO也好，只有在你的继任者成功之后，你才算交出了圆满的成绩单。别以为一卸任，你的表现就可以盖棺定论。如果你没有像山姆那样选好接班人，比如你的接班人失败了，那么你也失败了。
这一点非常重要。如果你的接班人失败了，你也就失败了。一旦陷入这种境地，想要避免失败的话，你必须找到继承者，然后尽量使他们也获得成功，而不是使他们陷入失败的困境。
那么应该如何做？从哪里开始着手准备呢？对此，我有几点需要说明。
我们稍后再回来讨论这个话题。
要知道，在企业走向卓越的条件中，继承人可能只占20%，另外的80%则是要不断地让卓越的人物占据公司的核心位置。因为你最终需要的是一群人，一群你在实践中检验过的人。
为什么郭士纳（Lou Gerstner）能将位子传给彭明盛（Palmisano）？为什么山姆•沃尔顿能将位子传给大卫•格拉斯？为什么安妮•马尔卡希能将位子传给乌苏拉•伯恩斯（Ursula Burns）？因为他们对这些人观察过，了解过，与他们一同工作过，而且在实践中对他们检验过，他们知道这些人以后会如何工作。所以他们将位子传给这些接班人时，已经胸有成竹。
也许你的公司里的确有这样卓越的人才，但是遇到的问题是，这样的人选一共有五个，那到底应该选择哪一个呢？
你刚才问道，通过这些成功交接的案例来看，交接过程的透明度有多高？应该由企业建设者闭门挑选接班人，等到做出选择之后再向外界公布吗？
有趣的是，在我们的案例中，企业所处的情况不同，操作的过程也不同。
有时，可以给几个候选人都赋予更大的职责，这时你就可以看出谁能真的能够胜任。当大卫•格拉斯最终成为沃尔玛的首席执行官时，没有人会觉得奇怪。
此外也有其它的情形。我们都知道通用电气公司（General Electric）选择杰克•韦尔奇（Jack Welch）的整个过程。韦尔奇有点像一匹黑马。不管是否出人意料，格雷格•琼斯（Greg Jones）在这些候选人身上都花了很大力气。他在考察他们时，用不同的方法进行了面试，最终才做出选择。这个过程可能一定程度上是透明的，但人们并不清楚谁终将胜出。
所以两种方法都是可行的。不过我认为无论用什么方式进行选拔，选择正确的人才、保证权力的平稳交接才是最重要的事。
在《巨人如何倒下》一书中，我们研究了那些最终走向衰落的公司。
还记得我最初是个领导力论的怀疑者吗？
然而，在随后的研究过程中，我极不情愿地看到了第五级领导者有多重要，最后接受了这个观点。现在我们开始关注企业衰落的一面，我们发现了更多的迹象。
我仍然不相信一个领导者能够单枪匹马打造一家卓越的公司。我不认为有证据支持这一点，没有一家足够大的公司作为佐证。因此除了领导力之外，肯定还有其它因素。
不过我的确相信，如果错误的领导者被赋予了权力，就会将公司引向衰败。几乎没有什么错误是你无法承担的，你可以从大部分的错误中恢复过来。但挑错接班人却是不能犯的错误。
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