与索尼董事长共进午餐
Lunch with the FT: Sir Howard Stringer
来源：FT中文网 2012-09-11
Sir Howard Stringer rises stiffly to greet me. He is still recovering from back surgery to repair a slipped disc, the result of an “insane” travel schedule that saw him fly around the world every month as chief executive of Sony Corporation.
霍华德•斯金格爵士(Sir Howard Stringer)站起身来欢迎我，身体略显僵硬，看来他仍未从椎间盘突出的手术中痊愈，病因就是他太过密集的出行安排，每月，这位索尼公司(Sony)前CEO 都要频繁穿梭于世界各地。
Along with hundreds of other world business leaders, Stringer is in London for the Olympics. We have arranged to have lunch at Theo Randall’s Italian restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel in Park Lane (he once served on the InterContinental board and likes its central location). Olympic dignitaries and guests are milling around in the lobby but the award-winning restaurant is half empty. “Do try the hot zucchini,” he says, welcoming me to a discreet table at the back of the restaurant, “they are delicious.”
与众多全球商界领袖一样，奥运期间，斯金格也在伦敦观看奥运会。我们安排采访他，地点就在位于公园路洲际酒店(InterContinental, Park Lane)的西奥•兰德尔(Theo Randall)意大利餐馆（斯金格曾担任过洲际酒店集团董事，他很喜欢酒店市中心的地段）。奥委会高官与贵客们在大厅里人头攒动，但这家获过奖的意式餐馆则是顾客稀少。“务必要品尝这儿做的热西葫芦，”他对我说，并把我引至餐馆后边一张不引人注意的餐桌，“味道没得说。”
Our conversation will inevitably address Stringer’s troubled tenure at Sony – he stepped down as chief executive in April but remains chairman. That might explain why he is twitchy. I am slightly edgy, too. We first met 10 years ago when I was US managing editor for the FT in New York. Our favourite pastime was watching soccer and rugby matches in grimy pubs on the Lower East Side. The highlight was a post-match viewing of England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup triumph in Australia. Stringer, a Welshman, knew the result but never let on. That act alone sealed our friendship.
我们的谈话不可避免地要触及斯金格在索尼公司那段不平静的任职生涯——今年4月，他被免去CEO，但仍担任公司董事长。这就是他为何略显焦躁不安的原因，我也有些紧张。10年前，我俩初次相识，当时我是《金融时报》美国站总编辑，我俩最爱的消遣方式就是在纽约下东区(Lower East Side)脏不拉几的酒吧里观看足球与橄榄球比赛。最难忘的一件事是观看英格兰队夺得2003年澳大利亚橄榄球世界杯(2003 Rugby World Cup)的赛后录像。斯金格是威尔士人，陪我看完比赛，对于自己早已知晓比赛结果的事，他至始至终未曾透露。如此仗义之举，进一步巩固了我俩的情谊。
But this is no time to get sentimental. Stringer, 70, is a hardened former journalist who ran CBS news and entertainment for a decade. I stab a succulent zucchini and return to the subject of his crazy travel schedule: more than 2m air miles on British Airways over seven years, shuttling between New York, London, Tokyo and Los Angeles, where Sony has its Hollywood movie business. Why did he put his body through it? Was it a sense of obligation, or a desire to make history as the first westerner to run Sony, one of Japan’s most respected companies.
但此时不是叙旧寒暄的时候，今年70岁的斯金格曾是一位经验丰富的媒体人，曾主持哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)的新闻与娱乐节目长达10年。我扎了一块鲜嫩的西葫芦送入口，然后再次就其繁忙的行程安排问他：过去七年，他乘坐英国航空公司(British Airways)的行程超过了200万英里，频繁穿梭于纽约、伦敦、东京以及洛杉矶（索尼在好莱坞(Hollywood)拥有自己的电影制作公司）。我问他为何要如此拼命透支自己的身体？是出于责任感，还是希望自己作为索尼这家日本最负盛名的公司首位外国掌门人而名垂青史？
“You have to understand that I didn’t expect to get the job,” he says. “I certainly wasn’t looking for it. And so I had very little time to make up my mind. I discussed it with my family and said, ‘I am not sure whether I’ll be seeing you as much, and if you don’t want me to take the job ...’ My daughter said to me, ‘Listen, Daddy, we love you but we love Sony ...’ Whether it was a reflection of the joys of DVDs and PlayStation games, I don’t know. But none of us really knew what I was in for.”
