Tough Choices 勇敢抉择
——Carly Fiorina 卡莉·菲奥莉娜
00:06.06]Thank you very much.
[00:07.01]It's great to be back
[00:07.81]and I just want to stay for the record,
[00:09.82]the class of 88-89
[00:11.38]was by far the best class.
[00:17.34]The decision to write a book
[00:19.42]called Tough Choices
[00:21.54]and to write it myself,
[00:23.13]I did, in fact,
[00:23.95]write it myself every word,
[00:25.56]no collaborator,
[00:26.48]no ghost writer,
[00:27.43]for better for worse.
[00:29.58]That decision first occured to me
[00:32.98]about five years ago
[00:34.57]I was sitting on the witness stand
[00:37.92]being cross examined
[00:39.19]by a team of attorneys,
[00:41.43]because having just received
[00:43.76]enough shareholder votes
[00:45.19]to complete the acquisition
[00:46.85]of Compaq computer.
[00:48.72]We were sued one last time
[00:50.50]to try stop it.
[00:52.70]And as I said on that witness stand
[00:54.62]being questioned
[00:55.98]by these attorneys that occurred to me
[00:57.93]that most people don't actually
[01:00.46]understand how a business operates.
[01:03.95]Because all of the questions
[01:05.04]that I was being asked
[01:06.23]really had to do with
[01:08.11]how you set goals
[01:10.37]and how you motivate people
[01:11.78]to achieve those goals.
[01:13.42]And the fact is that
[01:14.29]if you want to change products and profits,
[01:17.18]you have to change
[01:17.92]what people do everyday.
[01:20.60]And so I decided five years ago
[01:22.65]that I would write a book about business
[01:27.09]from the point of view
[01:28.31]of what I find most fascinating,
[01:30.70]most challenging
[01:31.62]most fun about business.
[01:34.60]And that is that's all about people,
[01:37.29]it's all about the people.
[01:40.25]Now of course sure Sloanes,
[01:42.72]so you know it's also really important
[01:44.51]it's all about the numbers,
[01:46.07]absolutely;
[01:47.13]it's all about the technology
[01:49.22]without a doubt.
[01:51.67]But only people can build products
[01:54.84]and produce numbers.
[01:57.20]And so I decided to write that book.
[02:00.73]Now if you decide to read the book
[02:04.27] which I, of course,
[02:04.62]hoped you will.
[02:07.40]You will find that
[02:09.50]the first thing I deal with in this book
[02:12.04]in the very first two pages
[02:14.72]is the fact that I got fired
[02:17.21]It was, of course a hugely public event.
[02:22.71]It made headlines all over the world.
[02:26.02]It causes lots of people still to say,
[02:29.52]"Gosh, you failed."
[02:32.35]By the way I don't think I failed
[02:34.08]I do think I was fired
[02:36.03]I will come to that in a moment.
[02:39.83]But I decided I had to start with that,
[02:43.47]because if I could not deal with that,
[02:47.30]most public of events,
[02:49.47]in an authentic way,
[02:51.35]the reader wouldn't believe
[02:53.35]the rest of the book.
[02:55.05]And so I start with that.
[02:57.40]What happened and how I felt
[03:00.18]and how I got up the next day
[03:01.90]and went on.
[03:05.49]I do spend a chapter
[03:08.20]talking about my time at MIT.
[03:11.68]Because my time here
[03:12.84]made a big difference,
[03:14.27]and I want to just talk to
[03:15.81]about three classes that I took here,
[03:18.59]because they are,
[03:21.66]they made being impact on me.
[03:23.57]By the way, you know,
[03:24.48]I loved, actually maybe four classes.
[03:27.42]I took, of course, operational research
[03:31.96]and learning about system's problems,
[03:38.90]is what helped me understand
[03:41.18]the systemic nature
[03:42.69]of transformation
[03:43.87]that was required at Hewlett Packard.
[03:47.03]When you learn about complex systems problems,
[03:49.47]you know that
[03:51.04]you cannot solve one of those problems
[03:53.27]by only acting on or understanding one
[03:55.68]or two parameters of the problems.
[03:58.27]You have to understand
[03:58.95]all parameters of the problems,
[04:00.63]and how they interact with one another.
[04:03.75]All transformation is a system's problem.
[04:07.46]And so for me,
[04:08.21]when I came to Hewlett Packard,
[04:09.72]a company that was iconic,
[04:12.17]mythic, but also a company
[04:13.90]that was deeply troubled;
[04:15.77]a company that was lagging further and further behind
[04:18.66]that no longer was even among
[04:20.00]the top 25 innovators in the world.
