讓巴菲特受益終身的課程大綱
In his office in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, Warren Buffett displays only one certificate of his education. It isn’t for his bachelors degree from the University of Nebraska, or his master of science in economics from Columbia Business School. It is for completing the “Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking, Leadership Training, and the Art of Winning Friends and Influencing people”, dated January 23 1952.
在沃倫?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)位於內布拉斯加州奧馬哈(Omaha, Nebraska)市中心的辦公室裏，他只展示了一份學歷證書。不是他在內布拉斯加大學(University of Nebraska)獲得的學士學位，也不是他在哥倫比亞商學院(Columbia Business School)獲得的經濟學碩士學位。這份證書表明，他在1952年1月23日完成了“戴爾?卡內基(Dale Carnegie)有效演講、領導力培訓、贏得朋友及影響他人的藝術的課程”。
The instructors on the course “made you do all these crazy things to get out of ourselves”, Mr Buffett says in the new HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett
課程的教員們“讓你做一切瘋狂的事情來突破自身”，巴菲特在HBO頻道的新紀錄片《成爲沃倫?巴菲特》(Becoming Warren Buffett)中說。但是“如果我沒有那樣做，我的整個人生都會不同”。
. But “if I hadn’t had done that, my whole life would have been different”.
美國商界熱愛圈內的傳奇人物，而巴菲特的地位就相當於亞瑟王。《成爲沃倫?巴菲特》只會加強這一點。片中，一望無際的內布拉斯加田野風光與巴菲特眯着眼睛看着滿是灰塵的舊公司記錄的畫面相互交切，以引人入勝的方式讓觀衆走近這位非凡的財富創造者和他的手法。
American business adores its legends and Mr Buffett holds Arthurian status. Becoming Warren Buffett will only amplify it. With lingering shots of rolling Nebraskan farmland intercut with Mr Buffett squinting at dusty old company records, it is a fascinating look at an extraordinary fortune-builder and his methods.
巴菲特承認，卡內基的影響是深遠的。據我所知，沒有哪所商學院的課程包含卡內基最著名的著作《如何贏得朋友及影響他人》。但這些商學院應該這樣做。
Carnegie’s influence, as Mr Buffett admits, was profound. No business school, to my knowledge, includes Carnegie’s most famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, on its curriculum. But they should.
這本書分爲4個部分：“與人相處的基本技巧”；“六種討人喜歡的方法”；“如何讓他人認可你的思考方式”；以及“成爲領袖：如何在不冒犯或激怒他人的情況下改變他人”。閱讀這本書，你就不必花費大量時間觀看泛泛而談的Ted演講，或者閱讀組織行爲學教授大量顯而易見的高見。
The book is divided into four sections: “Fundamental Techniques in Handling People”; “Six Ways to Make People Like You”; “How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking”; and “Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offence or Arousing Resentment.” Reading it, you can spare yourself hours of flaccid Ted talks and reams of self-evident claims from professors in organisational behaviour.
卡內基在1912年開發了他的有效演講課程，此前他懷抱着在百老匯開始演藝生涯的夢想，從密蘇里州來到紐約。然而，他沒能遂願，只能試圖推銷Packard卡車，住在紐約市曼哈頓島西岸一個被稱爲“地獄廚房”的貧民區一間骯髒的廉租公寓裏。卡內基後來寫道，他“在牆上掛了一束領帶；當我早上伸手拿一條幹淨的領帶時，蟑螂會四處逃竄”。
Carnegie developed his course on effective speaking in 1912, after coming to New York from Missouri in the hope of a career on Broadway. Instead, he found himself trying to sell Packard trucks and living in a filthy tenement in Hell’s Kitchen. As he later wrote, he had a “bunch of neckties hanging on the walls; and when I reached out of a morning to get a fresh necktie, the cockroaches scattered in all directions”.
爲了掙點錢，卡內基根據自己接受的演員培訓和身爲一個窮推銷員的體驗，設計了一套課程，將課程重點設定爲如何克服憂慮。在被幾個比較權威的機構拒絕後，卡內基開始在位於哈萊姆區125街的基督教青年會(YMCA)的一個房間裏教授這門課程。從那時到現在，這門課的關鍵一直是讓人們能夠自如地站起來說話，通過討論他們最熟悉的事情幫助他們克服恐懼。
To earn some money, he devised a course based on his training as an actor and his experience as a rather poor salesman, and focused it on how to conquer worry. Having been turned down by several more august institutions, he began teaching it in a room at the YMCA on 125th Street in Harlem. The key to Carnegie’s classes was, and remains, getting people comfortable on their feet and talking, conquering their fears by discussing things that are most familiar to them.
