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You need not search far for leadership failure these days. Klaus Kleinfeld has been ejected as boss of the engineering group Arconic for sending an intemperate letter to a critical investor; Travis Kalanick is trying to mend his macho ways at Uber; Oscar Munoz stumbled in his response to the forcible expulsion of a passenger from a United Continental flight. Many cultures need to change.
要找企业领导人失败的案例，这些天你都不用怎么去搜索。工程集团Arconic的老总柯菲德(Klaus Kleinfeld)因向一位关键投资人发出一封言辞过激的信件而遭免职；特拉维斯?卡兰尼克(Travis Kalanick)正努力纠正自己在优步(Uber)的大男子作风；奥斯卡?穆尼奥斯(Oscar Munoz)在回应一名乘客被强行驱离联合大陆(United Continental)航班事件时犯了大错。许多文化需要改变。
Step forward Jeff Bezos , founder of Amazon, with some lessons on how to create a productive culture at the top of a growing company. Mr Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders last week — as ever with his “Day One” letter from 1997 attached — advises others to mimic what works for him. Who, after all, can argue with Amazon’s stellar record of growth over two decades?
亚马逊(Amazon)创始人杰夫?贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)主动介绍了一些作为成长型企业的高层如何创建高效文化的经验。上周贝索斯在给股东的年度公开信——依旧附上了1997年他的“Day One”（第一天）公开信——中建议其他人效仿一些对他来说行之有效的方法。毕竟，谁能否认亚马逊二十年来的辉煌成长纪录呢？
Be obsessed with what customers want, even if they do not know it themselves, he writes. Beware research and lead with “heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste”. Make decisions fast, even with only 70 per cent of the information you would like; tolerate disagreement and commit to supporting the majority. Above all, never become a mature “Day Two” company.
他在信中写道，要心系客户需求，即使客户自己不知道想要什么。要注意研究，本着“热情、直觉、好奇心、娱乐、魄力、品味”等精神来领导。做决定要快，哪怕只掌握了70%你想了解的信息。要包容异见，并承诺会支持多数人意见。最重要的是，永远不要变成一个成熟的“Day Two”（第二日）公司。
It is a fascinating insight into what makes Amazon tick and Mr Bezos’s belief that culture is what differentiates it. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” is a maxim attributed to Peter Drucker, the management guru. But he is preaching an illusion: Amazon did not roll over the US retail industry with its ethos, but by being in the right place at the right time, and knowing it.
这番话深入揭示了亚马逊的发展动力以及贝索斯的信条——文化是亚马逊与众不同的原因。“战略只是文化的早餐”，这句格言据称出自管理大师彼得?德鲁克(Peter Drucker)。但贝索斯这是在传播一种错误观点：实际上，亚马逊横扫美国零售业靠的并不是其精神风气，而是在正确的时间处于正确的位置，并认识到这一点。
Consider the sorry state of retailing, which Mr Bezos disrupted in 1994 by founding his internet bookstore. US malls are suffering waves of store closures, including department store anchor tenants such as Sears, Macy’s and JC Penney. That has accompanied a decline in high street shops and problems at luxury and clothing chains including J. Crew.
来看看当前零售业的凋敝景象——1994年贝索斯创建网络书店，扰乱了零售市场。美国商场正遭遇店铺关门潮，其中包括Sears、梅西百货(Macy’s)、JC Penney等百货公司关键承租人。同时商业街店铺也在走下坡路，J. Crew等高档服装连锁店面临重重问题。
Large malls spread across the states give the US six times the amount of retail space per customer as the UK and France. Many companies kept rolling out new outlets in the 2000s despite the growth of ecommerce and Richard Hayne, chief executive of Urban Outfitters, refers to a “bubble” bursting. Credit Suisse estimates that 8,640 US stores will close this year.
大型购物中心遍布美国各州，让美国平均每个消费者的零售面积达到英国或法国的6倍。21世纪头十年尽管电子商务发展迅速，许多公司仍不断开设新店铺，Urban Outfitters首席执行官理查德?海恩(Richard Hayne)称一个“泡沫”正在破灭。瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)估计今年美国将有8640家商铺倒闭。
Walmart, once the behemoth rivals most admired and feared, is in less difficulty than others but has scrambled to match Amazon in ecommerce. It acquired Jet.com, the online retailer, for $3.3bn last year and may acquire Bonobos, an online menswear brand.
曾经最令同业仰慕和畏惧的零售巨头沃尔玛(Walmart)虽然处境不像其他企业那么艰难，但在电子商务方面一直急于追赶亚马逊。去年沃尔玛以33亿美元收购了网络零售商Jet.com，并可能收购线上男装品牌Bonobos。
Walmart’s $224bn market capitalisation is dwarfed by Amazon’s $433bn.