“你要明白，我压根没想到会出任索尼CEO，”他说。“我根本不是找上门去。（得到任命后），我几乎没有考虑时间。我与家里人商量并对他们说，‘我不知道以后是否能经常与你们团聚，你们若不想让我接受这份工作的话……’我女儿对我说，‘听着，老爸，我们爱你，但我们也喜欢索尼的产品……’是否出于使用索尼的DVD与PlayStation视频游戏机的快乐，我不得而知，但大家都不知道我出任索尼CEO追求的是什么。”
Our waiter arrives with water and menus. Stringer, who is wearing a navy blue blazer with light chequered shirt and tie, opts for buffalo mozzarella, followed by linguine with Dorset blue lobster. I choose mixed salad, followed by risotto. We both steer clear of wine, though Stringer says he likes to share a good bottle at home, either in New York or in the country outside London with his wife, Jennifer, a dermatologist.
这时服务员拿来了水与菜单。斯金格身披海军蓝运动夹克，里面则是淡格子衬衣与领带，他点了水牛芝士(buffalo mozzarella)，随后又点了搭配多塞特蓝色龙虾(Dorset blue lobster)的意式扁面。我则点了什锦色拉，随后又要了菜饭。我俩都没要酒，虽然斯金格说不管是在纽约还是伦敦郊外的寓所，自己喜欢与妻子詹妮弗（Jennifer，一位皮肤科医生）畅饮一番。
I ask whether running Sony was mission impossible. The company’s troubles arguably began in the mid-1990s, well before he arrived. With its catalogue of music and its bedrock of electronics, including the 1980s-defining Walkman personal stereo, Sony could – or should – have been able to create the iPod well before Apple launched the device in 2001. But disastrous infighting and a lack of focus put paid to that.
我问执掌索尼是否属于不可能完成的任务？可以这样说，索尼的重重困难始于的上世纪90年代中叶，远远早于他入主之前。本来索尼凭借其庞大的音乐目录优势以及在电子科技方面的雄厚实力（包括引领上世纪80年代的随身听单放机(Walkman)），完全可能（而且应该）先于苹果公司(Apple)研发出iPod（苹果于2001年向市场推出）。但公司内部破坏性极大的勾心斗角以及缺少发展重点让索尼一败涂地。
Stringer was an entertainment guy running a struggling consumer electronics business. He had no background in software. And, most important, he spoke no Japanese. He ended up relying on a small group of fiercely loyal women secretaries as his eyes and ears at Sony HQ. Sounding wistful, he says: “Before I left Tokyo for the last time, we had a [group] photograph which they organised. Very nice.”
执掌索尼这家陷入水深火热的电子消费公司的斯金格曾是娱乐圈老手，对软件一无所知，最要命的是，他不懂日文。最后他依赖几位忠心耿耿的女秘书充当自己在索尼的“耳目”。他对我说，语气中还显得有些恋恋不舍：“我最后离开东京时，这几位秘书安排与我照了一张合影。真得很感人。”
Stringer insists several times during our two-and-a-half-hour lunch that he has no interest in revisiting the past (“It’s terrible if the Japanese press see me complaining”). He is fiercely protective of his successor, Kazuo Hirai, who previously ran Sony’s consumer products, games and networked services and who, crucially, speaks fluent English and Japanese. But, when pressed, he offers a robust defence of his own record.
