女高管接連被炒的五大啟示
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????上周二，雅虎公司（Yahoo）CEO卡羅爾?巴茨與美國銀行（Bank of America）財富管理主管薩莉?克勞切克雙雙遭遇解雇，《財富》雜志（Fortune）最具影響力商界女性（Most Powerful Women）榜單遭受雙重打擊。 ????巴茨在“最具影響力商界女性”排名中名列第10位，她的離職可謂轟轟烈烈。之前接受本人采訪時，她便對雅虎董事會破口大罵，引起了不小的社會反響。而與之相反，在“最具影響力商界女性”中排名第24位的克勞切克，其離職則顯得波瀾不驚。 ????我非常了解這兩位女強人。從某種程度上來看，她們其實屬于同一類人：作風強硬，有時甚至目中無人；她們在公司里都“特立獨行”， 對由此產生的種種指責，她們卻都能做到安之若素。上周三晚上，在被解職27小時后，巴茨打電話給我，在談到對她們的這番描述時，她表示：“概括得不錯。” ????當然，兩位女強人的不同點居多。巴茨是科技行業最具影響力的女性，而克勞切克則是華爾街的頭號女強人。從她們的落馬中，我們可以得出以下五點啟示： ????1. 若必須解雇某人，最好當面談。在接受《財富》雜志專訪時，巴茨對雅虎董事長羅伊?博斯托克打電話解雇她而耿耿于懷。上周二，巴茨剛剛抵達曼哈頓，準備出席次日的花旗集團（Citigroup）科技大會；她憤憤不平地說，當時博斯托克“就在紐約，他沒理由不來跟我面談。”克勞切克也在同一天遭遇解職，但方式卻截然不同：美國銀行CEO布萊恩?莫尼漢并沒有打個電話了事，而是專程從位于北卡羅來納州夏洛特的公司總部飛到紐約，當面解除了克勞切克的職位，這才是明智的做法。 ????2. 聘用“特立獨行的人”，要能夠應對她們引起的“騷動”。雅虎顯然是一個生動的反面教材：要想扭轉公司頹勢，巴茨并非合適的領導者，但無能的董事會卻未能及早發現這一點。而克勞切克是金融服務業最閃亮的一顆明星，早在37歲時，她便登上了《財富》雜志的封面，并被冠之為“華爾街最后一位誠實的分析師”（The Last Honest Analyst），當時她正擔任桑弗德?伯恩斯坦公司（Sanford Bernstein）的負責人，而華爾街的其他公司卻紛紛陷入利益沖突丑聞無法自拔。之后，花旗集團力圖重塑被玷污的聲譽，于是克勞切克臨危受命。但在就投資不善對客戶進行賠償的問題上，克勞切克卻與公司高層產生了分歧，進而遭到了排擠。她在美國銀行的任職雖然還算順利，但公司業績每況愈下，而她又一直無法融入莫尼漢的核心集團，所以實際上，她的命運早已注定。 ????3. 絕不詆毀。我的同事丹?普里馬克周五的一篇報道稱，在巴茨與雅虎集團的雇傭合同里，包含非貶低條款。而巴茨曾稱雅虎董事會成員為“蠢蛋”，這可能使她高達1,000萬美元的離職遣散金成為泡影。如果巴茨還想拿到這筆錢，最好管好自己的嘴巴，別再對董事會惡語相向。 ????4. 年齡是個問題。巴茨今年63歲，而克勞切克46歲。巴茨于上周五從雅虎公司董事會辭職后，仍繼續擔任思科公司（Cisco）的首席獨立董事一職。上周，她對我坦言，執掌歐特克（Autodesk）和雅虎兩大科技巨頭之后，她很難再有機會領導其他公司。而克勞切克卻恰好相反，她還有很長的路要走。 ????5. 遭遇解雇并非世界末日。莫尼漢對美國銀行高層重新洗牌，克勞切克被排除在外。但這卻不能抹殺克勞切克曾經取得的輝煌成績：她成功重建了美國銀行的財富管理業務，其中包括重組美林證券公司（Merrill Lynch）。在她任職期間，公司的主要指標均大幅提升，包括公司收入、利潤、銷售利潤率，以及員工的士氣等；于此同時，公司各方面的損耗也顯著下降。銀行分析師迪克?波夫對克勞切克有所了解。上周，他在接受美國全國廣播公司財經頻道（CNBC）采訪時稱，對于這次被解雇，克勞切克應該學到的最重要的一點是選擇更適合自己的職業——甚至可以重操舊業，重新做一名分析師。雖然克勞切克對此保持了沉默，但從之前與她的對話中可以看出，她更喜歡接受巨大的、嚴峻的挑戰。失敗阻止不了她前進的腳步。她還會東山再起。 ????譯者：李淑玉/劉進龍 |
????It was a double hit to Fortune's Most Powerful Women list last Tuesday when YahooCEO Carol Bartz and Bank of America's (BAC) Sallie Krawcheck got fired. ????Bartz, No. 10 in our 2010 MPW rankings, went out with a bang--as my explosive interview with her, F-bombs included, shows. Meanwhile, Krawcheck, BofA's global wealth management chief and No. 24 on our list, exited without a sound. ????I know both women well, and it's worth observing that they are, in certain ways, a common type: They're both fierce, sometimes defiant executives who like playing "outsider" inside organizations and proudly take the flak that comes with it. "That is really good," Bartz said of this characterization, when she called me last Wednesday night, 27 hours after getting ousted. ????There are more differences, though, between Bartz, who was the tech industry's most powerful woman, and Krawcheck, who was Wall Street's woman on top--and five lessons to take away