How did American Express survive for 136 years and grow into the giant it is today? How did it manage to change and make decisions for change? Does Amexco’s story provide a formula for corporate success?  

美国运通如何在136年间存活下来并成长为今日的巨擘？它如何设法改变并做出变革决策？Amexco的故事是否提供了企业成功的公式？

The questions seem particularly relevant in this age of business scholarship and management theory. Theorists have concentrated their analyses on successful companies, attempting to draw systematic lessons from them for others to emulate. Analysts have tried to develop blueprints for company organization and have identified concepts and philosophies of management designed to provide keys to success. Often they use as exemplars companies with a record of success less than a decade old. What about a company that has endured as long as Amexco? Does its story offer a system for success?  

这些问题在当今强调商业研究和管理理论的时代显得尤为切题。理论家们把分析重点放在成功企业身上，试图从中总结出系统化的经验供他人效仿。分析人士致力于为公司组织绘制蓝图，并提出旨在开启成功之门的管理理念和哲学。他们常常以成功记录不足十年的公司为典范。那么，一家像Amexco这样长盛不衰的企业又如何？它的故事能否提供一套成功体系？

In many ways, Amexco’s story seems to contradict contemporary management theory. Though theorists have an interest in pointing out that companies guide their own destiny, no business is entirely self- directive. Corporations, even the largest, cannot create a world of their own making and so are inevitably reactive organizations. What they must react to are unpredictable forces such as war, politics, economic conditions, and social and technological change. All of these have had an impact on American Express. The Civil War, for example, made it a rich company; the political climate of the late nineteenth century let it prosper; the Depression saved it from dissolution. Indeed, Amexco’s history is replete with examples of fortuitous circumstance and historical accident.  

在许多方面，Amexco的故事似乎与当代管理理论相矛盾。虽然理论家乐于指出公司能主导自己的命运，但没有哪家企业完全可以自我主导。即便是最大的公司，也无法凭空创造一个由自己塑造的世界，因此不可避免地成为反应型组织。它们必须应对的是诸如战争、政治、经济状况以及社会和技术变革等不可预测的力量。这些都对美国运通产生了影响。例如，内战让它致富，十九世纪末的政治环境使其繁荣，大萧条则救它免于解体。事实上，Amexco的历史充满了偶然机遇和历史巧合的例子。

At the same time, companies are partly self- directive. Amexco had to make decisions and choices, take steps, and adopt policies affecting its destiny. Indeed, Amexco had to do more things right than wrong; it had to make enough correct decisions over 136 years to survive. And because of those decisions, Amexco has evolved into the company it is today—an organization that is by any measure, time or profit, successful.  

与此同时，企业在某种程度上又是可以自我主导的。Amexco必须做出决定和选择，采取行动，制定影响自身命运的政策。实际上，Amexco必须做对的事情多于做错的事情；它必须在136年里作出足够多的正确决策才能存活。正因为这些决策，Amexco演变成今天的公司——无论从时间还是利润衡量，都是成功的组织。

But, at first glance, it appears impossible to make generalizations about Amexco’s success. The company has had so many different systems and been guided by so many different approaches. Consider some of the concepts of modern theory: for example, entrepreneurial (or intrapreneurial) management has been one of the most widely touted ideas of the 1980s, an idea, in fact, that Robinson and Gerstner note in almost every interview they give. But Amexco has had a number of different management systems. It has been run by a contentious directorate, autocratic rulers, and for two distinct periods, systems that encouraged internal entrepreneurship. Other theorists have focused on different keys to business success. A popular notion is that companies need to build a strong, identifiable “corporate culture.” But Amexco has had several different cultures. In only the last twenty- five years, it went from the company- as- family, where no one was ever fired, to a modern, aggressive institution, where turnover was so rapid that employees seemed to face a new boss every month. Amexco today actually operates with separate cultures, which Robinson has pushed to compete with one another. But even this is not really new: in other eras, the company has had different cultures going on in different places at the same time. Still other theorists point to strategic planning as a major key to success, and again Amexco’s history shows many approaches. It has planned rigorously in some periods, sporadically in others, and at times not at all.  

