五年前,作为世界知名IT企业惠普的董事长兼CEO以及世界前20强公司“掌门”中唯一的女性,菲奥丽娜在商界叱咤一时。多次被《财富》杂志评为“全球商界最具影响力的女性”。2005年,菲奥丽娜突然被惠普解雇,成为众矢之的。此后,她的人生似乎趋于平淡:出自传、偶尔作些演讲、担任一些企业的董事。2008年,她为麦凯恩助选总统,但因其落败而黯然消声。2009年,菲奥丽娜被查出患上乳腺癌——至此,很多人猜测这位曾经的商界奇女子已难再辉煌。然而,2010年,菲奥丽娜成功战胜癌症,并且宣布代表加州参加美国参议员竞选!
菲奥丽娜究竟是能人还是庸才?我们实在难以定论。但是,她这一路走来,足无愧于成为世界女性的典范。特别是当你看到她那头因化疗而剪成的泛白短发,你也一定会被她的骨子里的坚毅和执着所感染。
美式发音 适合泛听
Her Bio 辉煌之路
Her name was Carly. She was a receptionist at DJ’s Hair Design. Well, once she was. That’s how she worked her way through Stanford and got a degree in medieval history. Then came UCLA Law School, where she quit after one semester.
So, it was back to receptionist, this time at1)Marcus & Millichap. They encouraged her to reach a little higher and look into the business world, so she worked her way through an MBA followed by 20 years at 2)AT&T, then Lucent Technologies.
One day her phone rang. A little company named Hewlett Packard was calling. Seems they’d become 3)lethargic and 4)stale, needed a 5)fireball.
Carly Fiorina became the only woman to ever lead a 6)Fortune 20 company. While the rest of the tech world suffered through the 7)dot-com bust, Carly got things done. She “leaned” the company to profitability, and HP doubled in 8)revenues to 88 billion. Then she added jobs.
Carly became one of the most recognizable business leaders in the world.
她名叫卡莉,曾在DJ发型设计当接待员。嗯,当年她确实是。她就是那样在斯坦福大学半工半读,并获得了一个中世纪历史方面的学位。接着是加州大学洛杉矶分校的法学院,但她上了一个学期就辍学了。
然后,她又当起了接待员,这次是在马库斯与米利查普。那里的人鼓励她往更高处发展,着眼商界,于是她又半工半读完成了MBA学位,并且在随后的20年先后在美国电话电报公司和朗讯科技任职。
有一天,她的电话响了。是一家叫做惠普的小公司打来的。这家公司看起来老气横秋又了无生气,需要一个做事雷厉风行的人。
卡莉·菲奥丽娜成为了《财富》20强公司的领导人中唯一的女性。当其他的科技公司皆为网络泡沫破裂所苦之时,卡莉把一切事情都办妥了。她通过“瘦身”让公司盈利,惠普的收入翻了一番,增至880亿。然后她又在公司增加了就业机会。
卡莉成为了最为人熟知的商业领袖之一。
Her Response 艰难之时
Male Reporter: She took Hewlett Packard’s stock price down something like 60%, fired 18,000 people, she said, “I only regret I hadn’t fired more people faster.”
Female Reporter A: …but she left with a, I think it was, a $40 million 9)golden parachute while 20,000 of her employees were laid off.
Female Reporter B: Carly Fiorina, who walked away, when she left Hewlett Packard, with $45 million including a $21.5 million 10)severance package.
Carly: Most people know me as, “Oh yeah, she was that lady who got fired at Hewlett Packard.” But then a…how a story ends has much to do with how it begins.
And so I must begin with my mother and father, because it was my mother and father who taught me that personal 11)ethics are everything, that values matter, that character counts, that the toughest choices are made easier if you have a strong internal compass and you know which way it points.
Values are what guide your behavior when no one’s watching and you don’t think anyone will ever find out.
And one of the things, unfortunately, that I think about when I see scandals in the board room, led by some of the same people that led my ouster, when I see stories of backdating of 12)stock options and then I watch the 13)commentary immediately run to “What new rules shall we write? What new laws shall we devise?”, I think that sometimes what we ought to be talking about instead is: “Where is business judgment? Where is perspective? Where are personal ethics? Where are the people who are just gonna raise their hand and say ‘Stop, this isn’t right’?”
And what I know for sure is that values and character and an internal compass come from in here, but it is also a leader’s job to set that tone at the top, which is why one of the toughest decisions that I have ever made as a leader is to fire people, not because they weren’t getting results, but because their values were not consistent with what we wanted to practice.
