Jim Collins: And the idea of being, if you think about it, the kind of essential idea is, you've got this yin and yang, right? You've got something that continues and something's that's about change; something that's preserved, something that's going forward; something that's about values that hold constant and something that practices strategy and structures that change. And I think the real task, is to be very clear on the difference between practices and values.
If you take for example, the question, you would know this better than I do, but let's just say, a company like Hewlett Packard, had one of its values being a really deep abiding respect for the individual, sort of as a given. And the interesting question for me would be, what are the cultural practices of how you respect the individual in China, or Japan, or India, or Russia as distinct from Idaho?
And my suspicion is the way you show respect, which in Idaho means, I have a lot of space around me and you leave me alone, unless we need to talk, which is a very American, very individualistic, definition of respect for the individual.
Without knowing the culture, I suspect the way you show respect in China would be different. So what you have, is the same value, but you have to have a different practice, when you go to a different part of world.
And the ones that have been able to do this well, and I think this applies for China going out to the rest of world as well, we want to carry our values with us anywhere we go. But, we may have to be very nuanced and adaptive in our practices, so the value, we're not compromising our values, but we're changing our practices depending upon the local setting. And vice versa.
If I were to go to Japan and carry a certain set of values, I don't necessarily want to bring American practices. I might want to bring my company's values, but I really need to adapt to Japanese practices. That I think is the crux of how you do this and to be very clear on the difference between values and practice.
You mentioned something earlier and I think this is a key idea, not necessarily in other parts of the world. One of the ways, which civilization, a society, a company, a university, a religion gets tripped up, is that it confuses value with tradition. And if we start to think that tradition, traditions are important, but if we start to think that the traditions are the values (then we have problems).
And what you have to hold onto is, a set of traditions. The traditions cover up the values and the constant sort of self-renewal of any organization, or society, or system, human system, has to be that, you know, traditions have got to change. But, the best way to change them is we hold that there are certain things that are, our values. So that now, we can be free to change our traditions.
Look at the evolution of, (for example) in the United States we have a constantly evolving religious community, as we see particularly with Protestant Christianity. All these different strengths and you look at the rise of the mega churches and you look at rise of each generation and new wave of pastors. And what you find is that they're really following different practices than the generation before them. They would bring in all sorts of strange music and lots of lights and all sorts of things. But, what you would see, if it's holding together you'd see a continuity of values, but you would see each generation bring in new set of practices rather than being wedded to a set of traditions.
And you were describing to me the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and this tension (between tradition and change). And what strikes me that, and (here we have) the quest for values again, is to able to say, no, what we need to do is, it's the 21st century so we have to have our values, but we have to evolve our traditions. |
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吉姆·柯林斯：谈到存在，你们有阴阳之说，对吗？你们谈到变化与平衡、静与动、永恒的价值观与变化的战略实践和结构。我们要做的是，分清行为实践和价值观。
举个你可能比我更了解的例子，比如惠普（Hewlett Packard）的核心价值之一是尊重个性。我感兴趣的是，在中国、日本、印度、俄罗斯和美国爱达荷州，这种对个体的尊重有何文化上的差异？
我猜测在表示尊重的方式上会有不同。在爱达荷州，人们需要私人空间，只有需要交流时，人们才互相靠近，这是非常美国式的、强调个人主义的对尊重个性的定义。
我对中国文化不了解，但我觉得这里表现尊重的方式与美国不同。所以到了不同国家，即使价值观相同，做法也不同。有些人就能做好。中国在走向国际化，因此需要融入这样的思维方式。
我们希望走到哪儿，都能体现自己的价值观。但是在实践中，我们要敏锐并善于变通，这并不是说要牺牲自己的价值观，而是要根据当地环境做一些变通。反之亦然。
如果去日本传播某些价值观，我未必会采用美国人实践中的做法。我或许会带去我们公司的价值观，但是我同时必须融入日本人的实践手段。这是关键所在，必须要分清价值观和实践手段的区别。
你刚才提到了一个关键的概念，不过在其它国家未必如此。一种文明、一个社会、一家企业、一所大学或是一种宗教遇到阻力，其中一个原因就是他们混淆了价值观和传统。传统固然重要，但如果我们把传统和价值观等同，（就会产生问题）。
人们需要坚持的是一系列传统。这些传统涵盖了价值观和任何组织、社会、系统以及人类体系等持续的自我更替。我们都知道传统需要被改变。而最佳的改变方式是坚持有一部分属于我们的价值观。这样一来，我们完全可以改变我们的传统。
来看看发生在美国的进化过程。在美国，宗教社区不断变化，尤其以基督教新教为代表。我们看到了巨型教会的兴起，和一代又一代传承发展的牧师群体。你会发现，与上一代相比，他们的实践手段都发生了变化。他们加入了各种奇怪的音乐、灯光和其他新事物。但整体来看，你会看到价值观的延续，每一代人只是带来了新的做法，而不是固守传统。
你向我描述了中华五千年的文明，以及传统和变化间的矛盾。让我惊讶的是，我们现在又在寻求价值观，在我们身处的21世纪，需要会说“不”。所以我们既要坚持价值观，又要不断更新传统。 |