[04:22.77]A company that had missed nine quarters
[04:24.59]in the roll
[04:25.27]and the middle of biggest
[04:26.39]technology up-turning history,
[04:27.86]and yet employees
[04:29.19]were receiving record bonuses.
[04:32.24]A company that was so in love
[04:33.80]with its past
[04:34.83]it could not envision its future.
[04:39.07]I realized when I came
[04:40.07]to that company that
[04:41.50]this was a system's problem
[04:43.07] of deep complexity
[04:45.95]And if we were going
[04:47.28]to transform this company,
[04:47.83]it would not only take time,
[04:49.93]it would not only take the energy
[04:51.56]of tens of thousands of employees
[04:53.17]but it would also takes us
[04:55.14]working on the strategy of the firm,
[04:57.60]the structure and processes of the firm.
[05:00.13]How we measured and rewarded performance
[05:02.71]and as well what I called
[05:04.38]the software of the company,
[05:06.10]the culture,
[05:07.10]the values and behavior.
[05:10.65]I call culture the software
[05:12.12]of the company because
[05:12.92]like a computer,
[05:14.31]the hardware won't work
[05:15.98]if the software isn't up to the task.
[05:19.11]And for all you,
[05:20.24]I am sorry quantitative types that things,
[05:21.72]values and organizational behavior and culture,
[05:24.40]all that is just soft stuff,
[05:27.49]it is the hardest stuff
[05:30.18]and it's the software of a firm
[05:33.62]it is I took another really important course
[05:35.55]called gaming theory while I was here.
[05:38.29]Gaming theory to me was fascinating
[05:40.53]because, with all due respect to my
[05:42.58]very erudite teachers Jake Jacoby
[05:46.00]taught that course.
[05:47.52]It's a great course,
[05:48.24]but to me what gaming theory was
[05:49.61]was an attempt by scientists
[05:53.12]to explain irrational decision
[05:55.36]making and irrational framework.
[06:00.30]Not all decisions are rational
[06:03.15]not all decision are scientificlly based
[06:06.53]Many people
[06:07.55]in business are overcome
[06:09.79]at times by their fears,
[06:12.13]their resentments, their rivalries,
[06:15.93]their agendas.
[06:17.96]It is part of life
[06:20.11]and business is a collection
[06:21.63]of people working together.
[06:24.27]I started out as a secretary.
[06:28.34]I was a medieval history major
[06:30.66]and philosophy major at Stanford University;
[06:32.96]it was really interesting
[06:33.86]but it would not pay the bills.
[06:36.53]I went on to law school,
[06:38.39]and discovered very quickly
[06:40.72]that I hated law school.
[06:43.14]So I quit.
[06:44.42]And then I had to pay the bills.
[06:46.33]And I took the only job
[06:47.40]that I knew I could do
[06:48.36]that would pay my bills
[06:49.89]and that was to be a secretary.
[06:51.11]Actually, secretary is big glorified.
[06:53.64]I was a receptionist,
[06:54.97]I sat in front of the building
[06:56.96]I typed and I answered the phones.
[06:58.81]That was my job.
[07:03.21]I thought while I was a secretary
[07:05.96]that the people in the mail room
[07:08.24]must be fundamentally different
[07:10.11]from the people in the board-room.
[07:12.20]In what I have learned,
[07:14.07]in the course of my life,
[07:15.37]and my career
[07:16.20]and what this book is all about
[07:17.67]is that people are people
[07:19.80]wherever you find them.
[07:22.29]There are people
[07:24.03]who will hold their positions with honor
[07:28.07]there are people who will not.
[07:30.97]If you doubt that all you have to do
[07:32.41]is thinking about the current scandal
[07:34.71]with Backdating of Stock Options.
[07:37.86]Here you have people
[07:39.15]in some of the most prospected companies,
[07:42.86]in America
[07:44.89]who lose sight of
[07:46.80]good judgment and good ethics.
[07:50.89]They believe that they could get away
[07:53.12]with something because there wasn't
[07:54.52]a clear rule that told they couldn't.
[07:59.01]That's a breakdown in judgment and ethics.
[08:01.49]I knew from being a secretary
[08:03.31]and sitting in the mail room
[08:04.50]that sometimes people
[08:06.17]stop talking directly with each other
[08:08.08]about the real issues
[08:09.38]and when that happens,
[08:10.22]dysfunctions occurs
[08:11.35]and bad things happen in the business.
[08:14.09]That happens all the way up the chain.
[08:17.16]People are people wherever you them
[08:18.72]and that gaming theory course,
[08:21.52]I found it fascinating
[08:22.59]was a whole set of quantitative science
[08:25.77]design to try and explain
[08:27.57]how it is
[08:30.03]that people's personal agendas
[08:31.84]or emotions or fears
[08:33.67]can drive them to any irrational decision.
