华尔街看好福特新任CEO

本周，福特（Ford）辞退了履职三年的掌门人马克·菲尔茨。在此期间面，他的任务异常艰巨，一方面要采用新技术，同时还要继续发展公司的核心汽车业务。菲尔茨也一直在推动福特向这个方向发展，但华尔街并不相信他能完成此次转型。过去三年，福特股价下跌了40%便是最好的证据。

新任CEO吉姆·哈克特应该更容易让投资者相信，福特能从一家传统汽车公司，转变为一家更灵活、技术更先进的移动出行公司。这位直言不讳的高管很清楚如何吸引华尔街。哈克特从不回避做出艰难的决定。他在之前的职位上，为了削减成本曾经裁员数千人。预计他还将致力于解决福特的运营问题。作为智能出行部门的负责人，对于承诺树立移动出行领域的领导地位这一公司愿景，哈克特自然是最理所当然的支持者。他并非“汽车人”在这方面也有帮助。

另外，哈克特在帮助公司扭转困境方面，也积累了良好的信誉。他曾担任密歇根州办公家具制造商Steelcase的CEO。当时，整个行业低迷，面临巨变，他的任务非常艰巨。据《纽约时报》报道，为了解决公司的问题，哈克特聘请了社会学家和人类学家，帮助公司的家具设计师们更好地了解人们的工作习惯。当时流行的依旧是标准的隔间，但Steelcase却开始销售打造开放办公室的家具，帮助客户打造更适合团队合作的环境。这些改革使曾经处境艰难的Steelcase，变成了美国最受赞赏的公司之一。

哈克特解决的另外一个麻烦也备受关注。他在密歇根大学（University of Michigan）临时体育部主任期间，成功请到前旧金山49人队（San Francisco 49ers）教练吉姆·哈博担任校足球队教练。为了聘请哈博和恢复人们对该校足球课程的信心，哈克特付出了巨大的努力——这也证明了他的坚持不懈。

在周一召开的新闻发布会上，福特执行总裁小威廉·C·福特回忆称，去年他访问硅谷期间，有许多高管都认识哈克特，认为他是原创型的思想家，这令他印象深刻。如果哈克特能在自己身边聚集合适的人才，他就可以成为福特移动出行部门和传统业务之间成功的“桥梁建设者”。

福特内部将迫切需要哈克特的领导能力。在汽车行业，局外人通常很难打开局面。不过因为在金融危机期间避免福特破产而知名的艾伦·穆拉利也是一名局外人。现在，谷歌（Google）、特斯拉（Tesla）和许多硅谷初创公司让所有人都紧张不已，而哈克特或许将给汽车行业带来一些新鲜空气。

最后，哈克特已经计划对公司的组织结构和决策者们进行调整，包括任命福特全球市场、全球业务和移动出行部门的负责人等，这也会有所帮助。这将增强哈克特的能力，让他可以更快、更有信心地进行决策。

投资者认为，汽车行业变革的时机已经成熟，所以他们才会对特斯拉、苹果（Apple）和谷歌等公司如此热心。但按部就班向未来转变的可能性，远远高于一夜之间分崩离析。这也是福特和其他汽车厂商多年来所做的事情，包括缓慢推出盲点监测、自适应巡航控制和车道偏离警告等功能。为了让投资者相信，这种按部就班的转变比仓促采用新技术更有意义，哈克特的到来很有必要。（财富中文网）

本文作者克里斯汀·施塔德勒是华威商学院（Warwick Business School）的战略管理教授

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

Departed Ford head Mark Fields—who was forced out this week after three years in charge—was faced with the difficult task of adapting new technologies while continuing to grow the iconic company’s vehicle business. Fields was pushing Ford in that direction, but Wall Street didn’t trust him to shepherd the transition. A 40% drop in share price over the last three years has spoken loud and clear.

New CEO Jim Hackett should have a much easier time convincing investors that Ford will be able to make the jump from a traditional car company to a more flexible and technologically advanced mobility company. The straight-talking executive knows how to entice Wall Street. He doesn’t shy away from tough decisions—in a previous role he cut thousands of jobs to bring down costs—and is expected to sort out Ford’s operational issues. Coming straight from the company’s mobility unit, he is the most plausible champion of a vision that promises mobility leadership. That he is not a “car guy” also helps in this regard.

Hackett also has a reputation of turning around ailing companies. As CEO of Steelcase, an office furniture maker in Michigan, he had to weather several downturns and sharp shifts in the industry. To help fix the company, Hackett enlisted sociologists and anthropologists to help his furniture designers better understand people’s working habits, according to the New York Times. At a time when cubicles were still the norm, Steelcase started to sell furniture aimed at open offices and enabled his customers to create a better environment for teamwork. These changes helped turn the ailing manufacturer into one of America’s most admired companies.

Another of Hackett’s high-profile fix-it jobs was as the University of Michigan’s interim athletic director, where he managed to hire former San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh to head the college football team. Hackett undertook a mammoth effort to hire Harbaugh and restore confidence in the university’s football program—another taste of his perseverance.

At a news conference on Monday, Ford Executive Chairman William C. Ford Jr. recalled how he visited Silicon Valley last year and was impressed by how many executives knew Hackett well and saw him as an original thinker. If Hackett surrounds himself with the right mix of people, he can be a successful bridge builder between Ford’s mobility unit and legacy business.

Hackett’s leadership qualities will be in high demand internally. Outsiders usually have a hard time in the world of cars. But Alan Mulally, who is celebrated for keeping Ford out of bankruptcy during the financial crisis, was also an outsider. Right now, when everyone is nervous about Google, Tesla, and a long list of Silicon Valley startups, Hackett looks like a breath of fresh air.

Finally, it helps that Hackett has developed a plan to change both the structure and decision-makers at the helm of the company, including new heads of Ford’s global markets, global operations, and mobility divisions. This will enhance his ability to make quicker and more confident decisions.

Investors believe the car industry is ripe for disruption, which is why they are so high on companies like Tesla, Apple, and Google. But a step-by-step transition into the future is much more likely than an overnight disruption. That is what Ford and other manufacturers have been doing for a few years already, slowly introducing features like blind spot detection, adaptive cruise control, and lane departure warning. Hackett’s arrival is necessary to convince investors that this step-by-step transition makes more sense than diving headfirst into new technologies.

Christian Stadler is a professor of strategic management at Warwick Business School.