企业那些自欺欺人的天价谎言
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克里斯汀•麦兹伯格常说，很多公司经常忘了自己的客户到底是谁。麦兹伯格的ReD咨询公司就有这样一个客户，花了1亿美元弄了些东西送给酒吧，结果被酒吧老板们扔到箱子里，最后又被扔到地下室。 最后ReD公司劝说这个客户砍掉这些成本，结果这个客户的销售额反而提高了，原因仅仅是让它的营销策略变得没那么招人烦了。麦兹伯格认为，在对于企业真正重要的事以及真实世界正在发生的事之间横亘着一道巨大的鸿沟。因此麦兹伯格与ReD的另一位创始人米克尔•B•拉斯穆森把一家公司意识到这个鸿沟的瞬间称为“梦醒时分”，这也正是他们的新书的书名。 麦兹伯格近日在ReD公司的纽约办公室（这间办公室以前曾属于石油大亨洛克菲勒）接受了《财富》杂志（Fortune）的专访。他更多地谈到了各大企业那些自欺欺人的谎言，他童年时受共产主义熏陶的故事，以及他为什么更喜欢招聘人类学毕业生、而不是经济学毕业生。 《财富》：你的书看起来像是一本讲商业的书，但是你也拿小说家爱丽丝•门罗作例子，这对于此类作品来说是头一回。这本书主要是写给哪些人的？ 麦兹伯格：我们希望是写给每个人的，但是书里的核心观点是要挑战现在的商业模式。我已经进入企业界15年了，我发现他们把人类看成是能在两件事中间做出选择的动物——比如一个东西是4美元，另一个东西是5美元，然后他们就会无休止地分析这些数据。 首先也是最重要的是，企业喜欢把人们当成理性动物。如果看看过去100年的西方哲学，你会发现并不是这么回事。它是对人类的一个错误描述。 你是学哲学的，而且毕业后起初是在哥本哈根当记者。你的商业见解是不是受到了个人经历的影响？ 不仅仅是这样。我是在丹麦北部的一个岛上长大的，那里离瑞典很近，而且我的家庭相当的共产主义。我曾经参加过青年运动，而且在波兰、俄罗斯、东德等地受过训练，以成为革命的接班人。我从六岁开始读马克思主义，到11岁就已经抛弃了它，因为它并不像是反映了真实的世界。柏林墙倒塌的时候我就在柏林，那是我人生最重要的时刻。这种解脱和自由感直到20年后我还感觉得到，整个世界都焕然一新。从这时起，我就对教条主义产生了抗体，我意识到我以前学到的所有的东西都是错的，所以我习惯于怀疑所有别人说是真理的东西。 那么当你第一次进入像三星（Samsung）、乐高（Lego）或阿迪达斯（Adidas）这样的大企业工作时，你有什么反应？ 大企业的体制让我感到很不舒服，因为那里很多东西都不用面临挑战。我就连身体都觉得不舒服。但是这个问题吸引了我。体制越差，思想越僵化，我越感兴趣。 |
Christian Madsbjerg likes to talk about how booze companies often forget who their customers really are. Madsbjerg's consulting firm, ReD, had one such client that was spending $100 million on the stuff it gave to bars, which bar owners eventually threw in boxes, which then made their way to the basement. After ReD convinced its client to eliminate those costs, sales increased, simply because the company's marketing was less annoying. There's a huge gap between what's important to a company, and what's going on in the real world, Madsbjerg says. Madsbjerg and his co-founder, Mikkel B. Rasmussen, refer to the instant a company realizes that what it's doing is at odds with what is going on in the real world as "the moment of clarity," which is the title of their new book. Madsbjerg sat down with Fortune for a chat in ReD's New York City offices (which used to be John D. Rockefeller's). He spoke more about the lies companies tell themselves, as well as his childhood immersion in communism, and why he favors hiring anthropology majors over economics majors. Fortune: Your book looks like a business book and sounds like a business book, but you also use the fiction writer Alice Munro as an example, which has to be a first in the genre. Who is this book for? Christian Madsbjerg: Everyone, we hope, but the core point -- it's meant for challenging the way that business is done. I've spent 15 years inside of companies, and they see people as [those] who can choose between two things -- one thing is $4, the other is $5 -- and they'll analyze the numbers endlessly. First and foremost, [companies] view people as rational beings. If you've studied a page of Western philosophy the last 100 years, you would know that's not the case. It's a bad description of what it means to be human. You studied philosophy and started your career as a journalist in Copenhagen. Could it be that you are bending business insight to your own experience? It's deeper than that. I was raised on an island in northern Denmark, closer to Sweden, really, and my family was very, very communist. I was part of the youth movement and trained in Poland, Russia, and East Germany to be the next generation that took over the revolution. I started reading Marx at six. By 11, I had shed it all. It didn't feel like how the world was. I was in Berlin when the wall came down. It was the biggest moment of my life. The relief, the feeling of freedom, it lasted 20 years. The whole world was new. From this comes my vaccination against dogma; learning that everything you've ever been taught was wrong, it gives you a skepticism toward anything people say is the truth. So, how do you react when you first enter these large corporations you work with, like Samsung or Lego or Adidas? I feel so uncomfortable in a corporate setting, where things are unchallenged. I feel physically uncomfortable. But I'm drawn to it. The worse the setting, the more stale the ideas, the better. |
