in succession planning. We find three prevalent beliefs held by those who cannot conclude — or even begin — succession planning:
\等到你退休的时候,你就完了-你也就死了。\这句简单而又广为接受的话语是一个77岁的公司创始人甚至在他结束退休生活, 又从他儿子那里重新拿回公司控制权之前常常念叨的一句话。对于很多人来说,从他们所创下的事业中退下来似乎是一个生与死的大事。难怪很少有人有这个勇气或想法去面对它。这种对退休的恐惧常常在很早时候就表现在不愿意或不能够推行继承计划。我们发现,这些不能够完成,甚至不能够开始执行继承计划的人往往有三种主要的观点:
\\退休令我恐惧\。
\\我们将失去一切\。
\ \这个事业就是我自己\。
Retirement is frightening. It is a new, uncertain journey — at a time when peace in life is treasured. Personal financial security is a powerful motivator to keep control of the business. The inability to \time of unemployment or family poverty.
退休是令人惊恐的。在这样一个平静的生活尤其值得珍惜的时代,退休是一次崭新的前途未卜的旅程。个人的经济保障也是坚持掌控企业的一个强有力的动力。对于那些创业于家庭贫寒或失业时期的人来说,他们更加难以\交班\。
For many who build successful enterprises, their business is their identity. It is said of one woman business owner, still in control in her 90s, that \is her oxygen.\Some entrepreneurs started their businesses at least in part to prove themselves to former bosses who had rejected or doubted them. We find that they cling to their creations more strongly than most.
对于许多成功企业的创始人来说,他们的企业就是他们自身。据说有一个90多岁高龄还在掌管公司的女老板,\工作就是她的氧气\。有的企业家开始创业时至少部分是为了向曾经拒绝过或怀疑过他们能力的前老板证明自己的实力。我们发现这些人比大部分人都有更加强烈的欲望抓住自己的企业不放。
For these reasons and others, too many business founders refuse to retire. They insist that only they are capable of running the business. Jealousy or insecurities relating to declining power generate interpersonal conflicts that spoil succession planning or even the performance of potential successors.
因为这些或其他一些原因,有太多的企业创始人拒绝退休。他们坚持认为只有他们才有能力经营好这个企业。妒嫉或因权力旁落而产生的不安全感导致了人际间的矛盾。这妨碍了继承计划的进行,甚至限制了未来继承者才能的发挥。
If an executive has not quite achieved what he had hoped, he often wants the opportunity to stay in the game. Rather than a graceful transition, the succession process can become a war. The parties to such a combat, however, should remember Winston Churchill's warning to the House of Commons: \that we have lost the future.\
如果一个企业领导人还没有达到他所期望的目标,他往往会希望有机会继续留下来。企业继承这一过程就成了一场战争而不是一个温文尔雅的交接。然而,这场战争的各方都应该记住邱吉尔在警告国会时所说的一句话:\如果我们就过去和现在之间展开争论的话,我们将发现我们已失去了未来。\
Fortunately, many business owners manage to face succession planning — courageously, openly, and early. And because entrepreneurial succession is perhaps the most critical issue for family-business continuity, we're keenly interested in the makeup and background of those who do.
幸运的是,有许多企业家也在设法勇敢地、开放地、及早地面对继承计划。由于企业的继承对于家族式企业的延续来说是最重要的一个问题,所以我们就对这些正在进行继承计划的企业的构成和背景尤其感兴趣。
Our conclusion: It's all a matter of outlook or attitude. Business owners who can plan succession and who can let go don't come necessarily from larger or smaller businesses. They don't come from businesses that are more or less fragile or that require more or less hands-on involvement. They don't necessarily even have more or less qualified successors to whom they can turn over their creations. They just have a different outlook or attitude toward the subject. For them, the glass is half full, not half empty.
我们得出了这样的结论:这完全一个认识或态度问题。那些能够安排继承计划并能够交班的企业家并不一定出自大企业或小企业。他们并非出自管理有些脆弱或需要亲自参与管理的企业。他们甚至也不一定有比较合格的接班人来接手他们创下的基业。他们只是对退休的认识或态度不同。他们看到的是,玻璃杯一半是满的,而不是一半是空的。
Here are some attitudes about retirement that can help the process: 以下几个关于退休的态度有助于企业的传承:
\experience of someone else who \died young and never had a chance to retire. Or they succeeded parents who couldn't let go, and now they can't imagine imposing that oppression on another generation. These business owners see retirement as a stage in life they don't want to miss.
\企业交接之后还有另外的生活。\许多企业老板曾亲眼目睹过有人\死于马上\的不幸经历。他们有过伙伴或朋友年纪轻轻的就故去了,根本就没有机会退休。或者他们的父母当初也不肯让他们接班。所以现在他们无法设想再把这种压抑感强加给下一代。这些企业老板把退休看作是他们不愿意错过的一段人生经历。
\got so much I want to do!\We find those who plan succession properly are already eager to do more and different things at a relatively young age — 50 or 55. They are
already active in new interests (for example, teaching, politics, another venture, or philanthropy) and are pushing the preparation of their successors so they have more time — full time — for these other activities. They don't retire from their previous work but rather move up to new opportunities.
