第466期：理查德·科赫谈掌握80/20法则、实现非理性成功与赌博的艺术

当然，现在我几乎每天都会使用这个网站，我觉得它是个非常棒的网站。

And of course now I use the website most days, and I think it's, I think it's a wonderful website.

我已经卖掉了我的股份。

I've sold my shares.

我并不是在为这家公司做广告之类的，但我从这项投资中赚了大约一亿英镑的利润。

I'm not advertising the company or anything like that, but I ended up making about a £100,000,000 profit out of, out of that investment.

这就是STAR原则的力量。

So that's the power of the STAR principle.

一个不擅长数字的人，怎么能在通常高度依赖数字的行业中赚钱呢？

How can someone who's not numerate make money out of what is generally a highly numerate industry?

对他来说，答案非常简单。

Well the answer to him is very simple.

我相信原则，我相信STAR原则，而且它真的有效。

I believe in principles and I believe in the STAR principle and it works.

我是世界上唯一这样做的投资者。

I'm the only investor in the world that does this.

我认为，在我这种规模的投资者中，我是唯一一个不雇佣任何人、每周只花大约一天时间来做投资的人。

And I think I'm the only investor of the world of my scale that doesn't employ anyone and that does it on the basis of probably about a day a week of work.

我会让我的个人助理帮我处理一些工作。

I do use my personal assistants to do some of the work.

我会借助人脉来完成特定任务，但我没有正式员工。

I do use contacts for special particular jobs but I don't have any staff.

当我告诉别人这一点时，他们会说：你的投资组合有这么多。

When I tell people this, they say, well, your portfolio is X.

这简直令人难以置信。

That's absolutely unbelievable.

我说，我在投资一家企业时，只有一个问题：它是不是一家明星企业，或者有没有可能成为一家明星企业？

I said, well, I've only got one question when I invest in a business, is it a star business or could it be a star business?

一旦我投资了，我就希望它能保持为明星企业，或者变得更强大。

And once I've invested, I want to retain it as a star business or make it more dominant.

唯一的问题是：你该如何做到这一点？

And the only question is how do you do that?

所以生活非常简单。

And so life is very simple.

我在笑，因为即使我们有五个小时，我也会在问完所有问题之前先没时间了。

I'm laughing because we could have five hours and I'm gonna run out of time before I run out of questions.

那我们先标记几件事。

So let's bookmark a few things.

我们稍后会回到知识与原则的区别。

We're gonna come back to knowledge versus principles.

好吗？

Okay?

所以我们先标记这一点。

So we'll bookmark that.

我想明确一下，至少根据维基百科，而维基百科当然存在争议，而且常常不准确。

I want to just make it clear, at least from Wikipedia, and Wikipedia, of course, is subject to debate, but often inaccurate.

而Betfair被描述为全球最大的在线博彩交易平台，供那些想了解背景但不熟悉这家公司的读者参考。

And Betfair is is described as the world's largest online betting exchange just for for those who are looking for some type of perspective and are not familiar with the company.

你之前提到过你喜欢赌博。

And you had mentioned gambling and liking gambling.

我想深入探讨一下，因为我觉得你可能喜欢赌博，但同时你也非常擅长下注。

I wanna dig into that because it strikes me that you may enjoy gambling, but you're also very good at placing bets.

如果我们从心理机制、驱动力和相关标准来看，这两者并不一定是同一回事。

Those are not necessarily the same thing, if if we think about the psychological dynamics, drivers, criteria involved.

我还想向听众解释一下，投资是一个绝佳的隐喻和框架，可以帮助我们探索适用于其他领域的原则、思维过程，甚至可能适用于所有领域。

And I want to explain also to people listening that investing is a wonderful metaphor for and framework for exploring principles that apply elsewhere, thinking processes that apply elsewhere or perhaps even everywhere.

所以我的问题非常具体。

So my question for you is very specific.

一百五十万美元，你是怎么决定下注这个金额的？

1,500,000.0, how did you decide on that bet sizing?

那是我所有的钱。

That was all the money I had.

天啊。

Holy shit.

哇。

Wow.

好的。

Okay.

所以你把所有筹码都推上去了？

So you just pushed in all your chips?

是的。

Yeah.

我所有的流动资产，你知道，这对我来说很典型。

All my liquid assets, know, and this is quite typical for me.

我的意思是，想把全部资金都投入进去。

I mean, want to be fully invested.

我们稍后会谈到的一件关于我的事，相当荒谬的是，我实际上没什么钱可花，而且我也不在乎。

Something we'll talk about later, is one of the things which is quite absurd about me is that I actually don't have very much money to spend and I don't really mind that.

比如在正常情况下，我在伦敦时通常会乘坐公共交通工具。

I tend to, when I'm in London for example in normal circumstances, would take public transport.

我会坐公交车或地铁。

I would go on the bus or the tube.

如果可能的话，我会骑自行车，但除非时间真的非常紧迫，否则我不会打出租车甚至用优步。

I would cycle if I possibly could but I wouldn't take a taxi or even an Uber unless it was absolutely, you know, desperately short of time.

我不相信自己会真的时间紧迫。

And I don't believe in being desperately short of time.

我总是确保自己有充足的时间，因为我不想被催促，而且我总能利用这段时间思考或做其他事。

I always make sure I have plenty of time because I don't want to be rushed and because I can always use the time to think or whatever.

那我是如何决定下注金额的呢？

So how do I just decide on the bet sizes?

这完全取决于我手头有多少资金，以及我认为这是否是一个好的赌注。

It's just a matter of what I have available if I think it's a good bet.

我要赶紧说明，我并没有靠赛马赌博赚钱。

I hasten to write I don't make money out of my horse racing gambling.

这纯粹是一种娱乐，而且我下的注相对于我的净资产来说也并不算大。

That is purely an entertainment and I don't place particularly large bets relative to my net worth either.

如果我能连续18个月不用往账户里再投钱，我会非常开心。

If I can go for 18 months without having to put any more money in my account, I'm very happy.

这是一种不同的投注方式。

It's a different kind of bet.

我的意思是，赌博，指的是传统意义上的赌博，比如扑克、赌场、赛马，或者赌网球、棒球、足球之类的任何活动。

I mean, gambling, think is conventional gambling, whether it's poker or it's at the casino or it's horse racing or it's betting on tennis or baseball or football or anything like that.

我认为有些人确实能靠这个赚钱，但他们通常要么掌握一些内部信息，要么极其擅长判断概率，而且往往还做过深入研究。

I think there are people who make money at it but they usually either have some inside information or they are incredibly skilled at judging probabilities and they often have even research.

我认识一个人，他雇了50名员工专门追踪足球比赛，以判断特定足球赛事的赔率是否合理。

I know someone who had 50 employees tracking football in order to see whether the odds on particular football matches were right or not.

他会据此下注，并且每年都稳定地赚了不少钱。

And he would take positions and he made a lot of money out of that consistently every year.

但像我这样对足球一无所知、对赛马也了解不多的人，就处于明显的劣势。

But someone like me who doesn't know a lot about football, knows nothing about football, doesn't know a great deal about horse racing, is at a certain disadvantage.

我有一种特定的方法，不是看马在比赛中最终排名如何，而是根据它的时间相对于其他马的时间来判断。

I have a particular method which I use which is based on looking not where the horse came in the race but on the time relative to other times.

所有这些都在《赛马邮报》网站上计算。

And all that is calculated on the Racing Post website.

它被称为一种叫做‘最高时速’的东西。

It's called something called Top Speed.

每当我从赛马中赚到很多钱时，都是因为‘最高时速’让我发现了一匹马，它离热门马并不远，但赔率可能是30比1，有一次甚至达到了330比1。

And whenever I make a lot of money in horse racing, it's because Top Speed has shown me a horse which is not far away from the favorite, but might be at odds of 30 to one or in one case it was even three thirty to one.

这很不寻常。

That's unusual.

但投资公司却非常棒，因为如果你理解相对市场份额的重要性，也了解一家公司是否能够实现差异化，从而在某个细分市场中建立稳固地位，比如Betfair，那就简直太棒了。

But betting on companies is fantastic because if you understand how important relative market share is and if you understand whether or not a company is able to segment itself and therefore have a defensible position in a particular segment like Betfair, then it's absolutely fantastic.

因为你可以基本放心投资，即使可能亏钱，但总体上你会从中获得非常好的回报。

Because you can basically invest and know that you might lose your money but overall you're going to do very well out of that.

我极少在明星企业上亏过钱。

And I have very rarely lost money on star businesses.

我亏钱的情况，都是因为我以为某家公司可能会成为明星企业，但它并没有。

The cases where I've lost money is where I thought something might become a star business and it wasn't.

这回答了你的问题吗？

Does that answer your question?

是的。

It does.

我还有好几个后续问题。

And I have a whole handful more to follow-up.

你写了一整本书讲这个，2008年的《明星原则》。

So you wrote an entire book on this, The Star Principle 2008.

