????約翰?湯普森是微軟（Microsoft）資深軟件高管，2012年加入微軟董事會成員。他領(lǐng)導的委員會曾負責遴選史蒂夫?鮑爾默的繼任者，并最終從內(nèi)部選定了薩提亞?納德拉擔任公司CEO。湯普森在接受最新一期《財富》雜志（Fortune）的專訪時談到了自己擔任CEO的虛擬儀器公司（Virtual Instruments），文化的重要性，如今的微軟和25年前的IBM之間的相似性，以及微軟CEO遴選不同尋常的公開性。

????《財富》雜志：根據(jù)你在IBM的經(jīng)歷，你認為公司文化有多重要？

????湯普森：每一位公司領(lǐng)導者都必須努力解決兩個重要問題。第一，隨著公司的發(fā)展，公司的管理制度是否做出了改變，以便適應公司規(guī)模的擴大和公司出現(xiàn)的變化？ 例如，如何考慮市場，如何考慮資源分配，如何考慮資本分配等。另外，公司的文化是否也相應做出了調(diào)整？

????我認為IBM學會的一件事是，他們在喪失壟斷地位、不得不與大批規(guī)模更小、更靈活的公司競爭時，他們需要調(diào)整變革的頻率和速度。郭士納加入IBM后給公司帶來了一種緊迫感。當時，許多人曾認為IBM并不需要這種壓力。很明顯，壟斷已經(jīng)成為過去，每一個細分市場都誕生了大批新的競爭對手。這時，就需要愿意做出調(diào)整的領(lǐng)導者：“這是我們要做的事情，那是我們不會做的事情。這些行為將受到獎勵，那些行為會受到懲罰?！彪S著時間的推移，IBM的文化逐漸發(fā)生了改變。

????公司文化不會在一夜之間發(fā)生改變。更多的是一些微妙的影響，以及這種影響的一致性和可預見性。隨著時間推移，這種影響將帶來微妙的行為變化，而這些行為便是我們所謂的公司文化。

????微軟的公司文化是否需要改變？

????我認為這個問題應該問問薩提亞。不過，我認為微軟眼下的處境與上世紀90年代的IBM在有些方面非常類似。事實上，Windows系統(tǒng)的壟斷地位一直在受到挑戰(zhàn)。因此，我們必須與時俱進，改變或重新思考公司的管理制度和相關(guān)的公司文化。

????你如何理解微軟遴選CEO如此備受關(guān)注的情況？

????首先，微軟是全世界規(guī)模最大、最受尊敬的公司之一。我們之所以進行如此公開的外部遴選，主要是為了投資者。我們要讓其他人確定，我們已經(jīng)盡了最大的努力在進行調(diào)查，努力選擇從長遠角度考慮能為股東創(chuàng)造真正價值的領(lǐng)導者。微軟是行業(yè)的領(lǐng)導者，在全球廣受贊譽，也是全世界市值最高的公司之一，不可能把這樣一家公司放在真空或試管中去完成這樣的工作。這樣一家公司的領(lǐng)導人選拔必須公開進行。

????坦白說，我認為很大一部分媒體報道并不真實，缺乏必要的事實依據(jù)。只要東拼西湊，串聯(lián)在一起，就能編出一個故事來。而許多這樣的故事并不真實。媒體稱有人接受了公司面試，有人拒絕了這個職位，這些都是不實的傳言。

????隨著事件的發(fā)展，這件事吸引了人們極大的興趣。各種流言蜚語層出不窮，讓這件事受公眾關(guān)注的程度超出了我的預期，我從沒想過我本人也會受到這么高的關(guān)注。我只是應公司要求，接受了《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal ）的采訪，后來在十二月份發(fā)表了博客，僅此而已。我公開做過的事只有這兩件。

????結(jié)果，全世界都認為我擁有極大的權(quán)利。實際上，我只是和委員會其他成員一樣，做了該做的事情。沒錯，我是委員會主席，但是，就我個人、以及我所做的事，進行添油加醋地描繪，硬生生制造出一種被普遍認同的觀點，這是不符合事實的。

????《華爾街日報》的采訪完全是按照微軟慣例進行的，因為他們做的是一期有關(guān)史蒂夫?鮑爾默的介紹。對這個問題就到此為止吧。而至于博客，因為我們所有人都希望能在2013年底確定人選，這也是許多投資者的希望。但當我們知道在此之前不可能找到合適人選時，我們認為，要讓所有人知道此事將在2014年完成，最簡單的方式就是發(fā)表博客。結(jié)果，突然之間出現(xiàn)了這樣的言論：“快看，湯普森又在媒體亮相了?！闭f實話，輿論的推波助瀾遠遠超出我的想象。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????

