Ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon. Today I'II focus on the definition and the importance of entrepreneurial culture, drawing on the lesson from the Enron case.
For most of the 1990s, CEOs of Old Economy companies struggled to turn slow-moving organizations into nimbler, more flexible outfits. The truth is, real transformations are the exception rather than the rule. Changing the core values, the attitudes, and the fundamental relationships of a vast organization is overwhelmingly difficult. That's why an army of academics and consultants descended on Enron in the late 1990s and held it up as a paragon of management virtue. Enron seemed to have transformed itself from a stodgy regulated utility to a fast-moving enterprise where its performance was paramount.
女士們、先生們:
下午好！今天我以安然公司的教訓為例談一下企業(yè)文化的內(nèi)涵及其重要性。
在20世紀90年代的大部分時間里，舊經(jīng)濟公司的首席執(zhí)行官們都在努力地將運作緩慢的公司朝著敏捷、更富有彈性的公司轉(zhuǎn)型。但實際情況是，真正轉(zhuǎn)型成功的公司是極個別的例子。轉(zhuǎn)變一家大型公司的核心理念、態(tài)度和基本關(guān)系極其困難。這就是20世紀90年代末大批學者和顧問涌人安然公司并推崇其為管理典范的原因。當時的安然似乎已從一家平庸、節(jié)制的公用事業(yè)公司轉(zhuǎn)型為一家快速運營、業(yè)績出眾的企業(yè)。
If only that were true. Enron tumbled down. Many of the same academics are now busy distilling the cultural and leadership lessons from the debacle. Their conclusion so far is like this: Enron didn't fail just because of impropег accounting or alleged corruption at the top. It also failed because of its entrepreneurial culture - the very reason Enron attracted so much attention and acclaim. Too much emphasis on earnings growth and individual initiative, coupled with a shocking absence of the usual corporate checks and balances, turned Enron's entrepreneurial culture from one that rewarded aggressive strategy to one that increasingly relied on unethical means. In the end, too much leeway was given to young, inexperienced managers without the necessary controls to minimize failures.
可惜這不是事實，安然栽了。當年那批學者中很多人現(xiàn)在忙于從安然的崩潰中分析企業(yè)文化和領(lǐng)導層方面的教訓。目前他們的結(jié)論是：安然的失敗并不僅僅因為公司做了假賬或者所謂的高層腐敗，其失敗的原因還應歸咎于公司的企業(yè)文化，正是這種企業(yè)文化曾經(jīng)使安然引人注目、備受青睞。過分強調(diào)收益的增長和個人的主動性，加上缺乏那種常規(guī)的公司制約平衡機制，使安然的企業(yè)文化從推崇進取性的戰(zhàn)略轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)槿找嬉蕾嚥坏赖碌氖侄?。最后，公司對沒有經(jīng)驗的年輕管理人員過度寬容，公司又缺乏必要的控制手段盡可能降低可能出現(xiàn)的失敗。
Jeffrey K. Skilling assumed Enron CEO in early 2001. His recipe for changing the company was right out of the New Economy playbook. Layers of management were wiped out. Hundreds of outsiders were recruited and encouraged to bring new thinking to a tradition-bound business. The company abolished seniority-based salaries in favor of more highly leveraged compensation that offered huge cash bonuses and stock option grants to top performers. Young people, many just out of undergraduate or MBA programs, were handed extraordinary authority, able to make $5 million decisions without higher approval.
2001年杰弗萊?斯基林就任安然首席執(zhí)行官。他改變公司的方法完全出自新經(jīng)濟攻略手冊。安然取消了一些管理層，從外界招募了數(shù)百名職員，鼓勵他們向受傳統(tǒng)束縛的企業(yè)注入新思想。公司廢除了基于資歷的薪水制度，取而代之的是更富有激勵性的分配制度，表現(xiàn)出眾的員工可以獲得豐厚的現(xiàn)金獎勵和公司股票。公司賦予年輕人非常大的權(quán)力，這些年輕人中不少是剛畢業(yè)的本科生和工商管理碩士研究生，他們無須上級領(lǐng)導批準便可自行決策，決策所涉金額可以高達500萬美元。
In larger companies like IBM, even though there is a movement toward youth, there are still enough older people around to mentor them. At Enron, you had a bunch of kids running loose without adult supervision.
The new entrepreneurial culture encourages the "loose and tight" environment. The idea is to combine tight controls with maximum individual authority to allow entrepreneurship to flourish without the culture edging into chaos.
At Enron, however, the pressure to make the numbers was often overwhelming. The environment was ripe for abuse.
Nobody at corporate was asking the right questions. It was completely hands-off management. It was a runaway train.
像IBM這樣的大公司，盡管也出現(xiàn)了不拘一格降人才的發(fā)展趨勢，但是青年才俊身邊不乏資深職員的指導。但是你在安然看到的卻是一群沒有大人監(jiān)管的小孩子在自說自話地獨斷專行。
新型的企業(yè)文化鼓勵“張弛有度”的企業(yè)環(huán)境。這種張弛結(jié)合的理念是指把嚴格控管與最大限度的個人權(quán)利相結(jié)合，從而使企業(yè)家的才能得到充分發(fā)揮，同時也避免企業(yè)文化陷人混亂。
然而在安然需做假賬，這種壓力往往壓倒了一切。安然的企業(yè)環(huán)境最終成了可以為所欲為的溫床。公司內(nèi)沒有人提出切中要害的問題,企業(yè)完全處于一種放任自流的管理狀態(tài)，公司就像一匹脫了韁繩的野馬。
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