????2008年，米特?羅姆尼在《紐約時報》（New York Times）上發表了一篇名為《讓底特律破產吧》（Let Detroit Go Bankrupt）的專欄文章。他認為，如果無條件給予美國車企緊急救助，就等于讓三巨頭繼續走死路，“那你們就可以徹底和美國汽車業吻別了”。不過近來，這位共和黨大佬開始頗加贊許地把政府強制實施的結構性破產比喻為他在貝恩資本（Bain Capital）的工作。幾天前他在南卡羅萊納州表示：“美國總統在監管通用（GM）和克萊斯勒（Chrysler）上所做的工作與私募股權行業的做法類似。要想拯救一家企業，你必須砍掉旁枝末節，回到有助于企業收益的核心業務上。”

????破產重組后的克萊斯勒將于今年2月1日公布全年財報，這也是自2006年以來克萊斯勒的凈利潤第一次有望轉負為正的一年。這一切離不開一個人的功勞——菲亞特-克萊斯勒的CEO塞爾吉奧?馬基奧尼。憑借著過人的智慧、充沛的精力和充足的自信，馬基奧尼接手了克萊斯勒，他選擇了一支管理團隊，制訂了產品計劃，設立了一系列業績目標。克萊斯勒居然一一完成了這些目標，這讓許多行業觀察人士深感驚訝，他們現在甚至仍然不知道馬基奧尼是如何做到這一切的。

????要想知道馬基奧尼是怎樣做到的，只要看看他是怎樣領導菲亞特扭虧為盈就可以了。當時在連續虧損6年后，菲亞特在馬基奧尼的領導下首次實現盈利，期間與通用公司和平分手，還從當時現金短缺的通用汽車手中拿到了20億美元的分手費。

????《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal）總編珍妮弗?克拉克的新書《阿涅利家族：菲亞特、克萊斯勒，以及一個王朝的力量》（Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty）一書用新的視角審視了馬基奧尼的管理方法。

????馬基奧尼曾受過會計和律師培訓，也曾有過企業經理人的經驗，但當2004年阿涅利家族選擇他來拯救江河日下的菲亞特時，馬基奧尼還沒有任何汽車行業的經驗。不過就像后來在克萊斯勒時一樣，馬基奧尼當時很快控制住了事態。花幾個月時間了解公司情況后，馬基奧尼選擇了一支自己的管理團隊，讓那些精力充沛、愿意承擔風險的人充當要職，然后在工作中對他們進行評估。在挑選好管理團隊后，他讓2000多個不稱職的員工提前退休了。

????接下來，馬基奧尼把所有的高管叫到一間屋子里，制定了一個商業計劃。在精簡掉幾個管理層級之后，他開始向各種耗費時間的委員會開刀，然后建立了一個集團執行委員會取而代之，將拖拉機和卡車等單獨的業務部門聚集到一起。其后，他組建了一只24人的團隊來運營菲亞特汽車公司。馬基奧尼的理念是要使公司的各個部門相互充分交流，從而提高菲亞特的反應速度和效率。在過去的體系下，菲亞特的三個品牌——菲亞特、阿爾法羅密歐（Alfa Romeo）和藍旗亞（Lancia）分別隸屬獨立的業務部門，各自負責自己的招聘、采購和生產。克拉克引用了一位工程師的話：“他們甚至連一根螺絲釘也不共享”，仿佛時光壓根兒沒進入20世紀90年代。

????菲亞特的另一個重大問題，在于它把汽車的研發任務完全交到了工程師手中。工程師完成工作之后，就把汽車扔給銷售和市場團隊，告訴他們應該賣出多少臺，按什么價格去賣。這個流程注定是低效的，而且必然會使公司各個部門之間產生爭端。

????馬基奧尼上任后，許多人都沒有好日子過了。管理委員會的會議通常在周末召開，有時馬基奧尼還會突然發飆當場炒人魷魚。有一次一位經理自夸道，他把一次較大的損失挽救成了較小的損失。結果馬基奧尼當場頂了回去：“我這里不需要賠了錢還很高興的人，我要的是想盡辦法掙錢的人。你可以走了。”

????In 2008, Mitt Romney wrote a New York Times op-ed titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." He argued then that if the auto companies got a bailout, "you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye." Lately, however, the Republican frontrunner has begun to favorably compare the government-imposed structured bankruptcies to his work at Bain Capital. "What the president has done overseeing GM and Chrysler has been reminiscent of what people in the private equity industry do," he said a few days ago in South Carolina. "To try and save the business, you have to cut back to a core that matches the revenue of the business."

????In fact, the restructured Chrysler is expected to report a net profit for the first time since 2006 when it releases its full-year results on Feb. 1. And it is not unfair to give the lion's share of the credit to one man: Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne. With his lightning-quick mind, boundless energy, and utter self-confidence, he took over the company, selected a management team, created a product plan, and established a set of performance targets. Chrysler's ability to hit them was a huge surprise to industry watchers who still don't have a clear idea of how he pulled it off.

????For insight, they need only look back at Marchionne's turnaround at Fiat, when he made the Italian automaker profitable for the first time six years and extracted $2 billion from a cash-strapped GM (GM, Fortune 500) in the process.

????New insight into Marchionne's methods are the core of a new book by the Wall Street Journal's longtime Rome bureau chief Jennifer Clark, Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty.

????An accountant and lawyer by training and a corporate manager by experience, Marchionne had no auto industry experience when the Agnelli family picked him to save the failing Fiat in 2004. As he would later do at Chrysler, Marchionne took matters into his own hands. He selected his own management team after months of walking around at the company, looking for energetic risk-takers and evaluating them on the spot. After picking his team, he sent 2,000 of his rejects off to early retirement.

????Clark relates how Marchionne's next step was to put all of his executives together in one room to come up with a business plan. Having wiped out several layers of management, he now eliminated time-killing committees, replacing them with a Group Executive Council to bring together disparate operations like tractors and trucks. Then he formed a 24-person team to run Fiat Auto. The idea was to make Fiat quicker and more efficient by getting all parts of the company to talk to one another. Under the old system, Fiat's three brands -- Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia -- were run as separate business units that did their own hiring, purchasing, and engineering. "They didn't even share one screw," Clark quotes one engineer as saying. It was if the 1990s had never happened.

????Just as deadly was Fiat's practice of putting car development entirely in the hands of engineers. When the engineers were done, they would throw the car "over the wall" to sales and marketing teams with instructions on how many to sell and at what price, Clark notes. It was a process that was guaranteed to be inefficient and to create disputes between different parts of the company.

????The new life under Marchionne wasn't easy. Management committee meetings were often held on weekends, and on-the-spot firings were not unheard of. After one manager patted himself on the back for turning a big loss into a smaller one, Marchionne went after him. "I don't need people in here who are happy to lose money," Clark quotes him as saying. "I want people who culturally are all about making money. You are free to go."