CEO應有高智商 To pick a know all chief executive is just plain dumb

When Deutsche Bank named John Cryan as its new chief executive three weeks ago, the commentary had an insidious subtext. He has “an enormous brain”, one friend told the FT. “Very thoughtful,” said a former colleague. Ominously for Mr Cryan, these comments echoed those made about Vikram Pandit when he unexpectedly stepped down as Citigroup’s CEO in 2012. He was “too cerebral”, said critics of the Citi boss.

當德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)在不久前任命約翰•克賴恩(John Cryan)爲新首席執行官之後，他人的評論有種別樣的意味。克賴恩的一位友人告訴英國《金融時報》，克賴恩有一個“絕頂聰明的大腦”。他的一位前同事稱他“思維縝密”。這些評語對克賴恩來說卻不太吉利。2012年潘偉迪(Vikram Pandit)意外辭去花旗集團(Citigroup)首席執行官一職時，當時對他的評語與此如出一轍。批評者說，這爲花旗老總“太理智”。

The implication in both cases is that being a brainbox is a disqualification for running some of the largest and most technically complex companies. I was brought up to respect and pursue academic success, but while it grates that the world believes analytically minded swots rarely make great business leaders, the world is right (even if Mr Cryan ultimately turns out to be one of the few exceptions).

這兩個例子告訴我們，絕頂聰明的人並不適合管理一些規模極爲龐大、技術極其複雜的公司。我從小就尊崇學術成就，並以此爲目標，當我發現這個世界相信一個善於分析、刻苦學習的人很難成爲偉大的商業領袖時，感到很是煩惱，但世界是正確的——哪怕最終證明克賴恩是爲數不多的例外之一。

No less an intellect than Bill Gates told an invited FT audience last week that his background (learning about the world by reading an encyclopedia, starting at A for Aardvark) made him think at first that the obvious corporate hierarchy would be one based on IQ, with the brightest at the top.

比爾•蓋茨(Bill Gates)絕對是位高智商人士。近期蓋茨在接受英國《金融時報》專訪時告訴現場觀衆，他的知識背景曾經令他認爲，企業層級結構應基於智商，最聰明的人應該位於最頂層。蓋茨瞭解世界的方式是閱讀百科全書，他學到的第一點知識是字母“A”打頭的“土豚”(Aardvark)。

It took only a few years running a business for Mr Gates to realise he had made a colossal error, one that would have doomed Microsoft had he pursued it. “By the age of 25, I knew that IQ comes in different forms,” he said. “[Understanding] sales and management seems to be negatively correlated with writing good code or understanding physics equations. That was befuddling for me.”

經營公司沒幾年後，蓋茨就認識到自己犯了個巨大的錯誤，如果他繼續這個錯誤，微軟勢必要失敗。他說：“25歲時，我發現智商有不同的表現形式。（知道了）銷售和管理似乎與編寫優秀的代碼或理解物理方程呈負相關。這讓我感到困惑。”

Mr Gates was brought up in an age when IQ testing was popular, before it was revealed that the tests themselves could disadvantage some groups and that such tests measured attributes that were irrelevant in some workplaces. Would you, for instance, rather be rescued by an out of condition firefighter with Mensa membership or a fit one of average IQ with a decade of experience in extinguishing infernos?

在蓋茨成長的年代，智商測試開始流行，後來纔有研究揭示這些測試本身會對一些羣體不利，而且此類測試所衡量的品質對一些工作來說無關緊要。比如，你希望前來營救你的消防員是一個有門薩會員資格，身體羸弱的人；還是一個智商爲平均水平，體格健壯，有十年滅火經驗的人？

The FT asks successful people in its weekly Inventoryfeature if they have ever undergone an IQ test. Many have. But none that I can recall has said the result had any bearing on their later success. There is a reason why the description of Enron’s senior executives as “the smartest guys in the room” was a harbinger of dysfunction and disaster and not a qualification for flexible leadership.

