很多成功的高级经理人经常将自己从爷爷奶奶等老一辈人身上得来的真知灼见运用到商业领域。无论如何，这听起来多少都有些另类。
为了寻求管理方面的真知灼见，有人求助于导师或老板，也有人靠阅读彼得•德鲁克的书籍，试图从中找到商业智慧的精髓。而亚特兰大地区律师韦恩•基尔则依赖于祖母的智慧。
基尔在迈阿密郊外经营着一家律师事务所。他曾经收售数家企业，还写过一本书《祖母讲故事：商业多样化寓言》(Tales My Grandmother Told Me: A Business Diversity Fable)。尽管他的商场经历相当丰富，但他还是常常回想起孩提时从祖父母那里学到的经验。小时候，每年暑假他都会去祖父母开的杂货店玩。这家杂货店位于牙买加莫尼格小城的中心，向工人们出售鱼、肉类、大米、糖果、三明治和苏打水。祖母还会卖冰淇淋，甚至在晚上经营一个小酒吧。
基尔说：“她绝对称得上是镇上的焦点人物。”祖母要兼做老板和售货员，在脑子里算账的同时还要营造一个理想的生意环境。
基尔的祖母对多样化经营很在行。除了这家杂货店，她还买了地皮和几家加油站。后来基尔也采纳了祖母的多样化模式，转向公共演讲和少数族裔企业咨询。
他的祖母多丽丝(真名是艾琳•玛科斯塔)还教导他，要以诚实公平的态度与经销商和其他商人做生意。他说：“我祖母早已经在实践双赢理念了。”这意味着他在谈判中既要立场坚定，但又不能做得太过火。他回忆说，当时供应商都愿意跟祖母做生意。现在，每次谈判的时候他都会告诉自己，“如果我退一小步，对方会更开心，那我们就能建立长期的合作关系，还能以诚相待，彼此尊重。”
默默追随祖母教诲的信徒
向祖母借鉴智慧作为领导法则的高级经理人远非基尔一人，不管他们的祖母是叫雅诗•兰黛，还是叫路易莎。
雅虎公司(Yahoo)前高管蒂姆•桑德斯现为作家和咨询师。他把祖母比莉在感恩和自信方面的洞见和经验写进了自己的新书《今天我们很富有》(Today We Are Rich)。
桑德斯说，“她教会了我自信，拥有自信我就敢于面对一切。我知道我的自信源自何处。现在我正在挑战其他一些权威和商业作家，他们也说从自己的祖母那里学到很多东西。”桑德斯说每周他都能遇到个把人，声称自己的商业灵感来源于祖母。
宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School)领导力与变革管理研究中心(the Center for Leadership and Change Management)主任迈克尔•尤西姆表示，高级经理人不会耗费太多时间谈论家人和家族轶事，但家人对他们的影响是巨大的。他说：“我遇到的很多人，他们的家人和先辈为人处世的方式对他们现在的人生观影响非常大，这让我印象颇深。”
有的是祖父祖母，有的可能是几代之前的祖先。当尤西姆询问其领导力项目参与者，他们最崇拜哪些领导人时，最常见的回答是纳尔逊•曼德拉，百事公司(PepsiCo)总裁卢英德，或者是最近逝世的史蒂夫•乔布斯。尤西姆表示，大约有10%到15%的人会提到自己的父母，这是他们祖父母影响力的延伸。
培养祖母式的商业智慧
这种观点听起来似乎有些古怪，因为在这个不断变革的时代，我们通常会通过Twitter、博客和其他来源获取大量管理方面的深刻见解和观点。当今的商业领袖必须懂得国际金融、世界经济危机、不断演变的社会媒体平台以及社会品味和潮流。祖母们的思想或者智慧精髓如何才能真正与当今复杂的商业形势产生共鸣呢?
Some people turn to a mentor or maybe even a boss for management insights. Others look to Peter Drucker's books for pearls of business wisdom. Atlanta-area attorney A. Wayne Gill counts on the wisdom of his grandmother.
Gill runs a law firm outside Miami; he's bought and sold a few businesses and he is the author of Tales My Grandmother Told Me: A Business Diversity Fable. Despite his considerable business experience, he often recalls lessons he learned while at his grandparents' general store in Jamaica, which he visited in the summers as a child. The store, which was located in the town center in Moneague, Jamaica, sold fish, meat, rice, sugar, sandwiches, and sodas for workers. His grandmother offered ice cream and even ran a small bar in the evenings.
"She was just such a central figure," Gill says. She served as the sales person, and the deal maker, managing figures in her head and creating an ideal business environment.
Gill's grandmother was all about diversification. She bought land and a couple of gas stations. Gill followed her model by moving into public speaking and minority business consulting.
His grandmother, known as Doris (her real name was Irene Macosta) also taught him to deal fairly with vendors and other business people. "My grandmother was already practicing win-win," he says, which to him means being strong in your negotiations but not going overboard. Suppliers always wanted to do business with her, he recalls. Now, when he's negotiating: "If I get a little less, if I make the other guy happier, we can have a long-term deal, and treat each other with trust and respect."
A silent army of grandma disciples?
Gill is far from alone among executives who refer to their grandmothers as leadership guides, whether her name was Estee Lauder or Louisa.
Tim Sanders, a former executive at Yahoo and currently an author and consultant, weaved his grandma Billye's insights and lessons on gratitude and confidence into his latest book, Today We Are Rich.
"She taught me confidence, and with confidence I could do anything at all," says Sanders. "I understand where it started. I'm challenging other gurus and biz authors to 'fess up' on their grandmothers' contributions." Sanders says that he runs into half a dozen people a week who refer to their grandmother as a source of business inspiration.
