2025-10-14 Tracy Britt Cool.What I Learned Working With Buffett
INTRODUCTION
引言
SHANE PARRISH: Tracy, welcome to the show.
SHANE PARRISH：Tracy，欢迎来到节目。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. I appreciate it.
TRACY BRITT COOL：谢谢你。能来到这里我很荣幸，非常感谢。
SHANE PARRISH: I want to start with what you’re reading recently.
SHANE PARRISH：我想先从你最近在读什么开始。
Current Reading and Influences
近期阅读与影响
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, so on the biographies, I just read Melinda Gates’ new transition book that she just came out with not too long ago, which I thought was super interesting. Reread Alan Mulally’s “American Icon,” which I think is fascinating in terms of a turnaround and the impact of that. Recently reread Kathryn Graham’s autobiography.
TRACY BRITT COOL：对，所以在传记类方面，我刚读完 Melinda Gates 不久前刚出版的那本关于“转变/转型”的新书，我觉得特别有意思。我又重读了 Alan Mulally 的《American Icon》，我认为它在讲“扭转局面（turnaround）”以及其影响方面非常精彩。最近也重读了 Kathryn Graham 的自传。
SHANE PARRISH: Yeah, so did I.
SHANE PARRISH：对，我也读了。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, it’s so amazing. So that’s been my focus and where I’ve found the most interest recently. And then also several books on parenting. So “The Anxious Generation,” obviously a lot of people are talking about. But that has spawned me going down a path on reading more about kids and free range kids, books like that of how to think about parenting and sort of this new world.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是啊，真的太精彩了。所以最近我的重点和兴趣主要在这些书上。除此之外我也读了几本育儿相关的书，比如《The Anxious Generation》，大家显然都在讨论它。它也促使我顺着这条线读了更多关于孩子、关于“free range kids（放养式孩子）”之类主题的书，帮助我思考在这个新世界里该如何做父母。
SHANE PARRISH: How many kids do you have?
SHANE PARRISH：你有几个孩子？
TRACY BRITT COOL: We have four.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们有四个。
SHANE PARRISH: Oh, gosh. Okay. What are the ages?
SHANE PARRISH：哇。好。都多大了？
TRACY BRITT COOL: 10, 7, 5 and 2.
TRACY BRITT COOL：10岁、7岁、5岁和2岁。
Lessons from Alan Mulally’s Turnaround
从 Alan Mulally 的“扭转局面”中得到的经验
SHANE PARRISH: Okay. We had Alan on the show. I’m curious what you took away from his biography.
SHANE PARRISH：好的。我们节目请过 Alan。我很好奇你从他的传记里带走了哪些收获。
TRACY BRITT COOL: I thought it was single handedly the best book in navigating a turnaround. The time in which he did a turnaround in the business, how challenging it was, the landscape in 2008, 2009, Ford, the auto industry. I mean, really, really challenging.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我觉得这本书可以说是关于“如何穿越并完成一次turnaround”的最佳读物。他在那样的时间点把企业扭转过来，难度极高——2008、2009年的大环境，Ford，整个汽车行业。真的、真的非常艰难。
And just the discipline with which he did it, everything from his team coming in and with green every week, even though he was trying to get them to celebrate having reds in the business and the challenges and how to learn from those and making mistakes is okay.
而且他执行时体现出的那种纪律性也令人震撼：从他要求团队每周汇报、大家一开始都报“green（绿灯）”，即便他其实是在努力引导他们去“庆祝出现red（红灯）”——也就是把问题、挑战摆到桌面上，学会从中学习，并且承认犯错是可以的。
So I really appreciated that insight and just how he did it.
所以我非常珍惜这些洞见，也很佩服他具体是怎么做到的。
Having done a turnaround at a much smaller scale, I was incredibly impressed with his focus on people, his focus on discipline, his focus on building a culture of continuous improvement, learning, making mistakes. I thought that was just really eye opening and just how he did it in the backdrop at the time he did it.
我自己也在更小的尺度上做过一次turnaround，所以我尤其被他对“人”的重视、对“纪律”的重视、以及他如何建立一种持续改进、持续学习、允许犯错的文化所震撼。我觉得这真的非常开眼界——尤其是在他所处的时代背景之下还能那样去做。
SHANE PARRISH: One of the things that he mentioned that still sticks with me to this day is he laid out his operating philosophy and then he said, “Well, if you’re not partaking in that, you’re choosing not to be a part of our team.” I thought that was a really interesting way of putting it back on the person that they’re making a choice whether they want to be part of the team or not.
SHANE PARRISH：他提到的一件事直到今天仍让我印象很深：他先把自己的经营哲学讲清楚，然后说：“如果你不参与其中，那就是你在选择不成为我们团队的一员。”我觉得这种说法很有意思——把选择权交还给对方：你是在决定自己要不要成为这个团队的一部分。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. I think when you’re in a company and you set a culture and expectations and an operating system, then you say to your employees, is this what you want to be part of? And if not, we understand that. And you can choose to leave the business, but if you want to stay here, you need to get on board.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的，我完全同意。我认为当你在一家公司里建立了文化、预期以及一套运行体系之后，你就应该对员工说：这是你想参与其中的东西吗？如果不是，我们也理解。你可以选择离开这家公司；但如果你想留在这里，那你就需要上车、跟上这套体系。
When I was CEO, we were going through transformation and I said to our team often, they almost told me to stop saying it was if you’re not having fun four days out of five in this new culture and environment, it’s probably not right fit for you. And we encourage you to move on. We’ll promote you to customer, whatever it may be. I think you want your team to be really committed, engaged, focused on driving the results, but also that it resonates with them and they care about it.
我当 CEO 的时候，我们正经历转型。我经常对团队说一句话，说得他们都快让我别再讲了：如果在这种新的文化和环境里，你一周五天里有四天都不觉得开心，那它大概率就不适合你。我们会鼓励你往前走、去寻找更合适的地方——不管怎么说，甚至“把你晋升为顾客”也行。我认为你希望你的团队是真正投入、参与、有主人翁精神、专注把结果做出来的；同时，这件事也必须与他们产生共鸣，让他们在意、愿意为之付出。
The Pampered Chef Turnaround
The Pampered Chef 的扭转与转型
SHANE PARRISH: And the turnaround you’re talking about is Pampered Chef. Can you walk me through that? What was that like?
SHANE PARRISH：你说的那次扭转局面发生在 Pampered Chef。你能带我过一遍吗？那段经历是什么样的？
TRACY BRITT COOL: It was really interesting. So I took the role at Pampered Chef having no prior experience operating a business. I had been at Berkshire for about five years. I really had a view that the investing landscape was shifting and more value would be created going forward on the operating side, but that very few investors actually have operating experience, especially on the more buyout side. You see it more in venture, but less on buyout.
TRACY BRITT COOL：那段经历非常有意思。我在接下 Pampered Chef 的角色时，之前并没有经营一家企业的一线经验。我在 Berkshire 大概工作了五年。我当时有一个判断：投资的格局正在变化，未来更多的价值会来自“运营端”的创造；但真正有运营经验的投资人其实很少，尤其是在收购这类领域。风险投资里更常见一些，但收购里反而更少。
And I thought I’d be a better investor if I went and got out of the boardroom, got into the war room and actually went and operated a business, so decided to become CEO of Pampered Chef.
我认为，如果我能走出董事会会议室、走进“作战室”，亲自下场去经营一家企业，我会成为更好的投资人。所以我决定去当 Pampered Chef 的 CEO。
Pampered Chef was a business that was in need of transformation. It had been in decline since Berkshire bought it for about 10 years. And the fundamentals were intact. It had a really strong brand and a strong channel. So the moat was really there in terms of the business, but it had lost its way. Not dissimilar from a lot of ebbs and flows of consumer businesses where you grow, but your customer changes or the world changes.
Pampered Chef 是一家需要转型的企业。自从 Berkshire 收购它之后，大概连续下滑了十年。但它的基本面其实还在：品牌很强、渠道也很强。从生意的角度看，护城河是真实存在的，只是公司走偏了方向。这和很多消费品企业的起伏很像：你曾经增长，但客户变了，或者世界变了。
And in that case, the world had changed quite significantly. And the Internet had come along in the early 2000s, which had fundamentally shifted the business. And then the customer started shopping differently and shopping online.
而在那种情况下，世界确实发生了很大的变化。2000年代初互联网兴起，从根本上改变了商业环境；随后消费者的购物方式也变了，开始转向线上购物。
Pampered Chef was originally started 45 years ago now by Doris Christopher in the basement of her home to really solve this need of providing high quality kitchenware products to families around the country through a direct sales model. So there were consultants who sold the products.
Pampered Chef 最初是在大约45年前由 Doris Christopher 在自家地下室创立的，核心是用直销模式来满足一个需求：把高质量的厨房用品带给全国各地的家庭。所以它有一群顾问（consultants）负责销售这些产品。
直销。
So in 2015 or 14, when I took over, it had 10 years of decline. So it was an interesting opportunity to come into a business that was in need of transformation, where there was this opportunity to rethink the business model, rethink the approach, but I’d never done it before. So it was a fundamentally new role for me to take on here in an industry I didn’t know. Ironically, I don’t cook, so I had to learn the basics. But it was a really great opportunity to do that.
所以在2015年或2014年我接手时，它已经下滑了十年。这就成了一个很有意思的机会：进入一家亟需转型的企业，有机会重新思考商业模式、重新思考做法，但我以前从没做过这件事。对我来说这几乎是一个完全新的角色，而且所在行业我也不熟。更讽刺的是，我并不做饭，所以我还得从基础开始学起。但这也确实是一个非常好的机会，让我去完成这些学习与实践。
Value Creation: From Investing to Operating
价值创造：从“投资端”转向“运营端”
SHANE PARRISH: There’s two things you said there that are really interesting to me, one of which was value creation moving from investing to operating. Tell me more about that.
SHANE PARRISH：你刚才说了两件事让我很感兴趣，其中之一是“价值创造正在从投资端转向运营端”。能展开讲讲吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think for a long time in the investing world on the buyout side, what you saw was there was opportunity to buy businesses at seven, eight, nine times. And then, you know, a few years later, some minor improvements, sell them for 10, 11, 12 times.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我认为在很长一段时间里，在 buyout 这类投资世界里，你能看到的机会是：以七倍、八倍、九倍（估值倍数）买入企业；然后过几年做一些小幅改善，再以十倍、十一倍、十二倍卖出。
I think that that has shifted because capital is now commoditized. There’s a lot more capital available to sellers than there ever has been. For example, in the 1980s, there were 20 to 25 private equity firms. In 2020, we got close to 20,000 in the US, so significant shift in terms of the capital that was out there as sellers, rightfully so, gaining more of that value when they’re being partnered with.
我认为这种情况已经变化了，因为资本现在变成了“商品化”的东西。卖方可获得的资金，比过去任何时候都多。举个例子：在 1980 年代，private equity firm 大概只有 20 到 25 家；到 2020 年，在美国接近 20,000 家——这意味着市场上的资本供给发生了巨大变化，因此卖方在与资本方“结成合作伙伴”时，也就理所当然地能够拿走更多价值。
这是一个新的事实。
That means you have value after the partnership starts. And that means more of a focus on operating traditional private equity. The focus is very short term. You buy a business, you’re focused on selling it three to four years later. And in doing that, I think what ultimately happens is you make short term decisions about the businesses.
这就意味着：真正的价值更多是在“合作开始之后”才要被创造出来。于是传统 private equity 就必须更聚焦在“运营”。而传统 private equity 的关注点往往很短期：你买下一家公司，目标通常是三到四年后卖掉。在这种框架下，我认为最终往往会导致你对企业做出很多短期决策。
And if you’re going to really create long term value, I think there’s a value of having a longer term approach. When I wanted to go become an operator, it was, I know I’m going to need to create value in companies. Once you partner with them, how do I think about that and how do I become a better operator? It’ll make me a better investor.
但如果你要真正创造长期价值，我认为“更长期的视角”本身就有价值。当我想去做 operator 时，我的想法是：我知道我将需要在公司里创造价值——在你与企业成为合作伙伴之后，我该怎么思考这件事？我又该如何成为更好的 operator？这会让我成为更好的投资人。
Why Companies Struggle to Adapt
为什么公司难以适应变化
SHANE PARRISH: I want to go back to something you said earlier about the changing landscape and companies not adapting. Is it complacency? Is it they’re running the business on a map that’s outdated? Why is it companies have a hard time adapting to reality?
SHANE PARRISH：我想回到你前面说的“环境在变化，但公司不适应”。是因为自满吗？还是因为他们在用一张过时的地图来经营？为什么公司这么难适应现实？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think there’s a few reasons it happens. One is I think change is happening faster and faster than it ever has. And it’s very hard when you’re managing a business and you’re focused on your customer and your focus on your product or your service to also focus on this outside world and landscape.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我觉得原因有好几个。第一是变化发生得越来越快，超过了以往任何时候。而当你在管理一家企业、把注意力放在客户、产品或服务上时，要同时再把注意力放在外部世界和大环境上，是非常难的。
Attention，把这个排在第一是非常正确的。
You have things like Covid, tariffs, supply chain. There’s always something happening. Now, AI, what does that mean for your business and how do you navigate it? It’s also a lot of false starts. You don’t know, is this one here to stay or is this something that’s going to be gone quickly? And I think as a leader, that’s challenging to navigate.
你会遇到像 Covid、tariffs、supply chain 这样的事情——总会有事情发生。现在又有 AI：它对你的业务意味着什么？你要怎么应对？而且还会有很多“假起步”（false starts）：你不知道这是一个会长期存在的趋势，还是会很快消失的东西。我认为作为领导者，要在这种不确定性里导航是很困难的。
I think second is if you think about most leaders, they usually grow up in a business oftentimes. And when you grow up in a business, you become an expert in that business, in that field, in that industry. But sometimes you don’t have the perspective of seeing other industries that perhaps have come before you that are different but similar in terms of what happened.
第二个原因是：多数领导者往往是在某个业务里一路成长起来的。当你在一家公司或一个行业里成长，你会成为这个业务、这个领域、这个行业的专家。但有时你缺少一种视角：去看到其他行业——可能在你之前就经历过类似的变化，只是表象不同，但机制相似。
And so you lose some of that perspective. You gain the depth of experience, but that perspective is harder to have. And I think for us is, how do we help leaders think about that and help them see around the curves? That might be true challenging. But I think those are a couple of reasons that it’s becoming more difficult for leaders.
