美國在線的惡棍CEO 兇名在外

Tim Armstrongis my favourite CEO. I can’t think of anyone else who has provided me with such rich and varied copy over the years. Since he took over at AOL in 2009 he has got into assorted scrapes, taken off his shoes, put his foot in his mouth, lost his rag, offended mothers, fired someone in public, thrown his weight around, talked a blue streak of guff — while at the same time making more money for shareholders at every turn.

蒂姆•阿姆斯特朗(Tim Armstrong)是我最欣賞的首席執行官(CEO)。這麼多年，我想不起還有什麼人像他一樣形象如此豐富多變。自從2009年接手美國在線(AOL)以來，他做了形形色色的“混蛋”事——脫鞋、說錯話、發脾氣、冒犯母親羣體、公開炒人、頤指氣使、廢話連篇——同時又總爲股東賺到更多的錢。

Last week, when he agreed to sell AOL for $4.4bn, a Forbes contributor called him a “genius”, arguing that the main reason Verizon wanted to buy the company was to get exposure to the brilliance of its CEO. Mr Armstrong’s bank manager presumably agrees: the man’s personal gain from the deal is put by the Wall Street Journal at $180m. Yet as Forbes was cheering, others were making ruder noises. A blogger on Gawker was writing a post called “A Salute to AOL’s Tim Armstrong, a Real Shitty Boss”.

不久前，當他同意以44億美元的價格出售AOL時，一名《福布斯》(Forbes)的撰稿人稱他爲“天才”，認爲Verizon希望收購這家公司的主要原因是爲了得到這位CEO的才華。《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)估計他從該交易中得到的個人好處是1.8億美元，阿姆斯特朗的銀行經理大概會表示認同。不過，在《福布斯》爲阿姆斯特朗歡呼的時候，其他人則發出了一些較不敬的聲音。Gawker一名博客主寫了一篇帖子，標題爲《向AOL的蒂姆•阿姆斯特朗致敬，一名真正的垃圾老闆》。

Many times I have tried to interview this corporate hero/villain in the hope of understanding how one of the least-appealing figures in corporate life could have done so well, but his zealous PRs have come between us. Instead I have had to content myself with listening to him talk, looking at photos and videos, reading his memos and talking to people who have worked for him.

我嘗試過很多次去採訪這位企業英雄/惡棍，希望瞭解企業史上最不受歡迎的人物之一如何能如此成功，但是阿姆斯特朗積極的公關們總是插在我們中間。相反，我只能滿足於聽他說話、觀看照片和視頻、閱讀其備忘錄、以及與那些爲他工作的人聊天。

The first stop is his words, which never disappoint in being clumsy, ungrammatical and plain baffling. On various occasions I’ve given him gongs for misuse of language, but he goes on excelling. Last week in a memo to staff he explained: “the deal will game-change the size and scale of AOL’s opportunity” — neglecting to say which opportunity he was talking about, and coining a new verb — to game-change — so offensive I have already decided to give him a prize in my 2015 awards. If that memo left anyone confused, he went on to explain in an interview: “This deal, we feel, is the right deal to go forward. In the go-forward scenario, we plan on doing the deal with Verizon” — thus offering a double helping of “going forward” in a perfectly circular arrangement of pure nothingness.

首先說說他的言辭，在措辭笨拙、不合語法和令人困惑方面，他從來不讓人失望。我曾在不同場合誇讚他濫用文字的水平，而他則不斷登峯造極。在不久前一則寫給員工的備忘錄中，他解釋稱：“這筆交易將‘遊戲改變’(game-change) AOL機遇的大小和規模”，暫且不論他所說的是何種機遇，他發明的新詞——game-change——如此讓人不爽，以至於我已經決定授予他一個2015年大獎了。如果這則備忘錄讓人感到困惑，接下來他在一次採訪中是這樣解釋的：“這筆交易，我們感覺，是應該推進的正確交易。在推進的方案中，我們計劃與Verizon達成交易”——就這樣，在一個純廢話的完美循環句式中，他慷慨地兩次使用“推進”一詞來幫助大家理解。

The next stop is Google images, where among many photos of his handsome, heavy-jawed, thick-lipped face (think Humphrey Bogart minus the twinkling brown eyes) is a picture of Mr Armstrong and Arianna Huffington looking thoroughly awkward on stage with their shoes off. The pair were raising awareness of how horrid it is for children to be barefoot in African villages; in doing so they also raised even more awareness of the vanity and the smugness of well-shod corporate America.

