拯救福特的守财奴

    波林也把部分权力下放给了他小圈子里的人，比如前F1方程式车手杰基•斯图尔特就是其中的一个。斯图尔特也是福特的一名顾问，一向以喋喋不休、固执己见出名。由于他和波林很熟，因此他负责评测福特的新车型。沃顿在书中写道：“人们普遍相信，只要他想，斯图尔特可以随时走进福特全球总部12楼波林的办公室，坐在波林的椅子上，对他畅所欲言。没人希望斯图尔特告诉福特汽车公司的首席执行官，他对新Taurus感到失望。”

    波林在福特公司上世纪末的夺嫡大戏中也扮演了一个幕后角色。时任董事长兼CEO的彼得森给亨利•福特的两个曾孙——比尔和艾德赛尔安排了职位，但却没有把他们安排进任何董事委员会里，因此开罪了福特家族。80年代末福特的销量上扬大概让彼得森有些飘飘然了，他的傲慢自大和火爆脾气又开罪了一些外部董事。当时福特又恰好花了五倍的账面价值收购了捷豹（Jaguar），公司上下一致认为彼得森的支票开得太爽快了。与此同时，时年63岁、一向谨小慎微的副董事长波林已经快到了退休的年龄。那年10月，董事会开始向彼得森“逼宫”，要求他辞职。彼得森到这时也死撑着姿态，称离职是为了让自己的“伙伴和朋友里德•波林”能有一个当一把手的机会。对于他自己，彼得森则表示他要把自己“移栽”到别处去。

    波林通过在北美地区严苛的成本削减政策带领福特挺过了经济危机，然后在1993年把位子让给了埃里克斯•特罗特曼。不过在谈到个人贡献的时候，他从来不把荣誉往自己身上揽。在一次盛大的庆祝晚宴上，他居然当众羞辱了负责1989款雷鸟（Thunderbird）轿车的总工程师和他的团队，原因是他们设立了一系列重量和成本控制目标，但却未能实现。波林在整个演讲中都不忘斥责他们：“你们做出了承诺，但却没有信守诺言。”【这件事被记载在《华尔街日报》（the Wall Street Journal）记者保罗•英格拉西亚和乔伊•怀德撰写的《复原》（Comeback）一书中。】

    不过波林却没有守住自己对财务高管艾伦•格里默的承诺。格里默告诉我，波林在90年代初曾亲口许诺会让他当上福特的下一任CEO。当时福特的高管队伍人丁不旺，格里默本人也很有能力，而且人缘很好。后来当格里默发现特罗特曼成了CEO继承人时，他找到波林当面对质。

    就像我的回忆录《从60到0》（Sixty to Zero）中描写的那样，波林对他说，与特罗特曼相比，格里默缺乏广泛的运营经验。当时格里默是个没有“出柜”的“同志”，他问波林：“是不是还有别的特殊原因？”波林答道：“没有。”格里默后来回忆道：“我一直不明白我为什么被过滤掉了，不过我认为，波林当时把继任的问题抛到了董事会上，而且没有采取强硬的立场。是不是因为我的同性恋身份妨碍了我的机会，说实话我不知道。”

    福特的公关部门想尽了一切办法，想把波林包装成一个“汽车型男”。他们让波林穿上一件福特的防风夹克衫，与其他的福特董事站在一起照相，还把他送到了美国殿堂级的鲍伯•邦杜兰特驾校去学习。不过我看收效不大。在一次采访中，我偶然把我的录音机调到了“声音启动”模式，也就是每次我们俩中有人停止说话，录音机就会自动暂停。波林不知怎么注意到了，然后每次他都会告诉我，你的录音机出故障了。

    真是一日守财奴，终生守财奴。

    译者：朴成奎

    Such was Poling's power that it cascaded down to those below him who were believed to be in his inner circle. Former Formula One driver Jackie Stewart, a Ford consultant, was one of them. Stewart, who could be garrulous and opinionated, got handled with kid gloves when he was reviewing new models because he was close to Poling. "It was widely believed that Jackie could walk into Red's office on the twelfth floor of World Headquarters whenever he wanted, sit down in one of Red's chairs, and talk to Red about whatever was on his mind," Walton writes. "No one wanted Stewart to tell the chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company that he was disappointed with the new Taurus."

    Poling was an offstage player in one of Ford's notorious succession dramas. Chairman and CEO Petersen had a falling out with the founding family for appointing Bill and Edsel, two great-grandsons of Henry Ford, and then not assigning them to any board committees. Petersen, coasting on an upturn in sales at the end of the 1980s, was turning off Ford's outside directors too with his arrogance and temper. Ford had just paid five times book value for Jaguar and Petersen was seen as too free with the checkbook. Poling, meanwhile, was loyally serving as vice chairman, at age 63, serving out his time until retirement. But in October, the board turned on Petersen, forcing him out. The way Petersen would frame the issue, he was leaving so that his "partner and friend Red Poling" could have a shot at the top job. For his part, Petersen said he was going off to "repot" himself.

    Poling managed the numbers and got Ford through the recession with draconian cuts in North America before handing off the top job in 1993 to Alex Trotman. But he didn't cover himself with glory when it came to personnel relations. He humiliated the engineer in charge of the 1989 Thunderbird, along with his team, at a big celebratory dinner for signing up for a set of numbers on weight and cost and then not delivering. Poling hammered away at them all through his speech. "You made a commitment, but you didn't keep it," he scolded. (The incident was reported in "Comeback" by the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia and Joe White).

    But Poling didn't keep his own commitment to Allan Gilmour, a top financial executive. Gilmour told me that Poling had assured him in the early 1990s that he was on track to succeed him as Ford's next CEO. The company's executive ranks were thin, and Gilmour was capable and well-liked. Butt when Gilmour discovered that the job was going to Trotman instead, he confronted Poling.

    As I reported in my memoir "Sixty to Zero," Poling told him that compared with Trotman, Gilmour didn't have broad operating experience. Gilmour, who was a closeted gay at the time, asked Poling, "Is there any particular trouble?" And Polling said, "No." Recalled Gilmour: "I'll never know why I was passed over, but I think Red left the succession question to the board and did not take a strong stand. Whether being gay hurt my chances, I honestly don't know."

    Ford public relations would struggle to make Poling into an archetypal car guy, photographing him in a Ford windbreaker along with other Ford directors, and sending him to Bob Bondurant's performance driving school. But I suspected differently. During one interview I accidentally set my tape recorder on "voice activate," meaning it would pause every time one of us stopped talking. Poling somehow noticed this and would tell me each time that the recorder was malfunctioning.

    Once a bean-counter, always a bean-counter.