临危受命：大众新CEO从玛丽·巴拉身上能学到的3条经验

    大众首席执行官马丁·文德恩已因柴油车排放作弊事件辞职。大众的新任CEO或许可以从上一位被放在全世界聚光灯下审视的汽车公司负责人那里借鉴一二。

    她就是通用汽车CEO玛丽·巴拉。为了结点火开关缺陷引发的官司，这家底特律汽车制造商最近才向美国政府支付了9亿美元，而这只是整个赔付的一部分；这个问题已经造成124人丧生，275人受伤，迫使通用汽车召回了近3000万辆汽车。

    这次召回开始于2014年2月，当时距巴拉获得任命仅隔两周。而在她上任前，2009年曾申请破产保护的通用汽车一直奋力摆脱困境，在此前15年里，这家公司已经亏损了约180亿美元。

    一上任，巴拉就不得不为本次召回事件四次到国会接受听证调查，通用汽车还为此设立了4亿美元的受害者赔偿基金。此外，前任美国检察官安东·瓦卢卡斯提交的一份325页的内部报告也极具杀伤力。报告指出，通用汽车2001年就发现点火开关有问题，但由于奉行沉默是金的文化，以及公司内部相互推诿，它一直没有采取任何补救措施。通用汽车因安全问题引发的召回还将持续，而涉及数百例人员伤亡的诉讼依旧在等待判决。

    然而，经历了这一切的巴拉已经成功赢得了公众的支持和理解，她应对危机采取的各种措施饱受赞誉。那么，巴拉是怎么做到的呢？

    1. 她很诚实

    在整个危机期间，巴拉一直不惮于为点火开关问题道歉，尽管这些过错根本不能怪她。在国会听证会上，巴拉回答问题时坦率真诚，毫不回避或闪烁其辞，参议员们对此大加赞赏。加利福尼亚州共和党参议员芭巴拉·博克瑟在一次听证会上说：“愿上帝保佑你，你做的很好。”巴拉让参议员们相信，她会把这次事件转化为正能量。她还承诺：“在这些问题得到解决前，我绝不歇事宁人。”

    2. 她致力于做出改变

    巴拉以行践言。她开除了对点火开关问题负主要责任的15个人，重新构建了通用汽车的司法规程，并且开展了“为安全进言”的活动，允许员工检举内部问题。她还利用这次危机来改变通用汽车过于尊重上级的文化。巴拉说：“我不想置之不理，也不想敷衍搪塞，因为我觉得它暴露了公司的一些问题，要予以改变和纠正，我们就得挑战自己，这一点很关键。”虽然改变公司文化需要时间，但借助这次危机，巴拉以一种不寻常的方式来激励通用汽车的员工。她在一次公司大会上表示：“我绝不希望大家把这件事抛诸脑后。我希望这段痛苦经历永远留在我们的共同记忆之中。”这番“非通用式”讲话让那些老员工很受触动。

    3. 她把注意力集中在利润上

    说到底，公司业绩才是衡量CEO优劣的唯一标准。在重振通用汽车方面，巴拉做的极为出色。她把重点放在整合美国业务上，让凯迪拉克脱离通用汽车，成为一个“独立经营实体”；她还为趋于老化的沃伦技术中心投资约10亿美元，以增强通用汽车的研发能力。结果如何呢？在7月份的最新业绩发布会上，通用汽车公布的第二季度利润是上年同期的五倍，超过了分析师的预期。复苏之路还很长，但巴拉的工作可以为大众新任CEO提供一个怎样处理公司历史性危机的蓝本。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    校对：詹妮

    With news that Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn has resigned after the company was found to have cheated on its diesel emissions tests, the next VW CEO could learn a thing or two from the last auto company leader to face worldwide scrutiny.

    That would be Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, the Detroit-based automaker who recently handed over $900 million to the U.S. government as part of a settlement over defective ignition switches that sparked a recall of nearly 30 million cars, and had led to 124 deaths and 275 injuries.

    That recall started in February 2014, just two weeks after Barra was appointed to the company’s top post. Even before she began, GM was struggling to recover from its 2009 bankruptcy and around $18 billion in losses over the past 15 years.

    The GM recall, however, would drag Barra through four Congressional hearings, and cause the company to set up a $400 million victim-compensation fund. There was also the damning 325-page internal report released by former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, which revealed that GM knew about the switch problem since 2001, but because of a culture of silence and blame games, led to no action to rectify the problem. The company would continue recalling its cars over other safety issues, and hundreds of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits are still pending.

    But through it all, Barra has succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the public, and earning tons of goodwill for her response to the crisis. What did she do?

    1. She was honest

    Throughout the crisis, Barra never shied from apologizing for the misdeeds, even if she was absolved from all wrongdoing. During her Congressional hearings, Senators heaped praise on Barra for her contrite, transparent answers. “God bless you, and you’re doing a good job,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in one hearing. Barra also convinced Senators that this moment was one she would use for good. “I will not rest until these problems are resolved,” was another promise from Barra.

    2. She was committed to change

    Barra backed up her words with action. She fired 15 people who were at the heart of the fault, reorganized GM’s litigation practice and created the “Speaking Up for Safety” program that allowed employees to act as internal whistleblowers. She has also used this crisis to address GM’s internal culture of over-respecting higher-ups, saying: “I don’t want to set it aside and explain it away because I think it uncovered some things in the company that it’s critical we challenge ourselves to change and to fix.” While the culture change is taking time, she used this crisis to motivate GM staff members in an unusual way. “I never want to put this behind us. I want to put this painful experience permanently in our collective memories,” she said in one town hall meeting, a statement that struck long-time employees as very un-GM-like.

    3. She focused on the bottom line

    Ultimately, a CEO is only as good as his or her company’s balance sheet, and Barra has done immensely well in reviving GM’s fortunes. She focused on consolidating operations in the U.S., separated Cadillac from GM as a “separate business unit”, and invested around $1 billion in its aging Warren Technical Center to help improve the company’s R&D efforts. The results? In the last earnings call in July, GM reported that its second-quarter earnings were five times as large as a year ago, beating analysts’ expectations. The road back is still long, but Barra’s work can provide the incoming Volkswagen CEO a blueprint on how to address a historic crisis inside a company.