那本书是2008年出版的，主题是投资明星企业。

It that was published in 2008, work and investing in star businesses.

那正是重点。

That was the focus.

当你说到企业能够自我细分，你提到了Betfair，自我细分是什么意思？

When you say segment itself, businesses that can segment itself, and you mentioned Betfair, what does segmenting itself mean?

这意味着它以一种其他人没有做过、或者极少人做过的方式定义了市场，从而有可能成为该市场的领导者。

It means that defines the market in a way that nobody else has done or that very few people do and therefore that it's possible to become the market leader in it.

所以Betfair就是一个非常好的例子。

So Betfair is a very good example of that.

它是一个博彩交易平台，是一个电子市场，人们可以在上面对任何一方下注，买入或卖出。

It's a betting exchange which is an electronic market where people can post bets on either side, buy or sell.

它不像博彩公司那样承担主仓位。

It doesn't take principal positions as bookmakers do.

因此，一旦覆盖了运营成本，它就不会亏钱。

So once its overheads are covered, it can't lose money.

它与其他博彩交易平台竞争，而不是与大型博彩公司竞争，因为任何大赌徒都不会去Ladbrokes、Corals、The Totes、Paddy Power或任何那些传统博彩公司，因为他们知道博彩公司通常会在每场比赛中抽取大约10%的利润。

And it competes against other betting exchanges, not against the big bookmakers because anyone who's a big gambler isn't going to go to Ladbrokes or Corals or The Totes or Paddy Power or any of those, conventional bookmakers because they know that the bookmaker typically takes out about 10% on each event.

而Betfair只抽取大约2%，而且只有在你输赢各半的情况下才抽一半。

And Betfair takes out maybe 2%, but that's only half the time if you win half the time and lose half the time.

所以实际上是1%加上10%。

So it's 1% plus 10%.

因此，这意味着客户群体完全不同，成本结构的运作方式也完全不同。

And therefore it means that the customer profile is completely different and the way that the cost structure operates is completely different.

所以这是一个独立的业务板块，因为它并不与传统博彩公司竞争。

So it's a separate business segment because it's not competing with conventional betting firms.

这意味着一家公司必须采取不同的做法。

So it means that a company has to do something differently.

它要么必须拥有价格优势，从而像Betfair那样在成本上占优，要么必须提供某种极具吸引力的东西，即使价格相同，人们也会选择它。

It either has to have a price advantage and therefore a cost advantage in the way that Betfair does or it has to offer something which is so attractive that people will pay even if it's the same price, they will actually go there.

所以，如果你想实现我所说的‘主张简化’，你需要具备一些非常有用的东西。

So the three things that you want to do if you want to what I call proposition simplify are you have to have something which is very useful.

你需要有易于使用的产品，并且最好还能在视觉上令人愉悦，使用起来能带来愉悦感。

You have to have something which is easy to use and preferably you want something which is aesthetically pleasing, which gratifies you as a joy to use.

如果你想想任何一款苹果设备，就会发现它们通过iPod、iPad、iPhone和其他设备创造了属于自己的细分市场，因为它们与传统竞争对手截然不同。

And if you think about any of the Apple devices, then they created their own segments with the iPod and the iPad and the iPhone and other devices because it was different from conventional competition.

就连Mac其实也没有直接与IBM正面竞争。

Even the Mac really didn't compete head to head with IBM.

而任何你能获得高价格溢价的产品——比如苹果在其所有设备初期都能实现30%以上的溢价——都构成一个独立的细分市场，因为它并不与低成本竞争者对抗。

And anything where you can get a big price premium, for example, 30% plus as Apple has been able to do on all of its devices, at least at the start, you have something which is a separate segment because it's not competing against the low cost competitor.

如果你要成为低成本竞争者，你希望在与其它细分市场不同的领域中保持低成本，否则现有的大公司会把你吃得连骨头都不剩。

And if you are gonna be the low cost competitor, you want to be low cost in a segment which is different from the other segments because otherwise the existing large companies will eat you for breakfast.

你在许多方面都非传统。

You are unconventional in many different respects.

我想问你一个私人问题。

And I'd like to ask you a personal question.

你可以自由选择不回答这个问题，但我非常好奇你的投资组合是什么样子，是什么原则决定了它的构成，因为你曾提到你很乐意持有少量流动资产，也就是现金。

You can feel free to decline to answer this question, but I'm very curious as to what your investment portfolio looks like, what principles govern its composition because you had mentioned that you're quite happy to have small amounts of liquid assets, you know, cash available.

那么，你的投资组合大致是什么样的，只要你愿意讨论，它的构成遵循哪些原则？

So what does your portfolio look like to the extent that you're comfortable discussing it and what are the principles that govern its composition?

这基本上是二八法则的体现，但更准确地说，我投资的约40家公司中，最有价值的一家占了总投资价值的近一半。

Well, it's pretty much an illustration of the eightytwenty principle, but more so I suppose my most valuable single, I've got about 40 assets, companies in which I've invested.

投资组合中价值第二高的公司约占总价值的四分之一。

And the most valuable company in the portfolio constitutes about the half the total value.

另一家公司则约占总价值的四分之一。

And another one constitutes about a quarter of the total value.

因此，从某种意义上说，这也简化了我的生活，因为只要我照顾好这两项特定资产，相信它们会表现良好，我就能相对放松。

And so in a way that also simplifies my life because if take care of those two particular assets and know that they're going to do well or think that they're going to do well, then I can be relatively relaxed.

一旦我了解或认为自己了解（当然我并非无所不知）某家公司将会成功，我就很乐意增加我在该公司中的持股比例。

I'm quite happy to increase my share in companies once I know or think I know and I'm not infallible that they are gonna be successful.

例如，我最大的单一投资公司，我最初只投入了相对较小的金额，可能只占公司2%的股份，而现在我已经增持到了60%。

So for example, the company that is my largest single investment, I started off with a relatively modest investment and might've had about 2% of the company and I'm now up to 60 of the company.

基本上，每当有机会提出收购要约时——也就是我手头有资金的时候——我就会从现有股东手中购买股份。

And basically what I'm doing is buying my shares from the existing shareholders whenever there is an opportunity to make an offer for shares, which is when I've got some money.

这就是我的原则。

So that's the principle.

我对行业没有任何限制。

I don't have any rules on industry.

我不在乎它属于哪个行业。

I don't care what industry it's in.

我对管理层的表现其实并不太在意，因为如果管理层表现不佳，最终总会被替换。

I don't really care very much what the management is like because if management doesn't perform, management will eventually get replaced.

我并不太在意它的具体位置，只要它在欧洲就行，因为我觉得我了解欧洲市场。

I don't really care where it is as long as it's not Well, as long as it's in Europe, because I think I understand European markets.

我不会投资美国，因为竞争太激烈了。

I won't invest in The US because competition is too great.

而且我也讨厌美国国税局，同时我对美国投资一无所知。

And also because I don't like the IRS and also I don't know anything about American investment.

所以这基本上是一个欧洲投资组合，行业无关紧要，我也无所谓集中度。

So it's basically a European portfolio, industry irrelevant, and I don't care about concentration.

事实上，我反而更喜欢集中投资。

In fact, I rather like concentration.

感谢我们的赞助商之一，马上回来继续节目。

Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.

本集由Bowl and Branch赞助播出。

This episode is brought to you by Bowl and Branch.

长期听众应该熟悉Bowl and Branch这个名字，拼写是b-o-l-l，和Branch。

Longtime listeners will recognize the name Bowl and Branch, b o l l, and Branch.

举个例子，过去六个月我每晚都睡在它们上面。

I've been sleeping on them every night for the last six months as one example.

当我决定彻底改变生活习惯以获得更好睡眠时，我最终选择了Bowl and Branch的床品。

When I decided to overhaul my life for better sleep, change all sorts of things, I landed on bowling branch for linens.

它们开箱即用就非常出色，你能立刻感受到不同。

They are incredible right out of the box and you feel the difference immediately.

它们是市面上最柔软舒适、采用有机棉材质的床单。

They are the softest and most comfortable, organic cotton sheets available.

它们拥有千元品质却只需一小部分价格，起价仅160美元，Boll and Branch帮助我的身体在夜间睡得更好。

They are thousand dollar quality for a fraction of the price, starting at just $160 Boll and Branch helps my body sleep better at night.

我最近才了解到许多原因，说明它们为何也应该让我的心灵和良知在夜间更安宁。

And I only learned recently many reasons for why they should also help my mind and conscience sleep better at night.

例如在印度，棉花农民的平均预期寿命只有35岁，一方面是因为强效杀虫剂，另一方面是供应商债务导致可预防的自杀。

In India, as an example, the average life expectancy of a cotton farmer is 35 years old because of potent pesticides on one hand and supplier debt leading to preventable suicides on another.