于是你会丢失一部分“跨行业的视角”。你获得了深度经验，但那种视角更难具备。我认为对我们来说，问题是：我们如何帮助领导者用这种方式思考，帮助他们“看到弯道之后”（see around the curves）？这可能真的很难。但我认为这些就是让领导者越来越难做决策的几个原因。
Growing Up on a Farm in Manhattan, Kansas
在 Kansas 的 Manhattan 农场长大
SHANE PARRISH: Let’s go back all the way to the beginning. You grew up on a farm in Manhattan, Kansas, is that correct?
SHANE PARRISH：我们从最开始讲起吧。你是在 Kansas 的 Manhattan 一个农场长大的，对吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. When I went to college, people would often say, where are you from? And I’d say, Manhattan, because that’s what you say in Kansas. And people will start asking, oh, are you from the Upper East Side? Or where? I’m like, well, there’s not really an Upper East Side. And I quickly realized Kansas was sufficient in saying where I’m from, because most people don’t fully appreciate there’s another Manhattan that’s much smaller.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我上大学以后，人们经常问我：你来自哪里？我会说 Manhattan，因为在 Kansas 你就是这么说的。然后大家就会接着问：哦，你是从 Upper East Side 来的吗？还是哪里？我就会说：嗯，这里其实没有什么 Upper East Side。很快我就意识到，直接说 Kansas 就够了，因为大多数人并不知道还有另一个 Manhattan——而且要小得多。
SHANE PARRISH: What are some of the lessons you remember from growing up on the farm and the responsibilities that you had at such a young age and how you think about that in relation to parenting now?
SHANE PARRISH：你从农场的成长经历里记得哪些教训？你在很小的年纪就承担了哪些责任？以及你现在作为父母，会如何把这些经历联系起来思考育儿？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I joke. I spent much of my life trying to get off the farm, and now I want a farm for my own kids because I think it’s such a valuable landscape to learn and to learn work ethic and commitment and problem solving, all the things that come with being on a farm.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我开玩笑说，我人生很大一部分时间都在努力“离开农场”，但现在我反而想给自己的孩子弄个农场，因为我觉得那是一个特别有价值的环境：能学习、能培养工作伦理、承诺感、解决问题能力——农场生活自带的所有那些东西。
My dad, you know, he owned this farm, and he loved it. And so the first lesson I learned, when you find something you love, it really is a passion and something that you enjoy, and you’re not really working. My dad worked harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. You know, late at night, early in the mornings, all summer long, all throughout the winter. He took a small break, but that was about it for him. And it wasn’t working. It was what he loved. That passion was something that I recognized and saw early on.
我父亲拥有这个农场，而且他热爱它。所以我学到的第一课是：当你找到你真正热爱的事情，那就会变成一种热情、变成你享受的东西，你并不觉得自己是在“工作”。我父亲比我见过的任何人都更努力：深夜还在干、清晨又起来，整个夏天如此、整个冬天也如此。他会短暂歇一下，但基本就这样了。但对他来说那不是工作——那就是他所爱的事。他那种热情是我很早就看见并且记在心里的。
Second, I learned a lot of independence on a farm. Just the nature of it is, you’re figuring things out. There’s a lot of inherent dangers or risks. I was driving when I was 11, 12 years old on the farm. Not necessarily on the road yet, but I learned how to navigate unfamiliar situations, which was an important lesson for me early on.
第二，我在农场学到了很强的独立性。农场的本质就是：你必须自己摸索、自己把事情弄明白。那里也天然存在很多危险和风险。我 11、12 岁就在农场开车了——还不算真正上公路，但我学会了如何在陌生情境中做判断、去应对，这对我来说是很早的一堂关键课。
Early Business Lessons from a Farmer’s Market Stand
从农贸市场摊位学到的早期商业课
And then I also learned an essence business from a very fundamentally young age. When I was probably in third, fourth grade, I started running my own farmer’s market stand. And so my dad would take me down in the morning, drop me off. I would run it for the day, and he’d come pick me up at the end of the day.
此外，我在非常小的年纪就学到了商业的核心要义。大概在三、四年级的时候，我开始经营自己的农贸市场摊位。父亲早上会把我送过去、把我放下；我自己经营一整天；到晚上他再来接我回去。
And we got really busy and I started hiring my friends and I got to practice. Do I pay them by the hour? Do I pay them a commission? Do I pay them a bonus? How do I get the best performance out of them? I started thinking about supply and demand and pricing.
生意变得很忙之后，我开始雇我的朋友们，于是就有了实践：我是按小时付钱？按提成付钱？还是给奖金？我怎样才能让他们发挥出最好的表现？我也开始思考供需关系和定价。
I saw as we grew watermelons beginning of the season, they were $8 each when they were very limited. By the height of the season, when we had a lot, they were $2 each. Learning fundamentals of a business was really valuable, even if it was a farmer’s market stand.
我看到我们种的西瓜在季初因为供应很少，一个能卖到 8 美元；到了旺季，供应多了，一个就只卖 2 美元。即便只是一个农贸市场摊位，学习商业的基本规律也非常有价值。
I could get better and better every week. I could build the foundation of how to have a repeatable, scalable system to improve my odds of success. And I saw our farmer’s market stand going from making $500 a week to $1,000 to $1,500 by the time, you know, I had really scaled it up, which was great for me and really just a fascinating learning experience.
我每周都能做得更好一点。我能打下基础：如何建立一个可重复、可扩展的系统，来提高成功概率。我也亲眼看到我们的摊位从每周赚 500 美元，到 1,000 美元，再到 1,500 美元——在我真正把它“规模化”之后。这对我来说非常棒，也是一段特别迷人的学习经历。
SHANE PARRISH: Was this your parents helping you or all self driven, reading and applying?
SHANE PARRISH：这是你父母在帮助你，还是完全靠你自驱——自己读、自己学、自己应用？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, definitely self driven. My dad, I was the youngest of seven kids. He had been married previously, so four from his first marriage and three from ours. And what I saw in that was he just let me help me do a lot. Probably more so than your average kid because he was older and he had seven kids and he had sort of seen it all.
TRACY BRITT COOL：对，绝对是自驱的。我父亲那边——我是七个孩子里最小的一个。他之前结过婚，所以前一段婚姻有四个孩子，我们这边有三个。我从中看到的是：他让我做很多事情、也允许我参与很多事情。可能比一般孩子更多，因为他年纪更大了，又有七个孩子，很多事他都“见过了”，也就更放手。
And my brother navigated sort of the farming part of the business. That wasn’t my passion, but the business side I did love. And so it started out small, my own farmer’s market stand. But over time, it was running our whole store and running more and more of the business.
我哥哥更多负责的是生意里偏“种植/农场”那一部分。那不是我的热情所在，但我确实很喜欢商业这一侧。所以一开始只是我自己的农贸市场摊位；但慢慢地，我开始管理我们整个店面，承担越来越多的经营工作。
And I think he appreciated it. It wasn’t my dad’s passion either. He loved the farming side and it was an opportunity to really learn and grow and try different things in a relatively safe space, which was really amazing.
我觉得他也很欣赏这一点。商业经营也不是我父亲的热情所在——他热爱的是种植和农场那一侧。于是这就成了一个机会：让我在一个相对安全的空间里真正去学习、成长、尝试不同的做法——这真的非常难得。
SHANE PARRISH: Where did the ambition come from to go to Harvard?
SHANE PARRISH：你去 Harvard 的那股雄心/冲劲是从哪里来的？
TRACY BRITT COOL: It wasn’t as structured or as disciplined as I would have thought. I knew I wanted to leave the farm. As much as I liked the business side, it was hard. It was a very, very hard manual work. And I wanted to get off the farm and go do something else. I didn’t know what that something else was, but I knew I wanted to leave in high school, decided education was the way to get there.
TRACY BRITT COOL：它并没有我以为的那么“结构化”或“自律规划”。我知道我想离开农场。即便我喜欢商业那一面，农场生活依然很辛苦——是非常、非常辛苦的体力劳动。我想离开农场去做别的事。我不知道“别的事”具体是什么，但我在高中就知道自己想走，于是认定教育是到达那里的路径。
And I had always had good grades and done a lot of extracurriculars and managed a lot on a farm. But I wanted to apply to a lot of colleges, and I didn’t know which one, I didn’t know where. I just knew I could apply to all these schools and I probably could get into one or two that I’d be interested in going to. So I just sort of applied everywhere because I didn’t know anyone at that time who had gone to Harvard or other schools, really outside of Kansas. And so it was a great opportunity for me to just put my hat in the ring and sort of see what would come from it.
我一直成绩不错，也参加了很多课外活动，在农场也承担了很多管理工作。但我想申请很多大学，我不知道该选哪一所、也不知道该去哪里。我只知道：我可以把这些学校都申请一遍，可能会有一两所我会很想去、也有机会进。所以我就几乎到处都投了申请——因为当时我不认识任何一个去过 Harvard 或其他名校的人，基本都在 Kansas 之外。于是对我来说，这就是一个把自己放进候选池、试试看会发生什么的机会。
SHANE PARRISH: And then you immediately went to HBS after. What was the decision making process like to just do an undergrad and then write into HBS? You knew what you wanted, I assume.
SHANE PARRISH：然后你紧接着就去了 HBS。你当时是怎么决策的——本科读完就直接进 HBS？我猜你当时已经知道自己想要什么了。
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think there were a couple components. One is I had a mentor who had done something similar at a different school and she had really advocated if I knew what I wanted to do, that it was a path that allowed more efficiency and also not having to revisit it later in life. At that stage, I had found business, I had found investing. I knew I was passionate about those areas. I felt like I had a clear direction of what I wanted to go do.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我觉得主要有几个因素。第一是我有一位导师，她在另一所学校做过类似的选择。她非常支持我：如果我已经知道自己想做什么，那么这条路径更高效，也不用以后的人生里再回头补一次。那时候我已经找到了“商业”，也找到了“投资”，我知道自己对这些领域有热情。我觉得我对自己要去做什么已经有了清晰方向。
I also think going straight from college to business school, which I advise to students now, is you really on three metrics. You need to make sure you’re ready. So socially, you’re going to be with students who are much older than you are on average. Academically, can you bring something to the classroom that’s valuable and insightful? And then career wise, you’re going to be competing for jobs with other people who have more experience than you.
我也认为，从大学直接去读商学院——我现在也会这样建议学生——关键要看三个指标：你必须确认自己“准备好了”。社交层面：你身边的同学平均会比你年长很多；学术层面：你是否能为课堂带来有价值、有洞见的贡献；职业层面：你会和更有经验的人竞争工作机会。
Socially, I’d always felt like I was older than my peers. I think the nature of growing up again in a farm or a family business is you oftentimes just get more independence and you age a little bit quicker. Second, I think in terms of academically, I hadn’t been in a traditional career, but I had run our family business from a young age. And so I felt like I had experiences to draw from that would help me in the classroom and be relevant. And then third, from a career perspective, I didn’t know where to go, but I felt like I’d figure it out. And I wasn’t as worried about that. That wasn’t what I was going to business school for. It was to learn and grow and become a better person in terms of my own expertise and skills.
社交方面，我一直觉得自己比同龄人更“成熟”一点。我想这和在农场、在家族生意里长大有关：你往往更独立，也会更早“长大”。第二，学术方面，我虽然没有走一条传统职业路径，但我从很小就开始经营我们家的生意，所以我觉得自己有很多可以拿来用的经历，能在课堂上帮助我、也很相关。第三，职业方面，我当时并不知道具体要去哪里，但我相信我能想办法搞清楚。我也没有那么担心那件事——那并不是我去读商学院的主要目的。我去商学院是为了学习、成长，并在自己的专业能力和技能上成为更好的人。
思路很清晰，这是天生的能力。
Writing Letters to CEOs
给 CEO 写信
SHANE PARRISH: And then when it came to finding a job, my understanding is you wrote a whole bunch of letters to different CEOs. Tell me about that.
SHANE PARRISH：然后到了找工作的时候，据我了解，你给很多不同公司的 CEO 写了很多信。跟我讲讲这件事？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I actually started writing letters in college to CEOs, and I just wanted to learn. So I wrote letters to different CEOs in business and in finance saying, can I come and pick your brain? I wrote a letter to Ace Greenberg at Bear Stearns, and he graciously said, yes, come down and visit. And so I came, went to the trading floor, sat with him for a couple of hours, and he just answered my questions as I thought about investing.
TRACY BRITT COOL：其实我在大学时就开始给 CEO 写信了，我只是想学习。所以我给商界和金融界不同的 CEO 写信，问他们：我能不能来请教你（pick your brain）？我给 Bear Stearns 的 Ace Greenberg 写过一封信，他很慷慨地答应了：可以，你来吧。于是我就去了，参观了 trading floor，跟他坐了几个小时；我在思考投资时提出的问题，他就一一回答。
He was obviously a legend in the finance field, but he was gracious and willing to spend time with me. And I think that was a huge lesson for me because people want to help other people and they especially want to help young people. Being a student, I was able to get access to people who otherwise probably would have said no, and they probably should have in terms of their time. They were very busy, but it was a really great opportunity.
他显然是金融领域的传奇人物，但他非常友善，也愿意把时间给我。我觉得这对我来说是一堂非常大的课：人们其实愿意帮助别人，尤其愿意帮助年轻人。作为学生，我能接触到一些人——换成别的身份，他们可能会说“不”，从时间成本上他们也完全应该说“不”。他们很忙，但对我来说那是一次非常难得的机会。
I’d written one of those letters to Warren Buffett to bring a group of students out to Omaha in college and got to know them a little bit. Through that, I wasn’t actually writing letters for jobs, I was writing letters to learn. And then when I graduated, I had a full time job lined up. I’d been an intern and then come back full time at a company. When I met Warren over the student group visits, I decided to write him a letter. And so that’s how I ultimately ended up at Berkshire.
我也给 Warren Buffett 写过这样一封信——当时是在大学里，想带一群学生去 Omaha 参访，也因此跟他们有了一点接触。通过这些，我其实并不是为了找工作才写信，我是为了学习才写信。后来我毕业时已经有一份全职工作安排好了——我先在一家公司实习，然后准备回去全职。只是在学生团体参访过程中见到 Warren 之后，我决定给他写一封信，最后我就是这样进入 Berkshire 的。
少见的安全感，跟乔布斯一样。
Lessons from Berkshire
从 Berkshire 学到的东西
SHANE PARRISH: What do you take away from Berkshire? You worked there 10 years, right?
