????波林也把部分權力下放給了他小圈子里的人，比如前F1方程式車手杰基?斯圖爾特就是其中的一個。斯圖爾特也是福特的一名顧問，一向以喋喋不休、固執己見出名。由于他和波林很熟，因此他負責評測福特的新車型。沃頓在書中寫道：“人們普遍相信，只要他想，斯圖爾特可以隨時走進福特全球總部12樓波林的辦公室，坐在波林的椅子上，對他暢所欲言。沒人希望斯圖爾特告訴福特汽車公司的首席執行官，他對新Taurus感到失望。”

??? 波林在福特公司上世紀末的奪嫡大戲中也扮演了一個幕后角色。時任董事長兼CEO的彼得森給亨利?福特的兩個曾孫——比爾和艾德賽爾安排了職位，但卻沒有把他們安排進任何董事委員會里，因此開罪了福特家族。80年代末福特的銷量上揚大概讓彼得森有些飄飄然了，他的傲慢自大和火爆脾氣又開罪了一些外部董事。當時福特又恰好花了五倍的賬面價值收購了捷豹（Jaguar），公司上下一致認為彼得森的支票開得太爽快了。與此同時，時年63歲、一向謹小慎微的副董事長波林已經快到了退休的年齡。那年10月，董事會開始向彼得森“逼宮”，要求他辭職。彼得森到這時也死撐著姿態，稱離職是為了讓自己的“伙伴和朋友里德?波林”能有一個當一把手的機會。對于他自己，彼得森則表示他要把自己“移栽”到別處去。

????波林通過在北美地區嚴苛的成本削減政策帶領福特挺過了經濟危機，然后在1993年把位子讓給了埃里克斯?特羅特曼。不過在談到個人貢獻的時候，他從來不把榮譽往自己身上攬。在一次盛大的慶祝晚宴上，他居然當眾羞辱了負責1989款雷鳥（Thunderbird）轎車的總工程師和他的團隊，原因是他們設立了一系列重量和成本控制目標，但卻未能實現。波林在整個演講中都不忘斥責他們：“你們做出了承諾，但卻沒有信守諾言。”【這件事被記載在《華爾街日報》（the Wall Street Journal）記者保羅?英格拉西亞和喬伊?懷德撰寫的《復原》（Comeback）一書中。】

????不過波林卻沒有守住自己對財務高管艾倫?格里默的承諾。格里默告訴我，波林在90年代初曾親口許諾會讓他當上福特的下一任CEO。當時福特的高管隊伍人丁不旺，格里默本人也很有能力，而且人緣很好。后來當格里默發現特羅特曼成了CEO繼承人時，他找到波林當面對質。

????就像我的回憶錄《從60到0》（Sixty to Zero）中描寫的那樣，波林對他說，與特羅特曼相比，格里默缺乏廣泛的運營經驗。當時格里默是個沒有“出柜”的“同志”，他問波林：“是不是還有別的特殊原因？”波林答道：“沒有。”格里默后來回憶道：“我一直不明白我為什么被過濾掉了，不過我認為，波林當時把繼任的問題拋到了董事會上，而且沒有采取強硬的立場。是不是因為我的同性戀身份妨礙了我的機會，說實話我不知道。”

????福特的公關部門想盡了一切辦法，想把波林包裝成一個“汽車型男”。他們讓波林穿上一件福特的防風夾克衫，與其他的福特董事站在一起照相，還把他送到了美國殿堂級的鮑伯?邦杜蘭特駕校去學習。不過我看收效不大。在一次采訪中，我偶然把我的錄音機調到了“聲音啟動”模式，也就是每次我們倆中有人停止說話，錄音機就會自動暫停。波林不知怎么注意到了，然后每次他都會告訴我，你的錄音機出故障了。

????真是一日守財奴，終生守財奴。

????譯者：樸成奎

????Such was Poling's power that it cascaded down to those below him who were believed to be in his inner circle. Former Formula One driver Jackie Stewart, a Ford consultant, was one of them. Stewart, who could be garrulous and opinionated, got handled with kid gloves when he was reviewing new models because he was close to Poling. "It was widely believed that Jackie could walk into Red's office on the twelfth floor of World Headquarters whenever he wanted, sit down in one of Red's chairs, and talk to Red about whatever was on his mind," Walton writes. "No one wanted Stewart to tell the chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company that he was disappointed with the new Taurus."

????Poling was an offstage player in one of Ford's notorious succession dramas. Chairman and CEO Petersen had a falling out with the founding family for appointing Bill and Edsel, two great-grandsons of Henry Ford, and then not assigning them to any board committees. Petersen, coasting on an upturn in sales at the end of the 1980s, was turning off Ford's outside directors too with his arrogance and temper. Ford had just paid five times book value for Jaguar and Petersen was seen as too free with the checkbook. Poling, meanwhile, was loyally serving as vice chairman, at age 63, serving out his time until retirement. But in October, the board turned on Petersen, forcing him out. The way Petersen would frame the issue, he was leaving so that his "partner and friend Red Poling" could have a shot at the top job. For his part, Petersen said he was going off to "repot" himself.

????Poling managed the numbers and got Ford through the recession with draconian cuts in North America before handing off the top job in 1993 to Alex Trotman. But he didn't cover himself with glory when it came to personnel relations. He humiliated the engineer in charge of the 1989 Thunderbird, along with his team, at a big celebratory dinner for signing up for a set of numbers on weight and cost and then not delivering. Poling hammered away at them all through his speech. "You made a commitment, but you didn't keep it," he scolded. (The incident was reported in "Comeback" by the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia and Joe White).

????But Poling didn't keep his own commitment to Allan Gilmour, a top financial executive. Gilmour told me that Poling had assured him in the early 1990s that he was on track to succeed him as Ford's next CEO. The company's executive ranks were thin, and Gilmour was capable and well-liked. Butt when Gilmour discovered that the job was going to Trotman instead, he confronted Poling.

????As I reported in my memoir "Sixty to Zero," Poling told him that compared with Trotman, Gilmour didn't have broad operating experience. Gilmour, who was a closeted gay at the time, asked Poling, "Is there any particular trouble?" And Polling said, "No." Recalled Gilmour: "I'll never know why I was passed over, but I think Red left the succession question to the board and did not take a strong stand. Whether being gay hurt my chances, I honestly don't know."

????Ford public relations would struggle to make Poling into an archetypal car guy, photographing him in a Ford windbreaker along with other Ford directors, and sending him to Bob Bondurant's performance driving school. But I suspected differently. During one interview I accidentally set my tape recorder on "voice activate," meaning it would pause every time one of us stopped talking. Poling somehow noticed this and would tell me each time that the recorder was malfunctioning.

????Once a bean-counter, always a bean-counter.