The partner with principles
I arrive 30 minutes early for my interview with Sir Stuart Hampson because I want to see why John Lewis, the company he chairs, has twice in recent weeks been named Britain's favourite retailer.
I wander around the quiet Peter Jones store on Sloane Square trying on woolly hats and inquiring about microwave ovens. The staff are pleasant and helpful without being effusively friendly. I go in search of some tea glasses. There are two for ￡10, or two plus a glass teapot for ￡7.50.
Sir Stuart smites his head in mock exasperation when I show off my unneeded teapot and point out the pricing anomaly. He is not really exasperated, of course. During our 90-minute conversation, I ruffle his affable demeanour only once - and as we settle down to talk in the Peter Jones brasserie, that is still some way off.
A recent customer satisfaction survey by Verdict, the retail consultancy, put John Lewis in first place, knocking Ikea, last year's winner, into fifth. Waitrose, John Lewis's grocery arm, was in second place. Another survey, by Which? magazine, put Waitrose first and John Lewis second.
What is the secret? Easy, says Sir Stuart. The staff at most retailers are working for someone else. At John Lewis and Waitrose they are working for themselves.
John Lewis is Britain's largest workers' co-operative, a status it owes to Spedan Lewis, son of the founder, who was horrified to discover that he, his father and his younger brother earned more between them than the entire workforce in the two shops they then owned on Oxford Street and Sloane Square. Against his father's strong opposition, Spedan Lewis began his "experiment in industrial democracy", distributing the profits to the employees.
The company, with its 27 John Lewis stores and 174 Waitrose supermarkets, is almost entirely owned by its 63,000 employees (there are a small number of outside shareholders). Next week staff will hear what proportion of the profits they will get. Last year, everyone, from Sir Stuart down, received a 14 per cent bonus.
Sir Stuart says companies that claim to put customers first are thinking back to front. "If you put the employee first then the employee puts the customer first. When people talk about 'we're a customer-oriented organisation', I say 'yes, but who's delivering to your customers?'"
He doesn't call the John Lewis staff employees. He calls them "partners". "Because it's their business and they feel that extra level of commitment, they don't have to be told what to do. They do it instinctively," he says.
He points at the store beyond the brasserie. "Those are my shareholders out there. When the board is talking about investing N million pounds, this isn't N million pounds owned by some hedge fund. This is N million pounds that otherwise could be distributed to the people that I meet every day."
Even more than co-ownership, customers associate John Lewis with "never knowingly undersold" - the promise that if you can find the same item cheaper elsewhere, John Lewis will match the price. The promise still applies, but no longer on the internet. Sir Stuart says it was one thing to compete with the rest of the high street and another with a "garage in Estonia" selling online. "We found we were killing ourselves by trying to do this and it's not something that's realistic because it's a different style of shopping."
Every profile of Sir Stuart says that he was a high-flying civil servant who gave it all up to sell John Lewis pyjamas. The high-flying civil servant part is correct. An Oxford graduate in modern languages, he worked in several British government jobs in London and Geneva and was private secretary to Labour and Conservative ministers. He worked for Roy (now Lord) Hattersley when he was Labour minister for prices and consumer protection. "Then come the '79 ???-election and the Thatcher revolution. Roy disappeared and I'm working for Sally Oppenheim, whom Roy had regularly insulted across the despatch box with me sitting watching."
He also worked for Tory ministers John Nott and John Biffen. Did he find it difficult to switch sides? "If you're a civil servant, your duty is to support the government - and if you can't bear that you go elsewhere. I remember I was dictating a speech for John Nott to give and I had the same secretary I had when I worked for Roy and she looked up and said: 'Stuart, if Roy could hear you now.'"
But, at the age of 35, he had had enough. While he did not mind writing words for others, he wanted to be able to speak for himself. He spoke to a few headhunters but was not impressed. When he went for an interview at John Lewis, he took to it immediately. "The whole morality, the principled approach to business came over straight away." So he began work in the men's wear department on Oxford Street, which is where the pyjamas story comes from.
How was that? "More fun than anything I'd ever found in the civil service." What was fun about it? "Something funny happens every day. A customer comes in and says something funny, does something funny."
What sorts of things? Well, there was this ex-naval type who came in with a teapot he had bought the day before. "He was obviously brewing up for a row. And he says: 'I bought this teapot from you yesterday and the spout fell off when I made the first cup of tea.' And the sales assistant says: 'Ooh gosh, you didn't burn yourself, did you?' And he was completely thrown because he thought he was going to have a row." Instead he got a new teapot and his Tube fare. "He went out absolutely mesmerised."
