亞馬遜做強靠的不是企業文化

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.

要找企業領導人失敗的案例，這些天你都不用怎麼去搜索。工程集團Arconic的老總柯菲德(Klaus Kleinfeld)因向一位關鍵投資人發出一封言辭過激的信件而遭免職；特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克(Travis Kalanick)正努力糾正自己在優步(Uber)的大男子作風；奧斯卡?穆尼奧斯(Oscar Munoz)在迴應一名乘客被強行驅離聯合大陸(United Continental)航班事件時犯了大錯。許多文化需要改變。

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?

亞馬遜(Amazon)創始人傑夫?貝索斯(Jeff Bezos)主動介紹了一些作為成長型企業的高層如何建立高效文化的經驗。上週貝索斯在給股東的年度公開信——依舊附上了1997年他的“Day One”（第一天）公開信——中建議其他人效仿一些對他來說行之有效的方法。畢竟，誰能否認亞馬遜二十年來的輝煌成長紀錄呢？

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.

他在信中寫道，要心繫客戶需求，即使客戶自己不知道想要什麼。要注意研究，本著“熱情、直覺、好奇心、娛樂、魄力、品味”等精神來領導。做決定要快，哪怕只掌握了70%你想了解的資訊。要包容異見，並承諾會支援多數人意見。最重要的是，永遠不要變成一個成熟的“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.

這番話深入揭示了亞馬遜的發展動力以及貝索斯的信條——文化是亞馬遜與眾不同的原因。“戰略只是文化的早餐”，這句格言據稱出自管理大師彼得?德魯克(Peter Drucker)。但貝索斯這是在傳播一種錯誤觀點：實際上，亞馬遜橫掃美國零售業靠的並不是其精神風氣，而是在正確的時間處於正確的位置，並認識到這一點。

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.

來看看當前零售業的凋敝景象——1994年貝索斯建立網路書店，擾亂了零售市場。美國商場正遭遇店鋪關門潮，其中包括Sears、梅西百貨(Macy’s)、JC Penney等百貨公司關鍵承租人。同時商業街店鋪也在走下坡路，J. Crew等高檔服裝連鎖店面臨重重問題。

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.

大型購物中心遍佈美國各州，讓美國平均每個消費者的零售面積達到英國或法國的6倍。21世紀頭十年儘管電子商務發展迅速，許多公司仍不斷開設新店鋪，Urban Outfitters執行長理查德?海恩(Richard Hayne)稱一個“泡沫”正在破滅。瑞士信貸(Credit Suisse)估計今年美國將有8640家商鋪倒閉。

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 , the online retailer, for $3.3bn last year and may acquire Bonobos, an online menswear brand.

曾經最令同業仰慕和畏懼的零售巨頭沃爾瑪(Walmart)雖然處境不像其他企業那麼艱難，但在電子商務方面一直急於追趕亞馬遜。去年沃爾瑪以33億美元收購了網路零售商，並可能收購線上男裝品牌Bonobos。

Walmart’s $224bn market capitalisation is dwarfed by Amazon’s $433bn.

沃爾瑪市值2240億美元，在亞馬遜4330億美元的市值面前相形見絀。

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.

眼下許多美國零售商可能士氣低落，圍繞戰略出現各種緊張情緒和分歧。這些企業的高管羨慕亞馬遜的樂觀信念和前進勢頭，並不覺得這有什麼奇怪或好笑的。但他們的主要問題並不是有一個糟糕的企業文化，而是他們處於糟糕的位置。

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”.

為什麼亞馬遜現在搞得這麼好？貝索斯在1997年的公開信中已經給出最佳線索：“這是網際網路的‘Day One’。如果我們執行出色，也是亞馬遜的‘Day One’。”當時亞馬遜銷售額只有1.48億美元，雖然他引以為豪的亞馬遜“備貨現在能佔六個足球場”聽上去不算什麼，但他關於網路商務“最終將變成一個非常龐大的市場”這一判斷是正確的。

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.

他的長處是他當時就意識到了網路商務可能發展成什麼樣的規模，並樂於源源不斷地把賭注押上去，賭的就是在網路商務領域佔據核心位置一定會給他帶來好處。這意味著他要忽視所有反對者，並將利潤直接投入到擴張中，知道自己正處於關鍵時刻。網際網路所引發的科技革命要求亞馬遜全押上去。

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.

貝索斯在這次的公開信中承認了這點，強調需要“接受強大的趨勢”——最近是人工智慧和機器學習——並搭上“順風”。他在這方面有著不可思議的本領，例如在2006年建立了亞馬遜雲端計算部門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.”

貝索斯還處於正確的國家，讓他能大有作為。另一位執行長沃倫?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的“佈道”也得到密切關注，在最近給伯克希爾哈撒韋公司(Berkshire Hathaway)股東的公開信中巴菲特寫道，美國企業家從美國統一市場、對創新和顛覆的開放態度以及法治中獲益匪淺，“那些有著冒險精神的先驅們所精心設計的體制釋放出了人類潛力”。

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.

當然，實際上不僅如此。貝索斯1997年的公開信記錄了亞馬遜當時合作的網際網路服務提供商，現在看起來像一張業已倒閉和每況愈下的企業的名單：美國線上(AOL)，雅虎(Yahoo)、Excite、網景(Netscape)、GeoCities、AltaVista、AtHome和Prodigy。許多先驅者已倒在路旁。

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”.

貝索斯必須不斷地靈活執行他的戰略，並作出明智選擇。他身邊需要一群出色的高管，並且他願意支援他們最優秀的想法。他曾“親自開著我的雪佛蘭(Chevy)開拓者把包裹送到郵局，夢想有一輛剷車”，與那時相比，亞馬遜的文化必須有巨大發展。

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.

但是一家商業街零售商即便有美好的文化，也仍然可能被當作早餐吃掉。貝索斯取得如此巨大的成就，是因為他知道科技會帶來什麼。順應時勢，成就了這位企業家。