商界傳奇 聯想的企業併購祕籍

Within three months of being hired as chief diversity officer at Lenovo in 2007, Yolanda Conyers received some feedback that she was being disrespectful to her Chinese coworkers. Conyers, a perfectly polite woman from Port Arthur, Tex., was taken aback by the critique because she thought she had worked tirelessly to be polite to her new team.

2007年，友蘭達o康耶絲（Yolanda Conyers）出任聯想公司（Lenovo）文化整合與多元化的最高負責人，可是上任不到三個月，就有不少人反映她對中國同事不大尊重。康耶絲來自美國德州亞瑟港，待人素來彬彬有禮。在得知這一批評後，她大吃一驚，因爲她自認爲已極儘可能地對新團隊禮數周到。

It turns out that Conyers efforts were getting lost in translation. She thought she was being very deferential when she sent emails to her senior colleagues to “request” a meeting. But the word request translates in Mandarin to a term that executives use when asking for a meeting with someone below them. Without knowing it, Conyers was telling her new managers that she thought she was above them.

原來，康耶絲的努力迷失在了翻譯中。比如，在向公司上級發送電子郵件“要求（request）”開會時，她自認爲措辭非常謙遜有禮——可問題恰恰就出在“要求”一詞。在漢語中，“要求”是在領導找下級開會時才能用。由於對這一情況毫不知情，康耶絲無異於在向她的新老闆們宣示她纔是上級。

“It sounds small, but those small things can generate a lot of mistrust,” Conyers said in an interview with Fortune. “We had to go through a lot of effort to understand the different cultures within the company and the reasons people behave the way they do.”

“這看起來是小事，可這樣的小事多了，就會產生很多不信任。”在接受《財富》（Fortune）採訪時，康耶絲反思道：“我們要作出很大的努力，才能理解公司內部不同的文化，以及每個人行爲處事的想法。”

Since 2005 when Lenovo bought IBM’s PC business, the Chinese company has gone on a spree of high-profile acquisitions. Most recently, the world’s largest personal-computer maker said on Thursday that it had completed a $2.91 billion acquisition of Google’s Motorola Mobility unit. The merger makes Lenovo the third-largest smartphone maker. Each time Lenovo buys an overseas company, its staff gets more diverse and its corporate structure more complicated. Today, the company has more than 60,000 employees across 60 countries.

自聯想在2005年收購IBM的個人電腦業務以來，這家中國公司高調進行了一系列的收購。作爲全球最大的個人電腦廠商，聯想上週四宣佈，公司已從谷歌（Google）手中完成了對摩托羅拉（Motorola）移動業務的收購，交易金額高達29.1億美元。本次併購使聯想成爲全球第三大智能手機廠商。每當聯想完成一筆跨國收購之後，公司員工就變得更加多元，企業架構也更爲複雜。目前，聯想擁有超過60,000名員工，分佈在60多個國家。

That’s where Conyers comes in. After a slew of culture problems and missed business opportunities shortly after Lenovo acquired part of IBM, the company realized it needed to take a harder look at its strategy for combining new teams. Now serving as Lenovo’s first-ever diversity officer, Conyers’s job is to figure out how to align the company behind common goals while respecting everyone’s differences.

這就是聯想請康耶絲來的目的。在收購IBM的PC業務之後不久，聯想遭遇了各種企業文化方面的問題，也喪失了不少商業機會。公司意識到，必須更爲重視企業併購後的人員整合問題。作爲聯想第一任首席多元化官，康耶絲的工作是在尊重個人文化背景差異的情況下整合企業文化，從而達到公司的整體目標。

But before Conyers could worry about bringing the company together, she needed to understand Chinese culture for herself. She decided to live and work out of Lenovo’s headquarters in China from 2009 to 2012 and she turned to Gina Qiao, Lenovo’s SVP of Human Resources, to guide her through the transition. Qiao, who works out of Beijing, made a similar decision in 2005 when she lived and worked out of Lenovo’s Raleigh, North Carolina offices. Qiao also struggled to understand American workplace culture. She didn’t realize that when she didn’t speak up constantly in meetings, her American coworkers assumed she hadn’t prepared.