SHANE PARRISH：你从 Berkshire 带走了什么？你在那里工作了 10 年，对吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think Warren is very gracious with his learning and his knowledge, and he shares it widely. He shares it at the annual meetings, he shares it at the annual letters. And I feel like I got a front row seat to really understanding that and seeing it in action. But I think the lessons are timeless and they’re what he espouses relatively consistently through those maxims, which I think is great because everyone can learn from him.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我觉得 Warren 对自己的学习与知识非常慷慨，他愿意广泛分享。他在 annual meetings 分享，也在 annual letters 分享。我感觉自己像坐在第一排，能真正理解这一点，并看到它如何在现实中被执行。但我认为这些教训是“超越时间”的，而且他通过那些格言（maxims）持续、稳定地反复强调。我觉得这很好，因为每个人都可以从他身上学到东西。
But really the value of long term thinking and long term compounding, the eighth wonder of the world, compounding and the value of that. And if you think long term and are set up structurally to think long term, there’s a lot of value in that.
但最核心的是：长期思维与长期复利的价值——“世界第八大奇迹”复利，以及它的威力。如果你能用长期视角思考，并且在结构上把自己设置成“能长期思考”，那里面有巨大价值。
Second, the value of people and finding the right people with high integrity, people who care about what they’re doing, and then giving them the right incentives and the right encouragement. Warren gave those people around him, his CEOs or others, really great autonomy and high expectations, but really let people have flexibility. And I saw the value of that.
第二是人的价值：找到高诚信（high integrity）的 right people，找到真正在乎自己所做之事的人，然后给他们正确的激励与鼓励。Warren 给他身边的人——他的 CEOs 或其他人——非常大的自主权，同时也有很高的期望，但他确实让人们拥有很大的弹性与自由度。我看到了这种做法的价值。
And then lastly, just the value of continuous learning improvement. Warren reads every single day, gets smarter, gets better. Those in the Berkshire ecosystem do the same. And I think that was something that resonated with me from when I was a kid on the farm. My dad also focused on getting better and continuous improvement in a different field. But it was something that I saw reinforced at Berkshire.
最后是持续学习与持续改进的价值。Warren 每天都读书，变得更聪明、更好。Berkshire 生态里的人也一样。我觉得这与我在农场当孩子时的体验很共振：我父亲也在另一个领域里强调“变得更好”和持续改进。但在 Berkshire，我看到这种东西被再次强化与验证。
SHANE PARRISH: So why leave?
SHANE PARRISH：那为什么离开？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Berkshire is a phenomenal place. I mean, it’s unique, it’s one of a kind. I don’t think there’ll be another one by any means. But Berkshire is very large in terms of capital. It’s hard to deploy capital, it’s hard to find really great investments, but it’s also especially hard when you’re very large.
TRACY BRITT COOL：Berkshire 是个非常了不起的地方——独一无二，我不认为会再有第二个。但 Berkshire 在资本规模上非常大。资金越大越难部署，越难找到真正优秀的投资；而当你大到那个程度时，这件事会尤其困难。
I saw this opportunity to help mid-sized companies with a long term approach with creating value. As much as I love my time at Berkshire and would have been happy there forever, felt like there was this opportunity to create something new and special that was serving a market that really wasn’t. I didn’t think being served well today.
我看到一个机会：用长期的方法去帮助中型公司创造价值。尽管我非常热爱在 Berkshire 的时光，也完全可以一辈子待在那里，但我感觉有一个机会去创造一些新的、特别的东西，去服务一个当前并没有被很好服务的市场。
对Right Business、Right People有自己的理解，这两点之前是对自己的能力圈有清醒的认知。
The Kenbrick Framework
Kenbrick 框架
SHANE PARRISH: Let’s dive into Kenbrick a little. Compare and contrast the framework at Berkshire and what you’re doing that’s different.
SHANE PARRISH：我们深入聊聊 Kenbrick 吧。对比一下 Berkshire 的框架，以及你们在做的有哪些不同。
TRACY BRITT COOL: It’s hard to say what’s similar in a sense because Berkshire is so unique and special. It’s one of a kind. And I don’t think we think that we’re going to replicate that by any means. What we’re trying to do is really focus on long term, creating a long term structure with a long term horizon to buy and build businesses with the right approach that we think is valuable to the companies, valuable to employees, customers and ultimately investors.
TRACY BRITT COOL：从某种意义上说，很难讲“相似之处”，因为 Berkshire 太独特、太特别了——它是独一无二的。我不认为我们会以任何方式去复制它。我们真正想做的是聚焦长期：建立一个长期的结构、长期的时间跨度，用我们认为正确的方法去收购并建设（buy and build）企业，让这种方法对公司本身有价值、对员工有价值、对客户有价值，最终也对投资人有价值。
Second is finding high quality businesses that have some sort of moat or competitive advantage. Great businesses are hard to find. And when you find a great business with a moat or competitive advantage and you have a long runway, you can really invest behind that.
第二是寻找高质量企业——它们必须拥有某种护城河或竞争优势。真正的好企业很难找到。但当你找到一家有护城河/竞争优势、并且你拥有很长的跑道（long runway）时，你就可以在它身后进行真正的投入（invest behind that）。
And then I think for us, in terms of one thing that we do distinctively different than Berkshire is we’re much more hands on operationally. And that came from when I was CEO. When I was CEO, what I felt like was it was very lonely, it was challenging, it was hard. And I was out navigating and trying to find resources, support, people would come before me who could help me in that seat.
然后我认为我们与 Berkshire 明显不同的一点是：我们在运营上更“亲自下场”（hands on）。这来自我当 CEO 的经历。当时我的感受是：非常孤独、非常有挑战、非常艰难。我在外面不断摸索、寻找资源与支持，寻找有没有在我之前坐过那个位置、能够帮助我把事情做得更好的人。
And I kept thinking it would be so nice if there was someone who could tell me how to do a great strategic planning process or how to improve my hiring skills or how to build the right culture or what does great look like in these different aspects of managing a business. And so when Brian Humphrey and I started Kenbrick, we really wanted to focus on how do we build a system that we can help these mid-sized companies and be the resource that we wanted. When we were operators, we built the Kenbrick business system, really focused on that.
我不断在想：如果有人能告诉我——如何做一套很好的战略规划流程、如何提升招聘能力、如何打造正确的文化、在企业管理的不同方面“什么才叫做优秀”（what does great look like）——那该多好。所以当我和 Brian Humphrey 创立 Kenbrick 时，我们很想聚焦的问题就是：我们如何构建一套系统，去帮助这些中型公司，成为我们当年作为 operator 时最希望拥有的那种资源。于是我们建立了 Kenbrick business system，核心就是围绕这些能力去做。
Defining Long Term Thinking
如何定义“长期思维”
SHANE PARRISH: There’s so much to unpack there. I want to go back to maybe the first jumping off point there, which is long term. Everybody says long term, that’s become this sort of thing that’s easy to say. And what’s the difference between saying it and living it?
SHANE PARRISH：这里面有太多可以拆开讲的。我想回到第一个起点——“长期”。人人都说长期，这已经变成一句很容易说出口的话。那“说长期”和“活成长期”之间的差别是什么？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think of it in three different ways. One is, do you think long term? Do you have a long term horizon in perspective? A lot of people can say I think long term. And they may, but that’s only one component.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我会从三个层面来理解。第一，你是否“在思维上”真的长期？你是否在视角上拥有一个长期的时间跨度？很多人都可以说自己长期思考，他们也可能确实是，但这只是其中一个组成部分。
The second is, do you have a structure that actually allows you to think long term? Because if you naturally have a structure that doesn’t allow for that or doesn’t encourage that, you’re going to be pitting yourself with your long term horizon against your structure that is going to encourage you to make shorter term decisions. In essence, if you’re focused on selling a business in three to five years, you’re going to make short term decisions if your structure is going to require you or incentivize you to do that.
第二，你是否拥有一种“结构”，它真的允许你长期思考？因为如果你的组织结构天然不允许、或不鼓励长期，那你就会陷入一种对抗：你脑子里想长期，但你的结构会不断鼓励你做短期决策。本质上，如果你的目标是三到五年卖掉企业，而你的结构又要求你、或激励你这么做，你就一定会做短期决策。
And then the third is, I think there’s differing degrees of long term. There is the 50 year long term, which I think is really, really long term. And then there’s differing gradients of that that can be thought about. And I don’t think all long term is equal and I don’t think you need to do 50 years to be sort of long term. I think there’s some in the middle that allows you to take advantage of that horizon, take advantage of that structure, but give you some flexibility where you’re not locking yourself up forever.
第三，我认为“长期”还有不同的程度。比如 50 年的长期——我觉得那是真的、非常非常长期；然后在它下面还有不同的梯度可供思考。我不认为所有“长期”都一样，也不认为你必须做到 50 年才算长期。我觉得中间有一些区间：既能让你利用长期视角、利用长期结构的优势，同时又给你一定弹性，不至于把自己永远锁死。
这跟巴菲特的想法有些区别，长期的思维方式跟注意力的习惯有关，外部环境能左右处于正态分布中间的人，但处于极值的才是真正有安全边际的选择。
SHANE PARRISH: Even if you’re a long term thinker, it’s kind of weird, right? Because you’re thinking about longer duration, 25 or 50 years, but you have to act today.
SHANE PARRISH：即便你是个长期思考者，这也挺“怪”的，对吧？因为你在想的是 25 或 50 年的长期，但你必须在今天采取行动。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yes, we always say that there’s a balance of short term and long term. You can’t only think about the long term. If you only think about the long term, you probably won’t get out of the short term because you’re going to miss the situations of today, the short term sort of dynamics.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的，我们总说短期与长期之间要有一种平衡。你不能只想着长期。如果你只想着长期，你反而可能走不出短期，因为你会忽略“今天正在发生的事情”、忽略短期的那些动态变化。
When we were at Pampered Chef, we were turning around the business. Brian was the CFO, I was the CEO and we had a management team that was helping us drive this transformation. And we were a couple years into the turnaround and the business was actually doing quite well. And then in year three, we had this sort of setback and what we saw was we were focusing too much on the long term. Our long term strategic initiatives, our investments in international growth and new categories. We had lost sight of the fundamentals, blocking and tackling of today.
我们在 Pampered Chef 的时候是在做turnaround。Brian 当时是 CFO，我是 CEO，我们有一个管理团队在推动这场转型。turnaround 进行了两年左右，业务其实做得挺好。但到第三年，我们遇到了一次“回撤/挫折”。我们发现原因之一是：我们把注意力放得太偏长期了——长期战略项目、国际化增长投入、开拓新品类投入。我们反而忽略了基本功，忽略了当下“每天要做的那些基本动作”（blocking and tackling）。
And what we had thought was, hey, we had focused on those for two years, we had improved them. Now we could go set our sights on longer term thinking. But in reality you have to manage the short term and you have to manage the long term. And I think for us, as we had to refocus, really work on the sales today, the sort of challenges we were facing in the moment in order to give us the space to think about the long term as well.
我们原先以为：嘿，我们已经连续两年把基本功抓好了，也把它们改善了；现在我们可以把视线放到更长期的事情上了。但现实是：你必须同时管理短期，也必须同时管理长期。对我们来说，那次教训迫使我们重新聚焦——回到“今天的销售”，回到“此刻正在面对的挑战”，把当下的地基重新夯实，才能给自己腾出空间去做长期思考。
SHANE PARRISH: You mentioned blocking and tackling, and I think there’s a point to be made there perhaps about how we get trapped in complexity and making things overly complicated. And sometimes it just comes down to remembering the basics. As Munger would say, “take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
SHANE PARRISH：你提到 blocking and tackling，我觉得这里或许有个值得强调的点：我们很容易被复杂性困住，把事情搞得过于复杂。有时候其实只需要回到基本功。就像 Munger 会说的：“take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yes. I mean, I think that oftentimes we think of the big things. We could go, what should the strategy look like? Or what’s the future vision of this? Or what’s it going to mean versus how do we do the fundamentals and do the fundamentals well?
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我觉得很多时候我们会先去想“大东西”：战略应该是什么样？未来愿景是什么？这件事最终意味着什么？而不是去问：我们该如何把基本功做好、把基本功做扎实？
And I think some of the best CEOs out there focused on the fundamentals. I mean, Sam Walton at Walmart, he was all about the fundamentals and he was in a store every week and multiple stores every week focused on how do we deliver for our customers more effectively. That is a really important skill set that is oftentimes undervalued or underappreciated.
我认为一些最优秀的 CEO 恰恰是最专注基本功的人。比如 Walmart 的 Sam Walton，他就是“基本功至上”。他每周都会去门店，而且一周去好几家门店，关注的都是：我们怎么能更有效地为客户交付价值？这是一项非常重要的技能，但常常被低估、被忽视。
复杂问题简单化不等于脱离现场，而是用更简洁优雅的知识结构提高做事的效率。
And I think that’s really important, especially in mid-sized companies where there’s a lot of blocking and tackling to be done every single day. And oftentimes that rises all the way up to the management team and the CEO. It’s not something where just your front line can handle the blocking and tackling. Really, everyone needs to be focused on it.
我认为这点尤其重要，特别是在中型公司里：每天都有大量 blocking and tackling 需要完成。而且这些事情往往会一路上升到管理层、甚至 CEO 这里；并不是说只有一线员工能处理这些基本动作。实际上，所有人都必须把注意力放在这些基本功上。
Changing the Team at Pampered Chef
Pampered Chef 的团队更替
SHANE PARRISH: Was the turnaround at Pampered Chef with the same people or was there a changeover in a lot of the team?
SHANE PARRISH：Pampered Chef 的turnaround是靠原班人马完成的，还是团队有很大程度的更替？
TRACY BRITT COOL: In this situation at Pampered Chef, we did change much of the team. The business had been in decline for about 10 years and during that period we saw a lot of probably great people in the organization leave or they’ve had the skill sets that we needed for the transformation weren’t there or had atrophied. And so we needed an infusion of talent.
TRACY BRITT COOL：在 Pampered Chef 这个案例里，我们确实更换了团队中很大一部分人。公司下滑了大约十年，在那段时期里，组织里很多可能很优秀的人离开了；或者说，我们做转型所需要的那些技能并不存在，或者已经萎缩、退化了。所以我们需要“注入新的人才”。
So as an example, when I started at Pampered Chef, 10% of the business was digital, 90% was sold in person through in person parties. Employees didn’t even have laptops. And what we saw was, wow, but customers shifting dramatically. They’re shopping more online, they’re shopping more mobile, and we’re selling through an in person party model.
举个例子：我刚到 Pampered Chef 时，业务里只有 10% 是数字化的，90% 还是通过线下聚会（in person parties）的方式面对面销售。员工甚至都没有 laptops。我们看到的是：哇，客户在发生剧烈转变——他们越来越多地在线上购物、在手机上购物，而我们却仍然在用“线下聚会”的模式卖货。
So we needed to shift our mindset to say, okay, how do we actually meet customers where they are and what’s important to them in that process. And what we found in doing that was we needed to be more digitally focused and we needed to shift our own thinking about technology from back office and support to a true revenue generator.