为了缓解所有这些问题，Boll and Branch已成为首家获得公平贸易认证的床上用品制造商。

To mitigate all of this, Boll and Branch have become the first Fair Trade certified manufacturer of linens.

他们承诺使用100%有机棉，这不仅为种植者带来了更好的生活，也带来了更优质的产品。

They've committed to using 100% organic cotton because it makes a better life for the people who grow it, in addition to a superior product.

这还能节省约90%的传统耕作方式所消耗的水资源。

This also saves about 90% of the water used in conventional farming methods.

为了睡得更好，去看看Boll and Branch吧。

So sleep better at night, check out bowl and branch.

你一打开包装就能感受到它的品质与工艺，而且可以无风险试用一个月。

You'll feel the quality and the craftsmanship the moment you open the box and you can sleep on them for a month absolutely risk free.

现在在bowlandbranch.com购买任何一套床单，使用促销码TimTim可立减50美元。

Right now you can get $50 off any sheet set at bowlandbranch.com with promo code TimTim.

网址是bolandbranch.com，促销码TimTim，可享50美元优惠，bolandbranch.com，促销码TimTim。

And the URL is spelled bolandbranch.com promo code TimTim for $50 off bolandbranch.com promo code TimTim.

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Restrictions may apply.

详情请访问bolandbranch.com。

See bolandbranch.com for details.

记住，bolandbranch.com，促销码 Tim Tim。

Remember, bolandbranch.com promo code Tim Tim.

让我们回到被解雇的话题。

Let's go back to getting fired.

只是先热热身，聊聊这个话题。

Just just just to warm up the conversation.

你被解雇之后发生了什么？

So what happened after you were fired?

你能具体说说吗

And could you actually tell

能再多讲讲你被解雇那天的情况吗？

us more about the the day that you were fired?

当时都说了些什么？

What was the conversation?

那种经历是什么样的？

What was that experience like?

那你被解雇之后发生了什么？

And then what happened after you were fired?

嗯，这是一个缓慢的解雇过程，实际上是非常温和的解雇。

Well, it was a slow firing and in fact, it was a very gentle firing.

BCG和麦肯锡一样，麦肯锡首创了‘上或走’这个说法。

BCG like McKinsey, McKinsey invented the phrase up or out.

在麦肯锡，他们会说三年后你会接受评估。

And at McKinsey, they would say that after three years you would be assessed.

如果你在他们的业务中表现非常出色，就会得到晋升。

And if you were really good at their business, you would get promoted.

如果你表现不够好，就会被要求离开。

And if you weren't, you'd be asked to leave.

但他们处理得非常非常友善，因为他们是在区分绵羊和山羊。

But they would do it in a very, very nice way because they were sort of dividing the sheep and the goats.

绵羊是那些足够优秀、适合留在麦肯锡的人，而山羊则是那些足够优秀、适合成为麦肯锡客户的人。

The sheep were the people who were good enough for McKinsey and the goats were people who are good enough to be McKinsey clients.

所以这就是他们的理念，他们对员工非常友善。

So that was their philosophy and they were terribly nice to the people.

但实际上，这有点像一种心理上的优越感，因为离开的人通常没有留下的人那么聪明。

But in fact, was kind of like, it was a form of, I don't know, it was a form of sort of psychological one upmanship because the people who left generally weren't as bright as the other people.

并不是他们能做麦肯锡人做不到的事情。

It wasn't that they could do things that the McKinsey people couldn't do.

而是他们在商业战略和分析等方面不够敏锐。

Was that they weren't as bright in terms of the strategy of a business and analysis and so on and so forth.

所以这种方法非常有效。

So that worked extremely well.

BCG没有麦肯锡那么严格的制度，但他们也有这样的政策：如果三四年后你还没有从顾问晋升为经理，那就不寻常了。

Well BCG did not have quite as rigid a formula as McKinsey, but they did have this policy that if after three or four years you had not been made from a consultant into a manager, a consultant was a typical entry level for someone who'd been to business school.

他们可能会说，这种情况几乎是个例外。

Be pretty much an anomaly would be the way that they would probably put it.

因此，你可能会开始思考自己想做什么。

Therefore, might start thinking about what you wanted to do.

所以我跟很多人谈过这些，但我对他们说：你们完全错了。

And so I had a number of those conversations with people, but I said to them, look, you're dead wrong.

这说的就是我。

This was me.

这说的是我，还有我年轻时的傲慢。

This is me and my arrogant youth.

也许我并没有完全摆脱这种傲慢。

And maybe I haven't got rid of the arrogance altogether.

我说：我不擅长分析，但我能用魅力打动客户。

I said, look, I'm no good at analysis, but I can charm with clients.

我能跟客户交谈。

I can talk to the clients.

我口才不错，能理解问题所在，尤其是战略层面的问题，并能把这些传达给客户。

I'm quite articulate and I can understand what the issues are, the strategic issues, and I can relate those to the clients.

我可能并不太适合当顾问。

I might not be very good at being a consultant.

我可能甚至不太擅长当管理者，但你们为什么不能让我当副总裁呢？因为我实际上能做得相当不错。

I might not even be very good at being a manager but why don't you make me a vice president because I could actually do rather well.

他们就会哈哈大笑。

And they would chortle.

他们会说，理查德，我们得有个层级结构。

They would say, Richard, we have to have a hierarchy.

我说，比如前顾问阿德里安。

And I said, know, ex Adrian for example.

阿德里安现在是副总裁了。

Adrian's now a vice president.

我们都知道他是个不错的顾问，但并不是个出色的管理者，因为他无法掌控分析工作，而这正是波士顿咨询公司核心所在。

We all know that he was a pretty good consultant but he wasn't a terribly good manager because he couldn't command the analysis and that's the heart of what BCG does.

所以他不得不依赖别人来做这些事。

And so he had to rely on other people to do it.

但他现在已经是副总裁了。

But now he's a vice president.

他非常成功地销售业务，并帮助客户。

He's selling a lot of business very successfully and helping clients.

所以我就跟阿德里安差不多，他们又会轻笑一下。

So I'm like Adrian basically and they would again chortle a bit.

但后来，一个叫菲尔·休姆的很好相处的人——他创办了激光计算机中心，并从中赚了不少钱——把我叫到一边说：理查德，你的路快走不通了。

But eventually a very nice guy called Phil Hume who's laser started Computer Centre and made quite a lot of money out of Computer Centre sat me down and said, Richard, you are running out of road a bit.

我说：嗯，前几天罗伊·巴比给我做了一个极好的评估。

And I said, well, look, I got a fantastic assessment from Roy Barbie the other day.

他说客户们都非常喜欢我。

And he said how much the clients love me.

他说：是的，理查德，我们知道这一点。

He said, yes, Rich, we know that.

但从根本上说，你无法胜任我们真正擅长的核心工作。

But basically you can't do what is really our power alley.

也许你该考虑一下换个方向。

Maybe you sort of think about looking around.

我从那次会面出来后想，他说得对吗？

And I came out from that meeting thinking, is he right?

他关于这件事说得对，还是我才是对的？

Is he right about this or am I right?

我对自己说，也许他说得对。

And I thought to myself, well, maybe he's right.

于是我很快去其他咨询公司，比如麦肯锡、贝恩公司，看看他们是否

So I actually then very quickly went to other consulting firms to McKinsey and to Bain and Company to see whether they

理查德，我能说一句吗？就一会儿。

May I say something, Richard, just for a second?

这是给那些对管理咨询没有背景的人说的。

That is for people who don't have any context on management consulting.

当你提到麦肯锡，说到波士顿咨询公司，说到贝恩公司时，对于可能不了解这个行业的人，我打个比方：当我还在普林斯顿读书时，只有两个行业大规模招聘。

When you say McKinsey, when you talk about Boston Consulting Group, when you talk about Bain and Company, just as a point of reference for folks who may not be familiar with this industry, when when I was studying at Princeton, there were exactly two industries that recruited heavily.

一个是投资银行，比如高盛和少数几家类似公司；另一个是管理咨询领域中最顶尖的精英，包括麦肯锡、波士顿咨询公司（BCG）、贝恩公司等等。

You had the investment banks, you had Goldman Sachs, and a handful like that, and then you had what were considered the elite of the elite of management consulting, and that included McKinsey, BCG, in other words, Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Company, and so on.

这些是管理或战略咨询领域最负盛名的公司。

So these are the most prestigious names in the world of management or strategy consulting.

我只是想补充一点背景信息。

I just wanted to add that as a bit of background.

是的，不好意思。

Yeah, saying, sorry.

我本以为大家都懂，但其实并不懂。

I would assume everyone knows and they don't.

我刚入行的时候，这还是个非常冷门的行业，现在没那么冷门了，但依然相当小众。

When I was doing it, it was a very obscure industry and now it's less obscure, but it's still pretty obscure.

