傻瓜比癮君子對社會的危害更大
Who makes a worse company chairman: one who is always scratching his head, or one who is off his head?
哪種人當董事長更糟糕：永遠在撓頭的人，還是頭腦發昏的人？I have been turning over the question of blockhead-versus-cokehead since the ex-chairman of Co-op Bank was a) filmed apparently handing over ￡300 for cocaine and crystal meth and b) told a Treasury select committee that the bank had ￡3bn in assets when it had ￡47bn.
我一直在反覆思考這個“傻瓜VS癮君子”問題，起因是Co-op Bank的前董事長曾被拍到遞出300英鎊購買可卡因和冰毒的畫面，他還曾對財政部的一個專門委員會表示，自己的銀行擁有30億英鎊資產，其實該行的資產規模爲470億英鎊。I’m not saying that Paul Flowers himself is either cokehead or blockhead, as I don’t know enough about him to judge. Instead I’m asking more broadly: if you were a shareholder of any company, which type would you be more appalled to find you had in a position of power?
我並非意在指出保羅?弗勞爾斯(Paul Flowers)要麼是個癮君子，要麼是個傻瓜，因爲我對他的瞭解不足以做出判斷。我的問題是更加廣泛意義上的：如果你是一家公司的股東，哪種人執掌公司大權會讓你更感不安？
You could protest that cokeheads and blockheads go hand in hand; though which leads to which is hard to say. If you are on drugs, that could make your command of the facts a little hazy. (Though coke tends to make you wildly optimistic, so you’d be more likely to overestimate your assets 10-fold than the other way round.) On the other hand, if your command of the facts was hazy initially, that might drive you to coke as a way of dealing with your low self-esteem and the clawing fear of getting found out.
你可以反駁，聲稱癮君子常常也是傻瓜，雖然誰因誰果難以判斷。如果你吸食毒品，你對事實的把握可能會有點糊塗。（不過毒品通常會讓你異常樂觀，因此你更有可能將自己的資產規模誇大十倍，而非反其道而行之。）而另一方面，如果你對事實的把握從一開始就稀裏糊塗，這可能促使你走上吸毒的道路，以解決自己缺乏自尊的問題，並緩解害怕被人識破的百爪撓心般的焦慮感。Yet if you take the two types as distinct, the obvious answer is that the cokehead is more lethal. For a start, coke is illegal – and having a chairman arrested, as Mr Flowers was last week, never does any good to a company’s reputation. More than that, a coke habit can make people irritable and unpredictable, distort their judgment, lead to paranoid psychosis as well as doing nothing for the lining of their noses.
但如果你認爲這是兩種完全不同類型的人，那麼容易得出的結論是癮君子危害更大。首先，毒品違法——公司董事長被捕（就像弗勞爾斯最近那樣），對一個公司的聲譽絕沒有任何好處。更重要的是，吸毒成癮可使人變得易怒急躁，不可預測，扭曲人的判斷力，導致偏執的精神狀態，對於鼻腔粘膜也絕無好處。None of that is desirable. But it is still better than being ruled by a blockhead. Anyone who is ignorant of the basic facts of a business can only do harm to a company.
雖然以上這些都不令人滿意，但仍好於由一個傻瓜來執掌公司大權。一個對企業業務的基本情況一無所知的人只能給這家公司帶來損害。It is true that ignorance on the scale of Mr Flowers’ is exceptional (the Co-op’s structure is so idiosyncratic it made a virtue of having people on the board who knew nothing about banking). Yet my strong hunch is that there is a great deal of ignorance on most boards that may not be quite as jaw-dropping as at the Co-op, but is still worrying.
像弗勞爾斯那樣的極度無知確實罕見（Co-op Bank的企業構架是如此獨特，以至於讓對銀行業一無所知的人加入董事會成了一件好事）。但我有一種強烈的直覺，即多數企業的董事會中都有很多無知的人，雖然情況或許不至於像Co-op Bank那樣令人震驚，但也足夠引人擔憂。If I think of some of the directors I have come across, many have large and shaming gaps in their knowledge. These arise either because their markets have changed in ways they have not kept up with, or because they hop from one industry to another, and after a bit in a new one it becomes too embarrassing to ask: can someone explain how we actually make our money? Add to that the fact that businesses are increasingly complicated – and keeping up becomes increasingly hard.
我在回想自己遇見過的董事時發現，很多人的知識結構都存在令人汗顏的巨大斷層。這種情況產生的原因之一在於他們所處的市場環境發生了變化，而他們沒有跟上形勢，或者是因爲他們從一個行業跳到了另一個行業，而在對新行業初涉皮毛之後，向人求教對他們來說變得過於難爲情，他們不好意思問：有人能幫我解釋一下我們究竟是怎麼賺錢的嗎？此外，商業模式正變得愈加複雜，跟上發展變得越來越難，這進一步加劇了董事們的知識斷層。If ignorance is so common, how come we almost never hear of it? Politicians occasionally let their inner bonehead show – Sarah Palin was caught getting her Iran and Iraq confused – yet the people who rise to the top in business are worryingly good at keeping theirs hidden.
如果董事們的無知如此普遍，爲什麼我們幾乎從未聽說？政客們偶爾會暴露出他們愚蠢的一面——莎拉?佩林(Sarah Palin)被人發現分不清伊朗和伊拉克——但升至商界頂層的人物似乎非常善於掩飾自己的無知，這很令人擔憂。This is for three reasons. First, they delegate. Don’t know how big your assets are? Never mind – your finance director can answer that one.
商界高層善於隱藏有三個原因。其一在於他們可以把任務分派下去。不知道公司的資產規模有多大？沒關係——可以讓財務總監來回答這個問題。Second, jargon and flannel come to their aid. “This is an issue currently out of my sightline, and I’ll revert going forward when I have some clarity around it” sounds more impressive than: no idea.
其二，行業術語和廢話可以助他們一臂之力。相對於“我不知道”，“這個問題目前不在我的關注範圍內，當我對它有更多瞭解時我會重新回到這個話題上”聽起來更上檔次。Thirdly, when you are really senior, nobody ever calls your bluff. If a tiresome journalist asks a tricky question, then it is quite simple: you answer another question instead.
其三，當你真的身居高位時，沒有人會戳穿你的虛張聲勢。如果一個惹人生厭的記者問了一個刁鑽的問題，接下來非常簡單：你回答另一個問題作爲替代。Indeed the only time that directors are really put on the spot is when they get hauled before the regulator or a select committee, where there is no finance director to field tough questions, and where bluster doesn’t work. But even then, they have time to prepare. When I was summoned before the Financial Services Authority (as a routine part of being a non-exec) I spent several weeks beforehand revising furiously.
董事們唯一真的陷入困境的時刻，是當他們被傳到監管當局或者專門委員會面前時，此時他們既不能找財務總監來替他們回答棘手問題，咆哮恐嚇也失去了效力。但即便如此，他們仍有時間進行準備。當我被英國金融服務管理局(Financial Services Authority)傳喚時（這是對待非執行董事的一種慣例），我就花了好幾周的時間拼命複習。What is needed is a new system of fierce and random knowledge tests for all directors, just like drugs tests for sportsmen. Directors would be accosted at unpredictable times and forced to answer basic questions about their company, its performance, its risks, and the market in general. This would flush out the most lethal blockheads and focus the minds of all directors, all of the time.
現在所亟需的是一個針對所有董事、強大而又隨機的新知識測試系統，就像運動員的藥檢一樣。董事們將會在不可預測的時間被問話，回答有關自身公司的基本問題，例如業績、風險以及市場整體狀況。這將有助於淘汰危害最大的傻瓜，並使所有董事在任何時間都精力集中。Just as Andy Murray recently almost missed getting to Buckingham Palace on time to collect his OBE because the drugs testers had showed up on his doorstep demanding a urine sample, so it should be for company directors. No excuses. No diverting the questions to someone else. No flannel. If you don’t know the answer, you’re out.
安迪?穆雷(Andy Murray)幾乎沒能按時趕到白金漢宮領取他的大英帝國勳章(OBE)，因爲藥檢官員突然出現在他門前，要求他提供一份尿樣。針對公司董事的測試也應如此。沒有任何藉口。不能將問題交由其他人代爲回答。不允許說廢話。如果你不知道答案，就將被掃地出門。