????John Thompson, a veteran software executive and a board member at Microsoft since 2012, led the committee that chose company insider Satya Nadella to replace Steve Ballmer as CEO. In an interview for the current issue of Fortune about Virtual Instruments, where Thompson is CEO, he also spoke about the importance of culture, similarities between Microsoft today and IBM 25 years ago, and the unusually public nature of the CEO search.

????Fortune: How important is corporate culture, reflecting on your tenure at IBM?

????Thompson: There are two important issues that every leader in every company grapples with. First, as the company grows, do the management systems of how you think about markets, think about deployment of resources, think about allocation of capital all change to accommodate a bigger and different company? And does the culture along the way change as well?

????I think one of the things IBM learned was when their monopoly ran out and they had to compete with a bunch of smaller, more agile companies, they needed to have a different rate and pace of change. And Lou Gerstner coming into IBM certainly brought about a sense of urgency that some would argue the company didn't really have at that time. And clearly the monopoly was gone, and clearly the market was loaded with a host of new competitors in almost every segment they were in. It required a leader who was willing to say, "Here's what we're going to do, and here's what we're not going to do. And here are the behaviors that will be rewarded, and here are the ones that will be punished." Over time, that changed IBM's culture.

????You don't change a company's culture overnight. It's more about the subtle influences and the consistency and predictability of those influences that over time drives that subtle behavior change that we call culture.

????Does Microsoft's culture need to change?

????I think that's a better question for Satya. But I would argue that there are some attributes to Microsoft today that do look vaguely like IBM circa 1990. The Windows monopoly is in fact under attack, and therefore we're going to have to change or think differently about the management systems and the associated culture of the company as time goes on.

????What do you make of the high-profile situation the Microsoft CEO search became?

????First off, it's one of the largest and most respected companies in the world. And the fact that we chose to do a very public external search was as much for our investors as it was for anyone else to make sure that we had done the best possible job we could of surveying the landscape and picking the leader that we thought would do the most to create real value for shareholders over the long term. And you can't take a company that's a leader in an industry, recognized globally, one of the largest market cap companies in the world, and do something like that in a vacuum or in a test tube. It's got to be done publicly.

????Candidly, I would have to say a very large percentage of the stuff that got written was just stuff. It wasn't necessarily grounded in truth. But if you could pick up a little germ here and a little germ there and you could string them together, you could write a story. And there were a lot of stories written that just weren't true. There were people who purported to have been interviewed for the job or who turned the job down that just wasn't true.

????And so as it went on, it became more interesting than anything else. As stories evolved or emerged or ebbed and flowed I never really expected to have -- for it to have the public profile that it did -- and I certainly never myself expected to have the public profile that I did. I did oneWall Street Journal interview at the request of Microsoft, and that's it. And we did the blog post in December. That's it. Those are the only two public things I did.

????But somehow the world got this view that I was bigger than life. I was doing my job just like the other directors who were a part of the committee. Yes, I was the chairman of the committee, but the characterization of me as this, you know, person who had this flame being fanned to create this pervasive view of who I was and what I was doing and all that, that's just not true.

????The Wall Street Journal interview was done at the bequest of Microsoft because they were doing a profile on Steve Ballmer. I'll just leave it at that. And in the blog post was we had all hoped -- many of our investors had hoped -- that we would be done by year-end 2013. And when it became apparent to us that we weren't going to achieve that, we felt that the easiest way to communicate with everyone that it was going to be a 2014 transaction was to put this blog post out. Well, all of a sudden it's like, "There's Thompson again in the press." Well, hell. So people made more of it than I thought, quite frankly.