在每週的Inventory專題裏，英國《金融時報》會詢問那些成功人士是否接受過智商測試。許多人都接受過。但據我回憶，沒有一個人表示測試結果對他們日後的成功產生過任何影響。安然(Enron)的高管們被形容成“房間裏最聰明的人”，該評價預示了異常和災難，而非說明他們具備靈活的領導力，這是有道理的。

Yet even though the idea that chief executives are omnipotent is fading, the myth of the omniscient corporate boss persists. Leaders remain reluctant to admit publicly that they simply cannot know everything about their business, until an operational blunder or a scandal reveals the truth.

然而，雖然人們漸漸不再認爲首席執行官應該無所不能，公司老總無所不知的神話依然在流傳。領導人仍然不願公開承認，他們根本無法對自己企業的各方面瞭若指掌，除非一次經營失誤或一場醜聞才能揭露這一真相。

One reason CEOs try to appear all-knowing is that their public appearances — the analyst briefing, the television interview, the conference panel — place unrealistic pressure on imperfect individuals to demonstrate perfect knowledge. At such events, executives are preoccupied with not appearing thick. It would be far more realistic and refreshing if they admitted that, day to day, they often call on lieutenants to answer tricky questions.

首席執行官們努力表現出全知的樣子，原因之一就是各種公開露面——分析師簡報會，電視採訪，討論會——使他們承受了不現實的壓力，他們作爲不完美的個體，卻要做出具備完美知識的樣子。在公開場合上，高管們要全神貫注，不能露出無知的樣子。如果他們能承認，每天他們都得經常請副手解答棘手問題，那將會實事求是得多，也會令人耳目一新。

The best chief executives do not spend hours alone, applying their “enormous brains” to business problems. When academics from Warwick and Oxford Saïd business schools followed leaders in the healthcare sector for a study published in the latestMIT Sloan Management Review, they found that each built a “personal knowledge infrastructure”, which consisted of many elements. This infrastructure includes time for thought — one health manager had what he called a “train pile” of research that he could read while travelling. But it also allows for visits to the wards in off-hours to spot problems, analysis of a data “dashboard” of corporate performance and consultations with an inner circle of colleagues.

最優秀的首席執行官不會用自己“絕頂聰明的大腦”一個人花許多時間去解決業務問題。最新一期《麻省理工斯隆管理評論》(MIT Sloan Management Review)刊出了一份研究報告，來自英國華威商學院(Warwick)和牛津大學賽德商學院(University of Oxford Saïd)的學者在研究了醫療行業的領袖後，發現每個領導者都建立了“個人基礎知識結構”，該結構由許多要素組成。其中包括用於思考的時間——一位醫療公司的管理者會在旅行中閱讀研究資料，他說自己要讀的資料多到“車載斗量”。他們也會在工作之餘探訪病房，以發現問題，分析公司業績的數據“儀表盤”，以及與重要的同事商議問題。

I see two intelligent ways that clever leaders can apply their IQs: as entrepreneurial founders and as part of a balanced team. Mr Gates did not propose snuffing out bright sparks in business, or switching them for executives with the more modish “EQ” of emotional intelligence. He talked instead about the importance of fishing from three different “IQ pools”. To meet his current philanthropic goals, he says, he tries to mix managers with “scientific understanding, business analytics and a passion for being out in the field”. The same should go for all organisations: leading them in any other way would be plain stupid.

我認爲，聰明的領導人要想發揮他們的智慧，有兩條途徑較爲明智：作爲企業創始人，以及作爲一支成員角色互補的平衡型團隊的一員。蓋茨沒有建議把那些商業上的聰明人排除在外，或用高情商（這個詞現在更爲時髦）的主管來替換他們。相反，他談到了從三種不同“智商的人才”裏選人的重要性。蓋茨說，在自己當前從事的慈善事業中，他設法挑選三種不同類型的管理者，他們分別具備“科學理解能力、商業分析能力，以及實地考察的熱情”。所有組織都該採用這一思路，別的管理方式都不明智。