50年CEO经验：如何像巴菲特那样管理公司

沃伦•巴菲特被视为这个时代最好的投资者、甚至“股神”，但他的管理记录其实也同样无与伦比。1965年5月，也就是整整50年前，他接掌了伯克希尔哈撒韦公司。时至今日，他依然是该公司的掌门人。这是一项极不寻常的成就。阿尔弗雷德•P•斯隆可能是美国商业史上最富传奇色彩的首席执行官，他执掌通用汽车公司23年。约翰•D•洛克菲勒掌管美孚石油公司27年。就近期而言，比尔•盖茨曾经担任微软公司首席执行官25年时间。

但这就是问题所在。尽管世界各地的投资者都在热切模仿巴菲特的投资方式，但毫不夸张地说，他的管理模式对公司文化毫无影响。查理•芒格是巴菲特的老战友，也是伯克希尔公司的副总裁。在他看来，“伯克希尔体系”是该公司成功的关键所在。然而，芒格在2015年的致股东公开信中写道，“在我所了解的大公司里，还没有哪家具备这个体系的一半要素。”

巴菲特管理方式的一大特点是特别关注资本配置。对巴菲特来说，在伯克希尔体系中增加一家公司与在投资组合中增加一个股票并无二致。然而，一旦完成收购，巴菲特就几乎再也不会卖掉，并给予该公司经理层以极大的自主权。

另一大特点是避免官僚体制。伯克希尔并没有对旗下60多家公司实施某种标准化流程，这家拥有34万名雇员的庞大联合体，也没有全公司范围的预算。

第三个特点是，不搞那些司空见惯、在巴菲特看来只会滋生短期主义思维的企业仪式。所以，该公司从不发布业绩指引，不经常搞股票分拆，也没有股票期权。

当然要承认，并不是巴菲特风格的每一方面都适合所有行业，其中一些要素有可能导致多种问题（下文会继续探讨这一点）。但就在他担任掌门人的这半个多世纪里，伯克希尔的股价上涨了12000倍，道琼斯工业指数同期仅上涨了18倍。目前伯克希尔的市值高达3500亿美元，位居美国上市公司第三位。由此可以想见，他必有某些方面值得一些经理人学习。

当然，我必须澄清的是，我本人投资了伯克希尔公司。我是一家拥有该公司股票的共同基金的董事会成员，也是巴菲特传记的作者。所以，别指望我会对伯克希尔的前景有什么不偏不倚的展望。

奇怪的是，当年收购伯克希尔时，巴菲特并没有使用其招牌式的策略——友好地收购那些领导有方的优秀公司。在最近致股东的信中，他讲述了这段旧事。那时，伯克希尔只是一家在低成本对手围攻下深陷困境的纺织品企业，巴菲特一时冲动，收购了这家公司。在他的合伙制投资公司购买了该公司股份后，巴菲特对其管理战略越来越失望，最终购买了控股权，并将首席执行官扫地出门。当时是1965年，巴菲特时年34岁（如今他已经85岁了）。

通过观察该公司前任首席执行官的错误，巴菲特获得了第一个教训：绝不要将有用的钱投到糟糕的业务上，哪怕这是你的本业。伯克希尔在纺织业挣扎了20多年。经过一番努力，该公司微薄的利润逐渐变得丰厚起来。到1985年他关闭工厂时，伯克希尔已在保险、报业、糖果业和制造业拥有相当的股份，还有一个庞大的普通股投资组合。

到那时，巴菲特的合伙制投资公司已经进行了清偿：其投资者获得伯克希尔公司的股票，而巴菲特则成为该公司最大的股东。合伙制遗产非常重要，因为伯克希尔公司目前依然实行这种运营制度。该公司的董事只领取象征性的薪酬，也没有责任保险。他们大量购买股票。这种在美国公司史上几乎闻所未闻的制度安排意味着，董事们必须对自己的使命深信不疑。

巴菲特和股东的关系也体现了合伙制的精髓。巴菲特从不做短期内拉升股价的事情（比如发布业绩指引），因为他想要建立长期的股东关系。他也很少会用股份去支付收购款，因为他不想稀释股份。

巴菲特也不搞什么股权激励，因为这么做会使高管的利益和普通投资者的利益脱钩。实际上，在高管薪酬上，伯克希尔也和传统做法大相径庭。巴菲特和芒格每人的薪酬仅为10万美元，也没什么奖金，而如今很多首席执行官仅每天的收入就能达到10万美元。

如果内心的贪婪是导致那些同行不愿采用巴菲特薪酬模式的原因，那么还有些东西——可称其为管理层的不安全感——使得他们不想效仿他对短期绩效的超然态度。很多首席执行官都对华尔街怕得要死，不敢让投资人失望，而且常常满足于获得一些华而不实的表面价值。拆分股票以提高流动性，就是这种心态的表现，剥离公司资产以“释放”价值亦是如此。