后来我去了一趟麦肯锡，他们说：‘你很聪明，但我们觉得你不适合做管理咨询，因为你更想做决策，而不是提建议。’

Anyway, I went to McKinsey, they said, no, you're a bright guy, but we don't think you should be doing this management consulting stuff because you want to make decisions rather than advise.

我说：‘没错，这大概是真的。’

And I said, yep, that's probably true.

贝恩公司，我稍后再谈。

Bain and Company, I'll come back to in a second.

于是我心想，也许我该去做猎头。

I then said, well, maybe I should be a headhunter.

事实上，有一些猎头主动联系了我，其中一些人认识我本人。

And I was actually approached by some headhunters, some of whom knew me personally.

于是我前往苏黎世的艾格纳·泽亨德公司，打算成为猎头，当时艾格纳·泽亨德是欧洲领先的猎头公司。

And so I went off to see Egon Zehnder in Zurich with a view to becoming an Egon Zehnder was the leading at that time, the leading European headhunter.

这里给各位补充一点，猎头就是招聘，对吧？

Just a footnote there for people, headhunting means recruiting, right?

而且是高层次的招聘，向客户收取巨额费用。

At a very high level and taking very large amounts of money from the client.

所以，我和艾格纳·泽亨德谈了谈，他当场就给了我一份工作，我也差点当场答应了。

So anyway, I talked to Egon Centre and he offered me a job on the spot and I very nearly accepted on the spot.

但当我认真审视自己的内心后，我重新得出结论：我认为波士顿咨询公司对我的判断是错的，也许我不适合BCG，但我相信自己能在其他咨询公司找到位置。

But when I sort of examined my heart, I came back to the conclusion that I thought BCG was wrong and that, you know, I might not suit BCG but I thought maybe I can get the job in another consulting firm.

恰好当时有一个人离开了波士顿咨询公司，加入了贝恩公司，这个人名叫弗洛伊德·布拉德利三世。

There happened to be another individual who had left the Boston Consulting Group and joined Bain and Company, a guy who rejoiced in the name of Floyd Bradley the third.

你可能会觉得他是个美国人，非常友善，也很聪明。

And you might tell he was an American, very, very nice guy, quite a smart guy.

总之，我约了他喝一杯，跟他说：我对BCG不太满意。

Anyway, so he, I arranged to have a drink with him and said, know, I'm not too happy with BCG.

我觉得他们推进我的速度太慢了。

I don't think they're moving me on fast enough.

那贝恩公司怎么样？

How about Bain and Company?

你觉得他们会感兴趣吗？

Do think that they would be interested?

是的，他们在这一阶段一直很难招到合适的人才。

Yes, they're always looking for people that find it quite difficult to recruit people at this stage.

于是我便说：好，我去跟他们谈谈。

And so I said, fine, I'll go along and talk to them.

于是我去了伦敦办公室的负责人那里，他说：我们会送你去波士顿。

So I went along and talked to the head of the London office and he said, we'll send you off to Boston.

这对我来说非常有趣。

Now this was very interesting for me.

这基本上是我留在自己想从事的行业的唯一机会。

It was my one chance basically to stay in the industry that I wanted to stay in.

贝恩公司唯一的问题是，它以等级森严、严格管控、近乎神秘的氛围著称，你必须服从命令。

The only problem with Bain and Company was that it had a reputation for being an extremely hierarchical, strict, controlled, almost mystical outfit where you had to do what you were told.

而波士顿咨询公司则是一家相当自由奔放、富有创业精神的公司，这反映了创始人布鲁斯·亨德森与贝恩公司创始人（我该说，他已去世）性格上的差异。

Whereas BCG actually was a pretty freewheeling entrepreneurial sort of firm reflecting the difference in character between the guy who started BCG, Bruce Henderson and the guy who runs or ran rather, Bain and Company, I should say that he's dead now.

所以我不会被起诉诽谤或中伤，你们也不会。

So I can't be sued for libel or slander or whatever it is and neither can you.

尽管我非常尊重比尔·贝恩，稍后我会提到这一点。

Although I have the utmost respect for Bill Bain as I'll come on and say it in a second.

于是他们派我去波士顿。

So they sent me off to Boston.

于是我就到了那里，下午四点约见比尔·贝恩。

So there I was, had a 04:00 appointment to see Bill Bain in the afternoon.

所以我下了飞机，打车去了他们在波士顿的办公室，走到前台说：我来见贝恩先生，约的是下午四点。

So I got off the plane, got a cab to their Boston office and turned up at the desk and said, I'm here to see Mr.

贝恩先生，下午四点。

Bain at 04:00.

那位女士看起来有点困惑和不知所措。

And the woman sort of looked a bit confused and numerous.

实际上，伦敦办公室的人没有通知波士顿这边的人，尽管他们给了我一张去见他的机票和预约时间。

And basically what had happened was that someone in the London office had not told the Boston people, although they'd given me a ticket to go and see him, they'd given me an appointment time.

显然，这个预约 somehow 没有被加进贝恩先生的日程里。

Apparently it had not somehow not got into the agenda of Mr Bain.

于是他们让我第二天早上再来。

So they said, come back the following morning.

所以第二天早上我回来了，走进了他们的办公室。

So I went back the following morning and there I was, I went through the offices.

办公室的布置非常特别。

The offices were quite remarkable.

他们的办公室很漂亮，但助理、顾问和研究人员都挤在一起。

They're beautiful offices, but the associates, the consultants and the researchers were all hunched together.

这算不上是血汗工厂。

It was not quite a sweatshop.

这是一家非常舒适的血汗工厂，但你能看出他们要么在快速扩张，要么在严格控制租金成本。

It was a very nice sweatshop, but you could see that they were either expanding very fast or very tight on the rental cost.

然后我走进了比尔·贝恩的办公室，那地方简直富丽堂皇。

And then I went into Bill Bain's office and it was palatial.

里面堆满了篮球和棒球奖杯、徽章以及各种纪念品。

It was stuffed full of basketball and baseball trophies and insignia and paraphernalia of all sorts.

他坐在一张巨大的办公桌后面，非常礼貌地起身迎接我，问我是否想喝点什么。

And he was sitting behind this large desk and got up very graciously to meet me and said, do you want anything to drink?

我说：不用了，我不需要任何东西。

And I said, no, don't want anything.

谢谢。

Thank you.

然后他开始跟我聊天。

And then he started talking to me.

这对我来说非常幸运，因为直到后来我才得知，比尔·博姆其实是一位历史学家。

Well, it was very fortunate for me because I didn't find out until afterwards, but it turned out that Bill Boehm was a historian.

那是他的本科学位。

That was his undergraduate degree.

事实上，他曾花了一年时间从事研究生研究，但最终放弃了，因为他觉得这太枯燥了，而且当时他收到了范德堡大学发展总监的更好职位邀约。

And in fact, he had spent a year doing postgraduate research which he eventually gave up because he thought it was terribly boring and because he got offered a better job as the development director of Vanderbilt University.

但在面试过程中，比尔·贝恩说了一句话，我想问他一个问题，但他正说得兴起。

But during the course of that interview, Bill Bain said something and I thought, well, I want to ask him a question, but he was in full flood.

于是我让他继续说下去，大概又过了二十分钟。

So I let him carry on talking until probably about twenty minutes afterwards.

然后我回到刚才的话题，说：‘贝恩先生，如果我没理解错的话，您之前提到过某某和某某。’

And then I went back to it and said, you know, if I got it right, Mr Bain, you said earlier such and such and such and such.

我想就这一点向您请教一下，等等等等。

And I want to ask you a question about that, blah, blah, blah.

他说：‘你真是非常特别。’

And he said, you're incredibly unusual.

我说：‘什么？’

And I said, what?

他说：‘你是个很棒的倾听者，但很少有人能做到这一点。’

And he said, well, you're a very good listener and not many people are good listeners.

我当时并不知道自己是个好的倾听者。

And I wasn't aware that I was a good listener.

也许只是因为我太想得到这份工作，所以才真的在认真听。

Maybe it was just that I was so desperate to get a job that actually I was actually listening.

但我对这个行业也非常好奇，因为刚加入波士顿咨询公司时，我就觉得这是一个多么棒的行业。

But I was also very curious about the business because right at the start when I had joined BCG, I thought what a wonderful industry this is.

它不需要任何营运资金。

It requires no working capital.

而且基本上他们收取巨额费用。

And basically they charge huge fees.

他们给员工的薪水并不高。

They don't pay people a hell of lot of money.

最终他们会发放奖金，这才是运营资金的来源。

Eventually they're given bonuses, which is where the working capital comes from.

标准薪资与溢价之间的差额，其中一部分最终会返还给相关专业人士。

The difference between the standard pay and the markup, which is some of which is eventually rebated to the professionals involved.

而且这个行业正在非常迅速地扩张。

And it's expanding very, very fast.

他们有一个非常棒的模型，叫做增长份额矩阵，因为一个轴是市场增长率，另一个轴是相对市场份额。

And they've got this great model called the growth share matrix because it's got market growth on one axis and it's got the relative market share on the other.