[08:37.26]And yet it happens all the time.
[08:39.13]And if you want to
[08:41.05]advance in business
[08:42.72]you have to also understand people.
[08:45.71]I took a course
[08:50.05]in organizational behavior
[08:50.71]and one of the important things
[08:51.72]that we have to do
[08:52.48]was role play a labor negotiation.
[08:56.20]Everybody went into this role play
[08:57.85]after very electoral conversation
[09:00.03]about how to bring
[09:01.26]two opposing groups together everyone
[09:03.18]knew electorally that
[09:04.82]the only way to solve this very tough problem
[09:07.89]between management and labor
[09:09.31]was for both sides to feel
[09:11.25]as though their issues were
[09:12.73]at least recognized,
[09:15.63]and hopefully addressed in some way.
[09:17.61]In other words,
[09:18.52]there had to be a win-win
[09:20.50]somewhere in there.
[09:23.64]Everyone knew this electorally,
[09:25.53]we study it.
[09:26.88]And yet when people
[09:28.48]got into the role play
[09:29.79]I watch how quickly people
[09:32.08]dissolved into win-lose
[09:37.62]with obvious consequences.
[09:40.39]People are people wherever you find them
[09:42.03]and the number of advance degrees someone has
[09:45.06]has nothing to do with whether
[09:47.72]or not they have judgment
[09:50.13]or maturity or perspective or ethics,
[09:55.59]which brings me perhaps
[09:56.20]to the most impactful course
[09:58.53]I took when I was here.
[10:00.52]And I talked a lot about this
[10:01.65]in the book which
[10:02.85]is called readings in power and responsibility.
[10:06.55]It was literature.
[10:10.03]From throughout the ages
[10:13.21]but it was also a set of compelling stories
[10:17.04]about who people are
[10:19.73]and how they behave
[10:22.83]and that made a big impact on me.
[10:27.83]One of the most cogent pieces
[10:30.05]of career advises I ever gave
[10:34.55]was something I gave to
[10:36.14]one of my very first subordinates.
[10:40.49]And she was a young woman
[10:43.70]wrestling with a set of personal choices.
[10:47.33]She was an engineer,
[10:49.21]it was in 80s.
[10:50.89]She was trying to decide
[10:52.17]about the age-old work-life balance question
[10:56.94]and I said to her,
[10:58.50]Never sell your soul,
[11:00.99]because if you do,
[11:01.90]no one will pay you back
[11:04.73]Now that may seem like very
[11:06.61]Touchy feely advice
[11:10.66]for a bunch of hardcore scientist engineers.
[11:14.60]But what I know
[11:16.52]about business in life
[11:18.45]is that there are many,
[11:19.81]many, many opportunities
[11:22.48]to lose your way,
[11:24.40]there are many opportunities
[11:25.40]to lose your way
[11:26.14]because you are overcame by greed.
[11:29.28]That's what the
[11:30.49]backdating stock option scandal's about.
[11:31.96]People have been overcome by greed
[11:35.69]and they have forgotten the fundamentals
[11:37.41]about what's right and what's wrong.
[11:41.30]People can be overcome by their ambition.
[11:45.14]I'm going to do this
[11:45.95]because if I do this
[11:46.96]I get the next job
[11:48.63]or I save the job I have
[11:51.60]People can be overcome by fear,
[11:54.48]I talk a lot about fear in this book
[11:56.72]because if you want to change
[11:58.60]what people are doing,
[11:59.88]you have to understand
[12:01.24]that people are afraid of change,
[12:04.32]change is always resisted,
[12:07.55]it's human nature.
[12:09.81]Why is the change resisted?
[12:11.78]Because people fear the unknown;
[12:14.81]and because the nature momentum
[12:17.70]of any institution is
[12:19.05]to preserve the status quo.
[12:21.62]Why?
[12:23.72]Because the status quo
[12:26.55]preserves the position
[12:27.65]of those who hold power.
[12:30.93]It is human nature
[12:31.78]that people who have power
[12:33.37]want to keep it.
[12:36.19]And so any institution
[12:39.18]is focused on the preservation
[12:41.71]of the power
[12:42.88]of those who already have it,
[12:46.11]human nature.
[12:47.86]If you want to transform something
[12:50.27]as we had to transform
[12:51.75]a great company called Hewlett Packard,
[12:53.68]you have to understand fear.
[12:56.15]You have to understand human motivation
[12:58.64]and you got understand the numbers.