\我已经得到太多我想要的了\!我们发现,凡是那些能够合理地安排继承计划的人都非常希望能在比较年轻的时候,比如 50到55岁的时候,就能做更多的其他事情。他们已经非常积极地参与一些新的爱好活动,比如教书、从政、开办新企业或从事慈善事业。他们也着手加快继承者的准备工作,这样他们就能有更多的时间 - 甚至全部时间-来做其他事情。他们不是从以前的工作中退下来,而是去迎接新的机遇。
\their firms as part of a management buyout face succession planning more readily than business founders. It seems they recognize that presidents change but the business goes on. As one leader says, \hanging on because I was indispensable to the business but because the business was indispensable to me.\With that understanding, he found other ways to build meaning into his life and moved on.
\这里有一项事业正等着我呢\。从我们自己的经验看来,对于那些通过买断经营权而购得企业的老板来说,他们要比亲自创办企业的老板更容易面对企业继承计划。他们似乎能认识到董事长会变,但企业还要继续发展。正如有个企业领导人所说:\我坚持不放手不是因为我对企业来说是必不可少的,而是因为企业对我来说是必不可少的。\在明白了这一点之后,他就从其他方面去发掘生活的意义,不断向前进取。
Unfortunately, our culture does not provide acclaim for those who make the hard decision to do succession planning, even though so much is at stake. We worship founders, builders, chiefs — but rarely do we read about or cheer those who gracefully and successfully turn their jobs over to their successors. That seems to be an even rarer talent and accomplishment.
不幸的是,我们的社会没有充分肯定那些为进行继承计划而做出艰难抉择的人,他们甚至是冒着很大风险作出抉择的。我们崇拜那些企业的开拓者、建设者、领导人,但我们极少看到有关那些将自己的企业温文尔雅地成功转交给后继者的人的报道,我们也极少为他们的行为报以欢呼。而这似乎才是更难得的才能和成就。
Perhaps that is the reason management authority Peter Drucker refers to succession planning as a leader's \on to new challenges and satisfactions.
也许这就是为什么管理权威彼得·德拉克把继承计划称之为对领导人的\伟大品格的试金石\。过了这一槛,领导人将走向新的挑战和乐园。
1.虽然他说他为此事做了很多努力,但他的成功至少部分是由于他运气好。(in part) Although he said he had done a lot for the case, his success was at least in part due to luck. 2. 将要讨论的议题非常关键,因为它将决定很多人的未来。(issue)
The issue to be discussed is critical, because it will determine the future of many people. 3. 我将尽量避免将我的观点强加于别人。(impose ...on) I’ll try my best to avoid imposing my ideas on others.
4.在那种情况下,很少有人能够正视自己性格上的缺点。(rarely, face up to)
Rarely can people face up to the defects in their own characters in such a situation. 5.大学生活被称为人的一生中最美丽的阶段。(refer to... as)
College life is referred to as the most beautiful period of one’s life.
第8课文
The tradition of card giving on Valentine's Day seemingly an American phenomenon is taking root in Asia, too. Yet, when Asian customers buy Valentine's Day cards, they often choose the original English versions even when they don't speak the language.
情人节赠送贺卡从表面上看是美国的作法,但这种现象也正在亚洲生根发芽。然而,亚洲顾客在购买情人节卡片时,他们常常选择带有英语原文的卡片,哪怕他们一句英语也不会说。全球主义者在此探讨情人节的全球化和美国公司在亚洲的作用。
Hallmark's greeting cards are known throughout the world. The Kansas city-based company has developed into a $3.5 billion corporation, from its beginnings in 1910 when Joyce C. Hall started producing cards from samples he stored under his bed. Now, over 90 years later, Hallmark has developed into a global company with expansion into Asia a major part of its strategy.
霍尔马克问候贺卡在全世界人人皆知。自1910年霍尔.马克根据他储藏在床底下贺卡试样生产贺卡至今,总部设在堪萨斯的卡片生产公司已经发展成为拥有3.5 亿美元的企业。90多年后的今天,霍尔马克已成为一家全球化公司,并且把向亚洲扩展作为它战略决策的主要部分。
In Asia alone, the Kansas city-based firm acquired a company in Japan in 1994 and founded creative organizations in Hong Kong and Singapore in 1998 and in Shanghai in 1999. Hallmark representatives like to point out that Asia has developed into an \Kong and Singapore are being turned from distribution centers into investment centers. 仅仅在亚洲,这家总部在堪萨斯的公司就于1994年在日本开设了一家公司,又于1998年在香港和新加坡,1999年在上海开办了数个富有创造性的机构。霍尔马克公司的代表指出亚洲已成为“一个重点区域”。香港和新加坡正从分销中心变成投资中心。
In the United States alone, 67% of Valentine's Day activities consist of giving Valentine's Day cards as gifts to people. And in 2000, according to Hallmark, Americans spent more than $3.6 billion on Valentine's Day. But while the market in the United States is huge, the potential for Hallmark's 1,330 different Valentine's Day cards in Asia is even bigger.
单就美国而言,情人节67%的活动是给人赠送情人卡礼物。根据霍尔马克公司的说法,2000年的情人节美国人共花去了3.5亿美元。尽管美国的市场很大,但在亚洲销售1330种不同类型的情人节卡片的潜力就更大。
Based on the sales of Hallmark cards, it appears that the number of consumer romantics in China, Japan and Korea is rising. This is not surprising, given that Hallmark greeting cards have proven to be a great way to overcome some of the emotional restrictions that still reign in a number of Asian societies.