所以他们称之为增长份额矩阵。

So they call it the growth share matrix.

它更广为人知的名字是波士顿矩阵。

It's more popularly known as the Boston box.

这个模型包含现金牛、瘦狗、问题儿童和明星这四类。

And it's this thing which has cash cows, dogs, question marks, and stars.

我只想补充一点观察：那些从麦肯锡出来的朋友，似乎非常热衷于使用二乘二的矩阵来组织思路。

The one thing I just wanted to say also as an observation of friends who've come out of McKinsey is that it seems that two by two matrices are very popular for organizing thought.

是的。

Yes.

事实上，麦肯锡更进一步。

And in fact, McKinsey went one better.

他们开发了一个波士顿矩阵的仿制品，是一个三乘三的矩阵。

They developed an imitation of the Boston box, which was a three by three matrix.

但正如一贯如此，简洁才是关键，在我看来，这个版本并不如原版好。

But as always, economy is everything and it wasn't as good and it isn't as good in my humble opinion.

总之，故事的结局是比尔对我印象深刻，感到非常惊讶。

Anyway, the end of the story is that Bill was quite taken with me and was quite surprised.

他说：我想让你去和拉尔夫·威尔德谈谈，他是贝恩公司的另一位创始人。

And he said, I want you to come and talk to Ralph Willard, one of the other founders of Bain and Company.

拉尔夫是个非常开朗的人，我们相处得非常好，等等等等。

And Ralph was a very jolly chap and we got on very well and so on and so forth.

所以他们实际上给了我一份工作。

So they actually offered me a job.

然后我对他们说，拉尔夫问，你希望拿多少薪水？

And then I said to them, well, Ralph said, how much do you want to be paid?

我说，我在波士顿咨询公司现在的薪水是这样那样。

And I said, well, I'm earning such and such at Boston Consulting Group.

但显然，如果我要迈出这一步，我希望加薪50%。

But obviously if I'm gonna take a step like this, I want a 50% increase.

50%？

50%?

这太荒谬了。

That's ridiculous.

我说，也许你们可以给我一笔入职奖金，而不是把它合并到薪水里。

And I said, well, maybe you can just make me an advance for joining and not consolidate it into the salary.

但那时我已经很有信心，他们非常想要我。

But at that stage I was feeling confident that they wanted me.

所以我稍微提高了要价，尽管当天一开始我其实非常迫切需要工作。

So I sort of raised the stakes a little bit despite fact that at the beginning of the day I was totally desperate.

如果他们在一小时后就给我offer，我根本不会在意他们给多少薪水。

And if they'd offered me a job after an hour, I wouldn't have cared what they were gonna pay.

但不管怎样，他们最终还是给了我一大笔钱来加入公司。

But anyway, they did eventually pay me quite a large amount of money to join.

同时，我回到波士顿咨询公司，对他们说：我觉得你们在犯错，但如果你们真想让我走，我几个月后就能拿到一笔奖金，剩下的部分，能不能也一并给我？

And at the same time I then went back to BCG and said, I think you're making a mistake but if you want me to leave, I've got all this money which I'm due in a few months time as a bonus and the rest, please can I have that?

令我惊讶的是，他们竟然说：好的，没问题。

And to my surprise, they said, yes, okay.

我的意思是，他们简直急着想让我走，所以就答应了。

I mean, were so desperate to get rid of me that they agreed.

所以我从波士顿咨询公司和贝恩公司都赚了一大笔钱。

So I made quite a bit of money from BCG and from Bain and Company.

所以，尽管之前两三年过得非常非常糟糕，但这件事还是挺不错的。

So it was quite, apart from the fact that the previous two or three years have been very, very miserable.

我加倍努力，试图在BCG取得成功。

And I redoubled my efforts to succeed at BCG.

我每周工作八十个小时。

I worked eighty hours a week.

因为晚上吃快餐，我的脸都胖了。

I got fat in the face from eating fast food at night.

我基本上忽视了个人关系。

I basically neglected my personal relationship.

我停止了锻炼。

I stopped exercising.

这简直是一场灾难。

It was a complete disaster.

如果我要给任何处于类似处境，甚至没那么绝望的人提建议，我会说：如果你在一份工作中不顺利，就放弃吧，去别处，那里你的才能能得到更好的认可，或者更符合那家公司的需求。

If I was to give advice to anybody who's in a similar situation or even a less desperate situation, I would say, if you're not succeeding in a job, give up and go somewhere else where your talents can be better appreciated or your talents are more suited to what that firm does.

所以，蒂姆，我就是无法承认失败。

So just, Tim, I just could not admit failure.

这就是关键所在。

This was the thing.

对我来说，个人成功绝对是我幸福的核心，它影响了我的自我形象以及其他一切。

To me, personal success was absolutely essential to my happiness and it affected my self image and all the rest.

我无法相信，BCG这些非常聪明的人竟然看不到我能做的事情。

And I could not believe that these very intelligent people at BCG couldn't see the things that I could do.

对我而言，更好的想法是承认：他们的商业模式、分析方式、强调定量的那套东西才是他们的专长。

And it would have been far better for me to say, well, they just have a different business model, analysis, quantitative heavy duty stuff is their bag.

而这些并不是我特别擅长的。

And it's not something I can do particularly well.

所以，请放弃吧，停下来思考一下：你到底想不想留在这个行业？如果你确实想留，那就去竞争对手那里。

And so please give up and stop and decide whether you want to be in the industry or decide if you do want to be in the industry, go to a competitor.

这个故事的来龙去脉是，最终结果非常好，但整个过程真是痛苦不堪，对公司来说也极其不愉快。

So the long and the short of that story is that it worked out extremely well in the end, but it was absolutely balls aching, very unpleasant for a company.

经历了这么多苦难之后，我最后就想讨回一个公道。

I wanted my pound of flesh at the end of it from all the suffering that we've gone through.

贝恩公司欣赏或利用了你的哪些方面，而这些在波士顿咨询公司却没有得到重视或利用？

What did Bain and Company appreciate about you or utilize in you that was not utilized or appreciated at BCG?

这个问题回答起来很简单，因为我一直对所谓的商业神学感兴趣。

Oh, it's very simple to answer that because I've always been interested in what I call the theology of business.

我说的商业神学，是指一家公司所采用的商业模式。

And by that I mean the business model that a particular firm has.

波士顿咨询公司和贝恩公司都让我非常感兴趣。

And BCG and Boeing and Company were very, very interesting to me.

这又回到了你最初的问题：我擅长做什么？

And this comes back to your first question about what am I good at doing?

我实际上在脑海中分析了波士顿咨询公司的商业模式和贝恩公司的商业模式，虽然不是用定量方式。

I actually did analyse in my mind, not quantitatively, the business model that BCG had and the business model that Bohn and Company had.

它们使用了相同的概念。

And they used the same concepts.

它们都使用了波士顿矩阵等工具，而顺便说一句，比尔·贝恩正是这些工具的共同创始人之一。

They were using both using the gross share matrix of Boston box, etcetera, which incidentally Bill Bain had helped to originate.

所以这根本不是剽窃。

So it wasn't really plagiarism.

事实上，BCG已经将这些内容公开发布在公共领域。

And indeed BCG had put the stuff out there in the public domain.

所以他们并没有做任何不正当的事，只是使用了BCG的所有概念。

So they weren't doing anything underhand, but they were using all BCG's concepts.

这两家公司完全不同。

The firms were completely different.

让我试着描述一下它们有多么不同。

And let me try and describe how they were very different.

正如我之前所说，BCG是一家非常分散的公司，负责特定客户的副总裁几乎都是独立的利润中心。

BCG, as I said before, was a very sort of decentralized company and the vice presidents who were in charge of particular clients were sort of almost autonomous profit centers.

布鲁斯完全相信市场。

Bruce absolutely believed in the market.

他是个彻头彻尾的资本主义者。

He was a red toothed capitalist.

真的是赤裸裸的残酷竞争。

Really red in tooth and claw.

他真的相信竞争之类的道理。

He really believed in competition and so on and so forth.

以至于他曾经把公司拆分过。

So much so that he divided his firm at one stage.

这相当有趣。

And this is quite interesting.

这发生在我加入之前，但当时公司被分成了三个部分。

This was before my time, but you divided the firm into three different parts.

他的观点是，如果其中一家公司发展出略有不同的做法，或者因为某种原因取得了成功，其他公司就可以从中学习。

And his view was that if one of those firms had developed a slightly different way of doing things, or if they were successful for any particular reason, then the other firms could learn from that.

正如他常说的是，市场会自行出清。

And the market would clear as he was fond of saying.