[13:03.44]This book is about all those things,
[13:07.92]and I'm gonna stop talking here
[13:09.32]in about 2 minutes
[13:10.24]so we have plenty of time for your questions.
[13:13.52]Now one of things that I believe
[13:19.19]is that change not only requires
[13:22.48]an understanding of human nature,
[13:26.15]change also requires clear-eyed realism,
[13:31.66]change requires a deep understanding
[13:34.80]of what is wrong,
[13:38.85]so that means, for example,
[13:42.49]understanding all of issues
[13:44.66]and articulating them to people.
[13:47.72]When I came to Hewlett Packard in 1999,
[13:51.10]this was a company as I mentioned,
[13:52.73]legging further and further behind,
[13:54.54]as measured in innovation,
[13:56.84]as measured in financial performance,
[13:59.09]as measured in competitive position,
[14:01.64]by every measure,
[14:04.02]HP was falling further and further behind,
[14:06.19]and it was also a company
[14:07.67]dissolved into what I called 1000 trifles
[14:12.92]at 87 different business units
[14:15.47]they all did their their own thing,
[14:17.44]they all had their own brands in the market,
[14:19.76]150 of them,
[14:21.04]believe it or not,
[14:21.94]when I asked
[14:22.59]how many employees we had,
[14:24.33]no one could answer the question,
[14:27.06]because they were 87 different IT systems,
[14:28.95]and 87 different HR departments,
[14:31.53]not very effective.
[14:32.44]But people were so possessive
[14:37.00]of their resources and their power.
[14:43.61]When you come into transform a company,
[14:44.98]it is a leader's job to see things
[14:47.54]that others don't see
[14:50.11]that is a leader's fundamental responsibility
[14:53.88]to see things before others see them.
[14:56.35]The leader's most fundamental job
[14:57.76]is to sense danger and opportunity
[15:00.04]ahead of others and to act on it.
[15:03.38]And if you doubt that
[15:04.34]think about the parable of Kodak
[15:06.24]and Hewlett Packard,
[15:08.59]Kodak was a company that in 1999
[15:10.76]set on the huge pair of profit
[15:13.06]in the traditional photography business
[15:15.82]less in 5 years later,
[15:18.68]that business was drifting away,
[15:20.80]because a new technology had transformed
[15:23.24]an entire industry,
[15:24.81]all of you have cell phones
[15:25.91]you all take pictures with them.
[15:27.82]And that happened in about 5 years,
[15:30.04]when Kodak finally announced
[15:31.70]with all due respect to anyone
[15:32.92]who is here who works for Kodak,
[15:34.71]when Kodak finally announced,
[15:36.33]OK, we get it, we're going to
[15:38.30]now move to the new digital edge,
[15:41.42]we're going to deemphasize
[15:43.29]our traditional business.
[15:44.76]The market said,
[15:45.36]Yeah, that's the right decision
[15:47.44]everybody accepted it
[15:50.32]It was too late and Kodak brand may survive,
[15:53.96]but it's not clear the company will.
[15:57.24]On the other hand,
[15:57.91]when we undertook the merger with Compaq,
[15:59.83]very few people saw it,
[16:02.75]the fact that technology industry
[16:04.46]maybe had to consolidate
[16:06.13]was been viewed as heresy,
[16:08.97]the fact that scope and skill mattered,
[16:12.35]the fact that we could
[16:13.16]actually compete against Dell,
[16:15.74]the fact that maybe we could
[16:17.11]overcome IBM as the largest technology company
[16:20.24]in the world, by the way,
[16:21.11]these all goals all things were said way
[16:23.18]back to 2001,
[16:25.31]they seemed like hubris and naivety,
[16:30.42]and yet looking back now,
[16:31.48]it's clear the industry had to consolidate,
[16:34.53]it's clear that HP is competing
[16:36.44]against Dell and IBM.
[16:38.77]At the time that we announced Compaq merger,
[16:41.32]I told the board of both companies
[16:43.03]the stock will drop,
[16:44.82]HP stock will drop 20%,
[16:48.86]and it dropped 23%.
[16:51.00]I was the close.
[16:52.46]But my point being that sometimes
[16:55.85]a leader's job is to undertake
[16:58.16]the difficult job of transformation,
[17:01.20]and in this case it was a great company
[17:03.62]we're saving,
[17:05.90]but it is a tough, painful CRIsis
[17:09.19]for everyone involved,
[17:11.25]and I accepted that part of a transformation
[17:13.63]means that people who have lost their jobs,
[17:17.62]I laid off 36,000 people in my tenure,
[17:21.80]those people don't like me,
[17:23.47]I understand that,
[17:25.05]I understand that
[17:25.72]part of what comes with leading transformation
[17:28.09]is people tend to focus their resentment
[17:30.92]and fear and anger
[17:32.00]on the person leading the change,
[17:35.48]but leadership is all about change.