As funny stories go, this is not Monty Python's dead parrot sketch but why should it be? Sir Stuart is the chairman of John Lewis, after all, and is not there to make fun of it. And such is his enthusiasm that I forget to ask why the ex-naval type brought his broken teapot into the men's wear department.
I tell him I imagine he knew he wouldn't be selling pyjamas for long. When John Lewis hires senior civil servants they presumably intend them to become senior managers. "I knew I was moving into management but John Lewis was very clear there was no promise. They said 'we think you will at least end up running one of our department stores but let's see how it goes.'"
He became section manager in garden equipment, department manager in mirrors and merchandise manager for fashion at Sloane Square. For someone who was reprimanded on his first day in men's wear for wearing a striped shirt ("I was told very rapidly not to do it again"), this was progress.
He was promoted to second-in-command in a store in Watford and then ran a store in Southampton. When he made it to the chairman's office in 1993, he could speak to staff with authority. "It was never 'here's a guy who was parachuted in who hasn't got a clue about retailing.'"
Does he mind that the Financial Times called the company "the people's republic of John Lewis"? He points out that another newspaper called him a neo-communist. "I think it is a misunderstanding. We are about extended capitalism. It is about showing how capitalism can really work, where people get real pleasure out of making a business successful."
Is he a man of the left? "No, I'm very centrist. I've never been a political animal. Perhaps that's why I could be a civil servant: because I didn't have any deep political conviction."
Was he disappointed when, in 1999, some staff called for the partnership to end and for John Lewis to be listed on the stock exchange, giving each of the partners a windfall, reportedly of ￡100,000? "Come on. ￡100,000, Michael. I mean, human nature."
And then, for the first time, the affability slips. "What I was very disappointed in was your profession, who stirred it all up without checking the facts, because it was never on. But when you say to a part-time checkout assistant in Waitrose 'you're going to get ￡100,000' and the chairman says 'no, you're not actually', it does make it quite difficult."
Dissolving the partnership would have required an act of parliament. The John Lewis central council met that September to discuss it. "The press were waiting outside, waiting to see me carried out on a tumbril and the meeting said 'There's nothing to discuss.'"
But he learnt a lesson. "It really was a wake-up callfor me and my colleagues. We assume the partners understand the structure and understand the real ???-philosophy of it. We hadn't done as good a job as we should. The fact we had to do so much convincing through that long hot summer showed we hadn't put enough effort into it."
John Lewis had, until then, been a paternalistic organisation. It was time to treat staff in a more adult fashion. Today, when staff apply to join, they are told: "This is an application to join a business where you're going to take responsibility. If all you're going to do is come and work here you would probably be better elsewhere."
Sir Stuart is 59. Retirement age at John Lewis is 65. Does he plan to stay on? "Who knows, who knows?" he says. "We'll see how things go."
John Lewis is not all there is. "I have a 1955 Jaguar XK 140, which is one of my delights in life. The first time I saw it I fell in love." A black soft-top, he bought it on Ebay from an American surgeon. How much does a 1955 Jaguar sell for? "I don't think I'm going to give you the answer to that. It isn't cheap." Has it ever let him down? Only once. He left it in a Waitrose car park while he nipped in to do some shopping. "I came out, pushed the starter button. Smoke everywhere. Absolutely kaput. I had the ignominious fate of disappearing home on an RAC low-loader." It is the first story he has told me all afternoon that does not involve John Lewis staff coming to the rescue.