结果是他聘用了比尔·贝恩，比尔·贝恩原本是范德堡大学的发展总监，布鲁斯因为是范德堡校友，曾向他募捐，因此结识了他。

And what happened was that he put Bill Bain, whom he had hired from Vanderbilt University, where he was the development director and met Bill Bain because he had the begging bowl out as an alumnus of Vanderbilt, Bruce as an alumnus.

他问布鲁斯：‘你愿意给范德堡大学捐钱吗？’

And he asked Bruce, will you give money to Vanderbilt University?

布鲁斯说：‘不捐，但来波士顿吧，我们可以谈谈给你一份工作。’

And Bruce said, no, but come to Boston and we'll talk about giving you a job.

所以，你知道，从这个角度看，这就是背后的故事。

So, you know, that was kind of like the backstory from that point of view.

但波士顿咨询公司非常非常分散化，甚至每位顾问、所有专业人士实际上都是利润中心。

But BCG was very, very decentralized and even each individual consultant was, or all the professionals were actually profit centers.

他们在年底获得奖励，不是根据他们表现如何，不是根据团队绩效，也不是基于其他任何因素，而是根据他所说的‘可计费时数’，也就是他们实际计费的小时数。

They were rewarded at the end of the year, not on how well they'd done, not on their team performance, not on anything really, but what he called their billability, which is a number of hours that they had actually billed.

顺便说一句，我可能是最能计费的人之一，因为我愿意长时间工作。

And incidentally, was probably one of the most billable people because I was willing to work very long hours.

而且最初至少，人们都希望我加入他们的团队。

And because initially at least anyway, people wanted me on their teams.

如果他们不想要我，我甚至可以推销自己的工作。

And if they didn't want me, I could even sell my own work.

所以我必须被纳入那些参与其中的人之中。

So I had to be included in the people who were on that.

但当时非常非常分散。

But it was very, very decentralized.

另一方面，贝恩公司则高度集中控制，我后来甚至称它为‘斯大林式’的组织，一切以比尔为中心。

Bain and Company on the other hand was a very controlled and I actually called it Stalinist later on organization where it radiated out from Bill.

比尔最初负责所有思考和决策。

Bill did all the thinking initially.

然后是由信任的副总裁们来执行，其中包括米特·罗姆尼——他是个很棒的人，我非常钦佩他，还有四五位其他副总裁。

And then the trusted vice presidents who included Mitt Romney, who was a great guy, guy I've got tremendous admiration for and four or five other vice presidents.

而贝恩公司的做法非常严格且不容妥协，他们的所有业务都源于与首席执行官或公司负责人之间的关系，有时是总裁或董事长，但通常是首席执行官，有时则是兼任总裁和首席执行官的人。

And the former in Boen and Company was very, very tight and unforgiving, which is that they generated all of their business from a relationship with the chief executive or the head of the company, sometimes a president or the chairman of the company, but usually the chief executive or maybe they were president and chief executive.

他们只愿意为组织中的最高领导人服务。

And they would not work for anybody who was not the top dog in the organization.

他们不会为欧洲区负责人、制造部门负责人、市场部门负责人或其他任何职能部门的负责人工作。

So they wouldn't work for the head of Europe or they wouldn't work for the head of manufacturing or marketing or any other function.

但他们有一套说辞，会向公司的首席执行官陈述：‘尊敬的首席执行官，我们希望您非常成功，因为如果您非常成功，我们也会非常成功。’

But they had a spiel which they gave to the chief executive of the company which was, Mr Chief Executive, we want you to be very successful because if you're very successful, we will be very successful.

我们有一套独特而有效的方法，叫做战略，我们可以向您解释清楚。

We've got this funny little stuff called strategy which really works and we can explain it to you.

但本质上，您可以把它看作是一个绝佳的公式，一种能提升公司市场价值和利润的秘诀。

But basically you should think of it as a wonderful formula, a kind of like a secret source for increasing the market value of your company, profits and the market value.

如果我们与您的公司合作，您的股价在第一年或最多两年内就会翻倍。

And if we do the work with your company, your share price will double within the first year or so or the first two years anyway.

此后，每隔几年股价还会继续翻倍，因为我们有一套让企业价值大幅提升的方法。

And it will continue doubling every few years because we have got a way of making a firm much more valuable.

我们可以向您详细说明这套方法。

And we can describe that.

但它依赖于您愿意将我们视为平等的合作伙伴。

But it relies upon you being willing to accept us as equal partners.

而这与整个行业其他公司的做法截然不同——那些公司更像是按小时计酬的销售员或出租车司机，只要能拿到日薪，顾问们什么都愿意做。

And again, this was very, very different from the whole of the rest of the industry which was in a way salesman for hire or cabs for hire that consultants would do anything as long as they got their daily rate and so on and so forth.

他们其实并不太在意自己为哪家公司工作。

They didn't really care too much about which firm they were working for.

他们会为竞争对手工作等等。

They would work for competitors and so forth.

波音公司表示，他们只会为一个行业内的公司提供服务，后来他们将这一说法细化为‘竞争体系’，这实际上是‘行业’一词的一种稍显复杂的表达方式。

Boeing and Company said we will only work for one company in an industry or later they refined that to a competitive system which was sort of slightly more sophisticated way of saying industry.

因此，我们不会为您的竞争对手工作。

And therefore, we won't work for your competitors.

您也不会聘请我们的竞争对手。

You won't hire our competitors.

因此，如果您决定聘请他们，您实际上就是将战略咨询或任何其他形式的咨询服务垄断给了这家咨询公司。

And so therefore you'll be giving a monopoly or strategy consulting or any other form of consulting really to a bowling company if you decided to hire them.

这种方式是

And the way It's

极其聪明的。

incredibly smart.

这非常聪明。

It's very smart.

他们获取客户的方式，蒂姆，是他们根本没有网站，但当时这并不罕见。

And the way in which they got clients, Tim, was that they had no website, but that wasn't unusual at the time.

他们没有名片。

They had no business cards.

他们没有营销材料。

They had no marketing literature.

而且他们非常保密。

And they were very secretive.

他们获得业务的唯一方式是通过一位首席执行官向另一位首席执行官的个人推荐。

The only way in which they got business was by personal recommendation of one chief executive to another chief executive.

一旦签下客户，比如健力士、邓白氏、百特特拉文纳尔或任何其他公司，他们就会在每个客户组织内部启动近乎军事化的运作：波恩公司的人员会被指派与客户方的制造主管、某个产品部门负责人，或根据公司自身的组织架构对应的人员并肩工作。

And then within that firm, once the client had been signed Guinness or Dun and Bradstreet or Baxter Travinal or whoever it was, they would then have almost a military operation where within each client organization, someone from Bohn and Company would be assigned to work alongside or with nominally for the head of manufacturing or the head of a particular product area or however the firm organised itself.

他们会确保自己理解那个人的想法。

And they would make sure that they understood what that person was thinking.

他们会通过收集这些非常有价值的信息来帮助他们，而贝恩公司在这方面做得非常好，这些信息涉及竞争对手、客户以及竞争对手的成本。

They would help them by gathering this very valuable information which Bain and the company did very, very well about competitors and customers and costs of the competitors.

他们会建立一种关系。

And they would develop a relationship.

当我加入贝恩公司时，他们告诉我：请请制造总监出去吃晚饭，和他聊聊。我当时简直不敢相信，我最不想做的事就是和一位非常无聊的制造总监共进晚餐。

I couldn't believe it when I was told by Boehn and company when I joined, take the head of manufacturing out to dinner and discuss things with I thought, the last thing I want to do is have dinner with the head of manufacturing who's a very boring man.

但这正是工作的一部分，而且效果极佳，因为在波士顿咨询公司，顾问们会离开六个月，然后回来做一场令人眼花缭乱的演示。

And it was all part of the job and it was incredibly effective because whereas at BCG, they would go away for six months and they'd come back and give a presentation, which was dazzling.

但听众中的经理们可以自由地对所提出的建议表示异议，常常因此质疑波士顿咨询公司的可信度——无论对错，通常是错的。

But then people in the audience, the managers were free to disagree with what was recommended and often did cast doubt on the credibility of BCG as a result of that, rightly or wrongly, usually wrongly.

在贝恩公司，所有工作都必须事先铺垫好。

In Bain and Company, everything had to be pre wired.

因此，所有工作都是自上而下明确规划的，但同时也自下而上进行验证：你完成一项工作后，必须向级别较低的经理展示，并确保他们认同。

So all the work was specified from the top down, but it was validated from the bottom up so that once you've done a piece of work you then had to show it to the relatively low level manager and make sure that they agreed with it.

如果他们不同意，他们只能就数据本身提出异议。

And if they disagreed, they could only disagree about data.

他们不能对概念提出异议，因为我们是概念的王者。

They couldn't disagree about concepts because we were the kings of concepts.

我们知道相对市场份额很重要，并且能解释为什么。

We knew relative market share was important and we could explain why.

我们并不不讲道理。

We weren't unreasonable.

