女高管接连被炒的五大启示
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上周二，雅虎公司（Yahoo）CEO卡罗尔•巴茨与美国银行（Bank of America）财富管理主管萨莉•克劳切克双双遭遇解雇，《财富》杂志（Fortune）最具影响力商界女性（Most Powerful Women）榜单遭受双重打击。 巴茨在“最具影响力商界女性”排名中名列第10位，她的离职可谓轰轰烈烈。之前接受本人采访时，她便对雅虎董事会破口大骂，引起了不小的社会反响。而与之相反，在“最具影响力商界女性”中排名第24位的克劳切克，其离职则显得波澜不惊。 我非常了解这两位女强人。从某种程度上来看，她们其实属于同一类人：作风强硬，有时甚至目中无人；她们在公司里都“特立独行”， 对由此产生的种种指责，她们却都能做到安之若素。上周三晚上，在被解职27小时后，巴茨打电话给我，在谈到对她们的这番描述时，她表示：“概括得不错。” 当然，两位女强人的不同点居多。巴茨是科技行业最具影响力的女性，而克劳切克则是华尔街的头号女强人。从她们的落马中，我们可以得出以下五点启示： 1. 若必须解雇某人，最好当面谈。在接受《财富》杂志专访时，巴茨对雅虎董事长罗伊•博斯托克打电话解雇她而耿耿于怀。上周二，巴茨刚刚抵达曼哈顿，准备出席次日的花旗集团（Citigroup）科技大会；她愤愤不平地说，当时博斯托克“就在纽约，他没理由不来跟我面谈。”克劳切克也在同一天遭遇解职，但方式却截然不同：美国银行CEO布莱恩•莫尼汉并没有打个电话了事，而是专程从位于北卡罗来纳州夏洛特的公司总部飞到纽约，当面解除了克劳切克的职位，这才是明智的做法。 2. 聘用“特立独行的人”，要能够应对她们引起的“骚动”。雅虎显然是一个生动的反面教材：要想扭转公司颓势，巴茨并非合适的领导者，但无能的董事会却未能及早发现这一点。而克劳切克是金融服务业最闪亮的一颗明星，早在37岁时，她便登上了《财富》杂志的封面，并被冠之为“华尔街最后一位诚实的分析师”（The Last Honest Analyst），当时她正担任桑弗德•伯恩斯坦公司（Sanford Bernstein）的负责人，而华尔街的其他公司却纷纷陷入利益冲突丑闻无法自拔。之后，花旗集团力图重塑被玷污的声誉，于是克劳切克临危受命。但在就投资不善对客户进行赔偿的问题上，克劳切克却与公司高层产生了分歧，进而遭到了排挤。她在美国银行的任职虽然还算顺利，但公司业绩每况愈下，而她又一直无法融入莫尼汉的核心集团，所以实际上，她的命运早已注定。 3. 绝不诋毁。我的同事丹•普里马克周五的一篇报道称，在巴茨与雅虎集团的雇佣合同里，包含非贬低条款。而巴茨曾称雅虎董事会成员为“蠢蛋”，这可能使她高达1,000万美元的离职遣散金成为泡影。如果巴茨还想拿到这笔钱，最好管好自己的嘴巴，别再对董事会恶语相向。 4. 年龄是个问题。巴茨今年63岁，而克劳切克46岁。巴茨于上周五从雅虎公司董事会辞职后，仍继续担任思科公司（Cisco）的首席独立董事一职。上周，她对我坦言，执掌欧特克（Autodesk）和雅虎两大科技巨头之后，她很难再有机会领导其他公司。而克劳切克却恰好相反，她还有很长的路要走。 5. 遭遇解雇并非世界末日。莫尼汉对美国银行高层重新洗牌，克劳切克被排除在外。但这却不能抹杀克劳切克曾经取得的辉煌成绩：她成功重建了美国银行的财富管理业务，其中包括重组美林证券公司（Merrill Lynch）。在她任职期间，公司的主要指标均大幅提升，包括公司收入、利润、销售利润率，以及员工的士气等；于此同时，公司各方面的损耗也显著下降。银行分析师迪克•波夫对克劳切克有所了解。上周，他在接受美国全国广播公司财经频道（CNBC）采访时称，对于这次被解雇，克劳切克应该学到的最重要的一点是选择更适合自己的职业——甚至可以重操旧业，重新做一名分析师。虽然克劳切克对此保持了沉默，但从之前与她的对话中可以看出，她更喜欢接受巨大的、严峻的挑战。失败阻止不了她前进的脚步。她还会东山再起。 译者：李淑玉/刘进龙 |
It was a double hit to Fortune's Most Powerful Women list last Tuesday when YahooCEO Carol Bartz and Bank of America's (BAC) Sallie Krawcheck got fired. Bartz, No. 10 in our 2010 MPW rankings, went out with a bang--as my explosive interview with her, F-bombs included, shows. Meanwhile, Krawcheck, BofA's global wealth management chief and No. 24 on our list, exited without a sound. I know both women well, and it's worth observing that they are, in certain ways, a common type: They're both fierce, sometimes defiant executives who like playing "outsider" inside organizations and proudly take the flak that comes with it. "That is really good," Bartz said of this characterization, when she called me last Wednesday night, 27 hours after getting ousted. There are more differences, though, between Bartz, who was the tech industry's most powerful woman, and Krawcheck, who was Wall Street's woman on top--and five lessons to take away from their mishaps: 