Executives do not spend much time talking about their family and family histories, but their impact is considerable, says Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. "I've always been impressed in how many people I encounter -- how much the family, their ancestors did what they did and influenced how they think about life now," he says.
Sometimes it's grandma or grandpa, and other times it's an ancestor going back several generations. When Useem asks people who participate in his leadership programs which leaders they most admire, he often hears Nelson Mandela or PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi or the recently deceased Steve Jobs. Around 10 to 15% refer to their parents, which is an extension of grandparents' influence, Useem argues.
Cultivating a grandmother's business sense
It may seem like a quaint idea in an era of constant change, where we receive a barrage of management insights and ideas via Twitter, blogs, and other sources. Leaders today must understand international finance and world economic crises, changing social media platforms and evolving societal tastes and trends. So how can grandma's ideals or sampler-stitched wisdom really resonate amid such a dense business landscape?[page]
有些人说他们把祖母的智慧当作企业在商界生存的行为准则。他们依赖于她的原则和伦理标准。
对冲基金蓝色羽冠资本管理公司(BlueCrest Capital Management)共同创始人迈克尔•普莱特认为，祖母是他能进入股票交易行业的领路人。去年他在接受彭博新闻社(Bloomberg News)采访时说道，“其实，我的祖母一直都是一位很严肃认真的股票交易商。”
莱本索尔公司(Lebenthal & Co.)总裁暨首席执行官亚历桑德拉•莱本索尔的办公桌，就是祖母传给她的，老人家当年每天都要伏案工作。她认为祖母的经验对她应对华尔街复杂多变的局面非常有用。她的祖母赛拉•莱本索尔与丈夫路易斯在1925年共同创办了第五大道市政债券交易公司。她说，“祖母总是满怀激情地做事，从不出岔子。我肯定是遗传了她这一点。”
她祖母常常鼓励客户自学金融知识，研究自己的投资。亚历桑德拉说，“她常常提醒人们生活要量入为出，这对于商业来说也非常重要。”因此，当其他华尔街老板讨论复杂的新产品时，如果亚历桑德拉对产品不看好，“最后我肯定会说不。”她说，最近几年，她借助这个小智慧，已经数次避免了投资问题产品的风险。
蒂姆•桑德斯由祖母带大，从五岁到高中毕业一直跟着祖母生活。现已96岁高龄的祖母比莉当时借给他100美元去开创自己第一宗生意。他在八年级时开了一个卖烟花的摊位。他雇佣朋友帮忙，但给他们的报酬太多。是祖母让他明白了利润的道理。祖母告诉他，“在雇人干活这方面，你还得下功夫。”
在一次教堂露营中，别人嘲笑桑德斯的尖嗓音。给他取了个外号“尖叫小猪”。后来比莉向桑德斯传授了吃山核桃的经验，“吃掉果实扔掉壳”。她拿了一个山核桃给他看，问道，“你能吃吗?”他说，“当然不能。”祖母让他把壳砸开。她说，“每个批评都像一个山核桃。你得把它砸开，拿出果肉，扔掉果壳。这不是很好吗?如果你能扔掉坚硬的外壳，那么每次批评都像是一个恩赐，每次失败也是恩赐。”
桑德斯说，每次宣传自己的著作，阅读别人的评价以及收到演讲活动反馈时，他都会回想起祖母的这句话。他说：“人们的评价非常直接，不论是正面评价还是负面评价。”然而，批评会让人学到更多东西;而每一个小小长进也足以让我们的祖母倍感欣慰。
译者：李玫晓/汪皓
Some say they use their grandmother's wisdom as a firm foundation for how to behave in the business world. They rely on her principles and ethical standards.
Michael Platt, co-founder of hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management, credits his grandmother with starting him in stock trading. "My grandmother was a serious equity trader," he told Bloomberg News in an interview last year.
Alexandra Lebenthal, president and CEO of Lebenthal & Co., works at a desk that her grandmother used every day and says that she sees her lessons as useful in navigating Wall Street's unsure waters. "She was very passionate about doing things the right way. I definitely got that from her," she says of Sayra Lebenthal, who co-founded the Fifth Avenue municipal bond trading firm in 1925 with her husband Louis.
Her grandmother would always encourage clients to educate themselves about finance and their investments. "She would always caution people not to live beyond their means, which is important to business as well," Alexandra says. So while other Wall Street honchos talk up a complex new product, if Lebenthal doesn't see it clearly, "at the end, I say no." This bit of wisdom has saved her from investing in some faulty products in recent years, she says.
Tim Sanders was raised by his grandmother, from the age of five until he graduated from high school. Grandma Billye, who is now 96 years old, loaned him $100 to start his first business, a fireworks stand he established in the 8th grade. When he hired friends and gave too much to them, she helped him understand profit margins. "You've got to get better at hiring people," she told him.
Billye showed Sanders the lesson of the pecan -- "eat the nut, dump the shells" -- after he was teased at church camp. They called him squeaker because of his high voice. Billye showed him a pecan and asked him, "Can you eat this thing?" He said, "of course not," and was then told to crack it open. "Every piece of criticism is a pecan," Billye said. "Your job is to crack it open and find the nut and throw away the shell. What can you see that's good? Every piece of criticism is a gift. Every failure is a gift -- if you throw away the shell."
Sanders says that he returns to this notion all the time, as he's promoting his book and seeing reviews or receiving feedback from a speaking engagement. "People are incredibly direct, both negative and positive," he says. Yet the criticism teaches you something you need to know; a lesson learned that would make any grandma proud.