但当最终呈交给首席执行官，后来又呈交给董事会时，所有内容都已事先协调好，这意味着每个人都已同意所有事项。

But nevertheless, when it eventually got to the chief executive and then later to the board, it had all been pre wired, which meant that everyone had agreed to everything.

因此，没有任何分歧。

And therefore there was no disagreement.

而在演示结束时，唯一会讨论的就是贝恩一直称之为下一步行动的内容。

And the only discussion which there'd be at the end of the presentation was about what Bain always used to call next steps.

让我告诉你下一步行动是什么。

Well, let me tell you what next steps were.

下一步行动就是：我们将如何通过就这个问题为你提供咨询服务，再为你创造一百万美元的收益。

Next steps were, this is how we're going to make our next million dollars by consulting to you on this issue.

但这当然是有道理的，因为贝恩公司是一台极其高效的机器，能够在组织内部达成共识，甚至就一些非常激进的战略达成一致，这些战略可能包括退出一半的业务、出售它们，或者在它们亏损且无人收购时将其隐藏或关闭。

But of course it was justified because Bain and Company was a fantastic machine for getting consensus in organizations and getting consensus about some very radical strategies, which might include getting out of half the businesses that they were in selling them or in some way, hiding them off or closing them down if they were cash negative and no one would buy them.

然后通过收购来强化现有业务，甚至进入公司不熟悉的全新领域，而贝恩公司会负责所有调查工作，尤其是当这些领域超出公司原有行业范围时，他们自然一无所知。

And then making acquisitions to strengthen existing businesses or even to go into new areas where Bone and Company would do all the investigation because particularly if it was outside the industry that the company knew about, of course they had no idea.

因此，这是一台从现有客户身上实现增长的绝佳机器，这也是比尔·贝恩一贯强调的观点。

So it was a wonderful machine for getting growth from existing clients and this was what Bill Bain always used to say.

我不明白为什么大家都对开发新客户这么感兴趣。

I have no idea why everyone's interested in new clients.

我们根本不需要新客户。

We don't need new clients.

如果我们把工作做对了，就应该从现有客户身上实现内生增长，他们的利润会上升，市场价值也会提升。

We should have built in growth from existing clients if we're doing our job correctly, their profits are going up and the market value is going up.

当然，他们也不会拒绝新客户，而是会利用那些满意的现有客户——尤其是那些在其他公司担任非执行董事或外部董事的客户——向他们展示：‘我想让你看看贝恩公司在我们行业做的案例。’

And of course they didn't say no to new clients and they used the existing clients who were satisfied, particularly those who sat as non executive directors, outside directors on the boards of other companies to say, I'd like to show you a sample of work which Bone and Company has done in our industry.

我曾参与过一次在纽约举行的此类活动，当时我们为一家信息公司工作，并向该公司的董事会进行汇报。

And I participated in one of those events in New York where we were working for an information company and we went to present to a board of that information company.

但那个董事会中有一位是家科学公司的首席执行官。

But one of the people on that board was the chief executive of a scientific company.

后来，他们聘请了贝恩公司，很大程度上是因为我认为这位首席执行官的推荐，以及我所做的演示的出色质量。

And subsequently they hired a Bain and Company largely because I think of the recommendation of the chief executive and to a small degree, dazzling quality of the presentation I made.

结果，贝恩公司让我成为了合伙人，名义上的合伙人，副总裁。

Well, you know, as a result of that, Bain and Company made me a partner, nominally a partner, a vice president.

而我最初是以顾问身份加入的，通常这需要好几年时间。

Whereas I went in as a consultant and that would normally take several years.

这件事发生在十八个月后。

Well, that happened after eighteen months.

当比尔·贝恩告诉我将成为公司合伙人时，我们进行了一次非常有趣的谈话。

And it was a very interesting conversation with Bill Bain when he told me that I was going to be a partner of the firm.

他对我说：理查德，我要说一件事，可能会让你惊讶。

And what he said to me was Richard, I'm gonna say something which might surprise you.

自从你来和我谈话起，我们就一直关注着你，诸如此类的话。

We've had our eye on you ever since you came and talked to me, blah, blah, blah.

我希望你成为我的合伙人之一。

And I want you to be one of my partners.

我当时想，这太荒谬了。

And I thought, this is ridiculous.

我根本没想到会这样。

I didn't expect this.

他说，但有一件事我们打算做。

And he said, but there is something which we're gonna do.

据我所知，世界上没有其他公司做过这样的事，也许你可以纠正我。

And I don't think any other firm in the world has ever done this, not to my knowledge, maybe you can correct me.

但他们说的是，我们会提拔你，但要等到九个月后。

But what they said was we are going to promote you but only in nine months time.

这事儿已经定了。

And it's a done deal.

你一定会成为我的合伙人，我甚至可以给你一份文件让你签字，我也签一份。

There's no question that you'll be one of my partners and I can even give you something to sign and sign something myself.

但如果我们现在让你成为合伙人，人们可能会纳闷我们到底在做什么。

But if we made you a partner now, people might wonder what on earth we were doing.

在这九个月里，你必须表现得好像已经是合伙人一样，尽管没有合伙人的实际权力。

In that nine months you've got to behave as though you're already a partner without the authority of being a partner.

但仅凭人格魅力和践行贝恩行事方式，当我们正式宣布你将成为公司合伙人时，所有人都会说'当然，理所当然'，而不是质疑'麦考提斯怎么会被提拔？'

But just through force of personality and through knowing that you are reflecting the Bain way of doing things, you will when we actually make the announcement that you are gonna be a partner of the firm, everyone will say, well, course, of course, rather than say, how come McCautious got promoted?

这简直难以置信。

That's unbelievable.

比尔在掌控他的组织方面非常聪明，他工作并不十分努力，但反正工作时间也不长，不过他花了大量心思在流程和自己公司的管理上，以确保贝恩公司发生的每件事都以某种方式由比尔·贝恩发起，并确保那件事能为比尔·贝恩、为贝恩公司赚最多的钱——虽然我这么说听起来像是附带一提，但这其实非常重要。

So Bill was such a clever man at controlling his organization and he didn't work very hard, but he didn't work very long anyway but he gave a great deal of thought to the procedures and to the management of his own company to make sure that everything that happened in Bain and Company had been initiated in one way or another by Bill Bain and make sure that that was the thing which was going to make the most money for Bill Bain, for Bain and Company and also I'm making it sound as though it's an incidental thing, it was very important.

这对客户组织而言是整个基础。

It's the whole foundation of it for the client organisation.

这简直是一个运营得极其出色的组织，它以每年40%的速度增长了二三十年，而波士顿咨询集团（BCG）却艰难地维持着20%的增长率。

It was just a fantastically well run organization and it grew at 40% a year for twenty or thirty years, whereas BCG had struggled to grow at 20%.

我认为贝恩公司在1980年代末陷入了困境，因为他们进行了一次杠杆收购，不过那就是另一个故事了。

Bain and Company fell on hard times I think in the late 1980s because they did a leverage buy up but that's another story.

我不再谈论贝恩公司了。

I'm not going to say any more about Bain and Company.

嗯，我可不会这么轻易放你走。

Well, I'm not going let you off the hook that easily.

你说过，比尔·贝恩要求你即使还没有正式头衔，也要像合伙人一样行事，而且我们得等到九个月后才能公布这个消息。

You said you explained rather what Bill Bain asked of you, to behave like a partner even though you won't have the official title and we can't make the announcement until nine months hence.

实际上，这看起来是什么样子的？

In practice, what did that look like?

你的行为或你做的事情有什么变化？

What changed in your behavior or in what you did?

哦，这彻底改变了我。

Oh, it totally changed me.

这彻底改变了我。

It totally changed me.

首先，它让我变得忠诚。

For one thing, it made me loyal.

我一直以来都处于自我毁灭的边缘，因为我天生就是个反叛者。

And I was always someone who was on the verge of committing self destruction, self destructing because I'm a natural rebel.

我是个不墨守成规的人，非常有主见，几乎没法被雇佣。

I'm a non conformist, I'm very opinionated and almost unemployable.

最终，每个人都得出了这个结论。

And that was the conclusion that everyone eventually came to.

但在波士顿咨询公司，我以不按套路出牌而闻名。

But in BCG, I was well known for going off script.

我记得有一次评估中，有人写道：‘理查德大部分时候就像一座火山。’这份正式的书面评估我至今还留着。

And I remember one of my appraisals was, most of the time Richard, he's like a volcano, this guy wrote in a formal written assessment and I've still got the assessment.

这真不错。

It's lovely.

他说我就像一座火山。

He said he's like a volcano.

大部分时候，他都在默默工作，风平浪静，一切都非常顺畅。

Most of the time he's sort of, you know, working away and there are no rumblings and it's all very, very smooth.

但偶尔他会像火山一样爆发，对客户说出一些我们不希望客户听到的话，他基本上会跑题，或者坚持自己的观点。

But occasionally he erupts like a volcano and he says something to the client which is not what we want the client to hear and he basically goes off a tangent or he has his own view about things.

