Jim Collins: And Yvon Chouinard, a really interesting guy and he's very clear, and this is rock climbing, right? I'm going to answer your question in slightly convoluted way, but I'll get to the point.
You go back to the 1960s and early 1970s and rock climbers back then used pitons. Pitons: it's a metal spike. And you carry a hammer (to drive them into the rock). And when I started climbing in 1974, the very first climb I did, we used pitons and you'd bang them in, ping-ping-ping-ping-ping.
If it's getting higher pitches as it goes in, you know it's a solid piton. And you feel really good because as you clip (your rope) into it, it feels really solid.
Well the problems is, imagine over a course of, you know, not 1 ascent, but 10 ascents, 100 ascents, or 1,000 ascents of a popular climb, you get a whole lot of pitons (driven into the rock face). Pitons and of course the second person bangs them out, you bang them on the bottom and you start to leave a piton scar. There is a climb in Yosemite called Serenity Crack, which is a thin seam, but it was nothing but holes in the rock after a while from piton scars.
Yvon Chouinard, who made pitons, he made the Lost Arrow pitons, looked at this and he said, This is wrong. Our company is in the business of providing these and in the early 1970s he came out with, and I actually have it, the first sort of, it was a declaration of clean climbing.
And hand in hand, he brought out a set of new devices, which were climbing devices, which you could slot in, so if the crack is like this, you slotted it in and if you fell on it, it doesn't go anywhere, it's like a machine nut. And the next person just takes it out, leaving no scarring of the rock.
And then a group of climbers, lead by what Chouinard was providing, began to change the way that we all climbed and after my first two years of climbing, I never placed a piton again. A blunt change and largely today we have clean climbing, very little scarring of the rock. Much more sustainable for a variety of other things.
So here's what we have, and if you asked Yvon Chouinard, about this, he would say, were you doing this as a business strategy? No, (he would say), it's just wrong. It's just irresponsible to be blasting the rock into pieces with pitons because we wanted to feel macho, it's just wrong.
But, he took the next step of saying, "I'm going to create a solution, I'm going to also help people see this solution." and then it became one of the most successful outdoor companies in the world.
And you step back and think about it, and he put both those together, both tremendous business success and a tremendous idea, not only just a responsible idea, he changed the society of climbers. It wasn't just responsible, he changed it.
Now, when we stand back and we look at the folks at any given moment in history, there's always, and go always go back to Bill Allan and William McKnight and Yvon Chouinard and these people were kind of at a point where they just, they had to push, they did it a little different way in terms of corporate social responsibility. If you're doing it because everybody's doing it, you don't get it.
Thomas D. Gorman: Yeah.
Jim Collins: If you're doing it because you have a sense like, Yvon Chouinard, of just like, this is wrong, then I don't need a justification, I don't have to justify it to my Board or anything, it's just wrong. Then it's very powerful because it's very real.
Thomas D. Gorman: That's true.
Jim Collins: And there is zero tradeoff between economic success and looking at the world that way. We know that empirically from Built to Last. Plus you tend to wrap more people into what you're trying to do.
Now, there's another piece of this though, which I think goes back to somebody I greatly admire, which is Peter Drucker. And if you go back and read Drucker's writings and his book Concept of the Corporation and then later "Management, Tasks, Responsibilities" it's very interesting the things he says in there.
He says, General Motors is a failure. This is 1974, and before that, 1952. When GM was arguably the most powerful business corporation in the world, he says they're a failure. Why does he say they're a failure?
He says they're a failure because they do not understand, that in the end, they are not a private corporation. And that there is no such thing in Drucker's view, of a private business corporation that is somehow separate from society. He said, the idea that private vice makes public good...(is wrong). He said, "No, private strength creates public benefits."
And that this distinction that private business, he said, "Business corporations are social institutions." They are part of society and one of the things you have to recognize is, it's happening, and Peter identified this 50 years ago, is that we went from an agrarian civilization into a larger structure organized by families and the rise of sort of the empire state and the nation state.
We now have this new entity, the incredible power of organizations, and it is the organizing building, it's like the bricks of society, all over the world. Now we're seeing it in the (larger) world, that you and I, are talking about. You cannot somehow separate the bricks from the wall, they are the wall.
And so, if we're organized, by business corporation in large part, then you can't say, well, over here we have business corporations and over here we have society. No, they're part of the same wall.