乔治华盛顿大学教授，《超越巴菲特的伯克希尔》（Berkshire Beyond Buffett）一书的作者劳伦斯•坎宁安表示，巴菲特的绝大多数管理技巧都是从现已退休的Capital Cities/ABC公司首席执行官汤姆•墨菲身上学来的（巴菲特是该公司的主要投资者，墨菲现在是伯克希尔董事会成员）。

不过坎宁安指出，那些想效仿巴菲特的上市公司都面临显而易见的障碍。以通用汽车公司为例，最近，短期股东都要求公司派发现金股利（哪怕明知通用汽车几年前才摆脱破产危机）。由于急于避免发生代理人冲突，经理层让步了。而巴菲特拥有的控股权，能让他像私营企业的老板一样，免受这种压力。

但伯克希尔毕竟是一家上市公司，其管理风格有违一些管理规范。正如巴菲特所写的那样：“我们信任自己的经理，放手让他们经营。”这一诚信体系在2011年遭遇了滑铁卢。当时有媒体爆料称，伯克希尔能源行业总监戴维•索科尔先是向一家公司投资了1千万美元，然后推荐伯克希尔去收购该公司。

尽管这一事件是伯克希尔历史上的污点，但坎宁汉认为，这只是一种富有价值的折衷体制难免出现的缺陷。他说，如果伯克希尔加强其官僚体制，“那就会减缓决策进度，从而错失各种机会，同时也没人能保证这样就不会出问题。”

伯克希尔之所以获得如此巨大的成功，仅仅是因为它的掌门人是巴菲特吗？这是一个让无数股东颇感痛苦的问题。如果伯克希尔严格遵循企业治理制度，董事会不那么洋溢亲情，或者让公司变成一个没有那么多巴菲特的亲朋故友的机构，并且让巴菲特65岁就告老还乡，伯克希尔的股东现在很可能就不会那么富有。芒格字斟句酌地问道：“天下有几人能干出巴菲特这番伟业呢？”

不过，让其他公司因为巴菲特的特殊成就而改弦易辙，似乎不太恰当。事实上，他和芒格主要的不满，即美国公司太官僚、太执迷于短期利益，确实无比正确。芒格在自己致股东的信中写道：“伯克希尔这套管理体系应该在更多的公司推行，应该像治疗癌症那样对付官僚体制最糟糕的阴暗面，这两者简直太像了。”很难想象，还有哪家公司的副总裁会公然不顾礼节，这么教育同龄人，还使用如此不顾及他人感受的比喻。其他高管应该试试这么做。

如何像巴菲特那样管理公司

沃伦•巴菲特50年掌控伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的三大管理秘诀：

1、让经理们独立自主——伯克希尔所拥有的60多家企业的经理层拥有很大自主权，这也让他们愿意长期为公司服务。

2、必须消灭官僚习气——公司决策者在预算、法务和公关等层面遭遇繁文缛节，意味着你会错失很多机遇。

3、不要操纵股价——业绩指引、拆分股票和剥离资产都是短期行为，长期来看它们对股东的利益贡献很小或毫无作用。（财富中文网）

罗杰•洛温斯坦是《美国银行业：创建美联储的奋斗历程》一书的作者。

译者：清远

审校：任文科

Warren Buffett is regarded as the best investor of our time; arguably, his management record is just as singular. He took over as head of Berkshire Hathaway in May 1965 — 50 years ago. And he is still at it. Think about that. Alfred P. Sloan, perhaps the most storied CEO in American business, ran General Motorsfor 23 years. John D. Rockefeller ran Standard Oil for 27. In recent times, Bill Gates was CEO of Microsoft for 25.

But here’s the thing. Investors around the world avidly mimic Buffett’s investment approach, yet it’s fair to say his managerial model has had zero impact on the corporate culture. Charlie Munger, Buffett’s longtime partner and Berkshire’s vice chairman, says the “Berkshire system” is essential to its success. Nonetheless, Munger wrote in this year’s annual shareholders letter, “No other large corporation I know of has half of such elements in place.”

One hallmark of Buffett’s management is unusual attention to capital allocation (for Buffett, adding a company to Berkshire is akin to adding a stock to an investment portfolio). But once he makes an acquisition, he almost never sells, and gives managers extreme autonomy.

Another is shunning of bureaucracy. Berkshire has no processes to standardize the more than 60 operating units it owns, no companywide budgeting for a conglomerate with 340,000 employees.

A third hallmark is renunciation of familiar rituals that in Buffett’s view promote short-term thinking. Thus, no earnings guidance, no regular stock splits, no stock options.

Admittedly, not every aspect of Buffett’s style would fit every business, and you can argue that elements of his approach can lead to problems. (More on that later.) But over the half-century of his management, Berkshire’s stock is up 12,000 times, while the Dow Jones industrial average is up 18 times. Berkshire’s market cap is $350 billion, the third highest in America. You’d think some manager would find something worth imitating.