然而乍看之下，人们似乎无法对Amexco的成功作出概括。这家公司采用过如此多的不同体系，并受如此多不同方法的指导。让我们看看现代理论的一些概念：例如，企业家式（或内部企业家式）管理是20世纪80年代最被热烈吹捧的思想之一，事实上罗宾逊和葛斯特纳几乎在他们的每一次采访中都会提到这一思想。但Amexco经历了多种不同的管理体系。它曾由争吵不休的董事会、专制的领导者统治，并且有两个时期采用鼓励内部创业的体系。其他理论家则关注不同的商业成功要素。一个流行观点认为公司需要建立一种强大且易于识别的“企业文化”。但Amexco却拥有多种不同的文化。在过去短短二十五年里，它从一个“公司如家庭”、从不解雇员工的企业，转变为一家现代化、进取型机构，人员流动之快以至于员工似乎每个月都面临新老板。如今的Amexco实际上以各自独立的文化运作，罗宾逊还推动它们互相竞争。但即使这也并非真正的新鲜事：在其他年代，公司在不同地点同时就存在着不同文化。还有理论家把战略规划视为成功的主要关键，而Amexco的历史再一次显示出多种做法。它在某些时期进行严格规划，在另一些时期则偶尔为之，有时甚至完全不做规划。

And what were the results of these phases? Some of the best decisions were made under what are today considered most unfashionable systems. Both the TC and the card were adopted by autocrats. The period of openness and entrepreneurship in the 1910s led to a burst of ideas and development, but it ended in the Glass Eye Era. The company has in other ways followed contemporary theory and arrived at the opposite of what might be expected. F. P. Small required that Amexco “stick to [its] knitting” almost sixty years before business consultants Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., made the slogan almost a moral imperative. But the result of Small’s policy was to drive the company into its shell and miss substantial opportunities for growth. Howard Clark did not have, to note another Peters and Waterman concept, “a bias for action,” especially where big, strategic decisions were concerned. He agonized and analyzed, and sometimes did nothing, but the company’s profits expanded geometrically nevertheless because he happened to have products people wanted, and he sold them well.  

那么这些阶段的结果如何？一些最佳决策出现在当今被视为最不流行的体系下。无论是旅行支票（TC）还是信用卡，都是在独裁式管理下被采纳的。20世纪10年代的开放与创业时期带来了创意和发展的爆发，但最终却以“玻璃眼时代”告终。公司在其他方面遵循了当代理论，却得到出乎意料的结果。F·P·斯莫尔要求美国运通“专注于自己的针线活”，这比商业顾问托马斯·J·彼得斯和罗伯特·H·沃特曼提出这一口号早了近六十年。然而斯莫尔的政策结果是把公司逼回壳中，错失了大量增长机会。再看彼得斯和沃特曼的另一概念“行动偏好”，霍华德·克拉克显然不具备，尤其在重大战略决策上。他常常痛苦地分析，最后什么也不做，但公司利润仍呈几何级增长，因为他恰好拥有市场需要的产品，而且卖得很好。

As for strategic planning, the TC and the card, Amexco’s two greatest products, did not stem from any systematic plan. Indeed, both appeared somewhat counterintuitive and perhaps dangerous. When Reed asked consultants what to do about the card, they told him to forget it and protect the TC instead. One can only imagine what planners would have told J. C. Fargo in 1891 about the TC. It was a product in search of a market that carried an enormous risk of fraud and counterfeit. Yet J.C.’s feelings in that instant proved a better guide than business logic. Contrast that with the scientific way Howard Brooks went about creating a trade office—careful, strategic thinking and a market survey. Yet the TC became a multibillion- dollar business, and Amexco’s trade department died after a few years.  

至于战略规划，旅行支票和信用卡这两大拳头产品并非源自任何系统性的计划。实际上，它们在当时看起来都有些反直觉，甚至充满风险。当里德向咨询顾问请教如何处理信用卡业务时，对方建议他放弃信用卡，转而保护旅行支票。可以想象，1891年规划人员若给J·C·法戈出主意，对旅行支票也会持何种看法——这是一款尚未找到市场、且极易被造假和诈骗的产品。然而J·C·当时的直觉却比商业逻辑更可靠。与此形成对比的是霍华德·布鲁克斯创建贸易部的“科学方法”——谨慎的战略思考和市场调研。但最终旅行支票成了数十亿美元的业务，而贸易部几年后便夭折。

But the history of American Express does not stand the world upside down either. It does not prove that the contemporary view of good management is all wrong and that bad really equals good. The quirky, idiosyncratic management systems of American Express produced mixed results. Although Reed created the card, his personal management system led to the loss of millions in its operation, and his fierce devotion to corporate pride contributed to the mess of Soybean. J. C. Fargo’s emotions and prejudices led to quick, brilliant steps like the TC, but he also pursued rigid policies in the express business that helped destroy it.  