沃尔玛市值2240亿美元，在亚马逊4330亿美元的市值面前相形见绌。
Morale is probably low at many US retailers at the moment, with various tensions and divisions over strategy. These executives envy Amazon’s cheerful conviction and forward momentum, and are not feeling curious or playful. But their main problem is not having a bad culture; it is being in a bad place.
眼下许多美国零售商可能士气低落，围绕战略出现各种紧张情绪和分歧。这些企业的高管羡慕亚马逊的乐观信念和前进势头，并不觉得这有什么奇怪或好笑的。但他们的主要问题并不是有一个糟糕的企业文化，而是他们处于糟糕的位置。
The best guide to why Amazon is doing well is recorded in Mr Bezos’s 1997 letter: “This is Day One for the internet and, if we execute well, Amazon.” Its sales were only $148m and his boast that its “store would now occupy six football fields” feels puny, but he was correct that online commerce “should prove to be a very large market”.
为什么亚马逊现在搞得这么好？贝索斯在1997年的公开信中已经给出最佳线索：“这是互联网的‘Day One’。如果我们执行出色，也是亚马逊的‘Day One’。”当时亚马逊销售额只有1.48亿美元，虽然他引以为豪的亚马逊“备货现在能占六个足球场”听上去不算什么，但他关于网络商务“最终将变成一个非常庞大的市场”这一判断是正确的。
His strength was that he realised then what size it could be and was happy to make an unlimited bet on the value of being at the heart of it. That meant ignoring all the naysayers and ploughing his profits straight back into expansion, knowing that he was at a pivotal moment. The technology revolution unleashed by the internet demanded that Amazon went all in.
他的长处是他当时就意识到了网络商务可能发展成什么样的规模，并乐于源源不断地把赌注押上去，赌的就是在网络商务领域占据核心位置一定会给他带来好处。这意味着他要忽视所有反对者，并将利润直接投入到扩张中，知道自己正处于关键时刻。互联网所引发的科技革命要求亚马逊全押上去。
He recognises it in his recent letter, emphasising the need to “embrace powerful trends” — most recently artificial intelligence and machine learning — and to gain “a tailwind”. He has an uncanny knack of doing so, for example by founding Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, in 2006.
贝索斯在这次的公开信中承认了这点，强调需要“接受强大的趋势”——最近是人工智能和机器学习——并搭上“顺风”。他在这方面有着不可思议的本领，例如在2006年创建了亚马逊云计算部门Amazon Web Services。
He was also in the right country to have an impact. Warren Buffett, another chief executive whose sermons are perused closely, wrote in his latest letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that US entrepreneurs gain enormously from its single market, openness to innovation and disruption, and its rule of law: “Those venturesome pioneers crafted a system that unleashed human potential.”
贝索斯还处于正确的国家，让他能大有作为。另一位首席执行官沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的“布道”也得到密切关注，在最近给伯克希尔哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)股东的公开信中巴菲特写道，美国企业家从美国统一市场、对创新和颠覆的开放态度以及法治中获益匪浅，“那些有着冒险精神的先驱们所精心设计的体制释放出了人类潜力”。
There is more to it than this, of course. Mr Bezos’s 1997 letter records the internet service providers with which Amazon then partnered, which reads like a list of the ailing and the dead: AOL, Yahoo, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, AtHome and Prodigy. Many pioneers fell by the wayside.
当然，实际上不仅如此。贝索斯1997年的公开信记录了亚马逊当时合作的互联网服务提供商，现在看起来像一张业已倒闭和每况愈下的企业的名单：美国在线(AOL)，雅虎(Yahoo)、Excite、网景(Netscape)、GeoCities、AltaVista、AtHome和Prodigy。许多先驱者已倒在路旁。
Mr Bezos had to keep on executing his strategy nimbly, and making wise choices. He needed a talented group of executives around him and a willingness to back the best of their ideas. Amazon’s culture had to evolve enormously from when he was “driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift”.
贝索斯必须不断地灵活执行他的战略，并作出明智选择。他身边需要一群出色的高管，并且他愿意支持他们最优秀的想法。他曾“亲自开着我的雪佛兰(Chevy)开拓者把包裹送到邮局，梦想有一辆铲车”，与那时相比，亚马逊的文化必须有巨大发展。
But a high street retailer could have a wonderful culture and still get eaten for breakfast. Mr Bezos has achieved so much because he knew what technology would allow. Cometh the hour, cometh the entrepreneur.
但是一家商业街零售商即便有美好的文化，也仍然可能被当作早餐吃掉。贝索斯取得如此巨大的成就，是因为他知道科技会带来什么。顺应时势，成就了这位企业家。
