首席执行官职责在用人方面的职责就是培养未来的领袖，保证公司不断取得成功。彭明盛意识到，最有价值的学习经验不是老师给予的，而是由这个世界给予的。彭明盛十年任职期间一直担任IBM公司人力资源高级副总裁的兰多尔•麦克唐纳说：“所以，我们决定走出课堂，确保员工的大部分经验来自操作一线。”

    因此，公司增加了对发展性任务和新开发任务的投入。比如，公司创立了企业服务团队（Corporate Service Corps），将来自不同背景、有进取心的年轻人分派到全球，与当地分公司的领导们合作解决当地的具体问题。员工得到了充分锻炼和发展，IBM 公司也借此考察了员工的能力。

    很多公司都会外派经理人从发达国家到新兴市场。IBM公司却反其道而行之。这样，来自新兴市场的经理人能够学到成熟市场的经验，为未来的发展做好准备。IBM公司之所以能在最适合培养企业领袖的全球公司排名中位列榜首，这是一个很大的原因。

    这些局促空难重重，耗资不菲。它们是否值得？没人能做出肯定回答，因为领导力开发的好处要经过很长一段时间才能显现。另外，首席执行官退休时，人们也难以对其作出全面的评价。因为他们决策的效果好也罢，坏也罢，要等到他们离职多年后才会真正显现出来。彭明盛在超级计算以及“更智慧的星球”计划方面制定了大规模的长远计划，旨在充分利用IBM公司的能力来解决全世界最大的社会问题，同时也是商业难题。此外，他的接班人维吉尼亚•罗曼提的表现也将是评价彭明盛业绩的一个重要因素。

    因此，本文只能算是一份初步报告。我们还要继续观察彭明盛的管理对IBM公司未来的影响如何。不过这一切无损他全明星般的耀眼光芒。

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

    The human side of the CEO's job is making sure those knockout results keep coming by developing tomorrow's leaders. Palmisano realized that the most valuable learning is delivered not by a teacher but by the world. "We made a decision to walk out of the classroom and make sure most of the experiences were being lived at the operational level," says Randall MacDonald, IBM's HR chief through all of Palmisano's tenure.

    So the company increased its commitment to developmental assignments and invented new ones. For example, it created a Corporate Service Corps, which combines diverse young up-and-comers into teams that work with local leaders on local problems around the world. The employees get stretched and developed; IBM gets insight into their abilities.

    Lots of companies send managers from developed economies to emerging ones. IBM also does the opposite, so those emerging- market managers get experience in a mature economy, preparing them for the future. Such efforts are a big reason IBM ranks No. 1 on the new global list of Top Companies for Leaders.

    Are those practices worth the trouble and expense? No one can say for sure; much of the payoff from leadership development is far down the road. The larger point is that CEOs can't be fully assessed when they retire because their decisions play out, for better or worse, over many years after they're gone. Palmisano made major long-term bets on analytics, supercomputing, and the Smarter Planet initiative, which aims to harness all of IBM's abilities to solve the world's biggest social as well as business problems. The performance of his successor, Virginia Rometty, will also be a major element of his record.

    So this is still a preliminary report. We have yet to see how well Palmisano managed IBM for tomorrow. But he's going out like an all-star.