from their mishaps: ????1. If you must fire someone, do it in person. Bartz, who talked to Fortune exclusively, was livid that Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock fired her her over the phone. Last Tuesday, she had arrived in Manhattan for a Citigroup (C) technology conference, and Bostock "was in New York City," she said. "There's no excuse for him not meeting with me." Same day, different style: BofA CEO Brian Moynihan booted Krawcheck in person. Rather than phone her from Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters, he wisely flew to New York. ????2. If you hire an "outsider," make sure you can handle the rabblerousing. Yahoo could not--this was a case of a troubled company, an ill-fitting chief, and a board too weak to acknowledge early on that Bartz wasn't right for the turnaround challenge. As for Krawcheck, here was a financial-services star who had made the cover of Fortune as "The Last Honest Analyst" at age 37 when she was heading research firm Sanford Bernstein and the rest of Wall Street was mired in conflict-of-interest scandals. At Citigroup (C), which brought her in to help heal its damaged reputation, she clashed with top management--and was pushed out--over the issue of reimbursing clients for bad investments. Her run at BofA wasn't so acrimonious, but outside Moynihan's inner circle at a shrinking company, she was practically doomed. ????3. Speak no evil. As my colleague Dan Primack reported on Friday, Bartz's Yahoo employment contract has a non-disparagement clause. And she put a $10 million pay package at risk by calling the Yahoo directors "doofuses." If she doesn't bash the board again, she may well get her money, it appears. ????4. Age matters. Bartz is 63. Krawcheck is 46. Bartz, who resigned from the Yahoo board on Friday, remains Cisco's (CSCO) lead independent director. After heading two major tech companies, Autodesk (ADSK) and Yahoo--there's scant chance she'll run another, she admitted to me last week. Krawcheck, in contrast, has a long runway ahead. ????5. Getting fired isn't death, necessarily. Even though Moynihan didn't want Krawcheck in his new lineup, she did a good job rebuilding the bank's wealth management operation, including Merrill Lynch. Key measures--revenues, profits, margins, morale--went up, while attrition went down during her tenure. Some who know her, like bank analyst Dick Bove on CNBC last week, think the main lesson for Krawcheck is to choose her jobs better--and maybe even go back to her roots as an analyst. Won't happen. Krawcheck isn't talking, but I know from previous conversations with her that she loves a big and messy turnaround. Failure doesn't phase her. She'll be back. |
