我们都念叨过让自己后悔不迭的事情。当时听起来像是个好主意，事后却有可能变成“我当时在想什么？”在声音、电子邮件和推文会在一夜之间病毒般扩散而且没法删的数字时代，棋错一着就可能诱发一场全面危机。

今年的美国大选频频爆出令人尴尬的失言。希拉里•克林顿最新的一次失言，必将成为经典。她说，“特朗普的一半支持者都是一群无耻之徒”，他们是“种族主义者、性别歧视者、恐同者、排外者以及伊斯兰恐惧症患者”。

第二天想打圆场时，她又说：“我很后悔用了‘一半’这个词，那是不对的。”结果质疑者猜测她其实想说“全部”。解释化解不了危机，只会越抹越黑。

这是否会成为米特•罗姆尼“47%”论调的翻版尚未可知。罗姆尼曾说，47%的人会不可避免地再次投票给奥巴马，因为他们是现有体制受益者而且很依赖政府。包括罗姆尼在内，许多人都认为这是造成他2012年最终竞选失败的转折点。

所有政坛和企业领导者都会经历危机，危机总是伴随权力左右。但危害最大的危机往往是自己制造的。如果不认真对待，这些“非受迫性失误”可能会如影随形。

人人都会犯错，而且事发后情况好转还是恶化，都在人们掌控之中。正如爵士乐大师迈尔斯•戴维斯所说：“一个音符出错后，效果美妙还是糟糕要看下一个音符。”每个亲手引发的灾难都有自我救赎的潜力。一点点谦卑就能发挥很大作用。

以“阅后即焚”图片共享初创公司Snapchat首席执行官埃文•斯皮格尔为例。2014年5月，这位23岁的斯坦福毕业生可谓一帆风顺——他已经从硅谷一些最顶尖的风投公司融资1.63亿美元，而且有报道称，他拒绝了Facebook以30亿美元现金实施收购的建议。

但情况急转直下，Gawker Media旗下博客网站Valleywag曝光了斯皮格尔在大学联谊会时的一系列电子邮件，其中包括涉及性、毒品和酗酒的图片。不过，斯皮格尔并未寻找借口或者对铺天盖地的负面报道置之不理，他迅速坦白，并且发表了一份真诚的无条件道歉书：

“我在大学联谊会期间那些愚蠢的电子邮件被公之于众，我对此感到非常羞愧和尴尬。我没有任何借口。很抱歉当时写了这些邮件，真是愚蠢之至。但过去的错误不能代表现在的我，以及我对女性的看法。”

就应该这么做。斯皮格尔没有躲躲闪闪，也没有等待。他得保住自己的工作。随后，Snapchat逐渐成为一家举足轻重的社交媒体公司。迄今为止，该公司已经融资26亿美元，估值达到200亿美元，据称将于2017年上市。

这个例子之所以震撼，不光是因为斯皮格尔处理得成熟，还因为这种例子并不多见，见多识广的高管能做到这样的也不多。我想起了无数事例，其中只有一个印象格外深刻，因为此事对曾经的智能手机市场霸主黑莓，也就是之前的RIM公司产生了巨大影响。

2007年．苹果公司推出首款iPhone。这完全出乎RIM联合创始人的意料，因为iPhone开创性地使用了多点式触屏、网络浏览器和第三方应用。他们不明白苹果怎么能把这么多功能塞进一部手机里。但无论是公开场合还是公司内部，他们都从来没认真当回事。结果是全面溃败。

RIM公司时任联席CEO吉姆•贝尔斯利小看了iPhone的潜力，他说：“手机市场已经非常拥挤，消费者有许多选择，iPhone不过是个新来的。但说到会动摇黑莓的根基，我觉得夸张了点。” 贝尔斯利的合伙人迈克•拉扎里迪斯同样没把iPhone放在眼里。拉扎里迪斯称：“用iPhone的触摸屏输入网络密码太困难了，根本看不见自己输的是什么。”

在随后的四年半里，这两位高管除了轻蔑否定之外毫无建树，苹果和谷歌则把他们的公司逼到倒闭边缘。在让股东损失了700亿美元后，贝尔斯利和拉扎里迪斯终于下课。他们亲自任命的继任者托尔斯滕•海因斯在首次记者会上表示：“我觉得不用做什么重大改变。”投资者显然不同意，RIM股价当天又暴跌8.5%。

