Chapter 93 New Watch "I Can't Control Colombia"

In 1959, Harold Gerling was hired as president of ITT Corporation.At the first meeting of directors, this optimistic and stubborn business wizard promised the directors that he had a way to make ITT the largest conglomerate in the world. Jielin's method is to buy, buy, buy again.Under his leadership, ITT bought companies as addictively as Imelda bought shoes.In the following 10 years, Jelling bought 400 companies in 70 countries at one go, with an average of 40 companies per year. ITT really became the largest and most feared company in the world at that time in the hands of Jaylin. giant enterprise.

How to manage such a huge enterprise well is inconceivable to almost all entrepreneurs, but in Jaylin's view, it may not be so.He managed them with great energy and enthusiasm, like a dutiful old hen managing a flock of chicks waiting to be fed.In an annual report, he described his work as follows: "Office more than 10 hours a day, more than 200 days a year devoted to management meetings at different levels of management around the world, these in New York, Brussels, Hong Kong, Buenos In Ellis' meetings, decisions are based on reasoning—business reasoning influences decision making, and because the facts on which all decisions are based exist, decisions are almost inevitable. The role of planning and meetings is Push reasoning hard to the front, so that its value and needs are recognized by everyone."

Relying on this almost crazy work enthusiasm and "reasonable decision-making" based on intuition and experience judgment, ITT has achieved astonishing growth.The company's sales have soared from $700 million at the beginning of Jaylin's tenure to $28 billion, and profits have increased from $29 million to $562 million. On Wall Street, the profit per share of ITT stock has increased from $1 to $4.20.Harold Gerling became the most legendary entrepreneur in America. In an exclusive interview with him, "Business Week" bluntly titled "Great Myth" and praised him as a "great legendary complex".

In 1979, at the age of 68, Jaylin resigned as chairman in a triumphal gathering.However, terrible things happened soon behind Jaelin's not yet distant figure.In the second year after Jaylin resigned, ITT reported a huge loss. His successor obviously couldn't bear his crazy work style, and the ITT building made a scary noise.In the following 10 years, Old Jaylin helplessly witnessed how the empire built by him and invested his life's energy and wisdom was in decline. In 1997, Harold Gerling, a generation of business tycoon, died lonely in a hotel.In the same year, ITT, which used to embezzle everywhere and be invincible, was merged.

The tragedy of Jielin is a story about control.Any corporate decision can be reduced to control, and different control techniques and concepts will produce different operating styles. Coca-Cola is one of the most successful companies in the world in terms of specialization.One of its presidents once boasted: Even if one day, Coca-Cola's factories all over the world were burned overnight, but with the Coca-Cola brand alone, it can stand up again the next day. It was a Cuban named Robert Goizueta who said this.In the 16 years from the 1980s to the 1990s, it was under his leadership that Coca-Cola successfully achieved global marketing, and the company's market value increased from US$4 billion to US$150 billion-among entrepreneurs of the same generation, the most The growth miracle created may only be comparable to Jack Welch, CEO of GE.And Jack Welch spent 4 years longer than him.

At the beginning of Goizueta's tenure, he promised the board of directors: "To actively expand into those industrial sectors that we have not yet entered, only markets with domestic growth will be attractive." After careful consideration, Goizueta Spend huge sums of money to acquire the famous Columbia Pictures.However, five years later, he suddenly announced the sale of Columbia Pictures to Sony Corporation of Japan. His decision caused an uproar.In fact, Columbia Pictures did not have any crisis at that time. The films it produced every year were still blockbusters, and it also contributed considerable profits to Coca-Cola.However, Goizueta felt different from others.Explaining the sale to the board, he said the reason for the abandonment was, "I can't control Columbia."

He said that film companies cannot meet our requirement of "predictable and reliable stable income every quarter". However, it is not that the profits of the entertainment industry cannot be "predictable and reliable", but because of a People who don't understand it are running it.If you don’t understand, you will have no sense of control, and a business without a sense of control is doomed to fail. The difference is only the time. Corporate decision-making, especially capital activities, is difficult to make quantitative judgments in many situations. The decision-making of an entrepreneur depends to a considerable extent on his judgment on the market and the direction of the company; another very important basis for consideration is that you have Do you have enough "sense of control" in your business operations?In this sense, we can gain new insights by interpreting the case of ITT.Harold Gerling was a genius because he could actually control a monster of hundreds of companies while his successor couldn't.

Over the past 10 years, the Chinese business world has experienced treacherous conditions. Every one or two years, some large and well-known enterprises crashed to the ground.Among the many cases in the past, the lack of realistic sense of control and control art is probably the most fatal weakness of those entrepreneurs who were once invincible - Yang Rong could not control Brilliance, Tang Wanxin could not control Delong, Gu Chujun could not control Kelon, Song Ruhua could not control Controlling Top, Li Jingwei and Zhao Xinxian cannot control the Jianlibao and Sanjiu they founded, etc. All tragedies have an amazingly consistent logic lurking. In 1981, when a stuttering Jack Welch was appointed as the new president of GE, he went to a small city near Los Angeles to visit Peter Drucker, the greatest management scientist in the world. The first question he asked was The question is: "How do I control the thousands of companies under GE?"

All great governance begins with learning to control.