所以我们需要改变思维方式：好，那我们到底如何在客户所在之处与他们相遇（meet customers where they are）？在那个过程中他们真正重视的是什么？我们发现要做到这一点，我们必须更聚焦数字化，并且要把我们对“技术”的理解从“后台支持/后勤系统”转变为“真正的收入生成器”（revenue generator）。
And so we needed a new leader in technology and then ultimately much of a new technology team and marketing and sales. To really complement that, we brought in a new leader who really transformed how he thought about technology and then how we serve the customer. We took the business from 10% sort of digital to 75%.
因此我们需要一位新的技术负责人，并且最终需要一个很大程度上全新的技术团队，以及营销与销售团队。为了配合这件事，我们引入了一位新的领导者，他真正改变了自己对技术的理解，也改变了我们服务客户的方式。我们把业务从“约 10% 数字化”提升到了 75%。
Now we still did that through the channel. So through the sales consultants, we didn’t go on Amazon or sell direct, but we actually really focused on how do we utilize our competitive advantage, which was the channel, but help them be more effective digitally. But I think it’s a good example of sometimes you need a different skill set or a different experience to go where you need to go in a business. And sometimes the legacy team doesn’t always have that.
当然，我们仍然是通过原有渠道来完成这件事的——也就是通过 sales consultants（销售顾问）来卖。我们没有去 Amazon，也没有做直接面向消费者的 direct sales。但我们真正聚焦的是：如何利用我们的竞争优势——也就是渠道——同时让这个渠道在数字化环境里更有效率。我觉得这是一个很好的例子：有时候企业要去到下一个目的地，需要一套不同的技能或不同的经验；而老团队（legacy team）不一定总具备这些。
Attracting Talent to a Declining Business
在下滑的企业里吸引人才
SHANE PARRISH: What was it like attracting talent to declining business? And I liken this maybe to sports, right? If you’re on a team that’s 0 and 17, it’s really hard to attract free agents that are capable and competent and who can change the culture. They’re sort of waiting to see progress before they jump in or waiting to see a critical mass. How did you go about attracting talent to that?
SHANE PARRISH：在一家下滑的公司里吸引人才是什么感觉？我把它类比成体育：如果一支球队战绩是 0 胜 17 负，你很难吸引那些有能力、能改变文化的自由球员。他们往往会等看到进展再加入，或者等到形成某种“临界规模”。你当时是怎么做的，才能吸引到人才？
TRACY BRITT COOL: It was something we really focused a lot on early on, understanding what was our employee value prop. Why would someone want to come to Pampered Chef? And what we found was people weren’t coming into Pampered Chef because they necessarily loved, always loved the product or our location or some other factor. They were coming because they wanted to learn and grow and we could give them opportunities through meritocracy that they can learn and grow more quickly and get rewarded for that and be excited by what we’re doing.
TRACY BRITT COOL：这是我们一开始就投入大量精力去做的事情——先搞清楚我们的 employee value prop（员工价值主张）是什么：为什么会有人想来 Pampered Chef？我们发现，人们并不是因为“特别爱我们的产品”、或“特别喜欢我们的位置”、或其他因素才来。他们来，是因为他们想学习、想成长，而我们可以通过 meritocracy（唯才是用/绩效导向的机制）给他们机会：让他们更快地学习成长，为此得到回报，并对我们正在做的事情感到兴奋。
And in essence, we really focused on storytelling and saying, what are we going to go do? And we’re transforming a business. We’re going to reinvent meal time. We’re going to focus on our purpose, which was eventually “lives one meal and one memory at a time.” That’s what we’re going to focus on.
本质上，我们非常专注于“讲故事”（storytelling）：我们要去做什么？我们在转型一家公司。我们要重新发明“用餐时刻”（reinvent meal time）。我们要聚焦我们的使命（purpose），后来被总结成一句话：“lives one meal and one memory at a time.”——这就是我们要专注的。
And that really started to resonate with sort of employees who were passionate about learning, growing, and then doing something that was unique and special. And then we focused on our culture of how do we actually accomplish that through the culture we are creating, both in terms of opportunities, promotions, incentives, growth, but also in terms of engagement, giving feedback, helping people grow and develop.
这套叙事开始真正打动那些对学习、成长有热情、并且想做一些独特且特别事情的员工。随后我们又聚焦文化：我们如何通过正在打造的文化把这些事情落地？既包括机会、晋升、激励、成长，也包括参与感（engagement）、反馈机制（giving feedback）、帮助人们成长与发展。
And we ended up attracting a lot of people who wouldn’t normally go to a kitchenware products business. I wouldn’t normally go to a kitchenware products business, but saw this opportunity to build something unique and special and really focus on how could we do that here in the company as well.
最后我们吸引来了很多“通常不会去厨房用品行业”的人。就连我自己，正常情况下也不会去厨房用品公司，但我看到了一个机会：去打造一些独特而特别的东西，并且真正专注于——我们也能在这家公司里把它做出来。
Structure and Long-Term Thinking
结构与长期思维
SHANE PARRISH: I love that. I want to go back to structure being critical, important to long term thinking. I’ve always, as an outsider to Berkshire, thought a lot of the success resulted from the fact that nobody could come in at certain point in time and tell Buffett to do something different. The structure aligned with what he was doing for a long term thinking point of view.
SHANE PARRISH：我很喜欢这一点。我想回到“结构”这个关键点——它对长期思维非常重要。作为 Berkshire 的局外人，我一直觉得它很多成功来自这样一个事实：在某个阶段之后，没有人能够进来对 Buffett 指手画脚、让他必须做不同的事情。公司的结构与他所做的长期思维是对齐的。
And we have a mutual friend, Brent Beshore, who set up the same thing from a, wouldn’t call it a private equity model, but he didn’t take a seven year fund where there’s a ticking clock. He made it 28 years and called it permanent equity. And that enables a lot more patient deployment of capital and enables you to make investments today that they’re going to bear fruit in five or six years. But you won’t do that if you’re just flipping a business.
我们还有一位共同的朋友 Brent Beshore，他也搭了一个类似的结构——我不会把它叫做传统 private equity 模式，因为他没有做那种“七年期限、滴答作响的倒计时基金”。他把期限设成 28 年，并称之为 permanent equity。这样的结构让资本配置可以更耐心，也让你能在今天做一些投资——它们会在五六年后结出果实。但如果你只是“倒手卖公司”（flipping a business），你就不会这么做。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Absolutely. I mean, I think that if your time horizon is three to five years in a business, I’m going to sell the business in three to five years. Everything you’re going to do is going to be short term in nature just because of human nature and how you’re incentivized.
TRACY BRITT COOL：完全同意。我认为如果你在一家公司里的时间跨度只有三到五年——也就是说你打算三到五年后就卖掉它——那你做的几乎所有事情都会偏短期，这就是人性使然，也是激励机制使然。
So you’re going to come in and say, okay, should I invest in growing into new markets or should I take price right now? Should I really build a strong people system and culture and engagement that may not pay back for three, four, five years or should I take costs out right now which are going to increase my short term value?
于是你一上来就会问：好，我是要投资进入新市场，还是现在就先把价格提上去？我是要认真建立一套强大的“人”的系统——文化、参与感（engagement）等等——这些可能三四五年后才回本；还是我现在就把成本砍下去，从而立刻提高短期价值？
Every decision you’re probably going to come up to, it’s going to be really, really hard to make a longer term decision because the pressures are so skewed to making a shorter term action. And so I think that the nature of the structure just creates the wrong incentives.
你碰到的几乎每一个决策点，都会很难做出长期决策，因为压力几乎全部偏向“短期动作”。所以我认为，结构的性质本身就会制造出错误的激励。
Any leader in a business will say you don’t usually get payback and things as quickly as you think. And so to get paid back in a year or two years or three years, it’s hard versus, okay, we’re going to move into a new market that might take us a few years to get that set up or we’re going to invest in building a new crop of talent in our organization so that they’re ready to lead in five years. Those are things that are long term in nature. But if your structure, you’re incentivized on a shorter term duration, it’s just hard to make those decisions.
任何企业里的领导者都会说：回报通常不会像你想象的那么快。所以你希望一年、两年、三年就看到回报，很难；而像“进入一个新市场”这种事可能需要好几年才能搭建起来，或者“在组织里培养一批新的人才梯队，让他们五年后能成为领导者”——这些都是长期的事情。但如果你的结构激励的是短期周期，那做这些决策就是很困难。
SHANE PARRISH: And even when you make them, it’s hard internally often unless you have everybody aligned in the same direction. Because it’s like, oh, we’re making this for five years, but all of a sudden the ROI is not what we thought it would be. An abandon ship sort of mentality.
SHANE PARRISH：而且就算你做出了这些长期决策，如果内部没有所有人朝同一个方向对齐，往往也很难推进。因为会出现这样的情绪：哦，我们做这件事是为了五年后，但突然 ROI 没有我们想的那么好，于是就出现一种“弃船”（abandon ship）的心态。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been in a number of businesses where people will say, oh, if we can just get the margins from 10% to 12%. And I’m like, well that’s really hard to do. Like, that’s hard to do.
TRACY BRITT COOL：太对了。我在不少企业里都听过有人说：哦，如果我们能把利润率从 10% 提到 12% 就好了。我就会想：这真的很难做到——真的很难。
But I remember when I took the role at Pampered Chef, I had advised the business for about a year, so I had a pretty good sense of, I think, what needed to be done. Then I just needed to go do it. And I thought it would take me a year or two to go drive the change that was needed to get the business back on track. And it took almost three or four because everything took longer and was harder.
但我记得我接下 Pampered Chef 的角色时，我已经给这家公司做了大约一年的顾问，所以我大概知道需要做什么。接下来就是去执行。我当时以为用一到两年就能推动必要的变革，让业务回到正轨。但最后用了接近三到四年，因为所有事情都更慢、更难。
Getting the right team, getting the right culture, investing in the right systems in the business. We wanted to update the marketing and update the product. All of that took a fair amount of time. And I think that if my task was to go sell that business in three or four years, I don’t know if I would have done all the same things. I probably would have made some shorter term decisions that ultimately probably would have created less value.
组建正确的团队、建立正确的文化、在业务里投资正确的系统。我们还想升级营销、升级产品。所有这些都需要相当多的时间。我认为如果我的任务是三四年后就把公司卖掉，我不确定我是否还会做同样的事情。我很可能会做出一些更短期的决策，而那些决策最终可能会创造更少的价值。
SHANE PARRISH: I think that’s part of the reason that culture changes are so hard is that they’re longer and harder than you expect. There’s a timeline mismatch as well too, like CEO turnover. Leasing the S&P 500 is as fast as it’s ever been, if not faster. And so you go in or think of a coach in a sports team, right? You go into a losing team, you’re going to throw a lot of Hail Marys. Because the expectation is just that I’m not going to be here for 10 years. I’ll trade away that first round draft pick, I’ll do these things that maybe would pay off in three to four years.
SHANE PARRISH：我觉得文化变革之所以这么难，部分原因就在于：它比你预期的更长、更难。这里还存在一个时间线错配，比如 CEO 的更替周期。S&P 500 的 CEO 任期现在可能比历史上任何时候都更短，甚至更快。所以你进到一个组织里——或者像体育球队的教练那样——你接手一支输球的队，你就会不断扔“绝望长传”（Hail Mary）。因为预期就是：我不可能在这里待 10 年。我会把首轮选秀权交易出去，我会做一些可能三到四年后才见效的事（甚至不管长期代价）。
People and Culture as Foundation
以“人”和“文化”为地基
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. And I think that we all have incentives in life. And so recognizing what the incentives are oftentimes show us what behaviors you will have or what decisions we’ll make. And I think you mentioned culture. I think culture and people is the most foundational and fundamental aspect of any business, any size.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我认为我们每个人在生活中都有激励机制。所以识别激励是什么，往往就能看出你会出现什么行为、我们会做出什么决策。你提到文化——我认为不论企业规模大小，“文化”和“人”都是最底层、最基础的东西。
I think in mid-sized companies in particular, it’s incredibly valuable because you have oftentimes more limited resources. Your team so smaller and so people are doing more in terms of their scope of responsibilities or capabilities. They oftentimes are very passionate and committed. But we don’t always invest in that culture. And so how do we continue? And I think the best businesses figure that out.
我觉得在中型公司里，这一点尤其有价值，因为资源往往更有限。团队更小，所以每个人承担的职责范围更大、能力要求也更高。他们通常很有热情、也很投入。但我们不一定总会在文化上持续投入。那要怎么让它延续下去？我认为最好的企业会把这件事想明白。
But I think as companies scale and you get bigger, there’s more complexity in terms of the people side of things. So we always start with people. Do we have the right people in the right seats? Do we have the right culture? Do we have the right engagement? Do we have the right talent development and talent management?
但随着公司扩张、规模变大，“人”的问题会变得更复杂。所以我们总是从人开始：我们是否把对的人放在对的岗位（right people in the right seats）？我们有没有正确的文化？有没有正确的参与度（engagement）？我们的人才发展和人才管理做得对不对？
As we think about businesses, you can really enhance a business by focusing on the people and the foundation. We focus there first, we focus on purpose second. What’s the purpose of the business? What’s the difference we make in the world? Are we aligned around that? What’s the strategy to go execute that purpose and impact?
当我们评估企业时，你完全可以通过夯实“人”和“地基”来显著提升一家企业。我们第一优先聚焦人，第二优先聚焦 purpose（使命/目的）：这家公司的目的是什么？我们给世界带来什么不同？我们是否围绕这个目标对齐？要实现这个目的与影响力（impact），战略是什么？
And then we think about performance third, and so then we say, okay, how do we actually achieve those goals? How do we drive alignment and accountability and how do we focus on performance? I think if you start by focusing on performance, then I think you miss out on really these foundation settings which are so critical to get alignment and to drive ultimately the most value in businesses.
第三才是 performance（绩效/业绩）。这时我们再问：我们如何真正达成目标？如何建立对齐与问责（alignment and accountability）？如何聚焦业绩？我认为如果你一开始就只盯着 performance，你就会错过那些关键的地基设置——而它们对对齐、以及最终在企业里创造最大价值至关重要。
SHANE PARRISH: That’s another thing that people just throw out casually. “People are our most valuable asset.” But it’s so easy to say those words and it’s so hard to live that, because that means investing in your people. It means probably lowering your margins at certain points in time.
SHANE PARRISH：这又是另一句大家随口就会说的话：“People are our most valuable asset.” 但说出口很容易，活出来很难，因为那意味着你要投资在你的员工身上；在某些时候可能意味着你得接受利润率下降。
TRACY BRITT COOL: It’s taking a disciplined approach to how we think about people. So it’s not just how do I reward people more or less, how do we have more holiday parties or whatever it may be. It’s actually taking a structured discipline approach.
