Jan Joubert has fought in some of Africa’s nastiest wars, trained presidential bodyguards to scupper assassination attempts and run a diamond mine in the face of rebel threat. But what was really hell, says the former private military contractor, was taking on an MBA at Henley Business School in the UK at the age of 40.
简•朱伯特(Jan Joubert，见右图)参加过非洲一些最危险的战争，训练过总统的贴身保镖（以防范刺杀活动），也顶着叛军威胁的压力经营过钻石矿。不过，这名前私人军事合同承包人说，以40岁的年纪在英国亨利商学院(Henley Business School)攻读MBA学位,才是真正地狱般的经历。
The South African, who joined the military at 17 and became a commander in 44 Parachute Brigade’s Pathfinder unit in Namibia and South Africa, has been used to giving orders all his life.
朱伯特是南非人，17岁参军，在纳米比亚和南非当过南非第44伞兵旅(44 Parachute Brigade)探路者部队(Pathfinder unit)指挥官。他这辈子一直习惯于发号施令。
But signing up for an MBA meant hours of collaborative discussion instead and refraining from “negative criticism” in what lecturers said was “a safe space”. “In the military, the guy with the highest rank is the final authority. He decides we go left; everybody goes left. There are no questions, there’s no debate about it; that’s it . . . It’s not a two-way communication,” says Mr Joubert.
但参加MBA学习意味着，一连数小时的合作讨论，以及在授课教师所说的“安全环境”下克制“负面批评”的冲动。朱伯特说：“在部队里，军衔最高的人拥有最高权威。他决定向左，所有人都得向左，不得有任何质疑和争议，事情就这样定了……不存在双向交流。
“What was hell was having been a commander/chief executive all your life where everybody had to dance to your tune – and now sitting in a classroom . . . You have to consider everybody’s views and everybody’s emotional state and you have to be nice to everybody. That was difficult for me.”
“对我来说最难以忍受的是，当了一辈子指挥官和首席执行官，所有人都得遵照你的命令行事，如今坐在课堂上……你却必须顾及所有人的观点和情绪，必须友善对待每个人。对我来说，这很难做到。”
At the start of the MBA Mr Joubert “just kept quiet”. “Some people’s views are just so far out of whack with your own that you can’t see how you can interact,” he says. “I just got extremely frustrated and I thought it was an absolute waste of time and why should I convince people that my view is correct and theirs are not?”
MBA课程刚刚开始时，朱伯特“只是保持沉默”。他说：“有些人的观点与你自己的观点相去如此之远，以至于你不知道该如何与他们交流。我当时只觉得非常郁闷，认为这绝对是浪费时间，搞不懂为什么要说服别人相信我的看法是正确的、而他们的是错误的。”
Mr Joubert is used to issuing instructions without debate. In the 1990s he worked for Executive Outcomes, a group of former soldiers hired by governments. In 1995 he arrived in Sierra Leone to help defend the government against a brutal rebel onslaught and trained the bodyguards for two of Sierra Leone’s heads of state.
朱伯特过去习惯于不受质疑地发出指令。上世纪90年代，他曾效力于Executive Outcomes，那是一家由退伍士兵组成的私人雇佣军公司。他曾在1995年来到塞拉利昂，帮助政府抵御叛军的猛烈进攻。他还为塞拉利昂的两位国家领导人训练过贴身保镖。
Eighteen years later, the 44-year-old still works in the west African country, where he has led a turnround at Koidu diamond mine, once ransacked and burnt during the 11-year civil war that ended in 2002.
18年过去了，现年44岁的朱伯特如今仍在这个西非国家工作。在他的领导下，在长达11年的塞拉利昂内战（于2002年结束）中一度被洗劫和烧毁的塞拉利昂Koidu钻石矿起死回生。
For Mr Joubert, the MBA was a way to counter his military past, overcome a perception for being a rigid authoritarian and be taken seriously in the business world. He also wanted to expand the mine that he had spent years of his life developing.
对朱伯特来说，MBA课程是一种手段，可以抵消过去军人经历造成的影响，改变他在别人眼中严肃、专制的形象，并获得商界的真正认可。另外，他还想扩建这个他耗费了多年心血的钻石矿。
“[If you’re ex-military] people always judge you and view you as a soldier and I wanted to get out of that stigma,” he says. “I want to be viewed as a serious entrepreneur who can stand my ground in any corporate environment.”
朱伯特说：“（如果你曾是一名军人），人们总是会对你有偏见，会把你看做一名军人，而我想摆脱军人的记号。我希望人们将我视为一名真正的企业家，能够在任何商业环境下坚守阵地。”
He has already stood his ground for 16 years. He helped safeguard the Koidu mine during the civil war and rebuilt it when the war ended in 2002. By then the mine had been closed for five years and had suffered badly at the hands of the rebels. Today the mine supplies Tiffany, the luxury jeweller, which buys 60 per cent of the Koidu mine’s diamonds by value.
朱伯特已经在他的阵地上坚守了16年。他曾在内战期间帮助保卫Koidu钻石矿，在2002年战争结束时又帮助重建它。战争结束时，Koidu钻石矿已关闭了5年，而且已被叛军糟蹋得不成样子。如今，Koidu矿是奢侈品珠宝商蒂芙尼(Tiffany)的供货商，该矿所出产钻石销售额的60%来自蒂芙尼。
While mine ownership has changed hands several times, Mr Joubert has been a constant figure. For years he was chief executive of Koidu Holdings; today he is chairman of Octea, which is the holding company for Koidu, and a diamond mining subsidiary owned by Beny Steinmetz Group the natural resources company founded by the eponymous Israeli businessman.
尽管钻石矿几经易手，但朱伯特的地位始终岿然不动。他曾多年担任Koidu控股(Koidu Holdings)的首席执行官。如今，他是Koidu的控股公司Octea的董事长。Octea是贝尼斯坦梅茨集团(Beny Steinmetz Group)的钻石开采子公司，这家集团是由以色列商人贝尼•斯坦梅茨(Beny Steinmetz)创办的自然资源公司。