在两个半小时的午餐期间，斯金格好几次坚称自己对翻陈年旧帐不感兴趣（“日本媒体若是看到我大吐苦水，定会不待见我”）。他极力维护自己的继任者平井一夫(Kazuo Hirai)，对方原先是索尼消费类产品、游戏以及网络服务等业务的负责人，关键是他能说一口流利的英语与日语。但是，在我一再追问下，他才极力为自己担任索尼CEO的工作辩护。
In his first three years as chief executive, between 2005 and 2008, Stringer shifted expensive production overseas, sold business units and developed new ones. Sony was still lagging behind Apple and Samsung, its big rivals, but it was improving operating profits. Then came the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the global financial crisis. The west plunged into recession. The Japanese yen soared against the dollar and euro, killing exports.
在2005-2008年担任索尼CEO的三年时间里，斯金格把成本过高的生产线从日本移至海外，出售相关业务部门以及研发新产品。虽说索尼仍大大落后于劲敌苹果与三星(Samsung)，但其营业利润逐渐上升。但随后爆发了雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的倒闭事件以及全球金融危机，西方经济突然陷入衰退，日元对美元与欧元的汇率大幅飚升，对日本的出口造成了灭顶之灾。
In 2011, the losing streak intensified. In addition to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Sony, along with others, suffered a hacking attack on its online video-game network, exposing a mountain of confidential data to potential abuse. Floods in Thailand wiped out production plants ahead of the vital Christmas sales season. Another low point came during the riots in London, when vandals burned down a Sony distribution centre. BBC TV showed a Sony sign crumbling on top of the flaming building.
2011年，厄运接踵而至，情况变得雪上加霜。除了福岛(Fukushima)核事故外，索尼与其它日本大公司的视频网络在线游戏遭到了黑客攻击，大量机密资料外泄，有可能给不法分子以可乘之机。泰国发生的洪灾把索尼的生产厂彻底摧毁，让圣诞节前的销售旺季付之东流。另一背运是伦敦发生的骚乱事件，当时破坏分子纵火烧掉了索尼的配送中心。BBC电视台还播放了某熊熊燃烧的大楼顶上、索尼标识被烧毁的画面。
“No journalist used that picture to make the point, but that said a lot about the year we were having,” says Stringer. “I cannot think of any company that had gone through as much. It was the first fatalistic experience of my career.”
“媒体记者都不会用此画面来落井下石，但真实展现了我们这几年所经历的艰难困苦，”斯金格说。“我觉得没有哪家大公司象索尼这样厄运不断，这就是我一上任所面临的窘境，灾祸接二连三。”
As the waiter arrives with our first course, I reflect that this is a mild exaggeration. Stringer has indeed enjoyed extraordinary success, notably during his time in New York when he ran CBS News and later as boss of Sony’s movie and entertainment business. But the story of how he arrived and stayed in the US was also marked by an extraordinary twist of fate.
这时，服务员端来第一道菜，我觉得这稍有些言过其实。无疑，斯金格曾经功成名就，尤其是他在纽约主持哥伦比亚广播公司新闻节目以及随后担任索尼公司影视与娱乐公司总裁的那段时间。但是，他如何来到美国并成功立足的经过，却是异常曲折。
Stringer’s father, Harry, grew up in an orphanage and joined the Royal Air Force at 16. The family moved home six times before Howard, born in Cardiff, turned 13. His mother, Marjorie, was a sociable Welsh woman with ambitions for her son. Aged four, he was packed off for (English) elocution lessons. At school, he admits, he was too smart for his own good and was badly bullied. “I was very short,” says Stringer, now well over 6ft. “Everybody else was two years older in my class, and I had curly hair and was teacher’s pet. I was as attractive as you were then ... It was very hard. I took boxing lessons to fight back against the form bully.”