然而，美国运通的历史也并未颠覆整个世界；它并未证明当代“良好管理”观念全然错误，也未表明坏即是好。美国运通那些古怪而特立独行的管理体系带来了好坏参半的结果。里德虽然创造了信用卡，但他个人的管理方式让其运营损失了数百万美元，他对企业荣誉的执念也助长了“大豆事件”的混乱。J·C·法戈的情绪和偏见促成了旅行支票等迅捷而卓越的创举，但在快递业务上，他坚持的僵化政策却加速了该业务的衰亡。

While it is impossible to systematize Amexco’s success, it is nevertheless possible to make one generalization about the decision- making process throughout its history: ultimately, every decision came partly from the program and choice of an individual (or a few individuals) and was an expression of an individual will. The men in charge, the chief executives, did not alone make the choices or force the decisions; lower- ranking executives like Berry, Dalliba, Brooks, and Townsend imposed their ideas on American Express. And it did not matter in the end which management system Amexco had adopted. These men found ways through or around whatever structure existed to impose their views of what the company should do and what it should be. This is not a “great man” theory of corporate history. At times, these same men failed to effect their ideas; at other times, they succeeded, but their ideas were flawed, their reasoning inaccurate, or the management of their decisions, botched. Yet they did succeed in influencing or forcing decisions for change, and in the process affected the makeup and the destiny of American Express. To a large extent, Amexco became the sum of their individual visions, the effort of their individual wills; that above all is the story of American Express.  

虽然无法将美国运通的成功系统化，但仍可对其历来决策过程作出一条概括：最终，每一次决策都部分源自某个（或少数几个）个人的方案与选择，体现了个人的意志。掌舵者——首席执行官们——并非孤身作出或强行推动所有决定；贝里、达利巴、布鲁克斯、汤森等中层高管也将他们的想法注入了美国运通。最终，采用何种管理体系并不重要，这些人总能在既有结构中穿插或绕道，强加他们对公司应做什么、应成为什么的看法。这并非“伟人论”的企业史；这些人有时推动不成，有时成功却带着缺陷——想法偏颇、推理失当，或执行失控。但他们的确在影响甚至强迫变革决策的过程中，塑造了美国运通的构成和命运。在很大程度上，美国运通成为了他们个人愿景的总和、个人意志的结晶；这正是美国运通的核心故事。

Such historical understanding does not provide a predictive tool for other companies. Unlike management theory or economic analysis, the study of history cannot foretell how decisions will be made or should be made in the future. It can even be argued that the deeper one goes into the anatomy of a single decision, the more specific the issues become, the less applicable the decision becomes to other cases.  

这种历史层面的理解并不能为其他公司提供预测工具。与管理理论或经济分析不同，历史研究无法预言未来将如何作出决策或应当如何作出决策。甚至可以说，人们对单一决策的剖析越深入，问题就越具体，该决策对其他案例的适用性就越小。

Yet the American Express story is applicable to other businesses in this sense: in the end, decisions are a matter of vision and choice. Other businesses may face issues different from those of Amexco; they may have a less quirky history, undergo a more gradual evolution. But every company faces decisions that have no clear answer. No system provides those answers; no philosophy guarantees a right choice; no code offers a foolproof key to success.  

然而，美国运通的故事在某种意义上仍对其他企业具有借鉴意义：最终，决策归根结底是愿景与选择的问题。其他企业所面临的议题也许与美国运通不同；它们的历史可能不那么离奇，演进也更为渐进。但每家公司都会遇到没有明确答案的抉择。没有任何体系能给出这些答案；没有任何哲学能保证选择正确；也没有任何准则能提供万无一失的成功钥匙。

When a former senior executive of American Express heard the theme of this book, he laughed and said to me, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Disillusioning young business students by telling them how business decisions are really made: that there is no system, that decision making follows no rational plan, and that people make decisions sometimes for the worst of reasons?”  

当美国运通的一位前高管得知本书的主题时，他大笑并对我说：“你难道不觉得羞愧吗？要让年轻的商学院学生幻想破灭，告诉他们商业决策的真实面目：没有系统可循，决策过程没有理性规划，人们有时甚至出于最糟糕的理由来做决定？”

I see no reason for disillusion in the history of American Express, however. While some of its good fortune has been pure luck, that is part of any success. At the same time, Amexco’s story speaks of the value of the individual in corporate life. Its executives were not anonymous functionaries in a management system, reduced to performing jobs according to the latest buzzwords and slogans. Instead, they exercised their intuition and their insights, and demonstrated their willingness to face risk and uncertainty. They were wrong and they were right. But the story of American Express is of how much the company was dependent not on structure or theory but on its people.  

然而，我并不认为美国运通的历史值得让人感到幻灭。虽然它的一些好运纯属偶然，但任何成功都离不开运气。同时，美国运通的历程也彰显了个人在企业生活中的价值。它的高管并非管理体系中的无名职员，被迫按照最新的流行术语与口号履行职责；相反，他们运用了直觉与洞察，并展现了承担风险与不确定性的意愿。他们有时犯错，有时正确。但美国运通的故事说明，这家公司所依赖的，与其说是结构或理论，不如说是人本身。