Jim Collins: And Yvon Chouinard, a really interesting guy and he's very clear, and this is rock climbing, right? I'm going to answer your question in slightly convoluted way, but I'll get to the point.
You go back to the 1960s and early 1970s and rock climbers back then used pitons. Pitons: it's a metal spike. And you carry a hammer (to drive them into the rock). And when I started climbing in 1974, the very first climb I did, we used pitons and you'd bang them in, ping-ping-ping-ping-ping.
If it's getting higher pitches as it goes in, you know it's a solid piton. And you feel really good because as you clip (your rope) into it, it feels really solid.
Well the problems is, imagine over a course of, you know, not 1 ascent, but 10 ascents, 100 ascents, or 1,000 ascents of a popular climb, you get a whole lot of pitons (driven into the rock face). Pitons and of course the second person bangs them out, you bang them on the bottom and you start to leave a piton scar. There is a climb in Yosemite called Serenity Crack, which is a thin seam, but it was nothing but holes in the rock after a while from piton scars.
Yvon Chouinard, who made pitons, he made the Lost Arrow pitons, looked at this and he said, This is wrong. Our company is in the business of providing these and in the early 1970s he came out with, and I actually have it, the first sort of, it was a declaration of clean climbing.
And hand in hand, he brought out a set of new devices, which were climbing devices, which you could slot in, so if the crack is like this, you slotted it in and if you fell on it, it doesn't go anywhere, it's like a machine nut. And the next person just takes it out, leaving no scarring of the rock.
And then a group of climbers, lead by what Chouinard was providing, began to change the way that we all climbed and after my first two years of climbing, I never placed a piton again. A blunt change and largely today we have clean climbing, very little scarring of the rock. Much more sustainable for a variety of other things.
So here's what we have, and if you asked Yvon Chouinard, about this, he would say, were you doing this as a business strategy? No, (he would say), it's just wrong. It's just irresponsible to be blasting the rock into pieces with pitons because we wanted to feel macho, it's just wrong.
But, he took the next step of saying, "I'm going to create a solution, I'm going to also help people see this solution." and then it became one of the most successful outdoor companies in the world.
And you step back and think about it, and he put both those together, both tremendous business success and a tremendous idea, not only just a responsible idea, he changed the society of climbers. It wasn't just responsible, he changed it.
Now, when we stand back and we look at the folks at any given moment in history, there's always, and go always go back to Bill Allan and William McKnight and Yvon Chouinard and these people were kind of at a point where they just, they had to push, they did it a little different way in terms of corporate social responsibility. If you're doing it because everybody's doing it, you don't get it.
Thomas D. Gorman: Yeah.
Jim Collins: If you're doing it because you have a sense like, Yvon Chouinard, of just like, this is wrong, then I don't need a justification, I don't have to justify it to my Board or anything, it's just wrong. Then it's very powerful because it's very real.
Thomas D. Gorman: That's true.
Jim Collins: And there is zero tradeoff between economic success and looking at the world that way. We know that empirically from Built to Last. Plus you tend to wrap more people into what you're trying to do.
Now, there's another piece of this though, which I think goes back to somebody I greatly admire, which is Peter Drucker. And if you go back and read Drucker's writings and his book Concept of the Corporation and then later "Management, Tasks, Responsibilities" it's very interesting the things he says in there.
He says, General Motors is a failure. This is 1974, and before that, 1952. When GM was arguably the most powerful business corporation in the world, he says they're a failure. Why does he say they're a failure?
He says they're a failure because they do not understand, that in the end, they are not a private corporation. And that there is no such thing in Drucker's view, of a private business corporation that is somehow separate from society. He said, the idea that private vice makes public good...(is wrong). He said, "No, private strength creates public benefits."
And that this distinction that private business, he said, "Business corporations are social institutions." They are part of society and one of the things you have to recognize is, it's happening, and Peter identified this 50 years ago, is that we went from an agrarian civilization into a larger structure organized by families and the rise of sort of the empire state and the nation state.
We now have this new entity, the incredible power of organizations, and it is the organizing building, it's like the bricks of society, all over the world. Now we're seeing it in the (larger) world, that you and I, are talking about. You cannot somehow separate the bricks from the wall, they are the wall.
And so, if we're organized, by business corporation in large part, then you can't say, well, over here we have business corporations and over here we have society. No, they're part of the same wall.