[17:39.37]Management
[17:41.40]is about producing acceptable results
[17:43.63]within a known set of parameters,
[17:46.25]management is a worthy profession,
[17:48.28]but it is not leadership,
[17:50.25]leadership is about
[17:51.61]changing the order of things,
[17:54.05]seeing possibilities
[17:55.57]that others do not see.
[18:00.63]Some of you who may
[18:01.58]have heard me speak before know
[18:02.90]that I believe deeply
[18:03.96]that anyone can leave from
[18:05.55]any place at any time.
[18:07.08]Leadership is not about position,
[18:08.54]leadership is not
[18:09.20]about how many degrees you have,
[18:11.57]leadership is about the decision
[18:13.14]to make positive, different,
[18:14.45]changing the order of things.
[18:16.83]But leadership is
[18:18.49]both rewarding and difficult,
[18:21.87]my most important lesson,
[18:23.04]I'll stop here take your question,
[18:24.37]my most important lesson
[18:25.59]about leadership came
[18:26.91]when I was a secretary,
[18:29.74]I sat, typed, answered the phones,
[18:31.76]by the way,
[18:32.44]the building that I sat in was one block
[18:34.76]from Hewlett Packard headquarters,
[18:37.34]how strange.
[18:40.83]About 6 months into that job,
[18:43.55]two men came to see me,
[18:46.02]those two men said,
[18:46.78]you know we think maybe
[18:48.32]you can do something else,
[18:50.25]we think maybe you can
[18:51.72]do something more,
[18:52.42]would you like to help us
[18:54.50]write some deals?
[18:56.42]That was my first introduction
[18:57.97]to the possibility
[18:59.13]that I might choose a career on business.
[19:02.21]What was the leadership lesson
[19:03.38]I learned that day
[19:04.20]it is a leader's job to see possibilities
[19:07.18]in other people,
[19:08.91]it is a leader's job to see the possibilities
[19:11.39]in circumstances.
[19:14.79]Change requires realism,
[19:16.94]clear-eyed realism
[19:19.48]about where we are
[19:20.54]and what our problems
[19:21.61]and our risks are.
[19:23.00]But change requires a sense of possibility
[19:26.00]and optimism as well,
[19:28.52]because optimism is the belief
[19:29.88]that things can get better
[19:32.61]and optimists trust
[19:34.89]that people are willing to go along
[19:36.76]for the journey
[19:38.07]despite their fears.
[19:39.85]That day those two men taught me
[19:41.38]the leaders see the possibilities in others
[19:43.91]and possibilities in circumstances,
[19:46.80]and so I will close with my
[19:48.16]other side of career advice
[19:50.14]before I take your question,
[19:51.30]which is don't spend all your time
[19:54.47]worrying about the next job,
[19:57.23]do the job you have,
[19:59.50]do it with passion,
[20:00.92]do it with commitment,
[20:02.00]do it with excellence,
[20:03.34]and do it with honor
[20:04.10]and integrity,
[20:05.27]learn everything you can in the job
[20:08.08]you are doing,
[20:09.59]focus on the possibilities
[20:11.16]where can you make a difference.
[20:12.94]Don't fixate on
[20:14.61]all the things you can't do,
[20:16.97]focus on the things you can do.
[20:19.31]And if you do that,
[20:21.88]opportunity will knock.
[20:24.65]People will present you
[20:26.68]with opportunities to do more,
[20:28.75]when opportunity knocks,
[20:31.17]do not be afraid to answer,
[20:33.45]do not be afraid to go outside
[20:34.86]your comforts to try something new
[20:36.56]to take a risk,
[20:37.48]maybe to make a mistake.
[20:38.98]It is what life and success are made of.
[20:42.37]I never had a plan to be a CEO,
[20:45.51]I never thought I would be a CEO,
[20:49.70]the first time it ever occurred to me
[20:51.69]that maybe I could be a CEO
[20:54.67]was when I graduated from Sloan,
[20:57.56]and probably because
[20:58.27]I saw a lot of CEOs walk through here,
[21:01.52]and I discovered watching all those CEOs,
[21:04.96]some of them I had enormous respect for,
[21:09.00]some I did not,
[21:10.82]some I like to have a drink with afterwards,
[21:13.09]some I hoped I never see again,
[21:17.08]some seemed comport themselves
[21:18.79]with excellence and honor,
[21:20.11]some did not.
[21:22.69]People are people wherever you go,
[21:25.72]and if you can choose to lead or not.