再來說說谷歌(Google)圖片——在他衆多面龐英俊、下巴有力、嘴脣豐厚（想象一下亨弗雷•鮑嘉(Humphrey Bogart)，只是沒有那雙閃着神采的棕色眼睛）的照片中，有一張他與阿里安娜•赫芬頓(Arianna Huffington)在舞臺上光着腳、看起來無比笨拙的照片。他們是在提醒人們兒童在非洲村莊赤腳走路的可怕性；他們這麼做也讓人們更加意識到，有好鞋穿的美國企業界人士是多麼的虛榮和做作。

Over on YouTube, there is Mr Armstrong, telling CNN how he does it. “Don’t allow loser talk,” he says, eyes boring into the interviewer. He reveals that his dad was a Vietnam vet who gave his son some uncompromising advice when he took on AOL: “Do whatever it takes to be successful.”

YouTube上有一段阿姆斯特朗向CNN訴說自己是如何成功的視頻。“不允許像失敗者那樣講話，”他說，眼神直勾勾地盯着採訪者。他透露自己的父親是一名越戰老兵，在他接手AOL時父親給了他一些冷酷的建議：“爲達成功，不擇手段”。

One of the things it takes to be successful is to ignore the feelings of staff. There was the famous way he referred to the two “AOLers” who had “distressed babies”, explaining that the high cost of looking after these infants was partly responsible for changes to the company’s pension scheme.

獲得成功的一條要領是忽略員工的感受。他在一次著名的言論中提到兩名有“不幸嬰兒”的“AOL人”，解釋稱照顧嬰兒的高昂成本是導致公司養老金計劃改變的部分原因。

There was the even more famous way he fired an employee in front of 1,000 others simply because he had had the nerve to take a photograph. Afterwards Mr Armstrong admitted that this hadn’t been entirely fair on a “human level” — the unfortunate implication being that this is not a level the CEO visits very often.

而他炒人的方式甚至更加出名——他在1000人面前炒掉了一名員工，僅僅因爲後者膽敢拍照。隨後阿姆斯特朗承認這在“人性的角度”並不完全公平，遺憾的是這意味着他並不經常會站在這個角度上思考。

Yet this headline-grabbing story misses a bigger point about the man. If you listen carefully to the tape of the firing (which I urge you to do), you will notice that the truly awful thing was not merely that he sacked someone in public for nothing. It was the way he talks to employees. A hectoring monologue, in the course of which he twice tells people if they don’t agree with him they can leave right way.

不過，這個上頭條的故事漏掉了關於這個人更重要的一點。如果你仔細聽聽他那段炒人錄音（我強烈建議你去聽聽），你會注意到真正可怕之處不僅是他毫無來由地當衆炒人，而是他與員工對話的方式。威脅式的一言堂，期間他兩次告訴員工如果不同意他說的話可以立馬走人。

Later, Mr Armstrong explained that the firing was “an emotional response”. Yet his voice tells a different story. He said: “you’re fired — out”, waited a couple of seconds for the offender to scarper, and then resumed the hectoring in precisely the same tone of voice. The control was much more frightening than any emotion.

後來，阿姆斯特朗解釋稱這次炒人實屬“情緒反應”。不過他的聲音泄露了一個截然不同的故事。他說：“你被解僱了——出去”，停頓數秒等那位冒犯者離開，然後以完全相同的語調繼續威脅式講話。這種冷酷比任何情緒爆發都嚇人得多。

The clip, though less than three minutes long, is a masterclass in how not to talk to staff, how not to motivate and not to lead. It also provides the moral to this sorry story. Every modern management expert will tell you that CEOs who are arseholes no longer survive. The most successful leaders are supposed to be the humble ones, who listen and take people with them. Mr Armstrong is living proof that this is nonsense. If you enrich your shareholders — which you tend to do if you are hell-bent on succeeding — you can be as nice or as nasty as you like.

儘管不足3分鐘長度，但這段錄音堪稱大師級教程——教你如何不與員工對話、如何不激勵員工以及如何不去領導。它還讓這個令人遺憾的故事有了教育意義。每一位現代管理專家都會告訴你，混蛋CEO是生存不下去的。最成功的領導人應該是謙遜的領導人，他們會傾聽，並團結周圍的人。阿姆斯特朗就是證明這純屬無稽之談的活生生的例子。只要你讓股東變富——如果你不擇手段地想成功，你往往會做到這點——你就可以隨心所欲地當紳士或當混蛋。