(A disclosure: I’m invested in Berkshire, I sit on the board of a mutual fund that owns the stock, and I’m the author of a Buffett biography. So don’t look here for a disinterested forecast of Berkshire’s future.)

Oddly enough, Buffett’s signature tactic—friendly acquisitions of strong, well-led companies—was violated when he bought Berkshire itself. As Buffett tells it in his most recent shareholders letter, his takeover of Berkshire, a textile manufacturer besieged by low-cost rivals, came about almost impulsively. After his investment partnership bought a stake, Buffett grew disenchanted with the company’s management strategy. He eventually bought a controlling interest and ousted the CEO. That was in 1965, when Buffett was all of 34 (he is 85 today).

Buffett’s first lesson came from observing the former CEO’s errors—don’t put good money into a bad business, even if it’s the business you are in. Berkshire struggled in textiles for 20 more years; all along, Buffett deployed its meager profits into greener pastures. By the time he closed the mill in 1985, Berkshire owned major interests in insurance, newspapers, candy, and manufacturing, along with a large portfolio of common stocks.

By then, Buffett’s investment partnership had liquidated: Its investors received stakes in Berkshire, and Buffett became the largest individual owner. The partnership legacy is important because the company is still run like a partnership. Berkshire’s directors get only token compensation; they don’t get liability insurance either. And they have purchased large amounts of stock. This arrangement—almost unheard of in corporate America—means the directors must truly believe in their mission.

The partnership ethos is also visible in Buffett’s relations with stockholders. Buffett does not do things to buoy the stock in the short term (such as issue earnings guidance), because he seeks to encourage long-term ownership. He rarely uses shares to pay for acquisitions, because he does not want to dilute the stock.

Buffett also shuns stock options because they could unhitch the interests of executives from those of ordinary investors. Indeed, in executive pay, Berkshire staggeringly departs from convention. Buffett and Munger collect salaries of $100,000 each; neither receives a bonus. (Many CEOs haul in $100,000 every day or so.)

If greed dissuades rivals from adopting Buffett’s pay model, something else—call it managerial -insecurity—inhibits them from replicating his indifference to short-term results. Many CEOs live in mortal fear of disappointing Wall Street, and often settle for the appearance of value as distinct from the substance. Stock splits to increase liquidity are a sign of this mentality, as are spin-offs of corporate assets to “unlock” value.

Lawrence Cunningham, a professor at George Washington University and the author of Berkshire Beyond Buffett, says Buffett learned much of his management style from Tom Murphy, the retired Capital Cities/ABC CEO. (Buffett was a big Cap Cities investor, and Murphy now sits on Berkshire’s board.)

But Cunningham notes that public companies that try to imitate Buffett face obvious hurdles. Witness GM, where short-term shareholders recently demanded that the company distribute billions in cash (even though GM is only a few years removed from bankruptcy). Anxious to avoid a proxy battle, managers caved; Buffett’s controlling position, like that of a private operator, insulates him from such pressures.

Still, Berkshire is public, and its style violates some governance norms. As Buffett wrote, “We trust our managers to run their operations.” That honor system slipped in 2011, when David Sokol, head of Berkshire’s energy business, was revealed to have invested $10 million in a company and then recommended that Berkshire acquire it.

While that affair tarnished Berkshire, Cunningham depicts it as the downside of a worthwhile tradeoff. If Berkshire beefed up its governance bureaucracy, he says, “it would slow decisions, you would miss opportunities, and there is no guarantee you would not have problems.”

Is it possible that Berkshire works—and this is the question that causes agony for -shareholders—only because Buffett runs it? Arguably, had a rules-bound, less cozy board (one stuffed with fewer of Buffett’s associates, friends, and family) sent Buffett to pasture at, say, age 65, its shareholders would now be poorer. “How many people do you think could do what Warren does?” Munger asks rhetorically.

Yet letting other companies off the hook because Buffett is special seems too pat. His and Munger’s basic complaint—that corporate America is too bureaucratic and too obsessed with the short term—is absolutely correct. Munger, in his letter, argues that “versions of the Berkshire system should be tried more often elsewhere, and the worst attributes of bureaucracy should much more often be treated like the cancers they so much resemble.” It is hard to think of another company where the vice chairman would violate protocol by lecturing his peers and employing such an insensitive metaphor. Other executives should try it.

How to run your company the way Buffett does

Three management takeaways from Warren Buffett’s 50 years at Berkshire Hathaway

1. Leave your managers alone — Managers at the 60-plus business units owned by Berkshire have a lot of autonomy, and that encourages them to stick around.

2. Bureaucracy must die — Extra layers of corporate decision-makers in budgeting, legal affairs, and public relations mean you’ll miss opportunities.

3. Don’t massage the stock price — Earnings guidance, stock splits, and spin-offs are short-term moves that do little or nothing for your shareholders in the long run.

Roger Lowenstein is the author of America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve.