聯想的企業并購秘籍

????2007年，友蘭達?康耶絲（Yolanda Conyers）出任聯想公司（Lenovo）文化整合與多元化的最高負責人，可是上任不到三個月，就有不少人反映她對中國同事不大尊重?？狄z來自美國德州亞瑟港，待人素來彬彬有禮。在得知這一批評后，她大吃一驚，因為她自認為已極盡可能地對新團隊禮數周到。

????原來，康耶絲的努力迷失在了翻譯中。比如，在向公司上級發送電子郵件“要求（request）”開會時，她自認為措辭非常謙遜有禮——可問題恰恰就出在“要求”一詞。在漢語中，“要求”是在領導找下級開會時才能用。由于對這一情況毫不知情，康耶絲無異于在向她的新老板們宣示她才是上級。

????“這看起來是小事，可這樣的小事多了，就會產生很多不信任?！痹诮邮堋敦敻弧罚‵ortune）采訪時，康耶絲反思道：“我們要作出很大的努力，才能理解公司內部不同的文化，以及每個人行為處事的想法?！?/p>

????自聯想在2005年收購IBM的個人電腦業務以來，這家中國公司高調進行了一系列的收購。作為全球最大的個人電腦廠商，聯想上周四宣布，公司已從谷歌（Google）手中完成了對摩托羅拉（Motorola）移動業務的收購，交易金額高達29.1億美元。本次并購使聯想成為全球第三大智能手機廠商。每當聯想完成一筆跨國收購之后，公司員工就變得更加多元，企業架構也更為復雜。目前，聯想擁有超過60,000名員工，分布在60多個國家。

????這就是聯想請康耶絲來的目的。在收購IBM的PC業務之后不久，聯想遭遇了各種企業文化方面的問題，也喪失了不少商業機會。公司意識到，必須更為重視企業并購后的人員整合問題。作為聯想第一任首席多元化官，康耶絲的工作是在尊重個人文化背景差異的情況下整合企業文化，從而達到公司的整體目標。

????要將公司凝聚為一體，康耶絲自己首先得理解中國文化。從2009到2012年，她決定來聯想中國總部北京工作和生活，并求教于聯想人力資源高級副總裁喬健，來幫助她適應文化上的過渡。喬健目前在北京工作，但是2005年時她也做出過類似的決定——到聯想美國總部北卡州羅利工作和生活。在適應美國公司文化的過程中，喬健也遭遇過不少困難。比如，她當時并不知道，如果她在會議上不經常主動發言，她的美國同事就會以為她沒做準備。

????兩位女性互為依賴，以理解整個組織內的企業行為折射的細微差異，同時鼓勵其他同事們也這么做。

????“你需要花時間去傾聽，花時間去了解人們所處的困境以及他們的關系，”康耶絲總結說?！拔倚枰〞r間去生活在這個環境里面。和過去相比，現在我是一個更稱職的全球性領導者?！?/p>

????在最近發布的《聯想之道》（The Lenovo Way）一書中，康耶絲和喬健分享了自身的經歷，同時也介紹了聯想發展成為一家真正的全球性企業前所走過的道路。該書概括了這一技術巨頭最初在面臨企業文化沖撞時所遭遇的困境，并記錄了聯想如何成功躋身成為全球最大的國際計算機銷售巨擘。對于康耶絲和喬健來說，在一次又一次新的并購中找出凝聚不同員工的方法，與整合供應鏈和分銷網絡同樣重要。她們在采訪中表示，如果沒有相應的人力資源方面的具體計劃配合，并購的努力往往會付諸東流。

????Within three months of being hired as chief diversity officer at Lenovo in 2007, Yolanda Conyers received some feedback that she was being disrespectful to her Chinese coworkers. Conyers, a perfectly polite woman from Port Arthur, Tex., was taken aback by the critique because she thought she had worked tirelessly to be polite to her new team.

????It turns out that Conyers efforts were getting lost in translation. She thought she was being very deferential when she sent emails to her senior colleagues to “request” a meeting. But the word request translates in Mandarin to a term that executives use when asking for a meeting with someone below them. Without knowing it, Conyers was telling her new managers that she thought she was above them.

????“It sounds small, but those small things can generate a lot of mistrust,” Conyers said in an interview with Fortune. “We had to go through a lot of effort to understand the different cultures within the company and the reasons people behave the way they do.”

????Since 2005 when Lenovo bought IBM’s PC business, the Chinese company has gone on a spree of high-profile acquisitions. Most recently, the world’s largest personal-computer maker said on Thursday that it had completed a $2.91 billion acquisition of Google’s Motorola Mobility unit. The merger makes Lenovo the third-largest smartphone maker. Each time Lenovo buys an overseas company, its staff gets more diverse and its corporate structure more complicated. Today, the company has more than 60,000 employees across 60 countries.

????That’s where Conyers comes in. After a slew of culture problems and missed business opportunities shortly after Lenovo acquired part of IBM, the company realized it needed to take a harder look at its strategy for combining new teams. Now serving as Lenovo’s first-ever diversity officer, Conyers’s job is to figure out how to align the company behind common goals while respecting everyone’s differences.

????But before Conyers could worry about bringing the company together, she needed to understand Chinese culture for herself. She decided to live and work out of Lenovo’s headquarters in China from 2009 to 2012 and she turned to Gina Qiao, Lenovo’s SVP of Human Resources, to guide her through the transition. Qiao, who works out of Beijing, made a similar decision in 2005 when she lived and worked out of Lenovo’s Raleigh, North Carolina offices. Qiao also struggled to understand American workplace culture. She didn’t realize that when she didn’t speak up constantly in meetings, her American coworkers assumed she hadn’t prepared.

????The two women relied on each other to understand the nuances of corporate behavior across the organization and encouraged their co-workers to do the same.

????“You need to take the time to listen more and take time to get to know people’s struggles and their relationships,” said Conyers. “I needed to take the time to go live in that environment and now I am such a better global leader as a result.”

????Conyers and Qiao outline both their personal journeys along side Lenovo’s path to becoming a truly global company in the recently released book The Lenovo Way. The book outlines the tech giant’s initial struggles with corporate culture clashes and traces how Lenovo successfully became the largest company in the world in global computer sales. For Conyers and Qiao, figuring out how to bring people together with each new acquisition is just as essential as mixing supply chains and distributions networks. Without a concrete plan of the human side of things, mergers and acquisitions too often fail, they told Fortune.