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????真正優秀的首席執行官少之又少，因為很少有人能夠充分調動左右腦不同的智慧。大多數人都沒有做到這一點。我們要么是大量運用左腦，遵循理智行事，富有邏輯性和分析性；要么高度依賴右腦，富于想象力、憑借情感和直覺，不愿和數字打交道。后者在當今社會更加少見。很明顯，運營一家規模龐大的公司需要左右腦同時開動。最出色的商業領袖在這兩方面都極為擅長，其中就包括IBM公司高管彭明盛。他擔任了近十年的首席執行官，即將在今年年底引退。彭明順堪稱比商界的米奇?曼托（美國職業棒球球員明星，特點是左右手都能擊球——譯注）。沃倫?巴菲特最近宣布他買入了價值107億美元的IBM股票，無異于商界對彭明順的業績終極認可。他說，彭明盛“貢獻巨大”。 ????涉及到管理，大腦的兩個半球分別代表著財務和人員兩方面的智慧。大多數經理人能在其中一方面表現出色就已經相當難得了。 ????然而，彭明盛在兩方面的表現都極為出色。在財務這方面，他深刻理解到底是什么因素能讓一家公司真正具有價值。關于這一點，我很遺憾地說，相當多首席執行官都不懂。愚蠢的人會做一些無知的事情，比如為了增加每股收益而在收購方面耗費過多。彭明盛卻知道這一切都與資本有關。他將資本從低收益業務中撤出，轉投到高收益業務中。舉例而言，他將IBM公司的硬盤驅動器業務剝離給日立公司（Hitachi），并簽訂了購買日立驅動器的五年協議。意識到驅動器逐漸成為有用的商品后，他決定買入這種商品而非賣出。他還收購了約100家公司，大多數都是擁有很高的資本回報率的小型軟件及服務公司。此外，他還壓縮了營運資本，這種策略看似平常，卻能得到豐厚的回報。 ????IBM公司的資本收益率從彭明盛剛剛任職時的4.7%上升到了如今的15.1%，這對于IBM這種大規模企業（2011年預期收益1,070億美元）來說是一個驚人的成果。利率下降的同時，公司實力不斷壯大，資金成本也有所下降，因此資本收益和成本之間的差距也進一步擴大（數據來源于EVA Dimensions咨詢顧問公司）。IBM公司股價比2002年彭明盛剛剛就任時上漲了82%，甚至高于它在互聯網泡沫最高峰時期的股價。 |
????Really good CEOs are rare partly because they use all of their brains. Most people don't. We carry around either massive left brains -- logical, analytical, not very touchy-feely -- or, more rarely in today's world, we rely on big right brains -- imaginative, feeling, intuitive, uncomfortable with algebra. Running a giant company obviously demands both, and the best business leaders can bat from either side of the plate. That group includes IBM chief Sam Palmisano who's stepping down at year-end after nearly a decade as CEO, looking like a business Mickey Mantle. The business world's ultimate endorser, Warren Buffett, announced recently he'd bought $10.7 billion of IBM stock, saying Palmisano has "delivered bigtime." ????In management the brain's two halves are the financial side and the human side. Most managers, if they're lucky, are really good with one or the other. ????Palmisano was excellent with both. On the financial side, he understood what actually makes a company valuable, which I regret to report many CEOs do not. The clueless ones do dumb things like pay too much for acquisitions in an effort to plump earnings per share. Palmisano understood that it's all about capital. He took capital out of businesses with poor returns and put it into businesses with high returns. For example, he offloaded IBM's disk drive business to Hitachi (HIT) and then made a five-year deal to buy Hitachi drives; realizing that drives were becoming a commodity, he decided he'd rather be buying them than selling them. He also bought about 100 companies, mostly small ones in the high-return-on-capital businesses of software and services. He squeezed working capital, an unglamorous tactic that pays handsomely. ????As a result, IBM's return on capital has increased from 4.7% when Palmisano got the job to 15.1% today, a tremendous achievement for a company of IBM's size (estimated 2011 revenue: $107 billion). And as the company grew stronger while interest rates declined, IBM's cost of capital fell, so the all-important spread between capital's return and cost widened (data from EVA Dimensions). That's a big reason IBM's (IBM) stock is 82% higher than it was when Palmisano took over in 2002 -- higher even than its bubble-market peak. |
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