“合伙人”第一
采访斯图尔特?汉普森(Stuart Hampson)爵士时，我提前30分钟就到了，因为我想知道，为什么由他担任董事长的John Lewis百货公司，近几周两度被评为英国人最喜爱的零售商。
我逛了逛位于斯隆广场(Sloane Square)的彼得?琼斯(Peter Jones)店，试戴了羊毛帽还打听了微波炉。店员十分友善，能给予指点，而且没有过分热情。我去找了些玻璃茶杯。那里有10镑两个的，也有两个杯子外加一个玻璃茶壶卖7.5镑的。
当我向斯图尔特爵士展示那并不需要的茶壶，并指出反常的定价时，他佯装恼怒地猛打他的头，当然他没有真的生气。在我们90分钟的谈话过程中，我只有一次让和蔼可亲的他感到不安，而当我们在彼得?琼斯酒馆坐下来交谈时，他还高兴着呐。
员工第一
零售咨询公司Verdict近期的顾客满意度调查，将John Lewis排在了首位，去年的赢家宜家(Ikea)则退居第五。John Lewis旗下的食杂店Waitrose排在第二位。另一项由《Which?》杂志所做的调查，将Waitrose排在首位，John Lewis第二位。
这里的秘诀是什么呢？斯图尔特爵士说，秘诀很简单：大多零售商的员工都在为别人工作，而在John Lewis和Waitrose，他们是为自己工作。
John Lewis是英国最大的员工合作商店。这一点要归功于商店创始人之子史派登?刘易斯(Spedan Lewis)。他发现他和父亲、弟弟所赚的钱加起来，超过他们当时在牛津街(Oxford Street)和斯隆广场两家店所有员工所赚的钱，这让他感到震惊。史派登?刘易斯不顾父亲的强烈反对，开始了他的“实业民主试验”，将利润分配给员工。
公司拥有27家John Lewis百货店和174家Waitrose超市，而它们几乎全部由6.3万名员工所有(另有少量外部股东)。下周，员工就会得知他们将能得到的利润比例。去年，从斯图尔特爵士往下的每个人都得到了14%的红利。
斯图尔特爵士表示，声称顾客第一的企业是从后往前思考。“假如你把员工放在第一位，那么员工就会把顾客放在第一位。当人们说‘我们是以顾客为导向的企业时，我会说‘没错，但是谁在为你的顾客服务呢？’”
他不把John Lewis的员工称为雇员，而是称为“合伙人”。“因为这是他们的企业，他们觉得有那份特别的责任，无须告诉他们该做什么，他们会本能地去做，”他说。
他指着酒馆外的商店说，“那些人就是我的股东。当董事会讨论投资几百万英镑时，这不是某个对冲基金拥有的几百万英镑。如果不投资，这几百万英镑可以分配给我每天都遇到的这些人。”
不仅是共同所有权，顾客还把John Lewis与“决不故意低价出售”的承诺联系在一起，也就是说，如果你能在其它地方发现更便宜的相同商品，John Lewis就会降到那个价格。这一承诺至今仍然有效，但在互联网上则不再适用。斯图尔特爵士表示，和商业大街上的其它公司竞争是一回事，和在网上销售的“爱沙尼亚车库”竞争则是另一回事了。“我们发现，这么做是在自杀，这种做法不现实，因为这是不同的购物方式。”
曾经宦海
斯图尔特爵士的方方面面都表明，他曾是个有抱负的公务员，但后来放弃了那一切去卖John Lewis睡衣。有抱负的公务员这部分没讲错。他毕业于牛津大学现代语言专业，在伦敦和日内瓦为英国政府干过好几个岗位，还曾当过工党和保守党大臣们的私人秘书。在罗伊?哈特斯利(Roy Hattersley)(现已授勋爵)担任工党主管价格和保护消费者的部长期间，他为曾为其效力。“之后是1979年大选和撒切尔革命。罗伊消失了，于是我为萨利?奥本海姆(Sally Oppenheim)工作。她此前在议会经常受到罗伊羞辱，而那时我就在旁边看着。”
他也为保守党大臣约翰?诺特(John Nott)和约翰?比冯(John Biffen)工作过。在两党间切换，他就没有困难吗？“如果你是一名公务员，那你的职责就是支持政府，如果你受不了，那就走人。我记得我曾向一位秘书口授一篇约翰?诺特的讲稿，而她就是我为罗伊工作时的那位秘书。当时她抬起头说：‘斯图尔特，想想看，要是罗伊现在能听到你说的话会怎样。’”
但到35岁时，他受够了。虽然他不介意为他人捉刀代笔，但他希望能够为自己讲话。他和一些猎头人士谈过，但没被打动。当他参加John Lewis的面试时，他立刻喜欢上了。“那种完整的道德规范，有原则的经商手法马上打动了我。”所以他开始在牛津街(Oxford Street)的男装部工作，在那里开始了卖睡衣的经历。
