梅格•惠特曼：惠普拆分后新公司的继任计划至关重要

    梅格•惠特曼比任何人都清楚，一家公司强大与否取决于其团队。2011年，梅格•惠特曼接掌陷入困境的科技巨头惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard），担任首席执行官，在那之前，公司已经走马灯似得更换了多位首席执行官。现在，她正筹备将这家有75年历史的公司拆分成两家独立的公司，未来，她会更专注于培养员工。

    在加利福尼亚州尼格尔湖举办的“最具影响力商界女性峰会”（the Most Powerful Women Summit）上，惠特曼对《财富》杂志（Fortune）资深编辑帕蒂•塞勒斯表示：“继任计划绝对是关键。1939年，25岁的比尔•休利特与戴维•帕卡德成立了这家公司，之后他们持续经营公司达50年。他们离开之后，公司的继任计划并没有取得他们希望的结果。在过去15年间，公司更换了大约7位CEO。这便产生了一个基本的问题：不同的CEO有不同的战略和不同的方法，可以说，公司一直在不同战略之间摇摆不定。”

    此次采访前几个小时，惠普宣布将企业硬件与服务业务和PC与打印机业务拆分。按照她所说的继任计划，惠特曼向董事会承诺，新成立的惠普企业公司（Hewlett Packard Enterprise ）的CEO将从内部挑选。她将担任惠普企业公司的领导人，并担任PC与打印机公司[即惠普公司（HP Inc）]的董事长，后者将由公司内部挑选的迪恩•威斯勒负责运营。

    她说：“在这个急速变化的时代，像我曾经历的那样从外部空降然后去慢慢了解五个新业务，并非正确的做法。”

    惠特曼向分析师承诺，拆分后的两家科技公司将以成为“两家《财富》50强公司”为目标。惠特曼计划领导的惠普企业公司在2013年的收入约为584亿美元。硬件业务拆分后的惠普公司去年的收入为572亿美元。在拆分之前，母公司计划裁员55,000人。

    2011年，惠特曼接掌惠普时，为了帮助这家陷入困境的科技公司扭转局面，她提出“一个惠普”的口号。现在，惠普的局面略有改善，她却颠覆了自己的立场，致力于提高拆分后的新公司的竞争力。

    在周一上午的盈收电话会议上，惠特曼表示：“灵活是制胜的唯一途径。三年前，公司的处境非常困难，我们当时需要进行重建，需要坚持‘一个惠普’的战略。”

    惠普宣布拆分的消息之前不久，惠特曼的两个老东家eBay和宝洁（Procter & Gamble）也刚刚宣布拆分计划。2002年，eBay收购即将被拆分的PayPal时，惠特曼便是eBay的CEO（她说：“那是史上最伟大的收购之一。”），现在这家公司计划将支付系统与网站拆分开来。而另一家惠特曼初入职场时曾担任过品牌经理的公司——宝洁，两个月前刚宣布将剥离超过半数品牌。

    惠普拆分的消息传出之前，有报道称，该科技公司正在与竞争对手EMC公司谈判合并事宜。在接受塞勒斯采访时，惠特曼并未彻底排除两家公司合并的可能性。

    她说：“[我们的并购策略]在很大程度上以回报为基础，主要看是否符合股东的最大利益。”

    在为惠普企业公司组建新团队的同时，惠特曼必须组建一个新的董事会。惠特曼称惠普目前的董事会是“美国最好的董事会之一”，她表示自己是“情景领导理论的坚定支持者。”她补充道，并非所有人都适合在处于转型期的公司工作。最近，惠特曼写到，在惠普这样一家转型中的公司，你需要聘请具备特定技能的人。

    惠特曼说：“这些技能与普通公司所需要的技能截然不同。”

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Meg Whitman knows better than anybody that a company is only as strong as its team. When the CEO of Hewlett-Packard HPQ -4.48% took over the struggling tech giant in 2011, she was one of a handful of new chief executives who had come and gone. Now, as she works to split the 75-year-old company into two separate firms, she is focused more on her staff more than ever.

    “Succession planning is absolutely essential,” Whitman told Fortune Senior Editor At Large Pattie Sellers Monday night at the Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, California. “Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded the company when they were 25 years old in 1939 and they ran the company for 50 years… When they left the succession planning was not what you would hope it to be. Over the course of the last 15 years there has been about 7 different CEOs. This is the fundamental problem: The CEOs had different strategies, different approaches and the organization sort of went from strategy to strategy.”

    Whitman spoke just hours after HP announced plans to separate its enterprise hardware and services business from its PC and printer business. With succession planning top of mind, Whitman promised her board that the CEO of the newly named Hewlett Packard Enterprise would come from within. She will lead the enterprise company, and serve as chairman of the PC and printer company, named HP Inc, which will be run by company insider Dion Weisler.

    “To come from the outside as I did and learn five new businesses in a time of incredible change is not the right thing,” she said.

    The CEO promised analysts that the two tech companies will aim to be “two big Fortune 50 companies.” Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the business Whitman plans to lead, earned about $58.4 billion in revenue in 2013. Hardware spinoff HP Inc. earned $57.2 billion in revenue last year. Before it splits, the parent company plans to layoff55,000 employees.

    When Whitman took over HP’s helm in 2011, she touted a message of “One H-P” as being integral to turning around the struggling tech company. Now that HP finds itself in a slightly stronger position, she has reversed her position to make the new separate companies more competitive.

    “Being nimble is the only path to winning,” Whitman said on a Monday morning earnings call. “Three years ago, this company was in a fairly difficult position and we needed to rebuild and we needed to do that as one H-P.”

    The news of HP’s pending separation comes in the immediate wake of splits at two of Whitman’s alma mater companies: eBay and Procter & Gamble. Whitman was CEO of eBay when it acquired soon-to-be spinoff PayPal in 2002 (“one of the all-time greatest acquisitions,” she says), and now the company will separate the payment system from its website. Whitman began her career at P&G as a brand manager, and the company announced two months ago that it is getting rid of more than half of its brands.

    Before the news of HP’s split into two companies, the tech company was reportedly in talks to merge with sometimes-rival EMC EMC -1.16% . In the interview with Sellers, Whitman did not rule out the possibility entirely.

    “[Our M&A strategy] is very much returned base and what is in the best interest of shareholders,” she said.

    As she looks to build out HP Enterprise’s new staff, Whitman must tackle building out a new board. Calling HP’s current board “one of the best boards in America,” she says she is a “big believer in situational leadership.” Not everybody is fit to work with a company during a turnaround, she added. A contributor of Fortune’s newly launched MPW Insider Network, Whitman wrote recently that when you are at a turnaround company like HP, you need to hire people with a particular skill set.

    “Those skills are probably not the same as the skills you need when it’s business as usual,” says Whitman.