So, the two answers are, one, you can choose, if you care to, to be both be a very successful company, and be like Yvon Chouinard. And "b" you can, as Peter Drucker would say, in his view, you don't have a choice. |
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吉姆·柯林斯：伊馮?喬伊納德（Yvon Chouinard）是個很有意思的人。對此，我想順帶說說攀巖運動。雖然要間接地回答你的問題，不過我不會跑題。
20世紀60年代和70年代初的攀巖者使用巖錐。巖錐是一種金屬長釘。你可以用一把錘子（把它們鑿到巖石里）。我第一次攀巖是在1974年，我們當時用的就是巖錐，乒乒乒地把它們鑿入巖石。
如果越往深處鑿，它發出的響聲越尖，那么你知道，這就是堅固的巖錐。這時你會感覺很踏實，因為當你把繩子扣到巖錐上時，會覺得很穩固。
問題是，你要攀登的不是一小段坡，而是成百上千段，你要把許多巖錐釘入巖石表面。當第二個人把巖錐一一拔出時，巖石上就留下了巖錐印。約塞米蒂國家公園有一段叫“寧靜裂縫”（Serenity Crack）的攀巖勝地，它是一段狹窄的裂縫，由于攀巖者留下的巖錐印而變得千瘡百孔。
巖錐制造商伊馮?喬伊納德生產的是箭型巖錐。最初看到這種情況，他說道：“這可不對”。我們公司得依靠（這些巖壁）才能提供商業產品。在20世紀70年代初，他制造出了首批此類巖錐，我也有這種巖錐，這標志著清潔攀巖的開始。
此外，他制造出了一系列新的攀巖設備，你可以把它插入巖縫，如果裂縫是這樣的形狀，你就把它插進去，如果你掛在上面，它依舊牢固，就像個螺帽似的。下一位攀巖者把它卸下，不會在巖石上留下印痕。
有了喬伊納德的產品，攀巖者的攀巖方式發生了變化。當我開始攀巖兩年之后，就再也沒有使用過老式的巖錐。有了這一巨變，我們開啟了清潔攀巖的時代，不在巖石上留下錐痕。這樣，巖壁就可以被持續用作很多其他用途。
如果你問喬伊納德，他是否把這當做一種商業策略。（他會說）不，我只是覺得那樣做不對。用巖錐把巖石鑿成一塊一塊的做法太不負責任了。將巖錐打入巖石只是為了體現男子氣概，而這樣難免有些不對。
但他接著說：“我要找到一個解決方法，并讓大家接受這種方法?！彪S后，他的公司就成為了世界上最成功的戶外器械公司之一。
他把巨大的商業成功和優秀想法結合起來，這不僅僅是一個負責任的想法，他徹底改變了攀巖者的行為方式。這不僅僅是擔負責任而已，這是一種變革。
現在我們回顧一下歷史，想想比爾?艾倫（Bill Allan）、威廉?麥克奈特（William McKnight）和伊馮?喬伊納德，這些人都是在必要的時刻以不同尋常的方式履行了企業社會責任。如果只是人云亦云，跟著別人的腳步走，你就無法成功。
高德思：對。
吉姆·柯林斯：如果你有像伊馮?喬伊納德那樣的直覺，認為某些事就是錯的，不需要過多解釋，不必向董事會作更多的說明，這時你會有強大的力量，因為這是真實的。
高德思：沒錯。
吉姆·柯林斯：在經濟上的成功和正確的世界觀之間，沒有任何矛盾得失。這一點我們可以從《基業長青》中可以看出。此外，你會讓更多人參與你的事業。
還有一點讓我想起我的偶像彼德?德魯克（Peter Drucker）。如果你回頭讀他的文章和他寫的書，比如《企業的概念》（Concept of the Corporation）和《管理：任務、責任、實踐》（Management : Tasks, Responsibilities ，Practices），你會在其中發現不少有趣的內容。
他（在書中）指出通用汽車是個失敗的例子。這發生在1974年，以及之前的1952年。當時通用汽車無疑是世界上最強大的汽車企業，他卻不這么認為。德魯克為什么這么說呢？
他認為通用沒有意識到一點：他們歸根到底不是一家私營企業。在德魯克眼里，沒有一家私營企業能夠獨立于社會而存在。他說，私有部門之惡能帶來公共福利的想法（是錯誤的）。他說：“不，應該是私營力量能為公眾帶來福祉?！?br/>
他說：“商業公司就是社會機構?！彼鼈兪巧鐣慕M成部分，你必須認同這個即成事實，德魯克早在50年前就認識到了這一點，我們首先從農業文明過渡到由家庭組成的社會結構，隨后是帝國和民族的興起?，F在有了這個新的實體（商業公司），有了組織機構的無限力量，就像組成人類社會的磚瓦，遍布世界，無所不在。
我們現在從更廣闊的角度來看待它。磚墻不可分而視之，磚就是墻。
所以，如果我們通過企業將自身組織了起來， 就不能說這些屬于企業，而那些屬于社會。不，它們是“同一堵墻”。
所以，我們有兩種選擇，要么可以選擇像伊馮?喬伊納德那樣，成功地經營一家公司。要么（如德魯克所說），你別無選擇。 |
