Shun tips from corporate titans
In 1981, in the days when bond traders were masters of the universe, my then boyfriend had just joined the mighty firm of Salomon Brothers. At the crack of dawn one morning the new recruits gathered to be addressed by John Gutfreund, CEO. At the end of the talk one thrusting, fawning, young thing put up his hand and said: “Sir, have you got any advice for us?”
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“Sure”, said Gutfreund, taking a puff on his first fat cigar of the day. “When you come to work in the morning, you've gotta be ready to bite the ass off of a bear.”
I like this advice very much. It's funny. It's personal. It's even helpful. Most of all, it contains my favourite American phrase: “off of”.
I was reminded of it last week when reading Fortune magazine, which has just asked the 28 biggest names in business what the best advice was they had ever been given. Judging from their answers, there has been a sorry falling off in the advice-giving trade since 1981. Biting and bears don't get a look-in.
Instead, the 28 pearls of wisdom turn out to be a mixture of bum steers, soppy platitudes and statements of the obvious.
Let's start with the bum steers. Jack Welch, the former head of General Electric, claims that the best bit of advice he was ever given was “be yourself”. This could be the dumbest tip I have ever heard. Who else would he be other than himself? And if it means act natural, then that's bad advice. In a business context it usually pays to act a bit unnatural, or else you start telling your boss that you think he's an idiot. It may be a good idea sometimes to let your idiosyncrasies show, though that does rather depend on what your idiosyncrasies happen to be.
The next bit of bad advice was passed down to Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, from his father: let others take the credit. If you follow this from the outset, you are certain to get nowhere. Taking the credit is essential for rising up any organisation. The trick is quietly to swipe the bulk of the credit yourself, while making a song and dance about passing the leftovers to the whole team.
Donny Deutsch, CEO of Deutsch Inc, advises: “If you love something, the money will come.” This is the most dangerous tip of all. My brother and my brother-in-law love playing the oboe and writing poetry respectively. Both have found that the money, alas, does not come. Were they to switch to something less loveable, like banking or stockbroking (as one of them has) the love might be less, but the money far, far, more.
Most of the advice given by these business superstars is soppy. This is the best advice Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor, was ever given: “You can learn from anyone.” Were this true it would be a waste of money to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to HBS. Other worthy tips include: “Surround yourself with people of integrity and get out of their way.” “Balance your work and family.” “Incorporate your philanthropy into your corporate structure.”
These tips give a clue as to what this exercise is all about. It is only pretending to be about advice. It is actually about how these people want to present themselves and about picking the piece of advice that they think flatters themselves them the most. Hence Jack Welch finds that being himself is the smartest thing to be. AG Lafley's top piece of advice is equally self-serving: “Have the courage to stick with a tough job.”
Nearly all these people say that the wisest mentors in their lives have been their parents and have a cute story to hand. Meg Whitman says she was mean to someone when she was 10, and her dad had said: “Be nice to people.” This had a profound effect on the young Meg.
I'm sure at 10 (and at plenty of other ages too) I was mean to people. And I daresay my dad told me off, if he found out. But the idea that there were these golden nuggets of wisdom handed down by our parents or by our mentors in business just doesn't ring true.
Two people stand out in Fortune's survey for offering something less sanitised: Warren Buffett and Peter Drucker. Buffett refreshingly says that some of the advice his father gave him was wrong. Drucker's favourite advice was invigoratingly brusque: “Get good, or get out.” He tells how his first boss on a German newspaper said: “Drucker, if you don't improve radically in the next three weeks, you'd better look for another job.” Drucker remarks: “For me, that was the right treatment. He did not try to mentor me. The idea would have been considered absurd.”
Although this story appeals, the advice isn't actually that helpful. It's all very well to say get good, but how?
The trouble with these sweeping pieces of advice is that they are too general. “Be nice” is fine as a principle; the hard bit (and this is where we need the advice) comes in knowing how to spot the occasions when it would be better to be beastly.
Now I am going to tell you the best advice I was ever given, and make no apology for its limited scope. When I was about 22 I had written to various national newspapers asking for a job. I had misheard the name of one editor, writing to an Ivan Salon instead of to Ivan Fallon. I got a terse letter back saying there were no jobs on his paper, and in future I would do well to spell people's names correctly. This is excellent advice. Alas, even this modest tip suffers from a shortfall common to all advice. Recognising good advice is one thing. Following it is another. There are a lot of names in this column, and now I am going to force myself to go through the tedious task of checking I spelt them correctly.