所以当我跟理查德一起会见荷兰一家大型信息公司——比如NU的首席执行官时，我会非常紧张。

So when I'm with Richard and talking to the Chief Executive of the NU, you know, a big information company in Holland or whatever, I am very nervous.

我永远猜不到理查德会说什么。

I never know what Richard's gonna say.

在贝恩公司，如果我像这样说话——比如我的副总裁说了什么，我却说：‘我同意你99.9%的观点，但对那0.1%我有点不同看法’——我早就被开除了。

In Bain and Company, that was, you know, I'd have been fired if I'd have said, you know, my vice president said something and I said, agree with 99.9 of that, but here's a slightly different view on 0.1%.

我当场就会被赶出去。

I'd been out the door straight away.

这完全是截然不同的氛围。

So it was a complete contrast.

所以它带来的第一个变化是，我对他个人以及这个组织产生了强烈的忠诚感，而我以前从未真正对任何组织有过这种感觉。

So the first difference it made was I felt very loyal to Bill personally and to the organization which I'd never really done before.

我以前从不讲忠诚。

I didn't do loyalty.

我其实不太擅长团队合作。

I didn't really do teamwork very well.

所以这是第一个改变。

So that was the first difference it made.

第二个改变是我决定，无论对方是和我同级、下属，甚至有时是比我级别稍高的人，我都会对他们变得更加直接。

The second difference it made was that I decided that I would become much more direct with the people who were working with me if they were at the same level, if they were below me in the organization or even sometimes if they're slightly above me.

但我做得非常得体。

But I did it very nicely.

所以，如果我觉得他们走错了方向，我会说：‘弗雷德，我一直在想这个问题，我觉得有更好的做法。’

And so if I thought they were going in the wrong direction, I would say, well, I've been thinking about this Fred and I think there's a better way of doing it than this.

我们不应该在这个细分市场采访客户，而应该去那个细分市场。

Instead of interviewing the customers in this segment, we should interview them in that segment.

我们应该问这些问题，而不是那些问题，等等。

We should ask these questions rather than those questions, etcetera, etcetera.

所以，对我来说，这 paradoxically（看似矛盾地）让我变得更加圆融，同时也让我变得更加果断。

So it made me much more paradoxically to me, it made me more diplomatic but it also made me more assertive.

所以那真是太好了。

So that was It was great.

我的意思是，我确实想过，天啊，他们可能会让我成为合伙人，我会成为一个非常成功的合伙人，这太棒了。

I mean, actually thought, gosh, they're gonna make me a partner and I'm gonna be a very successful partner and that's fantastic.

但这让我变得有点谨慎，因为尽管比尔·博纳签了他的那份文件，其他人都签了，我知道如果他想改变主意，这些都算不了什么。

But it made me feel a little cautious because although Bill Boehner signed his bit of paper and all the rest of it, I knew that that meant nothing if he wanted to change his mind.

所以我心想，目标已经近在咫尺了，但现在我感到更有信心了。

So I thought, well, the prize is well within grasp, but I feel confident now that it gave me confidence.

因此，我能够做得更好，结果也因此更有效率。

And so I was able to do, I was much more effective as a result of that.

事实上，我可能在还不是合伙人时比成为合伙人后更有效率，因为我太渴望这个位置了，但与此同时，我感觉到，尽管没人知道我有权威，实际上我确实拥有。

In fact, I was probably more effective when I wasn't a partner than when I was because I was, I wanted it so much, but at the same time I felt that in some ways, although nobody knew that I had authority, in reality I did.

这是一件了不起的事。

And that was a tremendous thing.

我不明白为什么公司不更广泛地这样做。

And I don't understand why firms don't do this more broadly.

这是一种极佳的方式，既能促进个人成长，又能留住那些本可能在未获晋升前就决定离开的人，让他们感受到自己真的被重视，并且即将获得晋升。

It's a fantastic way of encouraging personal development and also of keeping people who might otherwise decide to leave before they're given the nod that actually they are really appreciated and they are gonna get promoted.

我本来想多问问你关于LEK的事，那是你创办的咨询公司，经历了惊人的增长，我们也许会谈到这一点。

I was going to ask you more about LEK, which was the consultancy you started, which experienced incredible growth and we may get to that.

但我想稍微跳过一段，用一种预示的方式提到二八法则，我们稍后会回到这个话题。

But I want to skip ahead a little bit, and I'm gonna do that in a foreshadowing fashion by mentioning the eighty twenty principle, which we'll come back to.

在我面前有一份单独的采访记录，其中的问题是：哪本书对你的职业生涯影响最大？

In an interview that I have in front of me, a separate interview, the question is, what book has had the single biggest impact on your career?

你回答说：我自己的书《二八法则》，因为它销量超过了一百万册，并被翻译成35种以上的语言。

And you answer my own book, The eightytwenty Principle, because it sold more than a million copies and it's been translated into more than 35 languages.

它继续详细讨论这一点，我们稍后会再回来谈。

It goes on and on about that, which we're gonna return to.

然后你在回答的结尾提到，你的许多著作和投资都与战略咨询的理念相关。

And then you say at the end of the answer that many of your books and much of your investing are related to ideas on strategy consulting.

这些理念是你亲身体验获得的，而非来自书本，但你可以推荐一本名为《战略视角》的书，由卡尔·斯特恩和乔治·斯托克编辑。

And you learn those firsthand, not from books, but that you can recommend a book called Perspectives on Strategy edited by Carl Stern and George Stock.

你能谈谈人们从这本书中能学到什么，以及你为什么推荐它吗？

Can you speak to what people might learn in that book and why you have recommended it?

这是波士顿咨询公司早期观点的合集。

It's a collection of the early perspectives of Boston Consulting Group.

而这些观点，就像福音派团体所说的‘吸引’一样。

And a perspective was what evangelical group would call attract, I suppose.

每篇大约500字，最多一千字，非常简短。

It would be something like 500 words, maybe a thousand words, pretty short.

它们以BCG的专属风格精心呈现，那是一种很漂亮的深绿色。

It would be snazzily presented in the livery of BCG, which was quite a nice dark green color.

这些观点会被邮寄给美国和英国，以及BCG设有办公室的其他地区公司的高级董事。

And it would be mailed to the senior directors of companies in America and Britain and then wherever BCG had offices.

这本书的宝贵之处在于，其中很多内容出自布鲁斯·亨德森本人，但也包含了一些更现代的观点。

And the very valuable thing about the book is that a lot of the stuff is by Bruce Henderson himself, but there's also more modern stuff.

它概述了BCG早期的理论，我认为这些理论至今依然完全有效，比如竞争、经验曲线、波士顿矩阵、增长份额矩阵等。

And it outlines the theory that BCG had in the early days, which I think is still entirely valid of competition, the experience curve, the Boston box, the growth share matrix, etcetera.

这是一本非常非常好的入门读物。

And it's just a very, very good primer.

关于商业战略的书籍有很多，其中包括我本人写的一本。

And there are many, many books on business strategy including one which I've written.

但我认为这本书非常好，而且非常容易阅读，因为它原本就是特意设计成这样的。

But I think this is a very, very good thing and it's very easy to read because it was deliberately designed to do that.

布鲁斯非常清晰地列出了这份宣传材料的原则：任何首席执行官很可能同意的内容都不会被争论。

Bruce laid out the principles for the prospectus very clearly, which was anything that a chief executive would be likely to agree with was not argued.

我的意思是，这些内容只是被陈述出来。

I mean, it was stated.

而任何首席执行官很可能不同意的内容——这种情况很多，因为BCG的使命是主张企业应持续降低成本和价格。

And anything that the chief executive would be likely to disagree with, which was quite a lot because BCG was on the mission of saying companies should reduce their costs and reduce their prices steadily.

而当时商业界的主流观点是：如果能卖出更高的价格，就坚持下去，不必太担心成本。

Whereas the conventional wisdom in business at that time was if you get a higher price, you know, stick with it and don't worry too much about the costs.

布鲁斯对此有一整套理论体系。

And Bruce had a whole theology around that.

这很棒，因为它汇集了这些不同的观点，并且跨越了多年。

And it's great because it's a collection of those different perspectives and it's over several years.

所以你也能看到更现代的内容。

So you get the more modern stuff as well.

我觉得它是在2000年左右出版的。

I think it was published in 2000 or something like that.

所以要找到好的战略类书籍并不容易。

So it is difficult to get good books on strategy.

有一本书是一位叫理查德的人写的。

There's a book by someone called Richard.

天啊，我想不起他的名字了，书名叫《好战略，坏战略》。

Oh God, I can't remember his name called Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

他名字马上就想起来了。

He'll come back to me.

不过，如果你有兴趣，可以在亚马逊上搜索一下。

But anyway, you can type it into Amazon if you want.