1. If you must fire someone, do it in person. Bartz, who talked to Fortune exclusively, was livid that Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock fired her her over the phone. Last Tuesday, she had arrived in Manhattan for a Citigroup (C) technology conference, and Bostock "was in New York City," she said. "There's no excuse for him not meeting with me." Same day, different style: BofA CEO Brian Moynihan booted Krawcheck in person. Rather than phone her from Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters, he wisely flew to New York. 2. If you hire an "outsider," make sure you can handle the rabblerousing. Yahoo could not--this was a case of a troubled company, an ill-fitting chief, and a board too weak to acknowledge early on that Bartz wasn't right for the turnaround challenge. As for Krawcheck, here was a financial-services star who had made the cover of Fortune as "The Last Honest Analyst" at age 37 when she was heading research firm Sanford Bernstein and the rest of Wall Street was mired in conflict-of-interest scandals. At Citigroup (C), which brought her in to help heal its damaged reputation, she clashed with top management--and was pushed out--over the issue of reimbursing clients for bad investments. Her run at BofA wasn't so acrimonious, but outside Moynihan's inner circle at a shrinking company, she was practically doomed. 3. Speak no evil. As my colleague Dan Primack reported on Friday, Bartz's Yahoo employment contract has a non-disparagement clause. And she put a $10 million pay package at risk by calling the Yahoo directors "doofuses." If she doesn't bash the board again, she may well get her money, it appears. 4. Age matters. Bartz is 63. Krawcheck is 46. Bartz, who resigned from the Yahoo board on Friday, remains Cisco's (CSCO) lead independent director. After heading two major tech companies, Autodesk (ADSK) and Yahoo--there's scant chance she'll run another, she admitted to me last week. Krawcheck, in contrast, has a long runway ahead. 5. Getting fired isn't death, necessarily. Even though Moynihan didn't want Krawcheck in his new lineup, she did a good job rebuilding the bank's wealth management operation, including Merrill Lynch. Key measures--revenues, profits, margins, morale--went up, while attrition went down during her tenure. Some who know her, like bank analyst Dick Bove on CNBC last week, think the main lesson for Krawcheck is to choose her jobs better--and maybe even go back to her roots as an analyst. Won't happen. Krawcheck isn't talking, but I know from previous conversations with her that she loves a big and messy turnaround. Failure doesn't phase her. She'll be back. |