斯金格的父亲哈里(Harry)在孤儿院长大，16岁加入了皇家空军(Royal Air Force)。斯金格出生于加的夫(Cardiff)，长到13岁时，全家已搬了六次家。他妈妈玛乔丽(Marjorie)是位善于交际的威尔士妇女，对儿子的期望值很高。斯金格长到4岁时，被送去接受英语演说方面的训练。他坦承，上学后，老是自作聪明，结果被同学欺负得很惨。“我当时个头特低，”斯金格说，如今他身高超过6英尺（约1米83）。“我班所有同学要都大我2岁，我长着一头卷发，是老师的宠儿。和你一样，我小时候长得甭提有多好看……那时我在学校老受委屈，于是我学习拳击，就是为了狠揍欺负我的那位同学。”
After planting a hard right on the bully’s nose, Stringer never looked back. He won a scholarship at Oundle School and a place at Oxford to study modern history. There he mixed with Americans, including Rhodes scholars. “The energy of the Kennedy years was completely compelling ... I had a sense of a generous society eager to change the world. Idealism was very contagious. So that’s why I went to America. I didn’t intend to stay.”
揪住对方鼻子狠揍一顿后，斯金格就头也不回地走了。在奥多中学(Oundle School)，他得到了奖学金，从而到牛津大学(Oxford)学习现代史。在牛津，他与一帮美国同学打得火热，其中就有好多罗得(Rhodes)奖学金获得者。“肯尼迪(Kennedy)执政时，一切都是那么意气风发……自己满脑子是乐善好施的思想，渴望让世界旧貌换新颜。理想主义风靡一时，这就是我为何从英国去美国的原因，刚开始没想长呆下去。”
Within three months of arriving in 1965, and having found a job as a clerk at CBS, he found himself drafted into the US army and heading for Vietnam. At first, he thought it was a mistake. He wrote to Bobby Kennedy, his hero. Then he tried talking his way out of the draft. “When I went for my haircut, I said, ‘It’s not necessary because I’m not staying,’ whereupon they shaved my head along with everybody else.”
1965年，到美国不到三个月，他在哥伦比亚广播公司找到了一份职员工作，他应征入美军，准备上越南前线。一开始，他就觉得越战是个错误，于是他给心中仰慕的英雄罗伯特•肯尼迪(Bobby Kennedy)写信。随后，他想尽办法希望脱离部队。“去理发时，我对理发师说，‘不用理短，因为我不会长呆部队，’没想到，与其他战友一样，全被剃了光头。”
Stringer could have scarpered back to Britain and nobody would have noticed. But he remained attached to his “little American dream, his personal great adventure”, even on the troop ship steaming out of Oakland towards Vietnam. Once there, though, he quickly sought out a clerical job looking after financial records and medals. “I may have agreed to be drafted, but I didn’t agree to be killed.”
斯金格本可以开溜回英国，也不会有人注意。但即便站在驶离奥克兰(Oakland)、前往越南的运兵船上，他依然念念不忘 “心中的美国梦以及个人的雄心抱负”。然而到了越南后，他很快谋到一份文书工作，负责账目记录与保管军功章。“也许我愿意去当兵，但不愿意因此丢掉性命。”
After a year, he was back in the US (in uniform), and successfully applying for his old job. Ironically, Vietnam gave him his first break at CBS. At the height of the war he accompanied Walter Cronkite, the legendary anchorman, on a series of interviews with President Johnson at his Texas ranch. Five frustrating years later, he was promoted to “assistant associate producer” (CBS bureaucracy!) and asked to make a two-hour documentary on the Rockefellers. He had never been the sole producer of anything but the Rockefellers were mightily impressed with his Oxford degree. The programme won an Emmy award. Stringer was set.
一年后，他（身穿军装）荣归美国，并再次申请到以前那份职员工作。具有讽刺意味的是，越战给了他在哥伦比亚广播公司的第一个人生际遇。越战激战正酣之际，他陪同传奇主持人克朗凯特(Walter Cronkite)对约翰逊总统(President Johnson)进行了系列采访，地点就在总统本人位于德克萨斯州的私人农场。在哥伦比亚广播公司度过了碌碌无为的五年后，他被提拔为“副制片人助理”（您瞧瞧哥伦比亚广播公司的官僚体制！），公司要求他制作一部有关洛克菲勒家族(the Rockefellers)、时长2小时的记录片。他以前从未独立制作过任何作品，但幸运的是，洛克菲勒家族极看重他的牛津大学学位。该节目获得了艾美奖(Emmy)，他成功站稳了脚跟。
Stringer says he has always had a knack of spotting when to jump to the next job. When the length and frequency of documentaries was cut, he moved to network news. When the evening news ratings went into decline, he left CBS, joining Sony in 1997. “I’ve always jumped jobs because the future was catching up with me. And, ironically, that’s happened in Sony as well in a way.”