“有趣的”的John Lewis经历
那工作怎么样？“比我当公务员时有趣多了。”都是些什么有趣的事？“每天都发生有趣的事，比如某位顾客进来说些好玩的话，做些好笑的事。”
什么样的趣事呢？唔，有个退役海军样子的人进来，手里拿着一个昨天买的茶壶。“他明显是来闹事的。他说：‘昨天我在你们这儿买了这把茶壶，而我倒第一杯茶时，茶壶嘴就掉了下来。’售货员说：‘哦，天哪，你没烫伤自己吧？’他完全不知所措了，因为他原以为要大吵一架。”相反，他拿了把新茶壶和他的地铁费用。“他绝对没有想到会这样收场。”
他继续讲着有趣的事情，这不是“巨蟒”(Monty Python)喜剧团的《死鹦鹉》(Dead parrot)短剧，为什么非要是呢？毕竟，斯图尔特爵士是John Lewis的董事长，取笑公司不合适。他的热情让我忘了问他，那个退役海军样子的人为什么会把那把破茶壶带到男装部去。
我对他说，我猜他知道自己卖睡衣的时间不会很长。John Lewis之所以雇用资深公务员，大概就打算要他们做高级经理人的。“我知道我会转到管理层工作，但John Lewis说得很清楚，没有任何承诺。他们说‘我们认为你最终至少会掌管我们的一个百货商店，但让我们拭目以待吧。’”
他成了园艺设备区经理、镜子部经理以及斯隆广场店时装部采购经理。对于一个第一天在男装部上班就因穿了一件条纹衬衫而遭训斥的人来说(“我迅速被告知不要再这样穿”)，这是个进步。
他被提拔为沃特福特(Watford)一家商店的第二把手，随后在南安普敦(Southampton)管理一家门店。1993年，他成功踏入董事长办公室，他可以用自信的语气地对员工说：“站在这里的人‘绝不是对零售业一无所知的空降兵’。”
为快乐而努力
他是否介意《金融时报》(Financial Times)称他的公司为“John Lewis人民共和国”呢？他指出，另一家报纸称他为新共产主义者。“我认为这是个误解。我们是扩大了的资本主义，显示资本主义怎样才能真正起作用，在这种制度下，人们能从商业成功中获得真正的快乐。”
他是左派人士吗？“不，我很中间派。我从来不是政治动物。也许这是我为何能成为公务员的原因：因为我没有任何深刻的政治信仰。”
1999年，一些员工呼吁终止合伙制，将John Lewis在股票交易所上市，让每个合伙人得到一笔横财(据报道这笔横财的数目是10万英镑)。当时他是否感到失望呢？“得了吧，迈克尔，这可是10万英镑，这是人之常情。”
然后，第一次，他的和蔼可亲消失了。“最让我失望的是干你们这行的，你们没有去查实事情就挑起事端，因为事情根本就子虚乌有。但如果你对Waitrose的一个收银员零时工说，‘你将获得10万英镑’，而董事长说‘不，其实你得不到’，事情就的确会很难办了。”
解散合伙关系将需要一次“议会”行动。John Lewis的“中央委员会”在9月份开会讨论了这个问题。“新闻记者等在外面，等着看我被关在囚车里推出来，但会议却说‘没什么可讨论的。’”
但他得到了一个教训。“它给我和我的同事敲了警钟。我们以为，合伙人理解企业的结构，也理解其中的真正理念。我们做得还不够好。整个漫长炎热的夏天，我们都得花大力气做说服工作，那说明我们对此还没有付出足够的努力。”
直到那时，John Lewis一直都是个家长式作风的组织。现在是以更成人的方式对待员工的时候了。如今，当有人申请加入，他们会被告知：“你申请加入的这个公司是需要你承担责任的。如果你想要的只是来这里工作，那你最好去别的地方。”
斯图尔特爵士今年59岁。John Lewis公司的退休年龄是65岁。他打算留下吗？“谁知道呢，谁知道呢？”他说。“看着办吧。”
John Lewis并不是他的全部。“我有一辆1955年的美洲豹XK 140，这是我生活中最大的乐趣之一。我对它是一见钟情。”这是一辆黑色软顶敞篷车，是他在Ebay上从一位美国外科大夫那里买来的。一辆1955年的美洲豹卖多少钱？“我不想告诉你。它可不便宜。”这辆车是否令他失望过？只有一次。他把车停在一家Waitrose的停车场，匆匆忙忙进商场买东西。“我出来后，按下发动按钮，结果到处都冒烟，车子绝对完蛋了。我是躲在RAC拖车里回的家，运气真是糟透了。”这是整个下午他对我说的第一个没有John Lewis员工到场营救的故事。
