她曾經被百思買視為風險，現在當上了CEO
王波非（Phil Wahba）
2019-11-10
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科里·巴里在百思買（Best Buy）近20年的工作生涯里，曾經在早期的一次績效評估中被視為“公司的風險點”。對評估結果感到不安的巴里決定聽取他人意見，改正缺點，而不是一逃了之。 “你可以判斷，有一些是很有價值的真話，有一些是我需要努力的地方。”巴里于10月23日在華盛頓舉行的《財富》雜志最具影響力的商界女性峰會上向觀眾表示，“之后我就傾盡全力。”此后的第二次評估中，她提交了自己的個人發展計劃。 這種堅持當然為巴里帶來了豐厚的回報：今年6月，她被任命為價值430億美元的零售企業百思買的CEO，44歲的她成為《財富》美國500強企業里最年輕的女性CEO。（今年9月，在華爾街的首次演講中，她提出2025年的銷售額要達到500億美元。） 巴里在明尼蘇達州的一個小鎮長大，母親是畫師，父親是皮革工人。由于總是面臨下一頓飯不知從哪里來的不確定性，她希望在自己的工作生活中尋求更多的穩定。 所以她選擇了會計。巴里打趣道：“我可能是地球上唯一一個因為說想當會計而讓父母十分失望的人。” 在百思買，巴里多年來一直努力提升自己的能力，她不斷承擔自己舒適區之外、現有技能之外、甚至是定義模糊的領域里的工作。這最終幫助她不斷向公司高層邁進。 2012年，百思買的CEO因為丑聞下臺，公司也因為亞馬遜在電子類消費品市場的實力感受到巨大壓力，百思買瀕臨死亡，但巴里再次決定堅持到底，而不是一逃了之。 她最終成了她的前任、執行主席休伯特·喬利的麾下主將，同時也是百思買以驚人姿態回歸的主要架構師：百思買回歸的兩大助力包括擁抱和亞馬遜的競價，以及在門店內為大客戶電子品牌提供足夠空間進行硬件展示和操作教學。 她回憶道：“如果你是管理者，在狀況不佳的時候離開是最大的罪過。” 巴里說，就在五年前，當上CEO對她來說甚至連個遙遠的夢想都算不上。但隨著這種可能性潛入腦海，巴里開始積攢她認為可能用得上的技能。 “我想要成為CEO。我努力學習掌握我認為可以讓我做好準備的技能。”巴里說，“我不認為誰真的會等著最后有人看著你的眼睛說：‘你會成為一家市值430億美元公司的CEO。’” 現在，她成為了百思買的CEO，致力于繼續推動百思買的增長，在醫療保健和如何幫助老年人延長居家時間等方面下了重注。她說，目前她還是個新手，因此聽取了同事和圈內人對自己工作表現的大量評論。 “人們問我當CEO最驚奇的事是什么？對我來說，是你能夠得到大量的反饋，而且你可以從很多不同的地方得到這些反饋。”她開玩笑說。同時，巴里也補充道，這些反饋將幫助她更好地完成工作。（財富中文網） 譯者：Agatha |
Early on in her nearly 20-year career at Best Buy, Corie Barry was deemed a “risk to the organization” in a performance review. Unnerved by the assessment, Barry decided to work on what she was told were her shortcomings, rather than bolt. “You can decide somewhere here there is a nugget of truth, somewhere in here there are things I need to work on,” Barry told the audience at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit on October 23 in Washington, D.C. “I buckled down.” And at the next assessment, she brought her own development plan. The perseverance has of course paid off handsomely for Barry: she was named CEO of Best Buy, a $43 billion, retailer in June, and at 44, became the youngest female CEO in the Fortune 500. (Last month, in her first presentation to Wall Street, she laid out her plan for getting to $50 billion in sales by 2025.) Barry grew up in small town Minnesota, raised by a painter mother and a leather worker father. But the uncertainty surrounding where the next meal would come from led her to seek more structure in her own work life. So she gravitated toward accounting. “I’m probably the only person on earth whose parents were really disappointed when I said I wanted to go be an accountant,” Barry quipped. At Best Buy, Barry sought to build her capabilities over the years by taking on jobs outside her comfort zone or existing skills set, or even those that were ill defined. That ultimately helped her climb the ranks at Best Buy. After Best Buy’s near death experience in 2012—when it lost its then-CEO to scandal, and sales were under enormous pressure from Amazon.com muscling in on its consumer electronics market—Barry again decided to stick it out, rather than flee. She eventually became a chief lieutenant to her predecessor, executive chairman Hubert Joly, and was a key architect of Best Buy’s stunning comeback—one that was fueled by embracing price matching with Amazon and creating spaces in its stores for major consumer electronics brands to showcase their wares and teach customers how to use them. “If your purpose is stewardship, and leaving when things are bad is the ultimate crime,” she recalled. As recently as five years ago, becoming CEO was not even a remote idea for her, Barry said. But as the possibility starting creeping into her mind, Barry said she set about gathering the skills she thought would be needed. “I wanted the CEO job. I worked hard to acquire to get the skills that I thought would get me ready for it,” Barry said. “I don’t think anyone, at the end of the day, really expects someone to look you in the eye, and say ‘You’re going to be the CEO of a $43 billion company.’” Now that she is CEO, Barry is working to continue Best Buy’s growth, betting heavily on health care and how, for instance, tech can help seniors stay in their homes longer. For now, as a rookie CEO, she says, Barry is taking in a lot of commentary from colleagues and her circle about how she’s doing. “When people ask me what’s the biggest surprise about being CEO? For me, it’s been the amount of feedback you get and how many places you get it,” she joked. At the same time, Barry added, that will help her do her job even better. |
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