斯金格说自己总能精准把握跳槽时机。当记录片的长度与播放次数被删减后，他转而从事网络新闻工作。1997年，当自己主持的晚新闻收视率下降后，他离开哥伦比亚广播公司，转投索尼门下。“我老跳槽，因为未来老向我召唤。颇有讽刺意味的是，从某种程度说，我在索尼的经历也是如此。”
Our main courses have arrived. I want to hear more about Stringer’s insights into Sony and modern Japan. He again defers to his successor. Then he points me to the independent commission report into the Fukushima disaster, which highlighted four fundamental flaws in Japanese culture: reflexive obedience; reluctance to question authority; devotion to sticking with the programme; and hierarchy.
这时，我们点的主菜端上来了，我也还想听听斯金格对于索尼公司及现代日本社会的真知灼见。他再次对继任者平井一夫表达了敬意。随后，他向我提及了独立调查委员会关于福岛核事故的报告，报告专门指出了日本文化四大致命缺点：相互服从、不愿质疑权威、死板遵守规程以及等级森严。
Many of these weaknesses apply to Sony, I suggest. When Stringer was appointed chief executive, the board simultaneously appointed as president an engineer called Ryoji Chubachi. With overall responsibility for electronics, President Chubachi wielded the power. “Well, actually, they didn’t tell me that when I took the job,” Stringer says. “They said I was CEO. That’s the first cultural contrast. The CEO is in charge in America.”
我暗示，这些缺点同样适用于索尼。当斯金格被任命为公司CEO时，董事会同时任命一位名叫中钵良治(Ryoji Chubachi)的工程师担任总裁。全面负责电子部门工作的中钵良治也行使同等权力。“事实上，我接手工作时，索尼公司并未把实情告知我，”斯金格说。“他们当时说我就是CEO。这是第一个文化反差，在美国，CEO全权负责一切工作。”
I ask whether he agrees with the off-the-record verdict of one of his Asian competitors: that Sony’s biggest weakness is that “it still does not know what went wrong”. Having led the world in consumer electronics, it was left behind by the digital revolution of smartphones and social media. Sony epitomises the conflict in Japanese technology between “hardware culture” and “software culture”. The first focuses on creating “perfect” products from the start; the second emphasises speed to the market.
我问他是否认可某亚洲强敌对索尼公司所下的非公开结论：说索尼最致命的缺点是“自己仍然不知道问题出在哪儿”。索尼曾经引领全球电子消费产品几十年，如今却被智能手机与社交媒体引发的数字革命远远甩在后面。索尼这样概括日本科技中“硬件文化”与“软件文化”的冲突。“硬件文化”从一开始就专注于生产“完美无缺”的产品，而“软件文化”则强调产品快速市场化。
Stringer agrees that US companies such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have had the hardware manufactured in China cheaply and then applied their own high-class software. The iPod, he points out, was far less well-manufactured than the Walkman, but the fact is that it was brought out quickly and cheaply. “Japan can’t get anything on the market very cheaply because it has a large, relatively highly paid workforce which you can’t fire,” he says. But, he adds, “I’m getting nervous now, not because you are not getting it right but because I don’t want to feel like the end is nigh. I don’t want to give that impression.” He stresses that Sony has embraced the digital revolution, more so than other Japanese companies. Indeed, even the master – Steve Jobs of Apple – regularly visited Sony in the early 2000s to learn about its manufacturing and technology.
