簡•朱伯特:走上MBA課堂的前兵王(1)

Jan Joubert has fought in some of Africa’s nastiest wars, trained presidential bodyguards to scupper assassination attempts and run a diamond mine in the face of rebel threat. But what was really hell, says the former private military contractor, was taking on an MBA at Henley Business School in the UK at the age of 40.

簡•朱伯特(Jan Joubert，見右圖)參加過非洲一些最危險的戰爭，訓練過總統的貼身保鏢（以防範刺殺活動），也頂着叛軍威脅的壓力經營過鑽石礦。不過，這名前私人軍事合同承包人說，以40歲的年紀在英國亨利商學院(Henley Business School)攻讀MBA學位,纔是真正地獄般的經歷。

The South African, who joined the military at 17 and became a commander in 44 Parachute Brigade’s Pathfinder unit in Namibia and South Africa, has been used to giving orders all his life.

朱伯特是南非人，17歲參軍，在納米比亞和南非當過南非第44傘兵旅(44 Parachute Brigade)探路者部隊(Pathfinder unit)指揮官。他這輩子一直習慣於發號施令。

But signing up for an MBA meant hours of collaborative discussion instead and refraining from “negative criticism” in what lecturers said was “a safe space”. “In the military, the guy with the highest rank is the final authority. He decides we go left; everybody goes left. There are no questions, there’s no debate about it; that’s it . . . It’s not a two-way communication,” says Mr Joubert.

但參加MBA學習意味着，一連數小時的合作討論，以及在授課教師所說的“安全環境”下剋制“負面批評”的衝動。朱伯特說：“在部隊裏，軍銜最高的人擁有最高權威。他決定向左，所有人都得向左，不得有任何質疑和爭議，事情就這樣定了……不存在雙向交流。

“What was hell was having been a commander/chief executive all your life where everybody had to dance to your tune – and now sitting in a classroom . . . You have to consider everybody’s views and everybody’s emotional state and you have to be nice to everybody. That was difficult for me.”

“對我來說最難以忍受的是，當了一輩子指揮官和首席執行官，所有人都得遵照你的命令行事，如今坐在課堂上……你卻必須顧及所有人的觀點和情緒，必須友善對待每個人。對我來說，這很難做到。”

At the start of the MBA Mr Joubert “just kept quiet”. “Some people’s views are just so far out of whack with your own that you can’t see how you can interact,” he says. “I just got extremely frustrated and I thought it was an absolute waste of time and why should I convince people that my view is correct and theirs are not?”

MBA課程剛剛開始時，朱伯特“只是保持沉默”。他說：“有些人的觀點與你自己的觀點相去如此之遠，以至於你不知道該如何與他們交流。我當時只覺得非常鬱悶，認爲這絕對是浪費時間，搞不懂爲什麼要說服別人相信我的看法是正確的、而他們的是錯誤的。”

Mr Joubert is used to issuing instructions without debate. In the 1990s he worked for Executive Outcomes, a group of former soldiers hired by governments. In 1995 he arrived in Sierra Leone to help defend the government against a brutal rebel onslaught and trained the bodyguards for two of Sierra Leone’s heads of state.

朱伯特過去習慣於不受質疑地發出指令。上世紀90年代，他曾效力於Executive Outcomes，那是一家由退伍士兵組成的私人僱傭軍公司。他曾在1995年來到塞拉利昂，幫助政府抵禦叛軍的猛烈進攻。他還爲塞拉利昂的兩位國家領導人訓練過貼身保鏢。

Eighteen years later, the 44-year-old still works in the west African country, where he has led a turnround at Koidu diamond mine, once ransacked and burnt during the 11-year civil war that ended in 2002.

18年過去了，現年44歲的朱伯特如今仍在這個西非國家工作。在他的領導下，在長達11年的塞拉利昂內戰（於2002年結束）中一度被洗劫和燒燬的塞拉利昂Koidu鑽石礦起死回生。

For Mr Joubert, the MBA was a way to counter his military past, overcome a perception for being a rigid authoritarian and be taken seriously in the business world. He also wanted to expand the mine that he had spent years of his life developing.

對朱伯特來說，MBA課程是一種手段，可以抵消過去軍人經歷造成的影響，改變他在別人眼中嚴肅、專制的形象，並獲得商界的真正認可。另外，他還想擴建這個他耗費了多年心血的鑽石礦。

“[If you’re ex-military] people always judge you and view you as a soldier and I wanted to get out of that stigma,” he says. “I want to be viewed as a serious entrepreneur who can stand my ground in any corporate environment.”

朱伯特說：“（如果你曾是一名軍人），人們總是會對你有偏見，會把你看做一名軍人，而我想擺脫軍人的記號。我希望人們將我視爲一名真正的企業家，能夠在任何商業環境下堅守陣地。”

He has already stood his ground for 16 years. He helped safeguard the Koidu mine during the civil war and rebuilt it when the war ended in 2002. By then the mine had been closed for five years and had suffered badly at the hands of the rebels. Today the mine supplies Tiffany, the luxury jeweller, which buys 60 per cent of the Koidu mine’s diamonds by value.

朱伯特已經在他的陣地上堅守了16年。他曾在內戰期間幫助保衛Koidu鑽石礦，在2002年戰爭結束時又幫助重建它。戰爭結束時，Koidu鑽石礦已關閉了5年，而且已被叛軍糟蹋得不成樣子。如今，Koidu礦是奢侈品珠寶商蒂芙尼(Tiffany)的供貨商，該礦所出產鑽石銷售額的60%來自蒂芙尼。

While mine ownership has changed hands several times, Mr Joubert has been a constant figure. For years he was chief executive of Koidu Holdings; today he is chairman of Octea, which is the holding company for Koidu, and a diamond mining subsidiary owned by Beny Steinmetz Group the natural resources company founded by the eponymous Israeli businessman.

儘管鑽石礦幾經易手，但朱伯特的地位始終巋然不動。他曾多年擔任Koidu控股(Koidu Holdings)的首席執行官。如今，他是Koidu的控股公司Octea的董事長。Octea是貝尼斯坦梅茨集團(Beny Steinmetz Group)的鑽石開採子公司，這家集團是由以色列商人貝尼•斯坦梅茨(Beny Steinmetz)創辦的自然資源公司。