So, the two answers are, one, you can choose, if you care to, to be both be a very successful company, and be like Yvon Chouinard. And "b" you can, as Peter Drucker would say, in his view, you don't have a choice. |
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吉姆·柯林斯：伊冯•乔伊纳德（Yvon Chouinard）是个很有意思的人。对此，我想顺带说说攀岩运动。虽然要间接地回答你的问题，不过我不会跑题。
20世纪60年代和70年代初的攀岩者使用岩锥。岩锥是一种金属长钉。你可以用一把锤子（把它们凿到岩石里）。我第一次攀岩是在1974年，我们当时用的就是岩锥，乒乒乒地把它们凿入岩石。
如果越往深处凿，它发出的响声越尖，那么你知道，这就是坚固的岩锥。这时你会感觉很踏实，因为当你把绳子扣到岩锥上时，会觉得很稳固。
问题是，你要攀登的不是一小段坡，而是成百上千段，你要把许多岩锥钉入岩石表面。当第二个人把岩锥一一拔出时，岩石上就留下了岩锥印。约塞米蒂国家公园有一段叫“宁静裂缝”（Serenity Crack）的攀岩胜地，它是一段狭窄的裂缝，由于攀岩者留下的岩锥印而变得千疮百孔。
岩锥制造商伊冯•乔伊纳德生产的是箭型岩锥。最初看到这种情况，他说道：“这可不对”。我们公司得依靠（这些岩壁）才能提供商业产品。在20世纪70年代初，他制造出了首批此类岩锥，我也有这种岩锥，这标志着清洁攀岩的开始。
此外，他制造出了一系列新的攀岩设备，你可以把它插入岩缝，如果裂缝是这样的形状，你就把它插进去，如果你挂在上面，它依旧牢固，就像个螺帽似的。下一位攀岩者把它卸下，不会在岩石上留下印痕。
有了乔伊纳德的产品，攀岩者的攀岩方式发生了变化。当我开始攀岩两年之后，就再也没有使用过老式的岩锥。有了这一巨变，我们开启了清洁攀岩的时代，不在岩石上留下锥痕。这样，岩壁就可以被持续用作很多其他用途。
如果你问乔伊纳德，他是否把这当做一种商业策略。（他会说）不，我只是觉得那样做不对。用岩锥把岩石凿成一块一块的做法太不负责任了。将岩锥打入岩石只是为了体现男子气概，而这样难免有些不对。
但他接着说：“我要找到一个解决方法，并让大家接受这种方法。”随后，他的公司就成为了世界上最成功的户外器械公司之一。
他把巨大的商业成功和优秀想法结合起来，这不仅仅是一个负责任的想法，他彻底改变了攀岩者的行为方式。这不仅仅是担负责任而已，这是一种变革。
现在我们回顾一下历史，想想比尔•艾伦（Bill Allan）、威廉•麦克奈特（William McKnight）和伊冯•乔伊纳德，这些人都是在必要的时刻以不同寻常的方式履行了企业社会责任。如果只是人云亦云，跟着别人的脚步走，你就无法成功。
高德思：对。
吉姆·柯林斯：如果你有像伊冯•乔伊纳德那样的直觉，认为某些事就是错的，不需要过多解释，不必向董事会作更多的说明，这时你会有强大的力量，因为这是真实的。
高德思：没错。
吉姆·柯林斯：在经济上的成功和正确的世界观之间，没有任何矛盾得失。这一点我们可以从《基业长青》中可以看出。此外，你会让更多人参与你的事业。
还有一点让我想起我的偶像彼德•德鲁克（Peter Drucker）。如果你回头读他的文章和他写的书，比如《企业的概念》（Concept of the Corporation）和《管理：任务、责任、实践》（Management : Tasks, Responsibilities ，Practices），你会在其中发现不少有趣的内容。
他（在书中）指出通用汽车是个失败的例子。这发生在1974年，以及之前的1952年。当时通用汽车无疑是世界上最强大的汽车企业，他却不这么认为。德鲁克为什么这么说呢？
他认为通用没有意识到一点：他们归根到底不是一家私营企业。在德鲁克眼里，没有一家私营企业能够独立于社会而存在。他说，私有部门之恶能带来公共福利的想法（是错误的）。他说：“不，应该是私营力量能为公众带来福祉。”
他说：“商业公司就是社会机构。”它们是社会的组成部分，你必须认同这个即成事实，德鲁克早在50年前就认识到了这一点，我们首先从农业文明过渡到由家庭组成的社会结构，随后是帝国和民族的兴起。现在有了这个新的实体（商业公司），有了组织机构的无限力量，就像组成人类社会的砖瓦，遍布世界，无所不在。
我们现在从更广阔的角度来看待它。砖墙不可分而视之，砖就是墙。
所以，如果我们通过企业将自身组织了起来， 就不能说这些属于企业，而那些属于社会。不，它们是“同一堵墙”。
所以，我们有两种选择，要么可以选择像伊冯•乔伊纳德那样，成功地经营一家公司。要么（如德鲁克所说），你别无选择。 |
