Jim Collins: So, what did those leaders do that allowed them to confront this?
First of all, they were very clear, that there's a big difference between letting people have their say, and having the truth be heard.
And, part of it is, they had a really high question to statement relationship.
This is actually something practical, a business leader or any leader can do, is to ask themselves a simple question, which is, what are the question to statement issues? And the second is, in the questions, it needs to always be asking for, not opinions, asking for empirical facts. What are the empirical, what's the empirical evidence, what are the empirical facts here?
There's this wonderful book, two wonderful books that I recommend anyone read. One is called "Thirteen Days" which is Bobby Kennedy's account of the Cuban Missile Crises and the other is called " The Kennedy Tapes" which is actual transcripts of the days during the Cuban Missile Crises.
Now, if you watch Kennedy during this time, one of the things that he's very afraid of, is making, he's afraid very much of making the wrong decision, because the results are the end of the world as we know it, you and I don't exist.
What he does, he sets up separate teams and for a long time he doesn't really tip his hand, if you just watch him, he's asking question after question after question, and in fact, one of my researchers went back with that book and we actually counted the questions to statements during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We actually go through and one by one, what you find is they sort of go in peaks, there's little waves, like he's asking questions, then he gets clarity, then he might make a statement, then he goes back to a questioning mode again.
But, (questioning again) only once he's got the clarity.
He's still trying to sort things out, and he's asking a lot of things like, well how does these trucks actually work? How many do we see on the ground? What can we exactly see in the photographs?
I mean he's very, very granular, in very, very specific details. Constantly processing and asking rather than saying, well what do you think? What do you think? What do you think?
Because they're going to be in the presence of the powerful president, they're going to be wanting to know what the president thinks.
But if he's asking, well how many wheels do they have on that truck? You either have eight or you have ten.
Thomas D. Gorman: Yeah.
Jim Collins: So, it's fascinating because part of how we navigated through that was some really high questions to statement ratio, punctuated by times where he would have a point of clarity, he had people in different teams so that they could be, so he could have folks advance different points of view, and then he had one person near him, always, who he knew, no matter what, would make sure he heard the worst of whatever it is, that was his brother, Bobby.
His brother loved him enough to be the one, that no matter what the president needed to hear.
So if you stand back and look at that, and you think, well first of all you had people, really great people around. Focused on facts, he asked lots of questions and he has one person, it also encouraged a lot of debate between the two, and he always had at least one person who he knew, loved him enough to be the most brutally honest, his brother.
So if you think about that, if you were a powerful CEO, how could you replicate that?
Questions, data, evidence, very granular, encouraging the debate.
Maybe you'd take this side of the equations, you take that side of the equation, arguing the opposite, listening and then having the one person around you that you know, loves you enough, that you'll be brought whatever you need to truly hear. Those are pretty good tips.
Thomas D. Gorman: I know you're a big fan of Winston Churchill, wasn't he also particularly good at that? Didn't he have a minister on staff that was responsible...
Jim Collins: Yes, yes. He had, what was it called? It was...
Thomas D. Gorman: It wasn't the minister of bad news, but it was something like that.
Jim Collins: Yeah, yeah. It was something like that.
We find that interesting, one of my favorite books is Churchill's six-volumes on the Second World War, and what you do is you read them and you also take an atlas. So you'd go through the whole time when Churchill from, you can actually chart the war, it took me like the whole summer get through it.
But what I learned by history, but you watch the different things, of course it's through his point of view, of course that's nonetheless very interesting because you're getting the leader's journey through one of the great challenges of the 20th century.
And I think he might have called that the Administrator of Information, I can look it up between now and tomorrow. Or maybe it was simply called the Statistics Department, I think that might have been it, but its only purpose was to bring Churchill bad news, just the worst facts.
And that one line that Churchill had, "That facts are better than dreams."
Which at those times are true. I want to know, how many boats do we need to get them off of Dunkirk? How many do we need? Where are the Panzers? Because in any kind of vary serious situation the real facts matter more than anything.