In business, unfortunately, 14)abusive people with a lack of 15)integrity are frequently tolerated because they get results. And if you really want to convince an organization that values matter, you have to be prepared to act on that, because people watch the walk, they don’t listen to the talk. And so, therefore, you have to be prepared to say, “Yes, so-and-so is getting results, but guess what, the behavior, the values, are not what we believe in.”
男记者:她使得惠普的股价下跌了60%,炒了18000人,她说:“我只是后悔没有快点把更多的人炒掉。”
女记者甲:……但她走的时候,拿到了,我想,是一个价值4000万美元的黄金降落伞,而她手下有两万员工被解雇了。
女记者乙:卡莉·菲奥丽娜走了,她拿了4500万美元——包括2150万的遣散费离开了惠普。
卡莉:很多人认识我是因为我是那个“噢,对了,她就是那个被惠普炒掉的女人”。不过,故事如何结束,和其开始密切相关。
因此我得从我的父母讲起,因为是他们教会我个人道德就是一切;价值观很重要;人品也如此;要是你内心的方向盘够坚定,而且你也知道它指向何方的话,最难做的决定做起来也会比较容易。
当没有人在关注你,而你也不知道有谁会知道真相的情况下,用来指导你的行为的就是价值观。
但很不幸,其中的一个问题是,当我了解到董事会会议室里的丑闻(那是由踢我出局的同一些人主导的),当我看到关于股票期权生效日回溯的故事,然后我看到媒体评论立刻转到了“我们应该订下什么新规定?我们应该制定什么新法规?”,我想有时候我们应该讨论的反而是“商业判断在哪里?观察问题的视角在哪里?个人道德在哪里?那些刚想举手说‘停,这不对’的人又在哪里?”
而我很肯定的是价值观、品格和内心的方向盘源自内心,但那也是一个领导者的职责所在——将标准定到最高,那就是为什么说炒人是我作为领导者所做过的最艰难的抉择之一,并不是因为他们没有成绩,而是因为他们的价值观与我们想实践的不相一致。
在商场上,很不幸的是,很多缺乏诚信的人因为有所成绩而经常为人所宽容。要是你真的想让一个机构相信价值观很重要,那你得准备将语言付诸行动,因为人们要看的是你的行动,而不是只听你说。因此,你得准备说“对,谁谁谁是有所成绩,但你猜怎么着,他的行为,他的价值观并不是我们所信奉的。”
Her Rebirth 重生之势
Interviewer: Carly Fiorina, her success in business is only part of the story: she’s also a giver.
Carly: The One Woman Initiative recognizes women in difficult parts of the world who are making a positive difference. We’re focused on helping grass-roots women’s organizations. We’re helping them gain access to justice, we’re helping them gain leadership training, and we’re helping them get a chance at becoming 16)entrepreneurs.
Interviewer: Here’s what she wants you to learn from her example.
Carly: …that women can succeed in any profession, that for all of the people who perhaps stand in your way there are even more people who will give you a helping hand, and that business is a great place for women to make a difference in the world.
Interviewer: If you were to die tomorrow, what would you want your 17)obituary to say, or what would you want your legacy to be?
Carly: Well, you know, I battled cancer last year, and so when you battle cancer, you actually do think about your mortality. You do think about what you want your legacy to be, and I hope that people would say that I tried to make a positive difference every day of my life. That is what I think life is about: making a positive difference. I think that’s what leadership is about.
Interviewer: Fiorina battled cancer and won. Now she’s taking that spirit and her leadership skills and battling Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat to represent California.
记者:卡莉·菲奥丽娜在商界的成功只是她人生故事的一个部分:她还是一个乐善好施者。
卡莉:“妇女同一行动”会对在世界贫困地方发挥积极作用的女性给予肯定。我们致力于帮助草根妇女组织。我们帮助她们获得公正,帮助她们获得领导才能的培训,我们帮助她们获得成为企业家的机会。
记者:她希望大家能从她的事例中获得启发。
卡莉:女性能在任何行业取得成功,相比于那些可能阻碍你前进的人,其实有更多的人希望向你伸出援手,而商界就是一个让女性在世界上发挥重要作用的好地方。
记者:要是你明天就要死去,你希望你的讣告上怎么写呢,又或者说,你希望为世人留下什么?
卡莉:嗯,你知道,我去年和癌症搏斗了,因此,当你和癌症搏斗的时候,你必然会想到自己的死亡问题。你必然会想自己希望为世人留下什么,我希望人们会说,我曾经努力在我生命的每一天中都发挥积极的作用。那就是我所认为的人生的意义:发挥积极的作用。我想那也是领导才能的意义。
记者:菲奥丽娜曾经与癌症搏斗并取得了胜利。现在她正怀揣这份精神和她的领导才能为能代表加州而与芭芭拉·博克瑟竞逐参议员席位。
翻译:未几
