通用电气掌门人“最受赞赏公司”私人榜单
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如何打造一家受人尊敬的公司？在这方面，您会向哪些大公司的首席执行官取经？ IBM的彭明盛、联邦快递的弗雷德•史密斯——他们都是我很好的朋友。还有家得宝的弗兰克•布雷克，另外我也认识谷歌的埃里克•施密特等等。我们与一些值得我们学习的公司定期交流。我们有一个季度管理会议，我们经常请来外部人士演讲。我们曾经请来弗雷德•史密斯参加GE Capital会议，我还请过杜邦（DuPont）（No. 37）的柯爱伦、百胜餐饮（Yum! Brands）的大卫•诺瓦克。所有人都想找到好点子，对吧？这也是你在寻找的东西。 我还经常和纽约周边的一些人会面，像彭明盛、美国运通的肯•谢诺尔特、强生（J&J）（第12名）的比尔•韦尔登和百事（Pepsi）（第32名）的卢英德——我们会面聚餐，差不多一个季度一次。后来你知道吗，摩根大通（JPMorgan）的杰米•戴蒙和我成为了多年的好朋友，我总是定期向这样的人讨教。 您说人们注重的东西取决于时代。在您看来，哪些公司在应对经济危机方面做得格外出色？ 在一定程度上，我认为是金融服务公司，因为当危机袭来时，他们处于风暴的中心。现在你再看看摩根大通（第22位）或富国银行（Wells Fargo）（第45位），完全可以放心地说：“哦，他们情况还不错。”他们曾处于金融危机的中心，但经历了风暴后他们相对而言更强大了。因此，我认为，这已超越了衰退本身。但看看那些直接受到冲击的人们，考虑到危机的重灾区，我想你必须得暂且相信他们。 公民联盟（Citizens United）案宣判后，美国最高法院认定公司也是人。您希望您的公司成为什么样的人？ 我想，谈到教育等企业社会责任，通用电气一直是一家善良慷慨的公司。但我个人认为，此轮周期证明了“没有竞争力，其他任何努力都是白费”。我想，说到底，通用电气是一家有竞争力的公司，也许这一点才是企业社会责任的根本。不管公司捐赠多少，如果不能创造就业，就很难成为当代的一个好公民。这个观点可不赖。 汉威士集团（Havas）首席执行官戴维•琼斯在《有心者胜》（Who Cares Wins）一书中称赞通用电气的“绿色创想”计划（Ecomagination）是优秀企业社会责任实践的标杆…… 你知道，“绿色创想”计划的核心是竞争力和创新力，并不是因为受到企业社会责任的推动。它更多是关于创新，我想我们越能从这方面考虑问题，就越能减少顾虑，越能更积极地思考。 那么，听起来“绿色创想”计划被誉为一项负责任的、受人尊敬的计划，只是无心插柳柳成荫的副效应。 完全正确。 |
Of your CEO peers at other large companies, who do you look up to or look to for influence in how to build an admirable company? Sam Palmisano of IBM, Fred Smith -- these are great friends of mine. Frank Blake of The Home Depot -- I know Eric Schmidt from Google -- and people like that. We're constantly reaching out to companies that we can learn from. We do a quarterly management meeting, and we always have outside people come and speak. We had Fred Smith come to our GE Capital meeting, and I've had Ellen Kullman from DuPont (No. 37), Dave Novak from Yum! Brands (YUM). Look, everybody's searching for one good idea, right? That's what you want to get. I also get together quite frequently with a bunch of people in the New York City area, so Sam, Ken Chenault from American Express, Bill Weldon of J&J (No. 12), Indra Nooyi of Pepsi (No. 32) -- I see them, and we have dinner like once a quarter. And then, you know, Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan has been a good friend of mine for quite some time, and I'm constantly reaching out to people like that for good input. You were saying that what people admire depends on the times. Which companies do you think have handled the economic crisis especially well? To a certain extent, I look at financial service companies, because they were in the middle of the storm when the crisis hit. You look at JPMorgan (No. 22) or Wells Fargo (No. 45), and you sit back and say "Well, good for them." They were right in the middle of the financial crisis, and yet they've come through it stronger, on a relative basis. So I think it's beyond just the recession itself, but when you look at people that really took direct hits, given where the crisis went, I think you have to give them the extra benefit of the doubt. In the wake of the Citizens United decision, with the Supreme Court suggesting that corporations are people, what kind of person do you want your company to be? I think we've always been a good and generous company when it's come to corporate social responsibility around education and things like that. But personally, I think one of the things that this cycle is proving is that without competitiveness, nothing else really matters. I think in the end, GE is a competitive company, and in the end that might be the best source of CSR. It doesn't matter how much you're giving; if you're not able to create jobs, it's tough to be a good citizen today. And that's not a bad perspective to have. Havas CEO David Jones, in his book, Who Cares Wins, credits GE's Ecomagination program as a beacon of good CSR... You know, the essence of Ecomagination was that competitiveness and innovation are at the heart, and it's not really CSR-driven. It's more about innovation, and I think the more we can think about it that way, there are less trade-offs and more positive thinking. So it sounds like Ecomagination's reputation as a responsible, admirable program is just a happy side effect. That's exactly right. |