TRACY BRITT COOL：关键是用一种有纪律的方式来思考“人”。不只是“多给还是少给奖励”、或者“多办几次节日派对”之类的事情，而是真正采取一套结构化、纪律化的方法。
We always say with our companies, typically businesses have a structured view to thinking about strategy or KPIs or budgeting. They have a calendar, they have discipline and approach to that. We often say, where’s your people calendar? What is your same level of discipline approach do you have on people? Because you should have the same.
我们常对被投公司说：通常企业对战略、KPIs、预算都有一套结构化的方法——有日历、有节奏、有流程。那你们的“people calendar（人才日历）”在哪里？你们有没有同样纪律化的方式来管理“人”？因为你们应该也要有同样的体系。
And we put it in three buckets: how do we attract the right talent? So that’s everything from hiring to employer value proposition to what are the most critical roles to get the right people in. So in the attract bucket, how do we develop talent? Are we thinking about where people are going in their careers? Are we helping them get there? How are we thinking about that?
我们把它分成三个桶（buckets）。第一，吸引（attract）：我们如何吸引对的人才？包括招聘、employer value proposition（雇主价值主张）、以及哪些关键岗位必须配上对的人。第二，发展（develop）：我们如何发展人才？我们是否在思考一个人职业路径要去哪里？我们有没有在帮助他们到达那里？我们是怎么设计与思考这件事的？
需要反向校正的都有这样的盲区。
And then engagement. Are we engaging our talent? Are we thinking about the culture? Are we thinking about communication? And how are we doing that most effectively to support the whole organization?
第三，engagement（参与度/投入度）：我们是否让人才真正投入？我们有没有在经营文化？有没有在经营沟通？我们如何以最有效的方式做这些，从而支撑整个组织？
The whole people framework is so significant in terms of what you can do in an organization, but it usually is an afterthought. If you look at executive teams, usually in mid-sized companies, there may not even be an HR leader. If they are, it’s a more junior level, generalist type person versus a true talent partner. And so that weight all falls on usually the CEO to navigate it. But that’s a lot when you’re trying to navigate everything.
整套 people framework 对组织能做成什么影响非常大，但它通常却是“事后才想起来的事”（afterthought）。你看很多中型公司的高管团队，可能甚至没有 HR leader。就算有，也往往是更偏初级、偏通才（generalist）的人，而不是一个真正的人才伙伴（talent partner）。于是这些重量通常都落到 CEO 身上去处理。但当你还要处理所有其他事情时，这真的太重了。
And as you’re scaling, it becomes more and more important because when you’re small, everyone is close to the CEO. They see it, they feel the culture, they see the work ethic and discipline. As you get bigger, you need to sort of step away and have more of a system and a structure that allows for that to continue. Because not everyone’s going to be sitting shoulder to shoulder with the CEO.
而当你在扩张，事情会变得越来越重要：公司很小的时候，每个人都离 CEO 很近——他们看得到、感受得到文化，也看得到工作伦理与纪律。但公司变大后，你必须逐步“退后一步”，用一套系统和结构让这些东西能持续下去。因为不可能每个人都跟 CEO 肩并肩坐在一起。
SHANE PARRISH: How do you evaluate talent?
SHANE PARRISH：你如何评估人才？
Evaluating Talent and Mission-Critical Roles
评估人才与“关键任务岗位（mission-critical roles）”
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, so we do a few things within our businesses as we think about talent when we go into a new business. First of all, we really try to understand what are the mission-critical roles in this business. We find most mid-sized companies have between 15 and 30 roles that are the most critical roles to get right, and these are the ones that are creating the most value.
TRACY BRITT COOL：好的。我们在进入一家新企业时，会围绕“人才”做几件事。首先，我们会非常努力去弄清楚：这家企业里哪些是“关键任务岗位”（mission-critical roles）。我们发现，大多数中型公司大概有 15 到 30 个岗位是必须配对、必须做对的关键岗位——它们创造了最多的价值。
Each business, it may be slightly different. It may be sales in one business, it may be product development in another, it may be finance in another, depending on what they’re doing and how they approach. But do we really have clarity in what those are? Do we have the right capabilities?
每家企业会略有不同。对某些企业来说关键可能是销售；对另一些可能是产品开发；对另外一些可能是财务——取决于它们在做什么、以及它们的业务方式。但问题是：我们是否真的清晰地知道这些关键岗位是什么？我们是否具备正确的能力（capabilities）？
Sometimes you might have a mission-critical role that you don’t have today that you need the capabilities. So my example earlier of Pampered Chef, when I started, a mission-critical role for us was technology. We did not have those capabilities in terms of what we needed to go do. And so we had to build it.
有时候，你会发现某个关键任务岗位在今天根本不存在，但你又需要它的能力。比如我前面提到 Pampered Chef：我刚开始接手时，我们的关键任务岗位之一就是技术（technology）。但我们并没有实现目标所需要的技术能力，所以我们必须把它搭建出来。
But really assessing what are the mission-critical roles that we have? And then once we do that, we assess, okay, who do we have in those roles today? Are they rock stars? Are there people who have a lot of opportunity in terms of their progression? Or are they people who are okay today but maybe aren’t the right people longer term? So we try to really assess that in a disciplined way.
所以核心是先评估：我们有哪些关键任务岗位？确认之后，我们再评估：现在这些岗位上是谁？他们是 rock stars 吗？有没有一些人具备很大的成长潜力？还是说他们今天“还可以”，但长期来看可能并不是对的人？我们会用一种有纪律的方法去评估这些。
I find the best way is you go in with someone and I usually send a list of questions. I usually have a few different frameworks, but industry questions, company questions, department questions, you questions. And I ask those different questions and what I find is you can usually get someone’s sort of assessment and understanding and their view of a world pretty effectively by just talking to them about what they’re seeing. And then that helps us learn and get better about the business as well.
我觉得最好的方式是：跟对方深入聊一聊——我通常会提前发一份问题清单。我一般有几套不同的框架：行业问题、公司问题、部门问题、关于“你”的问题。我会把这些问题都问一遍。我发现仅仅通过聊他们“看到了什么”，你通常就能很有效地获取一个人的评估方式、理解深度、以及他们看世界的视角。而这也会反过来帮助我们更了解这家企业、做得更好。
在BRK做了10年还是有用的。
So that’s typically when we go into business and what we do. Once we’re in a business, then we really focus, okay, how do we develop our talent? And so we’re using different conversations and different processes along the way to really make sure that we’re aligned in doing that.
所以这是我们进入企业时通常会做的事情。进入之后，我们会更聚焦：好，那我们如何发展人才？我们会在过程中用不同的对话和流程，来确保我们在这件事上真正对齐。
For us, it starts with do we goal set at the beginning of the year? Do we have clear KPIs? Because how do you assess people if you don’t have clear KPIs? And so you have KPIs of what are we going to go achieve? And then you give people the flexibility to go achieve those. You don’t tell them how to achieve them. You say, okay, you have the autonomy to go achieve these, but you give them the skills.
对我们来说，从年初是否做目标设定开始：我们有没有清晰的 KPIs？因为如果你没有清晰 KPIs，你怎么评估人？所以你先要设定 KPIs：我们要达成什么？然后你给人们充分的弹性去实现它们。你不告诉他们“怎么做”；你说：好，你有自主权去实现这些目标，但我们会给你必要的技能。
So we do problem-solving training, we help support them so that they’re more equipped to actually go achieve those goals. And they have visibility and then they have the alignment. We’re all going in this direction. These are the most important KPIs.
所以我们会做问题解决训练（problem-solving training），会提供支持，让他们更有装备去达成目标。他们也有可见性（visibility），并且实现对齐：我们都朝这个方向走，这些是最重要的 KPIs。
And then we incorporate conversations or feedback where we’re actually giving real-time feedback on, hey, you did this really well, this is what we could do better. And then through that you are implementing a talent management process. And then alongside of that you’re doing a leadership development process where you’re identifying your leaders, you’re helping them understand the vision, the expectations, the strategy. Ultimately they’re helping shape that strategy.
然后我们会把对话/反馈机制纳入体系，提供实时反馈：嘿，你这里做得很好；这里我们可以更好。通过这些，你就在实施一套人才管理流程（talent management process）。同时你还在推进领导力发展流程（leadership development process）：识别领导者，帮助他们理解愿景、期望、战略；最终他们也会参与塑造战略。
So it’s a very sort of structured way of saying, how do we bring in people at the right stages, the right time to really help them enhance their own development, their own learning, their own contributions so that we can leverage their expertise and their insights even more critically.
所以这是一套非常结构化的方法：我们如何在正确的阶段、正确的时间引入人，并真正帮助他们提升发展、学习与贡献，从而让我们能够更关键地利用他们的专业与洞见。
SHANE PARRISH: Are there tells in those interviews that you’re doing with people that maybe they’re not the right fit for where you’re going or that this person isn’t as good as you thought they were going in?
SHANE PARRISH：在你做这些访谈时，有没有一些“信号”（tells）能让你判断：这个人可能并不适合你们要去的方向，或者这个人并没有你们原先想得那么好？
Identifying the Right People
识别“对的人”
TRACY BRITT COOL: I would say the biggest tell I see is called hand waving, where you’re talking to someone about something, you ask a question and rather than answering the question, they sort of go all over, they’re sort of hand waving around. Or you start to drill in more and the hand waving begins where they can’t really understand or explain it.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我觉得我看到的最大“信号”（tell）叫做 hand waving（打太极/打手势带过）。就是你跟一个人聊某件事，你问一个问题，他并不直接回答，而是开始东拉西扯、到处绕、用手势比划着带过去。或者你一追问、往深处钻，hand waving 就更明显——他其实并不能真正理解或解释清楚。
Typically people who really know their craft and know their business and know the fundamentals can really explain why we do certain things, why we don’t. They may not have all the skills to go fix it, but they understand what the issues are and what the problems are. And then our goal is to help them understand, okay, this is how we can go address that or solve it.
通常真正懂行、懂业务、懂基本面的那种人，能够非常清楚地解释：为什么我们要这么做、为什么我们不这么做。他们可能未必拥有把问题彻底修好的一切技能，但他们理解问题在哪里、症结是什么。然后我们的目标是帮助他们把它进一步落到：好，那我们该如何去应对或解决它。
But that usually is the biggest tell for me: can they get clear, can they get crisp, do they really understand what’s going on in their space? And it doesn’t mean they need to understand everything in the business. They need to understand the area that they’re responsible for.
所以对我来说最大的信号通常就是：他们能不能把话讲清楚、讲利落（clear / crisp）？他们是否真的理解自己那一块发生了什么？这并不意味着他们要懂公司所有东西——他们必须懂自己负责的那一块。
I find oftentimes the best people just have a natural interest, curiosity to solve the issues, or they’ll have views on things even outside of their area. One of the questions I’ll oftentimes ask is, what are we not doing that we should be? And people oftentimes will say stuff in their area, but oftentimes they’ll have stuff in other areas too. Like, hey, I really thought if we could focus more on selling to our customers digitally that would allow us to transform the business. And we’re not doing that today.
我发现最优秀的人往往有一种天然的兴趣与好奇心，想把问题解决掉；或者他们甚至会对自己职责之外的事情也有观点。我经常问的一个问题是：我们现在没有做什么，但其实我们应该做？很多人会回答自己领域里的事，但优秀的人往往也会提到别的领域，比如：嘿，我真觉得如果我们能更聚焦于通过数字化方式向客户销售，就能推动业务转型，但我们今天并没有这么做。
Things like that help me sort of see do they have just that innate engagement or excitement about the business and curiosity.
这些回答会帮助我判断：他们是否对业务有那种内在的投入感、兴奋感与好奇心。
非常对的观察。
SHANE PARRISH: I like that a lot. I think as you were saying that what came to mind for me was the ability to talk at different resolutions from the one-inch level to the 30,000 foot and then transcend the same problem.
SHANE PARRISH：我很喜欢这个。我听你说的时候想到的是：一个人能不能在不同“分辨率”之间切换——从一英寸的细节层面到三万英尺的宏观层面——并且在不同层级上谈同一个问题、穿透同一个问题。
TRACY BRITT COOL: For me and my role, it’s understanding where are we in that conversation and who am I talking to? How do we get to that level and what’s the right level? And I find that people who are on the front line may not have the 30,000 view on where we’re going in the business, but they’re going to be really good at that 10-foot view and understanding the problem that they’re trying to solve or what’s limiting them or holding them back. So really sort of figuring out what’s the right level to have that conversation.
TRACY BRITT COOL：对我来说、对我的角色来说，关键是理解：我们这段对话现在处在哪个层级？我在跟谁说话？我们怎么去到那个层级？哪个层级才是“合适的层级”？我发现一线的人可能并没有 30,000 英尺的视角去看公司要去哪里，但他们通常非常擅长 10 英尺的视角——理解他们正在解决的问题是什么，什么在限制他们、卡住他们。所以关键是找到进行对话的“正确层级”。
SHANE PARRISH: How do you go about finding companies? You’ve acquired a few now.
SHANE PARRISH：你们通常怎么去找公司？你们现在已经收购了几家了。
Finding and Evaluating Companies
寻找与评估公司
TRACY BRITT COOL: We find areas that we like. So we say if we want to go fishing, we want to find a pond with a lot of great fish. And so we want to understand what is an industry that we think has a strong moat or competitive advantage.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们会先找我们喜欢的“领域”。我们会说：如果要去钓鱼，我们要先找到一个有很多好鱼的池塘。所以我们想搞清楚：哪些行业我们认为有很强的护城河或竞争优势。
And we usually look at that by saying, okay, what are the returns on capital in this space? So quantitatively, can we see if there is a moat? And then qualitatively, can we understand the moat more effectively? How wide is the moat? Is it getting wider or more narrow over time? Is it durable? Is it going to withstand the test of time? And so we’re trying to sort of find those spaces.
我们通常会先问：这个领域的资本回报率（returns on capital）怎么样？也就是说，从定量角度，我们能不能看出这里是否存在护城河？然后从定性角度，我们能不能更有效地理解护城河：护城河有多宽？它会随着时间变宽还是变窄？它是否足够耐久？能否经受时间考验？我们就是在努力找到这样的“池塘”。
比较直白的逻辑。
Once we find industries that we think are a fit there, we spend a fair amount of time reaching out to businesses, finding businesses, getting introduced to businesses. We have operating advisors who help us understand as well. And then we really try to get smart and find how do we add value in these companies.