要將公司凝聚爲一體，康耶絲自己首先得理解中國文化。從2009到2012年，她決定來聯想中國總部北京工作和生活，並求教於聯想人力資源高級副總裁喬健，來幫助她適應文化上的過渡。喬健目前在北京工作，但是2005年時她也做出過類似的決定——到聯想美國總部北卡州羅利工作和生活。在適應美國公司文化的過程中，喬健也遭遇過不少困難。比如，她當時並不知道，如果她在會議上不經常主動發言，她的美國同事就會以爲她沒做準備。

The two women relied on each other to understand the nuances of corporate behavior across the organization and encouraged their co-workers to do the same.

兩位女性互爲依賴，以理解整個組織內的企業行爲折射的細微差異，同時鼓勵其他同事們也這麼做。

“You need to take the time to listen more and take time to get to know people’s struggles and their relationships,” said Conyers. “I needed to take the time to go live in that environment and now I am such a better global leader as a result.”

“你需要花時間去傾聽，花時間去了解人們所處的困境以及他們的關係，”康耶絲總結說。“我需要花時間去生活在這個環境裏面。和過去相比，現在我是一個更稱職的全球性領導者。”

Conyers and Qiao outline both their personal journeys along side Lenovo’s path to becoming a truly global company in the recently released book The Lenovo Way. The book outlines the tech giant’s initial struggles with corporate culture clashes and traces how Lenovo successfully became the largest company in the world in global computer sales. For Conyers and Qiao, figuring out how to bring people together with each new acquisition is just as essential as mixing supply chains and distributions networks. Without a concrete plan of the human side of things, mergers and acquisitions too often fail, they told Fortune.

在最近發佈的《聯想之道》（The Lenovo Way）一書中，康耶絲和喬健分享了自身的經歷，同時也介紹了聯想發展成爲一家真正的全球性企業前所走過的道路。該書概括了這一技術巨頭最初在面臨企業文化衝撞時所遭遇的困境，並記錄了聯想如何成功躋身成爲全球最大的國際計算機銷售巨擘。對於康耶絲和喬健來說，在一次又一次新的併購中找出凝聚不同員工的方法，與整合供應鏈和分銷網絡同樣重要。她們在採訪中表示，如果沒有相應的人力資源方面的具體計劃配合，併購的努力往往會付諸東流。

According to the Lenovo execs, here are three key components companies should consider when acquiring a company from a different part of the world:

據聯想兩位高管的介紹，在收購一家外國公司時，需要考慮以下三個基本點：

1. Live diversity every day. In 2009, Lenovo realized that the new leadership team, comprised of executives drawn primarily from Lenovo, IBM and Dell, was not fully committed to bringing Lenovo’s operations together into one fully integrated business. “There was this terminology of three rivers” as each created silos between themselves, said Conyers. It was only once the company realized that cultural integration shouldn’t be rushed and needs to be something constantly considered did workers feel like they were truly apart of one global firm.

1.真正融入多樣性。2009年，聯想發現由聯想、IBM和戴爾（Dell）前高管組成的新領導團隊，並沒有完全意識到需要把公司融匯成一個整體來經營。康耶絲說，當時每個人都有自己的一套做事方法，結果變成了“三套體系，各自爲政”。只有當公司意識到文化融合不應被壓抑而應被重視時，員工纔會真正感受到他們是一家國際化企業的一份子。

2. Have a zero-mindset. Too often, employees who come into a new company after a merger think that the success they had in the past can be replicated in the future with their new firm. Understanding that you often need to start from square one when outlining corporate strategies is essential to success.

2.抱着一切歸零的心態。併購後進入新公司的員工往往想當然，以爲自己可以在新公司複製以往的成功經驗。在規劃公司戰略時，工作往往需要從頭開始，員工對這一點的充分理解是成功的必要條件。

3. Have humility. Humility is the basis of any meaningful interaction between two people trying to understand each other’s culture. “When you have humility, you are humble and you are open to new ideas. That’s essential at any global company,” says Conyers.

3.謙遜。謙遜是人和人之間嘗試瞭解雙方文化的基礎。“當一個人保持謙遜時，就會虛心接受新的觀點。這在任何一家國際化企業裏都是必不可少的，”康耶絲說。