别把商界巨子的话太当回事
1981年的时候，债券及股票交易员是人人都向往的职业。我当时的男朋友刚刚加入所罗门兄弟(Salomon Brothers)这家大公司。某天黎明，新员工汇聚一堂，听公司首席执行官约翰?古德菲瑞德(John Gutfreund)的讲话。讲话结束时，一个跃跃欲试、一副媚态的年青人举手问道：“古德菲瑞德先生，您能给我们提点建议吗？”
古德菲瑞德先生回答说：“当然可以。”然后，他把手中粗大的雪茄移到嘴边，抽了当天的第一口烟后继续说道：“早上来上班时，你得做好咬下熊屁股的准备。”
我很喜欢这条建议。它很有趣，也很有个性，还很有用。最重要的是，这里还有一个我最喜欢的美语常用词汇：off of（译者注：意为“从……离开”）。
我是在上周看《财富》杂志（Fortune）的时候，想起了古德菲瑞德先生的这条建议。该杂志访问了28位商界巨擘，问他们得到的最好建议是什么。从他们的回答来看，非常遗憾，1981年以后，提建议这个行当不怎么景气。看来，古德菲瑞德先生这条“做好咬下熊屁股的准备”的建议没有受到足够重视。
杂志上刊登的这28条至理名言不是误导，就是滑稽可笑的陈词滥调，或者就是一些不言自明的废话。
让我们先来看看那些误导。通用电气（General Electric）的前总裁杰克?韦尔奇（Jack Welch）声称，他得到过的最佳建议就是“做你自己”。这也许是我听到过的最蠢的建议。除了做他自己以外，他还能做谁？如果这条建议是指要表现地自然一些，那么这条建议就称不上一条好建议。在商界，表现的不自然是要付出代价的，否则你等于在告诉你的老板，你认为他是个白痴。有时，展现一下癖好也许是个不错的主意，但这还得看你的癖好是什么。
下一条糟糕的建议来自于康卡斯特（Comcast）首席执行官布莱恩?罗伯茨(Brian Roberts)的父亲：把荣誉让给别人。如果你从一开始就这么做，你肯定一事无成。若想升职，讨功劳是至关重要的，这在任何地方都一样。诀窍在于，要不动声色地把主要功劳据为己有，再把“残羹冷炙”留给整个团队，并大加赞扬一番。
多伊奇公司（Deutsch Inc）的首席执行官唐尼?多伊奇(Donny Deutsch)的建议是：“做自己喜欢的事，就能赚到钱。”这是最危险的一条建议。我的弟弟喜欢吹奏双簧管，弟媳喜欢写诗。哎，他们俩最终发现，都没赚到什么钱。如果他们改行，做点不是那么喜欢的事，如金融或股票或证券经纪业务（他们中已有一个这样做了），喜欢也许不是那么喜欢，但赚的钱怕是多得多了。
接受采访的商界巨星给出的建议大都非常可笑。以下这条是哈佛商学院教授克莱顿?克里斯坦森(Clayton Christensen)曾得到的最佳建议：“你能从任何人身上学到东西。”如果这是真的，那么每年交几万美元的学费去哈佛商学院上课不是浪费钱吗？还有其它一些“有价值的”建议，如：“置身于正直的人之中，然后放手让他们干事”，“保持事业和家庭间的平衡”，以及“把慈善事业纳入公司的正式系统之中”。
从这些建议中，我们可以发现采访的真正目的。提建议只是幌子，真正的用意在于借此向公众展现这些人希望呈现给大众的那一面，因为他们挑的是最能够奉承自己的一条建议。所以，杰克?韦尔奇认为，做他自己是最明智的事。Ａ?Ｇ?拉弗利（AG Lafley）给出的最佳建议也是出于这个目的：“遇到困难，坚持下去。”
几乎所有接受采访的人都说，他们生活中最为贤明的导师是他们的父母，而且都有一则小故事。梅格?惠特曼(Meg Whitman)说，当她10岁的时候，她对某个人很刻薄，他的父亲就教导她说：“要善待他人。”这句话对年幼的梅格产生了深远影响。
我肯定，我在10岁的时候（在其它年龄阶段也一样），都没怎么善待他人。而且我敢说，如果我父亲发现这一点，也会责备我。但若认为，在商界，是我们的父母或导师把这些至理名言传授给我们，这听起来不太可能。
接受《财富》杂志采访的人中，有两位显得与众不同，因为他们给出的建议没那么“有用”。这两位分别是沃伦?巴菲特（Warren Buffett）和彼得?德鲁克(peter Drucker)。巴菲特先生说，他父亲给他的有些建议是不对的，这话听起来很是新鲜。德鲁克先生最喜欢的建议虽然听起来有点粗鲁，但能令人振奋：“要么把事情做好，否则就给我滚蛋。” 德鲁克先生曾在一家德文报社工作，他的第一个老板曾对他说：“德鲁克，如果你在三个星期内，没有明显的进步，你最好就另谋他职吧。” 德鲁克说道：“对我而言，当时老板这么做是对的。他没想教导我。人们也许会认为，他这么做非常荒唐。
虽然这故事听起来很吸引人，但实际上这条建议却没什么用。光是说说要把事情做好固然容易，但关键是怎么才能把事情做好呢？
这些建议都是概括性的，麻烦就麻烦在它们都只是泛泛而谈。“友善待人”作为一条原则当然是好，但难的是怎样才能知道什么时候不该“友善待人”呢？而这才是我们需要建议的地方啊。
现在，让我来说说我得到过的最佳建议。虽然这条建议应用范围不广，但我并不为此感到抱歉。22岁前，我曾写信给多家报社找工作。有一次，我误听了一位编辑的名字，把伊凡?法伦（Ivan Fallon）写成了伊凡?萨伦（Ivan Salon）。后来，我收到了这名编辑的一封简短回信，告诉我这家报社暂时不招人，还说，以后我应该学学怎么正确拼写他人的名字。这条建议绝妙之极。唉，但就连这条小小的建议也和其它所有建议一样，有个缺陷。能分辨出这是条好建议是一回事，但把它付诸行动却是另一码事。
这篇专栏文章里就有许多名字，现在，我得强迫自己检查一遍，有没有拼写错误，这可是一项艰巨的任务。