一旦我们找到一些我们认为匹配的行业，我们会投入大量时间去接触企业、寻找企业、通过介绍认识企业。我们也有 operating advisors 帮助我们理解业务。然后我们会努力“把自己搞聪明”（get smart）：弄清楚我们能怎么在这些公司里创造价值、提供增量。
And then another group of businesses we have are just people who come to us, people who hear about what we’re doing, who are excited, and so they’ll come to us and say, are you interested in my business? Which we appreciate. And we always have the same assessment of what’s the moat of the business? Quantitatively, qualitatively, can we assess it? And then how do we think about those areas?
另外还有一类公司是主动来找我们的——他们听说了我们在做什么，感到兴奋，于是会来问：你们对我的生意感兴趣吗？我们很感激这种主动。对这些公司，我们也会用同样的评估：这门生意的护城河是什么？定量、定性我们能不能评估？然后我们如何看待这些要素？
What we’ve also done is we have built a community of 3,000 CEOs, owners and founders that we bring together to provide content and resources and support. And through that, we learn about new businesses, we learn new spaces, which help us also be better in terms of finding businesses that might be a fit for us.
我们还做了一件事：我们建立了一个由 3,000 位 CEOs、owners、founders 组成的社群，把大家聚在一起，提供内容、资源和支持。通过这个社群，我们能认识新的企业、学习新的领域，这也帮助我们更好地发现可能适合我们的公司。
We only invest in one or two companies a year. We’ll look at 500. So we’re really selective at finding the highest quality businesses that have a long runway.
我们一年只投资一到两家公司，但我们会看 500 家。所以我们非常挑剔，只寻找那些质量最高、并且有很长跑道（long runway）的企业。
SHANE PARRISH: Is that the most important part of the process, evaluating the moat?
SHANE PARRISH：在整个流程里，“评估护城河”是最重要的一环吗？
The Five Ms Framework
Five Ms 框架
TRACY BRITT COOL: We call it the Five Ms that we look at. First is moat. What is the moat? What’s the competitive advantage?
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们把它叫做 Five Ms。第一是 moat（护城河）：护城河是什么？竞争优势是什么？
Second is the market. It may have a moat, but is the market growing? And do we think it’s an attractive market? What is the growth rate? What are the likely dynamics of that?
第二是 market（市场）：它可能有护城河，但市场在增长吗？我们认为这是一个有吸引力的市场吗？增长率是多少？它未来的主要运行逻辑（dynamics）可能是什么？
Third, we look at management. Does it have a strong management team today, or is it something where we think we can help build the management team if there’s opportunities? Sometimes there’ll be a great business. It’s got three strong leaders, but they need to build out a sales leader or a talent leader or finance leader. Can we help them do that?
第三，我们看 management（管理层）。它今天有没有强的管理团队？或者如果存在机会，我们是否能帮助它把管理团队搭起来？有时会出现一家很好的公司——已经有三位很强的领导者，但还需要补齐销售负责人、人才负责人或财务负责人。我们能不能帮助他们把这些关键位置建起来？
The fourth is what we call more potential. There’s some opportunity that’s not being fully leveraged today that we think we can help them with. It might be expanding into new markets. It might be a more structured approach to how they manage the business today. There are a variety of different avenues in terms of more potential, but absolutely a focus.
第四是我们称之为 more potential（更多潜力）。也就是说，今天存在一些机会还没有被充分利用，而我们认为自己可以帮助他们把它释放出来。可能是进入新市场；也可能是把当下的经营管理方式变得更结构化、更体系化。more potential 的路径很多，但它一定是我们的重点。
And then for us the fifth is margin of safety. And what we mean by margin of safety is we don’t want to have to have everything go perfectly right in order for us to be successful. We want to have a little bit of flex so that if there is something like COVID or a downturn or tariffs that we can navigate that well with the management team and we don’t put undue pressure on the business to make shorter-term decisions because of something that’s happening that may be outside of our control.
第五是 margin of safety（安全边际）。我们说的安全边际是：我们不希望必须“所有事情都完美发生”我们才会成功。我们希望有一点弹性（flex），这样即使出现像 COVID、经济下行、tariffs（关税）这类事情，我们也能和管理层一起把它应对好，不会因为一些可能超出我们控制范围的事件，就对业务施加不必要的压力，逼着它做短期决策。
SHANE PARRISH: What does moat mean for us?
SHANE PARRISH：对我们来说，moat 是什么意思？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Moat is what we consider a competitive advantage. And the simple example of a moat is it’s a castle, right? Do you have a castle that is a strong business and then the moat you want to have around is what defends the castle and what is going to protect the castle. A wide moat is going to protect a castle more. A narrow moat is going to protect it less.
TRACY BRITT COOL：Moat 在我们这里指的是竞争优势。一个最简单的比喻是：它像一座城堡，对吧？你是否有一座代表强大生意的“城堡”，而你希望城堡周围有一道护城河，用来防守、用来保护。护城河越宽，城堡就越安全；护城河越窄，保护就越弱。
A moat can be driven by different dynamics. It might be you have a brand and a channel that in combination allow you to sort of keep customers out of your business. You might have a competitive position that allows you to be the low-cost provider, that then allows you to sort of attract customers and get route density in your market and then drive down prices further and costs further, which then allow you to attract more customers and that will keep other people out of your business.
护城河可以由不同的机制（dynamics）驱动。比如你拥有品牌与渠道，它们组合在一起能让你“锁住客户”（某种意义上把客户留在你这里）。又或者你拥有一种竞争位置，使你成为低成本提供者（low-cost provider），进而能吸引客户、在市场里形成更高的路线密度（route density），再进一步把价格压得更低、把成本降得更低，从而吸引更多客户，并把其他人挡在你的生意之外。
There’s lots of different types of moats. There’s network effect, there’s limited supplier power, customer sort of concentration that can limit or expand your moat. But we’re really focusing on how do we build a business that keeps competitors or new entrants out as effectively as possible.
护城河的类型很多：network effect（网络效应）、供应商议价能力受限（limited supplier power）、客户集中度（customer concentration）等，这些都会限制或扩大你的护城河。但我们真正关注的是：如何打造一门生意，尽可能有效地把竞争对手或新进入者挡在外面。
We find that moats are changing every day. And some businesses that used to have amazing moats, like newspapers, now have eroded quite considerably. And there’s other businesses where moats are getting stronger. So trying to find those businesses where we think we can expand the moat.
我们发现护城河每天都在变化。有些曾经护城河惊人的行业，比如 newspapers（报纸），如今已经被显著侵蚀；也有一些行业的护城河正在变强。所以我们要努力找到那些我们认为可以把护城河进一步扩宽的企业。
SHANE PARRISH: Where do you think moats are getting stronger?
SHANE PARRISH：你认为哪些地方的护城河正在变强？
Evaluating Moats and Competitive Advantages
评估护城河与竞争优势
TRACY BRITT COOL: It’s hard in the moment to look and say this moat is getting stronger because typically it’s easier to look back. Over the course of 10 years, the moat has gotten better or gotten worse.
TRACY BRITT COOL：在当下要判断“这条护城河正在变强”其实很难，因为通常回头看更容易。比如拉长到十年，你才更能看清护城河是变好了还是变差了。
I think AI is a good example of that. Probably will erode a lot of moats and a lot of industries and businesses because it reduces the friction or the cost for a new entrant to come in and they can navigate the space more effectively.
我觉得 AI 就是一个很好的例子。它很可能会侵蚀很多护城河、很多行业和企业，因为它降低了新进入者进入的摩擦与成本，让他们能更有效地“跑通”这个领域。
I do think there probably will be a subset of businesses where AI actually makes their moat stronger. And because they already have some sort of structured system that is allowing them to have a competitive advantage. And so it might be, maybe they build out a salesforce with a technician base that is hard to replicate and for someone else to come into that.
但我也认为会有一部分企业，AI 反而会让它们的护城河更强。原因是它们原本就已经有某种结构化体系，能够形成竞争优势。比如，它们可能建立了一个很难复制的销售队伍（salesforce）和技术服务人员体系（technician base），其他人很难直接进入并复制。
And now AI allows them to quote more effectively or reduce their costs or improve their productivity so that then their costs go down. And if their costs go down, then they can pass that on to the customer and sort of cycle that into keeping more customers more effectively.
而 AI 现在让他们能更有效地报价（quote）、降低成本、提升生产力，于是成本进一步下降。成本下降后，他们可以把一部分让利给客户，并把这件事滚成一个循环：更有效地留住更多客户。
I think it probably is a little early in the context of AI to see, okay, who’s going to be the biggest winner, who’s going to be the biggest loser? Because it’s a little bit more of a crapshoot at this stage, I’d say.
我觉得就 AI 这件事而言，现在可能还太早，很难判断谁会成为最大赢家、谁会成为最大输家。因为在这个阶段，它更像是一种“掷骰子”（crapshoot）的状态。
SHANE PARRISH: I’ve been thinking about that a little bit recently. There’s a lot of service businesses where AI could, with somebody with a background, with AI, who has a reflexive AI mindset could come in and probably lower costs and create a temporary advantage over the next, I don’t know, three to five years.
SHANE PARRISH：我最近也在想这个问题。有很多服务型企业，如果有人有相关背景、带着一种“条件反射式的 AI 思维”（reflexive AI mindset）进来，AI 可能会让他把成本降下去，并在未来三到五年形成一种暂时性的优势。
But then you could use that to create this flywheel of pricing power with customers in the sense of giving better pricing so you’re always booked. But also in terms of, oh, we can acquire businesses at the same multiple and get a way better return than other people.
但你也可以利用这种优势去创造一个“定价权飞轮”（flywheel of pricing power）：给客户更好的价格，让你永远排满单；同时在并购上也能体现出来——比如用相同的估值倍数收购企业，却能获得远高于别人预期的回报。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. And I think probably the biggest question on my mind is, how temporary is it and how quick is it will just, it’ll be a race to the bottom where now prices will just go down and then other entrants will come into the market and the customers will capture the value versus the companies.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。而我脑子里最大的一个问题是：这种优势到底有多“暂时”？它会不会很快就变成一场“向下竞赛”（race to the bottom）——价格一路往下走，更多进入者涌入市场，最终价值被客户拿走，而不是公司拿走？
Or do you already have a moat? Or can you build a moat in a time where it actually allows you to sustain it and then you ultimately get a stronger business. And that I think is interesting. We’re spending some time thinking about that as well, and especially in the service businesses.
还是说：你本来就有护城河？或者你能不能在这个窗口期里建起护城河，并且能够维持住，从而让公司最终变得更强？我觉得这很有意思。我们也在花时间思考这个问题，尤其是在服务型企业上。
And I think there are some that it’s just harder for new entrant to come in. If it’s a regulated space where you have to get credentialed in and there’s limited number of credentials, that’s harder for someone to come in. If it’s you have a huge sales force or and service force that’s going out and implementing and supporting your customers, that’s harder for someone else to come and replicate. Not impossible, but harder.
我也认为有些领域天然就更难让新进入者进来。比如一个受监管的行业，你必须获得资质（credentialed），而且资质数量有限，那就更难进入。又或者你拥有一支庞大的销售队伍和服务队伍，持续在外面实施、支持客户——别人要来复制这套体系就更难。不是不可能，但更难。
And so do you have that aspect of your moat already that you can reinforce and what does that look like? But I think the disruption’s coming. I think it’s going to happen pretty widely in terms of different businesses and industries. So if you have a great business today, are you thinking about that and can you reinforce your moat and make it stronger?
所以问题是：你是否已经拥有这类护城河要素，并且能把它强化？它具体长什么样？但我认为这种颠覆（disruption）会到来，而且会在很多行业与企业中广泛发生。所以如果你今天有一家很棒的企业，你是否已经在思考这件事？你能不能强化护城河，让它更强？
Quantitative Assessment: Return on Invested Capital
定量评估：投入资本回报率（Return on Invested Capital）
SHANE PARRISH: When it comes to quantitative assessment of these businesses, what are you looking at?
SHANE PARRISH：在对这些企业做定量评估时，你们主要看什么？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, in essence, we’re looking at like a return on invested capital. And as we think about that, is it going up, is it going down, is it staying the same? Do we think that that is reasonable for the space?
TRACY BRITT COOL：本质上，我们看的就是投入资本回报率（return on invested capital）。我们会看它是在上升、在下降，还是保持不变？在这个行业/领域里，这个水平是否合理？
What we find is that’s one part of it. You need to understand the quantitative. And typically, if you have a moat, you can see it. You can see it in your returns in the business, on what you’re doing and your return on capital.
我们发现这只是其中一部分：你需要理解定量指标。通常如果你有护城河，你是能“看见”的——你能在企业回报里看到，在你所做的事情里看到，在资本回报里看到。
But beyond the quantitative is then the qualitative. Can you define it? Can you explain why? Do you understand it? That, I think becomes more important because if you looked at the newspapers, I would say once the moat started to erode quantitatively, it still looked good for quite a period of time, even though qualitatively it was starting to erode.
但在定量之外还有定性：你能不能把护城河定义出来？你能不能解释“为什么”？你是否真的理解？我认为这更重要，因为如果你看 newspapers（报纸）行业，一旦护城河开始在定量上被侵蚀，它在一段时间里看起来仍然“不错”，尽管在定性层面它其实已经开始崩塌了。
这个解释不错。
At that stage, the financials lagged and then it caught up. But I think that’s typically what we’re trying to do, is look at both the quantitative and the qualitative side.
在那个阶段，财务数据是滞后的，后来才追上现实。但我认为我们通常要做的，就是同时看定量和定性两面。
SHANE PARRISH: And when it comes to return on invested capital, what is that for us?
SHANE PARRISH：那你们所说的投入资本回报率，具体指什么？
TRACY BRITT COOL: It’s really looking at what’s the earnings in the business and then what’s the capital required in the business to support those earnings. And so you can do the calculation and get a ratio.
TRACY BRITT COOL：就是看企业的 earnings（盈利）是多少，以及为了支撑这些盈利需要投入多少资本（capital）。把两者做个计算，就得到一个比率。
We typically say, an okay business is maybe 20% return on capital. A great business is probably looking at 50% plus in terms of return on capital.
我们通常会说：一个“还可以”的生意，资本回报率可能在 20% 左右；一个“很棒”的生意，资本回报率大概能到 50% 以上。
SHANE PARRISH: And when you say earnings, there’s a lot of ways that people are defining that now between EBIT, EBITDA, operating earnings. What is earnings?
