Jim Collins: What are the ways in which they communicate? Well, part of it might be the way they articulate something, some of them were again good at that, but that wasn't really their strength. It was by their decisions and by being able to connect the dots of their decisions and most important, by their people decisions.
So let me very briefly, tell a little story about communication, and direction and clarity.
There was a great debate within Gillette a number of years ago, back in the good to great era of Gillette. Coleman Mockler, who had become the Chief Executive, and we may as well go back to Coleman later, because it's interesting how these people become Chief Executives. Coleman's an interesting example on this.
Coleman Mockler, had this great dilemma, are we going to go steel or plastic?
Meaning, you could go on the high end and you could do what was the much more expensive razors, like Mach III or something else very sophisticated, costing maybe tens or hundreds of millions in dollars to develop. Very sophisticated manufacturing, that's one strategy, they call that the steel strategy.
At the other end, you have the plastic strategy --, which says that no, we’re not going to go high end --, we're going to basically turn it into a commodity, we're going to compete with the cheap disposables and that's the plastic strategy and that's where the market’s going.
Now Coleman, while listening to this, he doesn't know what the right answer is at first, because you could actually argue both side of the coin.
And what he did, he brought together, and there was a steel camp and there was a plastic camp. And he would listen to the debates, the arguments and the evidence and so forth, until he gained a point of clarity, which was that the best answer for us is the steel strategy.
Now, how did he communicate this?
He took the proven champion of the steel camp and put him in charge of the razor business.
Is there any ambiguity about where we're going, what the strategy is, which strategy makes the most sense, which strategy won the strategic argument?
In one simple people decision reflecting a strategic direction, he communicated more than if he would have been able to give ten great speeches, or write all these things, that decision.
So you stand back and say, well, was Coleman Mockler a great communicator?
Well, if you look at his speeches, no, he wasn't a great communicator in that sense.
But, you want to ask the question, did he communicate effectively?
Yes, he communicated with great effectiveness through his decisions.
So I was puzzling on your question, it was a great question. Well I thought, Wait a minute. Are they all great communicators, or not?
The answer is, it depends on how you define communication.
Thomas D. Gorman: Right.
Jim Collins: If it's actions supporting clarity of direction and values, they were spectacular communicators.
If it's being able to give the best speech, most of them got pretty bad marks.
Thomas D. Gorman: Right.
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吉姆·柯林斯：那他們用哪些方法溝通呢？他們闡述想法的方式可以算作是一種溝通能力。他們往往在這方面表現優秀，但這并不是他們的力量所在。他們是通過做決策、通過將決策中的各個要點關聯起來，以及最重要的——通過手下人的決策來進行溝通的。
讓我來非常簡短地講述一個關于溝通、前進方向和清晰度的故事。
若干年前，吉列公司開始從優秀邁向卓越，當時公司內部有過一場大辯論。柯爾曼?莫克勒時任吉列首席執行官。我們稍后會再談到柯爾曼，因為這些人（比如柯爾曼）成為首席執行官的故事總是非常有趣。
柯爾曼?莫克勒當時面臨著極大的困境：我們究竟是要走鋼鐵路線，還是塑料路線？
意思是說，如果走高端路線，你可以生產比現在的產品昂貴得多的剃須刀，比如鋒速3（MachIII）剃須刀，以及其它一些非常精致的產品，可能要花費幾千萬甚至幾億美元去打造復雜的產品生產線。生產極為復雜精致的產品，這是其中的一種戰略，他們稱之為鋼鐵戰略。
另一種戰略是塑料戰略。支持塑料戰略的人認為，我們不走高端路線，要從本質上將它變成一種日用品，我們要與便宜的一次性剃須刀進行競爭，這就是塑料戰略，也是市場的大勢所趨。
柯爾曼聽了這兩方面意見，一開始他也不知道正確的答案是什么，因為這就像硬幣的兩面，各有各的道理。
他將“鋼鐵派”和“塑料派”叫到一起，讓他們進行辯論，聽取他們的論點和證據等，直到他得出一個清晰的觀點，即鋼鐵戰略是最好的答案。
他是如何溝通的呢？
他找出“鋼鐵派”中公認的佼佼者，讓他負責剃須刀業務。
對于何去何從、采取什么戰略、什么戰略最行得通，以及什么戰略最終在辯論中獲勝這些問題，還會有什么不明確的地方嗎？
對這位負責人的選擇直接反映了今后的戰略方向，柯爾曼的這種溝通方式，比做十場出色的演講還要有說服力。
所以，如果你問：柯爾曼?莫克勒是一個杰出的溝通者嗎？
如果僅看他的演講水平，他談不上杰出。
不過如果你的問題是：他溝通得有效嗎？
我想，是的，他的決策達成了非常有效的溝通目的。
我被你的問題難住了，這是個很好的問題。那么他們是否都是杰出的溝通者呢？
所以答案是：這取決于你怎樣定義溝通。
高德思：是的。
吉姆·柯林斯：他們用實際行動清楚地表明了企業方向和價值觀，就這一點來說，他們的溝通能力都非常出色。
如果要看是否能夠做出最優秀的演講，他們中的大多數在這方面都比較糟糕。
高德思：對。 |
