宝洁CEO正面回应股东施压（节选）

这个委员会什么时候开始召开会议？

    未来几个星期之内。我想要做的是创造一种注重生产力的企业文化。实现这个目标的方式就是让各业务部门的工作人员都参与进来，让他们形成一个指导性的联盟，这正是我们正在做的事情。必须确保我们在这方面达到一种平衡。注重创新和注重提高生产力两者并不矛盾。

    生产力是一个促成因素。它使我们有能力把资金重新投向创新产品，或者使我们有能力在应对意外事件时拥有缓冲资金。宝洁公司已经有175年的悠久历史了，本月底我们将庆祝宝洁成立175周年。我正在重读《财富》杂志（Fortune）1981年发表的一篇文章。文章谈到了宝洁鼎盛时期的CEO约翰•斯梅尔当时面临的困境，并且采访了一位宝洁退休员工，这位退休员工表示宝洁公司创新不足。那篇文章还谈到了宝洁在1973年至1980年期间股价下跌的情况。

    使宝洁公司与众不同的特点之一是我们公司在一段时间内会彻底改造自己。每个接受任命、担任公司CEO的人都必须重塑公司，这样公司就可以为未来175年做好准备。

鲍勃，为什么宝洁以前没有彻底改变自己呢？现在你担任宝洁CEO已有几年的时间了。现在才说要形成一个注重生产力的企业文化，这个想法令我感到有些奇怪，大多数CEO都是在走马上任的时候发表这类言论。宝洁公司的生产力到底出了什么情况？

    我们面临自1929年至1933年期间全球性经济大萧条以来最糟糕的一个经济状况。我们在大宗商品原材料方面的成本开支增加了35亿美元，这对我们的盈利能力造成了极为不利的影响。我们的计划正是对目前的形势作出的一个回应。

但是其他公也面临这样的经济阻力，然而他们的业绩都比宝洁出色。如果可以的话，你希望改变自己过去在哪些方面的做法？

    我在今年6月份在巴黎召开的德意志银行全球消费者与食品零售商大会上已经阐述过有关这方面的所有原因。

能再说一遍吗。我知道你对这个问题进行了大量的思考，难道宝洁从中没有任何经验教训可以吸取吗？

    我们已落实的计划表明了我们从中已吸取到的经验和教训。我们目前把重点放在改善非连续性创新的任务上。我们目前计划在全球范围内裁员5,700人，削减成本100亿美元。

我的理解是，这个计划来看，你们吸取的经验教训就是，公司之前开支过度了。

    是的，我们面临大宗商品原材料价格上涨的不利因素，而倘若我们没有把原材料价格上涨反映到我们的产品定价中去的话，那么就会对我们的盈利能力造成同等程度的削减。

但向贵公司股票投资的投资者群体并不认同这种说法。前宝洁部门总裁加里•马丁撰写了这封批评信。阿克曼与你会晤——要求你辞职。投资者似乎并不接受你传递的讯息。可以这么说吗？

    我们提供了这个信息。投资者现在相信，我们正在按照这个计划持续实现目标。在4～6月份的季度里，我们曾表示我们已走在计划前面了，当时投资者对此反响积极。我们公布4～6月份的季度财报之后，宝洁股价当天上涨了2美元。或许这个信息已传达给了市场，而投资者正在寻找信心，但我们正在实现这些计划中所制定的绩效目标。

    译者：iDo98

When will that council begin to meet?

    Within the next couple of weeks. What I want to do is create a culture of productivity. The way you do that is you involve people in the various business units and they create a guiding coalition and that's what we're going to do. You have to be sure that we have balance. Innovation and productivity are not contradictory.

    Productivity is an enabler. It allows you to invest back into innovation or by being able to have a shock absorber against surprises. The Procter & Gamble Company has been around 175 years, and we are celebrating our birthday at the end of this month. I was rereading an article in Fortune from 1981. It talked about the difficulty John Smale had and interviewed a retiree who said the company didn't have enough innovation. It talked about the stock price falling from 1973 to 1980.

    One of the things that makes this company unique is the way it reinvents itself over a period of time. Each of us that is asked to be CEO at one time during their tenure is required to reinvent the company so it becomes ready for the next 175 years.

How come this didn't happen before, Bob? You have been CEO now for several years. The idea of NOW creating a culture of productivity strikes me as strange; Most CEOs say something like that when they start their job. What happened to the productivity of the company?

    We faced one of the worst economies that we've had since the Great Depression. We had $3.5 billion of incremental commodity costs that affected our profitability. Our plan is a reaction to the situation.

Yet other companies have had this economic headwind but have done better. What part do you wish you had done differently?

    I laid out all those reasons in the June Deutschebank Conference in Paris.

Tell me again. I know you've given a lot of thought to this. Aren't there any lessons learned?

    The plan that we've put in place suggests what we've learned. We're focused on improving discontinuous innovation. We're reducing enrollment in the company by 5700, saving $10 billion.

So what I would take out of that is that the lesson would be that you spent too much money.

    We had the commodity headwinds, right, which had we not priced would have reduced our profitability by that amount.

But it didn't take with the community that invested in your stock. Former executive Gary Martin writes this [critical] letter. Ackman meets with you. That message did not get through. Is that a fair statement?

    We provided the message. Investors now are confident that we're delivering against the plan. In the April through June quarter, we said we were ahead of the plan and the investors reacted positively there. When we announced April through June the stock went up $2 that day. Maybe the message was out there and investors were looking for confidence but those results are being delivered.