SHANE PARRISH：你说的 earnings，现在很多人有不同定义：EBIT、EBITDA、operating earnings。你这里的 earnings 指什么？
TRACY BRITT COOL: We usually look at EBIT or earnings before interest and taxes. Our view on EBITDA is there are some industries where it makes sense, but in most industries, depreciation, amortization is real. And so if you focus on that, I think you sometimes give yourself false confidence in terms of what the business really looks like and what it really generates.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们通常看 EBIT（息税前利润）。我们对 EBITDA 的看法是：有些行业用它是合理的，但在大多数行业里，depreciation（折旧）和 amortization（摊销）是真实存在的成本。所以如果你只盯着 EBITDA，我觉得有时会给自己一种“虚假的信心”，误以为业务真实状况和真实产出比实际更好。
Because in essence, you’re trying to get a proxy for cash, cash flow and cash generation. So when we look at it, we’ll usually look at EBIT as sort of an earnings approach and then we’ll focus in terms of what’s the capital in the business. But earnings we usually define as EBIT. In some cases we’ll look at EBITDA, but we try to be pretty selective of how we do that in the industries where depreciation, amortization are real.
因为本质上你是在寻找一个现金、现金流、现金创造能力的代理指标（proxy）。所以我们看时，通常用 EBIT 作为 earnings 的口径，再去看企业里的资本（capital）。我们的 earnings 通常就定义为 EBIT。某些情况下也会看 EBITDA，但我们会非常有选择性，特别是在折旧与摊销很“真实”的行业里。
如果是小资金，固定资产和折旧大的根本就不值得关注。
SHANE PARRISH: And how are you defining capital? Is that just equity in capital?
SHANE PARRISH：那你们如何定义 capital？只是股东权益（equity）吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: We’re looking at a few different things. What’s the capital actually required in the business? So what you’re putting into it, your PP&E. If you need lots of AR to support your business, really trying to fundamentally understand what capital is required to support this business, what inventory is required to support the business.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们会看好几类东西：这门生意“实际需要”的资本是什么？也就是你投入了什么，比如 PP&E（固定资产）。如果你的业务需要大量 AR（应收账款）来支撑，我们就要从根本上理解：为了支撑这门生意的运转，到底需要多少资本？需要多少库存（inventory）？
Every business is a little bit different, but there might be a business where the earnings look really great, but then they have a huge inventory on their balance sheet to support that level of earnings. And then that business is probably a less good business because you have to have this inventory to support it.
每个企业都不一样。有的企业看起来 earnings 非常漂亮，但资产负债表上为了支撑这种盈利水平堆了巨大的库存。那这门生意可能就没那么好，因为你必须靠这堆库存才能撑住它。
And that sometimes may be you have a lot of locations, so you need to have facilities with all the inventory. And maybe your customers require you to have a lot of inventory to support the business. There’s a lot of different dynamics that play into that, but we’re really trying to understand what capital is required to support the level of earnings that you have in this business.
这也可能是因为你有很多门店/地点，所以需要仓储设施配合大量库存；也可能是客户要求你必须备很多货才能做这门生意。这里面有很多不同的动态因素，但我们真正想弄清楚的是：为了支撑这家企业的盈利水平，到底需要多少资本投入。
Your best businesses usually don’t require a lot of capital. There are caveats to that too. I mean, you can get a higher return on capital, but also potentially someone can enter the business more quickly. If you don’t have capital in the business, if you have capital in your business, that’s usually harder for someone to enter, but you can get other types of moats or impacts.
最好的企业通常不需要太多资本。当然这里也有但书：你可能因此获得更高的资本回报率，但也可能意味着别人更容易进入这个行业。一般来说，如果你的业务不需要太多资本，潜在进入者可能进得更快；如果你的业务需要大量资本，别人通常更难进入，但同时你也可能通过别的机制获得护城河或其他影响力。
And I think you’re seeing a shift in this. If you look at the tech businesses historically there wasn’t a lot of capital required. Google or others, they had network effect and these other dynamics that drove the moat. And so you didn’t have capital. Now with AI, that’s shifting quite considerably. But also that probably makes it harder for someone else to come into the business as well.
我认为你正在看到这方面的变化。历史上很多科技公司并不需要太多资本投入，比如 Google 等，它们的护城河由网络效应等机制驱动，所以并不“吃资本”。但现在随着 AI，这一点正在显著变化。不过这也可能让其他人更难进入这个生意。
Evaluating Market Attractiveness
评估市场吸引力
SHANE PARRISH: And when you look at market, what makes it an attractive market?
SHANE PARRISH：当你们看 market（市场）时，什么样的市场才算“有吸引力”？
TRACY BRITT COOL: So when we look at market, we’re looking for a few things. One is what’s it growing? What’s the growth rate in it? Is it growing at GDP? Is it growing above GDP? Do we think that that’s sustaining?
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们看市场时主要看几件事。第一是：它在增长吗？增长率是多少？它是以 GDP 的速度增长，还是高于 GDP？我们认为这种增长是否可持续？
There might be a situation where the business is growing very, the industry or the market’s growing very fast right now, but it’s going to decline over the next five years or no, we think it’s going to continue at 20% plus a year for 10 plus years. So trying to understand what the growth rate is, how does it relate to GDP?
有时候会出现这样的情况：行业/市场现在增长很快，但未来五年可能会下滑；或者相反，我们认为它会在未来十年以上都维持每年 20%+ 的增长。所以我们要努力理解增长率到底是什么，它与 GDP 的关系是什么？
Second, we’re trying to understand what are the dynamics of the market. Is it a situation where there’s a lot of fragmented players? Is there a couple behemoths? Is it one where there’s opportunity for consolidation or not? We’re trying to just understand what the dynamics are and sort of how it works.
第二，我们要理解市场的运行结构（dynamics）：是高度分散、玩家很多？还是只有几个巨头（behemoths）？有没有整合（consolidation）的机会？我们想弄清楚这个市场是怎么运转的。
Are the other players in the market rational? If it’s more concentrated, how do we think about the path forward and what that might look like and where do we think we would play in that market and what do we think the path forward would be? But we’re first starting with sort of growth rate and dynamics.
这个市场里的其他参与者是否理性（rational）？如果市场更集中，我们怎么看未来路径？会长成什么样？我们会在其中扮演什么位置？我们认为未来会怎么演化？但我们的起点通常还是先从增长率与市场结构入手。
Understanding “More Potential”
理解 “More Potential（更多潜力）”
SHANE PARRISH: We’ve already talked a little bit about management and I think most of our listeners will understand a little bit of margin of safety enough for the conversation. Anyway, what did you mean by more potential? Is that like a lottery ticket?
SHANE PARRISH：我们已经聊了一些 management（管理层），我想听众对 margin of safety（安全边际）也大概理解到足够支撑这段讨论了。那你说的 more potential 到底是什么意思？像买彩票那样吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: No, it’s less than a lottery ticket. But really where’s the opportunity to sort of grow this business and what does it look like?
TRACY BRITT COOL：不是，它没那么像彩票。它更像是在问：这门生意还有哪些增长机会？具体长什么样？
So for example, we partnered with a company, Marine Concepts, sells boat covers. When we partnered with the company and started by Drum and Randy Kent, based at a Lake of the Ozarks, he had a facility and a market in Lake of the Ozarks. He had great market share there, great NPS. The product was incredibly strong. He had moved a little bit and sold some in Florida, but really he hadn’t expanded beyond that.
比如我们与一家叫 Marine Concepts 的公司合作，它卖 boat covers（船罩/船套）。这家公司由 Drum 和 Randy Kent 创立，位于 Lake of the Ozarks。他在当地有工厂与市场份额，市场份额很强，NPS 也很高。产品非常过硬。他曾经稍微扩展了一点，在 Florida 也卖了一些，但总体上并没有再往外扩。
So the more potential there was can we take this company that has a great product, has a great reputation, great NPS, great margins and expand it? And in this case we wanted to build out a dealer network. So can we expand that through a dealer network and growth. So that was the more potential in that business was how do we expand it and doing something that they’re not doing today versus a business where you may come in and it’s already at full potential.
所以这家公司的 more potential 在于：我们能不能把一家公司——它已经有很好的产品、很好的口碑、很高的 NPS、很好的利润率——进一步做大？在这个案例里，我们想搭建经销商网络（dealer network）。也就是说：我们能不能通过经销商网络实现扩张与增长？这就是它的 more potential：去做它今天还没在做的事。相对地，有些企业你进来时，它可能已经接近 full potential（满负荷/基本优化到位）了。
Right. The business is operating super well. Not as many growth drivers or growth opportunities left. Where what are you going to go do? It’s growing at GDP probably. It’s going to be hard to really go accelerate growth in Coke.
对吧——企业运营得非常好，剩下的增长驱动与增长机会并不多。那你还能做什么？它可能也就跟着 GDP 增长。像 Coke 这样的业务，要再显著加速增长就很难。
Whereas for us by playing in the midsize market there’s a lot more opportunity or JM Test that was a 40 year old business that we partnered with. Family business started by the Morrison family, grew 20% a year over the last 20 years in sort of 10 branches and regions today. But an opportunity to move in geographically, into new regions, increase penetration in our existing markets and then three, look at potential acquisitions for other family businesses that want a long term partner.
而我们做中型企业市场（midsize market），往往有更多机会。比如我们合作的 JM Test，它是一家 40 年历史的企业，是 Morrison 家族创立的家族企业，过去 20 年每年增长 20%，现在大概有 10 个分支与区域。但它仍然有机会：第一，做地理扩张进入新区域；第二，提高在现有市场的渗透率；第三，寻找潜在并购——收购那些也想找长期合作伙伴的家族企业。
And so for us that was the more potential in that business. So each business is a bit different, but really understanding what’s not being sort of fully optimized today. We always start with our purpose, which is helping organizations and people reach their full potential. And so as we think about a new partnership, how do we think about what that full potential may be? And then what’s the opportunity for us to help them get there? And do we bring some sort of skill set, experience, perspective that can help accelerate that?
所以对我们来说，这就是那家公司的 more potential。每个企业都不一样，但核心就是理解：今天有哪些东西还没有被充分优化。我们总是从 purpose（使命）出发——帮助组织与人达到 full potential（充分潜能）。所以当我们考虑新的合作时，我们会问：它的“充分潜能”可能是什么？我们帮助它到达那里的机会在哪里？我们是否能带来某种技能、经验或视角，从而加速它实现？
SHANE PARRISH: And when you look at sort of the potential, does that factor into the margin of safety or no, that’s in addition to we’re going to have a margin of safety anyway. This is more like an added layer to that.
SHANE PARRISH：那你们看这些潜能时，它会纳入 margin of safety（安全边际）里吗？还是说——我们无论如何都会有安全边际，而这个潜能更像额外的一层加成？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think we think of this as a growth potential, but it may contribute to margin of safety. If we said, if this business will work at this valuation, even if we don’t do anything and then we’re able to go drive this growth, then that gives us more comfort and the margin of safety and where we are. But they can be interconnected, but it does not necessarily have to be.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们把它主要当成 growth potential（增长潜力），但它确实可能会贡献安全边际。比如我们说：即使我们什么都不做，这家公司在这个估值下也能“成立”（work）；而如果我们还能进一步推动增长，那就会给我们更强的信心，也增强我们所处位置的安全边际。它们可以相互关联，但并不是必须绑定在一起。
放着更简洁的逻辑不用，用一个更复杂的，反向校正的痛苦。
The Post-Close Playbook
交割后的行动手册
SHANE PARRISH: And so what happens? What’s the playbook post close. So you’ve found a company, you love the management team, you love the people, it’s in a great market, you think there’s potential for more. Day one now what? Actually before even.
SHANE PARRISH：那接下来会发生什么？交割后的 playbook 是怎样的？假设你们找到了公司，你喜欢管理团队、喜欢人，市场也很好，你也认为还有更多潜力——那 Day one 该做什么？其实甚至在 Day one 之前就开始了，对吧？
Implementing the Cambric Business System
落地 Cambric Business System
TRACY BRITT COOL: Day one, when we close, during the process where we’re getting to know each other, we’re doing diligence, we’re spending time with them, really understanding what are their views on the industry, what are their views on the business, what does management think the biggest opportunities are? We’re oftentimes doing interviews.
TRACY BRITT COOL：Day one、也就是交割当天。但其实在那之前——在我们彼此认识、做尽调（diligence）的过程中，我们就已经花大量时间跟他们在一起，深入理解：他们对行业怎么看？他们对公司怎么看？管理层认为最大的机会是什么？我们往往会做很多访谈（interviews）。
So our Cambric business system team will spend time meeting with 70, 75 people in the business and understanding where they think the opportunities are as well. We’re doing that during that diligence process, going up to the close.
所以我们的 Cambric business system 团队会跟企业里大概 70、75 个人见面，理解他们也认为机会在哪里。我们是在尽调过程中做这些，一直做到交割之前。
Once we close with a business, we’re really trying to understand where are they on their own journey. And so we have a diagnostic to assess on all these frameworks: people, attracting talent, developing talent, engaging talent, strategy, KPIs, budgets. What’s their self-diagnostic on their sophistication in these areas?
一旦交割完成，我们就会努力弄清楚：他们在自己发展旅程中处在哪个阶段？因此我们有一套 diagnostic（诊断工具），覆盖这些框架：people（人）、吸引人才（attracting talent）、发展人才（developing talent）、激活人才（engaging talent）、战略（strategy）、KPIs、预算（budgets）。他们在这些方面的成熟度如何？他们的自我诊断（self-diagnostic）是什么？
They’ll do that and then we’ll do that and then we’ll come in and say, okay, given this, what do we want to go build together? What does it look like? There’s a few critical components of the initial partnership that we do. Usually it’s a part of a strategic planning process.
他们会先做一遍，我们也会做一遍。然后我们会一起坐下来，说：好，基于这些，我们想一起建立什么？它长什么样？我们在初期合作里有几个关键组件，通常会放在战略规划（strategic planning）流程里。
Our KBS team will come in and work with the management team to really think about what’s the future direction of the business and what are the opportunities. What are we doing well today? Where are there opportunities we’re not doing as well today? Where can we grow? What are the challenges facing the business?
我们的 KBS 团队会进来，和管理团队一起认真思考：企业未来的方向是什么？机会是什么？我们今天做得好的是什么？哪些地方做得还不够好、存在机会？我们能在哪里增长？企业正在面对的挑战是什么？
So having those types of conversations, that really is a collaborative, hands-on experience that we’re partnering with them to assess. As we’re doing that, we’re simultaneously saying, okay, do we have the right capabilities? Do we have the right roles? Do we have the right people to help support that growth?
所以这些对话本质上是一种协作式、亲自下场（hands-on）的合作体验——我们和他们一起评估。与此同时，我们也会同步问：好，我们有没有正确的能力？有没有正确的岗位设置？有没有正确的人来支撑这些增长？
需要反向校正的或许能做对中间的逻辑，但是最初的逻辑，比如，分工=效率，就很难。
If we say we want to go expand in a new market, do we have that capability? If we want to go do acquisitions, do we have that capability? If not, how do we build that capability or add that talent internally that allows us to have that flexibility?