斯金格也认为：亚马逊(Amazon)、苹果以及微软(Microsoft)等美国公司在中国低成本生产硬件，然后再安装自己研发的一流软件。他指出：iPod的制作水准不如随身听，但问题的关键是它推出的速度很快，而且价格便宜。“日本无法实现廉价销售自己生产的产品，原因是它的劳动力规模大、需要支付的薪水又高，而且不能随便开除员工，”他说。但又补充说，“我现在越来越紧张，不是由于难以处理得当，而是我不想觉得末日就在眼前。我不想给人留下这样的印象。”他强调说索尼依然紧跟数字革命，比其它日本公司都要做得好。的确，甚至数字革命的教父——苹果公司的乔布斯(Steve Jobs)还于21世纪初期时常造访索尼，学习索尼制造水准以及先进技术。
Jobs actually floated the idea of a merger between Apple and Sony, I say. “Yes, but not with the whole company,” says Stringer, before retreating. “Yes, I think he was [thinking of that], but he didn’t say that to me.”
我对他说，乔布斯实际上还动过苹果与索尼合并的念头。“没错，但不是与整个索尼公司，”斯金格说，随后身子朝后坐了坐。“你说得没错，我认为他曾有此念头，但他未曾对我说起过。”
Stringer has left half of the linguine untouched, while I have polished off a tasty risotto. His legacy, he says, will be to have skipped a generation in selecting Sony’s top management. Aside from the 51-year-old “Kaz”, a cadre of highly talented executives in their fifties or younger now run movies, recorded music, TV production and music publishing. The top group includes another Oxford-educated Welshman, Andy House (who does speak fluent Japanese).
斯金格只吃了一半的扁面，而我则把美味的菜饭一扫而光。他说，自己给索尼公司留下了充足的人才储备，无需长时间再为挑选合适高管人选而大伤脑筋。除了51岁的平井一夫外，很多50多岁甚至更年轻的才华横溢的管理骨干如今已在影视、音乐录制、电视制作以及音乐出版等方面挑起大梁。高管层如今还有一位牛津毕业生、爱尔兰人安德鲁•豪斯（Andy House，能说一口流利日语）。
Stringer is now looking to life after Sony. He has been offered corporate directorships, he says, but he really wants to raise money for his charities, perhaps picking a single one to focus on. He is currently on the board of Teach For America and the American Theatre Wing (which does the Tony awards) and is about to go into his 11th year as chairman of the American Film Institute. Above all, he is looking forward to spending more time in New York.
离开索尼后，斯金格如今过着快乐的生活。他对我说，自己是多家公司董事，但自己真正想做的是为慈善事业筹措资金，将来也许会专心致志做好一家。他目前是“为美国而教”(Teach For America)以及“美国戏剧协会”（American Theatre Wing，颁发托尼奖(Tony Awards)）董事，担任美国电影协会理事会(American Film Institute)主席也将步入第11个年头。总之，他希望自己花更多的时间在纽约生活。
“The hardest thing about being at Sony was not the travel; it was being divorced from the public and private life I had in New York. Travelling as much as I did, while I didn’t lose connection with my friends, I lost a sense of belonging.”
“在索尼，最受不了的是没时间去旅游；它与我以前的纽约生活彻底‘一刀两断’了。过去我会尽可能去旅游，同时又与朋友保持密切联系，在索尼工作，让我失去了归属感。”
The recent death of the writer Nora Ephron, a close friend, was a heavy blow. Most of Stringer’s friends are journalists of the 1960s generation, and they are getting older. “There’s no getting away from it. You suddenly wake up and you start reading the obituary columns. You’re a decade away from it and it’s inevitable; it’s just inevitable.”
最近，自己的密友、作家诺拉•依弗朗(Nora Ephron)撒手人寰，对他打击很大。斯金格多数朋友是上世纪60年代那一代媒体人，如今他们正渐渐老去。“生命无法抗拒，如今自己突然醒过来后，就会经常读到老友故去的讣告。我也是去日无多，这谁也逃脱不了，这就是生命的轮回。”
As we make our way out of the restaurant, I notice Stringer is still moving gingerly. He stretches out a hand and says, “Be nice.”
我俩一起步出餐馆时，我注意到斯金格走路还是那么小心翼翼，他伸出手对我说，“多保重。”
Lionel Barber is editor of the FT
莱昂内尔•巴贝尔是《金融时报》总编辑