回顾“非受迫性失误”造成的种种损失实在令人心痛，特别是因为我们拒绝承认也不愿认真对待造成的失误。想少点麻烦就要主动解决问题。危机管理或许不是航天科学，但对太多太多的领导者来说，管理也许真有那么复杂。 （财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

We’ve all said things we come to regret. What sounds like a good idea at the time can turn into “What was I thinking?” in hindsight. In a digital culture where sound bites, emails and tweets can go viral overnight and live forever, one snafu can turn into a full-blown crisis.

This presidential election cycle has been full of cringe-worthy gaffes. Hillary Clinton’s latest is destined to be classic: “You can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” she said, meaning those who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

When she tried to walk it back the next day, she said, “I regret saying ‘half’ – that was wrong,” leaving cynics to ponder whether she actually meant to say “all,” instead. That’s not how you defuse a crisis; that’s how you perpetuate it.

Whether that turns out to be Clinton’s version of Mitt Romney’s “47%” comment — that 47% of people would inevitably vote to re-elect President Obama because they’re entitled and dependent on the government — remains to be seen. Many, including Romney, saw that as a turning point that ultimately led to his defeat in 2012.

Every political and business leader experiences crises;they simply come with the territory. But the crises that often do the most damage are the ones we create ourselves. It’s those unforced errors that can come back to haunt us if we don’t take them seriously.

We all make mistakes, and we all have the power to make them better or worse after the fact. As jazz great Miles Davis once said, “When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that makes it good or bad.” Inherent in every self-made disaster is the potential for redemption. A little humility goes a long way.

Take Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, for example. In May 2014, things were looking good for the 23-year-old Stanford grad: he had raised $163 million from some of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms and reportedly turned down a $3 billion cash offer fromFacebook to acquire his ephemeral messaging startup.

But that all changed when Gawker site Valleywag released a string of emails from Spiegel’s frat days that included graphic references to sex, drugs and alcohol abuse. Instead of making excuses or simply ignoring the firestorm of bad press, he swiftly owned up to it, issuing a sincere and unconditional apology:

“I’m obviously mortified and embarrassed that my idiotic emails during my fraternity days were made public. I have no excuse. I’m sorry I wrote them at the time and I was jerk to have written them. They in no way reflect who I am today or my views towards women.”

That was exactly the right thing to do. Spiegel didn’t sidestep. He didn’t wait. He got to keep his job and Snapchat has since emerged as a social media powerhouse. It’s raised $2.6 billion to date, carries a valuation of $20 billion and is reportedly planning a 2017 IPO.

What makes that particular example so stunning isn’t just the level of maturity Spiegel displayed but its rarity, even among experienced executives who should know better. Countless stories come to mind but one stands apart, particularly in terms of its dramatic impact on a company that once dominated the smartphone market: BlackBerry, formerly known asResearch In Motion (RIM).

When Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007, RIM’s co-founders were caught completely by surprise by its groundbreaking multi-touch display, web browser and third-party apps. They could not understand how Apple managed to pack so much functionality into a single device. But they never took the competitive threat seriously, either publicly or internally. And that cost them the market.

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie dismissed the iPhone’s potential at the time, saying, “It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers. But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it.” His partner, Mike Lazaridis, was similarly unimpressed, “Try typing a web key on a touchscreen on an Apple iPhone, that’s a real challenge,” he said, “You cannot see what you type.”

For the next four-and-a-half years, the two executives displayed nothing but abject denial as Apple and Google all but put their company out of business. After destroying $70 billion of shareholder value, Balsillie and Lazaridis finally stepped down. On his first conference call, their hand-picked successor, Thorsten Heins, said, “I don’t think there is some drastic change needed.” Investors disagreed; the stock dropped another 8.5% that day.

It’s painful to look back and see how much our unforced errors cost us, especially the ones we failed to own up to and take seriously. Save yourself the trouble and deal with them proactively. Crisis management may not be rocket science, but for far too many leaders, it may just as well be.