Yeah, as a climber I've always realized that, sure, I'd like to think it's not going to lightning, but if I'm wrong I die. |
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吉姆·柯林斯：那么，那些领导人是如何解决这个问题的呢？
首先，他们非常清楚一点：要明确区分言论自由和表达真相之间的差别。
其中很重要的一点是，相对于普通的观点陈述，他们提出了更大比例的问题。
实际上这是非常踏实的做法，一个企业领袖或任何领导人可以问自己一个简单的问题，那就是，在哪些问题上需要指出问题而不是仅仅陈述事实？第二，问问题时，无需永远询问意见，可以要求提供事实经验。那么什么是经验、经验证据和经验事实呢？
给大家推荐两本非常棒的书。一本叫做《惊爆十三天》（Thirteen Days），是罗伯特•肯尼迪对古巴导弹危机的描述。另外一本叫《肯尼迪录音带》（The Kennedy Tapes），是古巴导弹危机期间的真实文字记录。
导弹危机期间，肯尼迪最害怕的事情之一就是做出错误的决定。因为我们都知道，其后果是世界的终结，你我都将不复存在。
他所做的是组建不同的团队，并且一直没有表明自己的态度，他只是在不停地提问。事实上，我的一位研究员重新研究了那本书，我们数了一下古巴导弹危机期间问题和陈述数量上的对比。我们一个问题一个问题地观察，结果发现问题和陈述的比例呈峰值而非波浪形式出现。即他先问很多问题，得到清楚答案，然后做出一个陈述；接着再回到提问模式。
只有得到了清晰确切的答案，才会继续提问。
他试图把一些事情搞清楚，比如他会问这些卡车究竟是如何工作的？地面上有多少辆？我们在照片上究竟能看到什么？等许多类似的问题。
他非常重视具体的细节。他不断地处理信息、不断地提问，而不是简单地问：你觉得呢？你觉得呢？你觉得呢？
因为手下的人面对的是一位强大的总统，他们希望知道总统是怎么想的。
但如果问，卡车上有几个轮子？你必须回答是八个或是十个。
高德思：是的。
吉姆·柯林斯：所以，我觉得看这本书很有趣，通过观察很高的问题与陈述比，我们就基本把握了全书的结构和内容。这期间还有部分辨明观点的过程。他把手下分成不同的团队，这样就能听到不同的观点。他身边还有一位心腹，无论情况如何，都会让他知道最坏的消息。这个人就是他的弟弟罗伯特•肯尼迪。
他弟弟非常爱戴他，因而愿意告诉他应该知道的所有消息。
所以这样看来，他身边首先要有一些了不起的人。他注重事实，问了许多问题，让不同的观点碰撞辩论，还有一位深爱他的弟弟，他知道无论何时，自己的弟弟都能诚实地告诉他最残酷的事实。
想想看，如果你是一位大权在握的CEO，你该如何复制他的经验呢？
那就是提问、数据、证据、细节、鼓励辩论。
或许你该全面地考虑问题，兼顾反面意见，兼听则明，加上一个可以信任、十分爱你的心腹，确保你在需要听到真相的时候，总能听到。这些都是很好的建议。
高德思：我知道你非常崇拜丘吉尔（Winston Churchill），他是否也特别擅长于此？他不是有一位内阁大臣专门负责…
吉姆·柯林斯：是的，是的。叫什么来着？叫…
高德思：也许不叫“坏消息大臣”，但差不多有这个意思。
吉姆·柯林斯：是的，是的。差不多这个意思。
我觉得这很有趣。丘吉尔六卷本的二战回忆录是我最爱读的书之一。你阅读此书之时，可以拿本地图册作为参考。这样就像经历了丘吉尔的那个时代，事实上，你可以将战争绘制成图，我为此花了整整一个夏天的时间。
我从历史中学到了很多不同的东西，当然是通过丘吉尔的视角，这是非常有意思的，因为你跟随着一位领袖经历了20世纪最伟大的挑战之一。
我想他将那位大臣称作信息官员（Administrator of Information），今天晚些时候我会去查一查。或者就简单地叫做统计部，可能就是这个。其唯一的目的就是让丘吉尔知道坏消息，最坏的事实。
丘吉尔曾经说过：“事实优于梦想。”
在当时是正确的。我想知道，敦刻尔克撤退需要多少船只？德国装甲车在哪儿？因为在最严峻的情势下，事实比什么都重要。
是的，比如我在登山的时候，希望不会遇到电闪雷鸣，但如果我一厢情愿、自欺欺人，则很可能会丧命。 |
