全食CEO：过于关注业绩会迷失目标

    连锁超市全食（Whole Foods）创始人兼联席首席执行官约翰•马基是一位坚定的自由主义者和素食者。随着他知名度的提升，他也变得越来越难以捉摸。他所崇尚的竞争理念似乎既包含友善、“谦逊”的一面，也有极具争议性的一面。

    马基的职业生涯始于上个世纪60年代和70年代的反主流文化合作社。目前，他所经营的公司尤其善于抢占顾客的钱包份额，以至于很多消费者都将之称为“全额薪资支票”（意思是，购买它昂贵的全食品会花掉全部薪水——译注）。马基说，他撰写新书《自觉资本主义：解放商业的英雄气概》（Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business）的原因在于，他觉得有必要在金融危机爆发之后捍卫资本主义。然而，阅读此书之后你会发现，他几乎又回到了他的工作历程的原点：一位满脑子理想主义、认为高度的自我认知有利于做生意的嬉皮士。

    马基写道：“假以时日，基于正确的原因而采取的正确的行动会带来好的结果。” 他和联合作者拉吉•西索迪亚认为，一旦公司过于关注是否能够达到财务目标， 它就很少能采取正确的行动——而且也很少能找到正确的原因。为什么？如同马基在电子邮件中解释的那样，对于指标的过分关注可能会模糊人们的视野，看不清远大的目标，而这种目标曾经让公司在幸福的时光中充满生气。失去远大目标会使决策过程变质。

    实现收益目标的压力会让我们远离更好的守护神吗？听起来很像马克思主义者的话。我曾问马基，如果一家公司发现自己眼下已经处在这样一个位置，他会推荐什么样的纠正措施。他的回答达到了商学院的高度：

    “对于此类公司来说，第一步是要明确地制定利润最大化之外的远大目标。随后，公司应开始围绕为股东创造价值而设计一切事务。公司应该摆脱所有与为股东创造价值无关的指标。然后，公司应制定新的未来业绩先行指标，以及激励员工热情、倡导客户利益的措施。”

    The founder and co-CEO of supermarket chain Whole Foods, John Mackey, is a staunch libertarian and a vegan. As his public profile rises, he becomes harder to pin down. He seems to embody competing philosophies in one affable, "aw-shucks," yet entirely controversial package.

    Mackey began his career among the co-op counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and now helms a company so adept at wrangling share of wallet that many consumers have dubbed it "Whole Paycheck." Mackey says he wrote his new book, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, because he felt that capitalism needed defending in the wake of the financial crisis. Read it, however, and you'll see he has wound up close to where he started his work journey: an idealistic hippie who thinks that being highly self-aware is good for business.

    "The right actions undertaken for the right reasons generally lead to good outcomes over time," Mackey writes. When a company becomes too focused on meeting its financial targets, he and co-author Raj Sisodia argue, the right actions are rarely undertaken -- and rarely for the right reasons. Why? As Mackey elaborated over email, an obsessive focus on metrics tends to obscure the sense of higher purpose that animated the company in happier times. Losing connection to a higher purpose then corrupts the decision-making process.

    Pressure to meet earnings targets can alienate us from our better angels? It almost sounds Marxist. I asked Mackey what corrective step he'd recommend for a company that found itself in such a position. His answer was business-school standard:

    "The first step for such a company is to clearly define its higher purpose beyond maximizing profits. It should then start to design everything it does around creating value for its stakeholders. It should get rid of all metrics that are not connected to value creation for stakeholders. It should then create new metrics that are leading indicators of future performance, measures such as employee passion and customer advocacy."

     【注：《自觉资本主义》对利益相关方做出了宽泛的定义——不仅包括投资者和管理层，还包括计时工、供应商和业务运营所在地的社区。】

    (N.B. Conscious Capitalism defines stakeholders broadly -- not only investors and management but also hourly employees, suppliers, and the community in which the business operates.)