課程的目的不是把參加者培養成千人一面的慷慨激昂的傳道士和東拉西扯的宴會司儀，而是讓他們成爲自身的“升級版”，在更大程度上實現自我價值。這正是巴菲特通過這門課程做到的事情。
It is not intended to turn them all into identical tub-thumpers and rambling toastmasters, but to make them more realised versions of themselves. And that is precisely what it achieved with Mr Buffett.
紀錄片中最有啓發意義的時刻之一是講述巴菲特在所羅門兄弟(Salomon Brothers)的投資。在1987年市場危機期間，他買下了這家投行的一筆股份。紀錄片展示了那個時代的華爾街畫面，其中有許多穿着清一色黑西服、看上去志得意滿的年輕人。巴菲特不信任投資銀行家，但看到了所羅門兄弟蘊藏的機會。他做了一筆好買賣，拿到的可轉換優先股每年支付9%的利息，還能在3年後轉換爲更高價格的普通股，或者在5年後贖回。
One of the most instructive moments in the documentary describes Mr Buffett’s investment in Salomon Brothers. During the market crisis of 1987, he bought a stake in the investment bank. The documentary shows footage from that era of Wall Street, with lots of identical young men in dark suits looking extremely pleased with themselves. Mr Buffett mistrusted investment bankers but saw an opportunity in Salomon. He snagged a good deal, an option that paid 9 per cent a year and could be converted into common stock at a higher price after three years or redeemed over five.
但是4年後，所羅門捲入了一樁債券交易醜聞，瀕臨破產。巴菲特從投資者變爲該行的董事長，不得不與美國財政部談判以免其破產。作爲一位道德高尚而且負責任的商人，他的聲譽讓他贏得了解決問題所需的信任和時間。引人注目的是他在大鱷雲集的華爾街展現出的天賦。他沒有受到那羣野蠻人的影響，依然是來自城外的頭髮亂糟糟的天才，能夠在混亂局面中壓住陣腳，施加秩序和理性。
But four years later, Salomon was swept up in a bond trading scandal and verging on bankruptcy. Mr Buffett went from investor to chairman and had to negotiate with the US Treasury to keep the firm in business. His reputation as an ethical and responsible businessman earned him the trust and time to fix things. What is striking is his facility in the shark tank of Wall Street. He was uncorrupted by the yahoos and remained the wild-haired genius from out of town able to impose order and reason on chaos.
在宣佈美國財政部支持所羅門的記者會上，巴菲特冷靜地回答了兩個多小時的問題。當有人問到，他將如何同時應對奧馬哈和紐約兩地的業務時，他反擊道：“我母親已把我的名字縫在我的內衣上，因此不會有什麼問題。”卡內基如果在世，將會以他的門徒爲榮。
At the press conference announcing the Treasury’s support for Salomon, Mr Buffett coolly took more than two hours of questions. When someone asked him how he would handle his business in both Omaha and New York, he shot back: “My mother has sewn my name in my underwear, so it’ll be OK.” Carnegie would have been proud of his pupil.
紀錄片講述了很大程度上由其外向的首任妻子蘇珊帶給他的變化。他們在1952年結婚，但蘇珊在1977年離開了巴菲特，前往舊金山居住，儘管他們依然保持密切關係。這是一種非常規的關係，但巴菲特讚揚蘇珊讓他領悟到人類關係的重要性。
The documentary tracks the change in Mr Buffett wrought largely by his extrovert first wife, Susan. They married in 1952, but she left him in 1977 to live in San Francisco, though they remained close. It was an unconventional relationship, but Mr Buffett credits Susan with awakening him to the importance of human relationships.
巴菲特承認，他是一個“不平衡的人”，而蘇珊“讓我完整”。隨着時間的推移，他認識到，儘管他沉醉於找到最複雜金融問題的解決方案，但是“人的問題纔是最棘手的”。正是這種自我改善的過程，讓巴菲特複合增長的財富故事和同樣複合發展的性格歷程如此引人入勝。
He admits he was a “lopsided person” and that Susan “put me together”. He realised over time that while he revelled in finding solutions to the most complex financial problems, “it’s the human problems that are the tough ones”. It is this process of self betterment that makes the parallel stories of Mr Buffett’s compounding fortune and his equally compounding character so compelling.
他在紀錄片的末尾說道：“我折舊得很厲害。我現在只剩下殘值了。”他這麼說很有魅力，但是錯誤的。他沒有折舊，而是演變了。
“I’m pretty well depreciated. I’m getting down to salvage value,” he says towards the end of the film. On this, he is charming, but wrong. He has not depreciated, but evolved.
本文作者著有《哈佛商學院教了你什麼》(What They Teach You at Harvard Business School)一書
The writer is author of ‘What They Teach You at Harvard Business School’
