百胜掌门人手把手教你打造领导力

    如今有志于为优秀企业领导者的经理人真是不幸。他们的书架充斥着各种各样的领导力书籍，把书架压得咯吱作响，书里的内容却胡编乱造、没边没谱。读这样的书不但永远也成不了强有力的商业领袖，相反，读这些诱人的宝典，他们的脑子里只会充斥着各种陈词滥调，其中绝大多数毫无营养可言。

    这些书存在两个弊病。首先，这些书的作者多半并不是真正取得过骄人业绩的商业领袖。他们只是置身事外的旁观者，通常对他们着墨的圈子也缺乏深入的了解。因此，怎么能冒险让这帮人指导你的职业生涯？

    第二个问题是，即使是可信的作者撰写的领导力图书通常不会事无巨细地解释如何将他们给出的建议付诸实施。比如，培养开放坦诚的文化。想法很不错，但是如果没有具体的计划，同样走不了多远。

    我有很多理由来推荐大卫•诺瓦克的《超级领导力：实现伟大目标的唯一道路》（Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen）这本书，其中很重要的一个原因在于，这本书在两个至关重要的方面都做得异常出色，而大多数领导力图书在这方面的表现都很糟糕。具体说来就是下面这两个方面：

    可信性。大卫•诺瓦克是百胜餐饮集团（Yum! Brands）总裁（我会在下面的段落里删掉惊叹号，免得不断反复提到这家公司引起的激动情绪干扰了我们的思路）。百胜餐饮集团是百事可乐公司（PepsiCo）1997年分拆餐馆业务后成立的餐饮企业，旗下有肯德基、必胜客和塔可钟（Taco Bell）等品牌，诺瓦克从公司成立之初就开始担任首席执行官。他的经营业绩非常可观，公司股价每年平均上涨16%；百胜餐饮集团的资本收益率一直超过其资本成本。如果说有哪位商界精英在领导力方面具有发言权，这个人非诺瓦克莫属。

    实用性。“超级领导力”不仅是这本书的名字，同时也是一个为期三天的领导力培训课程的名字。诺瓦克每年都会在公司内部举行8次这样的培训；百事公司分拆百胜餐饮集团前，他就已经开始打磨这个培训项目，对4,000多名员工进行培训。因此这本书不但凝聚了诺瓦克在领导力方面的智慧结晶，更是一个精心策划的培训方案。事实上，这不是一本单纯让你爱不释手的好书，它更是一本切实可行的工作指南。因此，千万不要满足于纸上谈兵。诺瓦克推荐读者每天只读一章，我建议，每周只读一章效果可能更好。

    Pity the aspiring manager who wants to become an excellent business leader. His or her bookshelf creaks and buckles under the weight of leadership books that authors crank out seemingly without limit or shame. But readers of these books don't become stronger leaders; instead they grow fat with platitudes as they consume these alluring tomes, the vast majority of which offer only empty calories.

    The problems are two. First, most of these books aren't by real leaders who've produced knockout business results. They're by observers who weren't under the gun to hit numbers and often didn't even have up-close access to the people they write about -- so why risk your career by doing what they tell you?

    The second problem is that even leadership books by credible authors generally don't explain, in useful, nuts-and-bolts detail, how to do what they recommend. Foster an open, candid culture? That's a great idea, but without an instruction manual, it won't get you far.

    Among the many reasons to like Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen by David Novak is that on these two critical points where most leadership books are terrible, it's extraordinarily good. Specifically:

    Credibility. Novak is CEO of Yum! Brands (I will henceforward omit the exclamation point, lest the constant excitement of mentioning the company become distracting). Yum (YUM) is the restaurant business spun off from PepsiCo (PEP) in 1997, comprising KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, and Novak has run it from the beginning. Its performance has been spectacular. The stock has risen almost 16% a year on average; Yum's return on capital consistently towers over its cost of capital. If anyone in business has earned the right to opine on leadership, Novak has.

    Usefulness. Besides being the title of this book, Taking People With You is the name of a three-day leadership program that Novak teaches up to eight times a year within the company; he began developing it even before Yum was spun off and has taught it to more than 4,000 employees. So this book isn't just Novak's thoughts on leadership; it's a highly organized program. In fact, it isn't a book you curl up with at all; it's a workbook, so be prepared to work. Novak recommends reading just one chapter a day. I'd say one a week.