比如我们说要进入新市场：我们有没有这种能力？比如我们想做并购：我们有没有这种能力？如果没有，我们要如何建立这种能力，或者如何在内部补齐人才，从而获得这种弹性？
And then we’re really building a roadmap out for the first 12 to 18 months of okay, what are we going to go do together and what does that look like? We say from our perspective, I’ve been CEO, my partner’s been CFO. We don’t want to be the CEO and CFO again. We’re not trying to do your job, we’re trying to be the resource that we wanted.
然后我们会真正把前 12 到 18 个月的路线图（roadmap）做出来：好，我们要一起做什么？具体长什么样？我们会明确说：从我们的角度，我做过 CEO，我的合伙人做过 CFO，我们不想再当一次你们的 CEO 和 CFO。我们不是来替你做工作；我们是想成为当年我们坐在那个位置上时最希望拥有的那种资源。
And so we’re being helpful on the biggest strategic decisions you’re making in a business and really partnering with them and then giving them feedback and help along the way in those critical areas.
所以我们会在企业最重要的战略决策上提供帮助，真正与他们并肩合作；并且在这些关键领域里，沿途持续给出反馈与支持。
Co-Creating Strategy with Founders
与创始人共同“共创”战略
SHANE PARRISH: Talk to me a little bit more about that in the sense of you’re the majority owner now and you have a CEO founder who’s run the company successfully and you’re not telling them what to do, but you’re nudging. How does that work?
SHANE PARRISH：在这个层面上再多聊一点：你们现在是大股东，而 CEO 还是那位把公司经营得很成功的创始人。你们不是命令他们做什么，但会“轻推一把”（nudging）。这具体是怎么运作的？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I think of it as co-creation. So they have a view. They’re going to be smarter about the industry than we ever will. They’ll have the depth of knowledge, experience, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我把它看作 co-creation（共创）。他们本来就有自己的观点，而且他们对行业的理解一定会比我们更深、更聪明。他们有更深的知识与经验，知道什么行得通、什么行不通。
What we’ll bring is outside perspective and a lot of questions. And so we’ll say, have you thought about this or what about that? Or hey, there’s an industry that’s like this that we’ve seen that 10 years ago this happened and it looks like it might be similar. What might be similar or different?
我们带来的东西是外部视角，以及大量问题。我们会问：你有没有想过这个？那那个呢？或者我们会说：嘿，我们见过一个相似的行业，十年前发生过某件事，看起来可能跟你们有点像——哪些地方可能相似？哪些地方可能不同？
So we’re trying to do that together in partnership with them so that we can co-create and get to a shared vision of the world and what we want to go build and what that looks like. And so in essence we think of it as we’re their strategic partner in assessing that.
所以我们想以“伙伴关系”的方式跟他们一起做这些事情，让我们能够共同创造、共同抵达一种“对世界的共同愿景”：我们想建什么？它应该长什么样？本质上，我们把自己定位成他们在这些判断上的战略伙伴（strategic partner）。
And then once we’ve assessed that, we come in and help them with the skills and frameworks to go do it. So for example, we have someone on our team who really specializes in KPIs and the budgeting process. So he’s going to help them implement a KPI process if they don’t have one already to say, okay, how do you build KPIs? What do good KPIs look like? What are the important drivers in this business? What are the right benchmarks? How aggressive do you want to be or not? And helping them think through that.
然后一旦我们把方向评估清楚了，我们就会进来，用技能与框架帮助他们把它做出来。比如我们团队里有一个人非常擅长 KPIs 和预算流程（budgeting process）。如果他们还没有 KPI 流程，他就会帮助他们搭起来：怎么建立 KPIs？好的 KPIs 应该长什么样？这门生意最关键的驱动因素（drivers）是什么？合适的基准（benchmarks）是什么？你们想要多激进、或不那么激进？并帮助他们把这些想清楚。
On the budgeting or what we think of as resource allocation side: do we have the right resources to fund our future growth and what we want to go do? How do we become more efficient in some areas so that we can go invest in other areas? So we’re helping do that.
在预算、或者我们称之为 resource allocation（资源配置）的层面：我们有没有正确的资源去支持未来增长、支持我们想做的事？我们如何在某些领域更高效，从而把资源挪出来去投资其他领域？我们会在这些方面提供帮助。
Or we have someone on our people team going in on the people side and saying, okay, we understand that we need to go drive this growth in the business, we want to drive this growth. Okay, what are the mission critical roles that we have today? Do we have the right skills in those roles and the right people in those roles? If not, what changes might we need to make?
或者我们的人才团队（people team）会从“人”的角度切入：好，我们知道我们要推动业务增长，也想推动增长。那么，我们今天有哪些 mission critical roles（关键任务岗位）？这些岗位上是否具备正确的技能、是否坐着对的人？如果没有，我们可能需要做哪些调整？
And then, wow, we’re going to really need to engage our middle level management. If we’re going to go grow and expand, do we have the right development for them? Okay, we need to be implementing quarterly director days with that group so that we can help them become better leaders so that they can help us at this new stage of growth.
然后我们会意识到：哇，我们需要真正激活（engage）中层管理者。如果我们要增长和扩张，我们有没有为他们准备合适的发展体系？好，那我们就需要为这群人实施“每季度一次的 director days”，帮助他们成为更好的领导者，让他们能在新的增长阶段真正帮得上忙。
Or perhaps we haven’t done a lot on the engagement or communication side. And we need to implement quarterly town halls where we’re helping the company understand the vision and the strategy and direction so that we can help accelerate growth so that everyone feels they understand the vision, they’re bought into what we’re trying to go do and they want to help us at that next phase.
又或者，我们在 engagement（参与度）或沟通（communication）方面做得还不够。那我们就需要实施“每季度一次的 town halls”，帮助全公司理解愿景、战略与方向，从而加速增长——让每个人都觉得自己理解愿景、认同我们要做的事（bought in），并愿意在下一个阶段一起把它推进。
SHANE PARRISH: And when you say KBS, you mean the Cambric Business System.
SHANE PARRISH：你说的 KBS 指的是 Cambric Business System，对吧？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Correct.
TRACY BRITT COOL：对。
Building a Repeatable Business System
打造可复制的经营系统
SHANE PARRISH: And these are all the components of it that we’re talking about. Now why come up with a repeatable system and is it similar to the Danaher one or different? Maybe give me a little bit of compare and contrast.
SHANE PARRISH：我们刚才聊的这些都是这个系统的组成部分。那为什么要做一套“可复制的系统”？它跟 Danaher 的系统相似还是不同？能不能做个简单的对比？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I was CEO. I wanted to go out and learn from others. And what I found was some of the best companies out there have a scalable, repeatable business system. Danaher, Marmon, Toyota. It is an integrated way of how they manage the business so that it’s not piecemeal, but really it’s a holistic approach where the components of the approach reinforce each other.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我当过 CEO，我想出去向别人学习。我发现世界上一些最好的公司都有一套可扩展、可复制的经营系统：Danaher、Marmon、Toyota。那是一种“整合式”的管理方式——不是东一块西一块的拼凑（piecemeal），而是一套整体性（holistic）的路径，各个组件相互强化、彼此增益。
And if you do one in isolation, you get less value than if you do them together and they’re complementary in nature. And so you could have a strategy process, but if you don’t have the right people and the right skills, you’re going to be less effective at implementing that strategic process.
如果你只孤立地做其中一块，你得到的价值会比把它们组合起来更少——因为它们天然是互补的。比如你可以有一套战略流程，但如果你没有对的人、没有匹配的技能，你执行战略流程的效果就会差很多。
If you have amazing people and a great culture and great environment, but you don’t have KPIs and alignment, you’re not going to be able to achieve as much with those people. So by adding these different components and focusing on what matters most in a business, you create more value overall.
反过来，如果你有很棒的人、很好的文化和环境，但没有 KPIs、没有对齐（alignment），你也无法让这些人发挥出应有的成果。所以把这些组件补齐，并聚焦企业里最重要的东西，你整体上就会创造更大的价值。
And I think there’s amazing examples, Danaher being one that’s created tremendous value by having a structured, systemized way of managing a business. And what we found is that most midsize companies, they’re struggling with the same things. How do I get the right people in the right seats? How do I build the right culture and right engagement? How do I get the right strategy without paying McKinsey or Bain to help me? How do I go and execute that strategy and drive accountability and action into the businesses?
我认为有很多杰出的例子，Danaher 就是其中之一——它通过结构化、系统化的管理方式创造了巨大价值。我们发现，大多数中型公司其实都在为同样的问题挣扎：如何把对的人放在对的岗位？如何建立正确的文化与参与度（engagement）？如何在不付 McKinsey 或 Bain 这类咨询费的情况下拿到正确的战略？如何执行战略、把问责（accountability）和行动（action）真正落到业务里？
And so what we’re trying to do is saying, rather than you have to go figure that out, we’ve done the work to say, hey, here are the structured ways to go do it. And this is sequencing that works for where you are in your business that we can help you with. And so that very much has been our approach to how we think about it with our business system.
所以我们想做的是：与其让你自己去摸索，我们已经把功课做了——告诉你：嘿，这里有一套结构化的方法可以这样做；而且还有一套与你当前阶段匹配的“推进顺序”（sequencing），我们可以帮助你落地。所以这就是我们构建 business system 的核心思路。
And what we did is we went and learned from some of those best out there, from Danaher, from Marmon, from Constellation and others, and took parts of each that we liked, where we thought that they were the most successful, and took those and distilled them into our own business system.
我们做法是：去向那些最优秀的公司学习——Danaher、Marmon、Constellation 等等——从每家里拿出我们喜欢、我们认为最成功的部分，然后把它们提炼（distill）成我们自己的 business system。
Ours probably has more of a focus on people and culture than others do. But I think that’s a function of where the world is today compared to 20 or 30 years ago where a lot of those business systems were started. But it has similar approaches in terms of continuous improvement or strategic planning or KPIs that many business systems have.
我们的系统可能比别人的更强调 people 和 culture。我觉得这是因为今天的世界与 20、30 年前很多经营系统诞生时的环境不同。但在持续改进（continuous improvement）、战略规划（strategic planning）、KPIs 等方面，我们也采取了很多经营系统共同拥有的类似方法。
And we feel like we’re standing on the shoulders of those giants who’ve done a great job of building them and we can enhance them and tailor them for our types of businesses.
我们觉得自己是在“站在巨人的肩膀上”——他们已经把系统做得很出色，我们只是把它们进一步增强，并为我们这种类型的企业做定制化。
Why More Investors Don’t Copy Proven Systems
为什么更多投资人不复制“被验证过的系统”
SHANE PARRISH: Why do you think more people don’t copy the Danaher business system? I mean a great recent example of that is Larry Culp using it to turn around GE. It’s a proven system. It’s successful. It probably takes a couple years to implement I would imagine throughout the organization, but it works.
SHANE PARRISH：你觉得为什么更多人不去复制 Danaher 的 business system？一个很好的近例是 Larry Culp 用它把 GE 扭转过来。这是一套被验证的系统，很成功。我猜它在全组织落地可能要花几年，但它确实有效。
TRACY BRITT COOL: So I think more people don’t do it because it’s really, really hard. It requires extensive discipline and structure and focus and adherence to the system for it to work. You can’t just do a piece of it or one part or for six months and you actually have to have it become part of the DNA and the culture of the business.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我认为更多人不这么做，是因为它真的非常非常难。要让系统有效，你需要极强的纪律性、结构、专注度，以及对系统的持续遵守（adherence）。你不能只做一小块、只做一部分、或者只做六个月；你必须让它变成公司 DNA 和文化的一部分。
So I think in longer term holds people don’t do it because of the discipline. I think in shorter term holds, if you are private equity, you don’t have the time period to get the benefits of doing it. And so why would you spend two years going and implementing something that you’re not going to probably reap the full benefit of in year three or year four when you need to exit the business?
所以我认为在长期持有里，人们不做，是因为纪律要求太高；而在短期持有里，如果你是 private equity，你往往没有足够时间去享受它带来的收益。那你为什么要花两年去实施一套东西，而在第三、第四年你需要退出时，可能还没拿到全部收益？
And so for us having a longer term horizon, we can invest in that and we see the value of it and we have the team to help support the discipline and the adherence to it.
而我们因为有更长期的时间跨度，所以我们可以投入，并且看得到它的价值；我们也有团队去支撑这种纪律性与持续执行。
I also think a lot of investors haven’t actually been operators. And so it’s really hard to go into a business and say this is what you should go do to operate a business if you’ve never actually operated the business. And so you probably don’t have the same insights or the value of that or understand the value of it.
我也认为很多投资人并没有真正当过 operator。所以如果你从没真正经营过企业，你很难走进一家企业说：你应该这样那样来经营。你可能没有同样的洞察，不理解它的价值，或者不理解它为什么重要。
And you might have an operating team who’s doing it for you. But usually a lot of firms’ operating teams are second class citizens where they’re not at the same seat at the table as the investing organization.
当然你也可能有一个 operating team 替你做这些。但通常很多机构的 operating team 是“二等公民”（second class citizens）——他们在决策桌上并不和投资团队坐在同一个位置、拥有同等话语权。
SHANE PARRISH: So you started KBS in 2020. What’s changed over the five years? What have you learned from implementing this over the last half decade?
SHANE PARRISH：你们 2020 年开始做 KBS。过去五年里有什么变化？在这半个十年里实施这套系统，你们学到了什么？
The Evolution of the Cambric Business System
Cambric Business System 的演进
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, so we actually started it when we were at Pampered Chef. The foundational pieces were where we were learning and trying things. And then we formally codified it when we started Cambric in 2020. It has changed a lot and it gets better every year and every season and every business we work in. We think of it as living and breathing. It’s not a stagnant system you go and implement and then forget about it. It really is focused on continuous improvement. And each company we engage with helps us get better at it.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的，其实我们在 Pampered Chef 的时候就已经开始做这套东西了——最初的“地基”就是在那时边学边试出来的。然后我们在 2020 年创立 Cambric 时，才把它正式“编码化/制度化”（codified）下来。它变化非常大，而且每一年、每一个阶段、每一个我们参与过的企业都会让它变得更好。我们把它看作一个“活的系统”（living and breathing）——不是那种你实施完就丢在一边的静态系统。它真正聚焦的是持续改进（continuous improvement），我们接触的每家公司都会让我们把系统打磨得更好。
But the mistakes that we learned from started very early on. So when we were at Pampered Chef, we first rolled out KPIs. We rolled out KPIs to an entire organization and we said, “Okay, great, we’re going to do KPIs, we’re going to roll it out to 500 employees, we’ll roll it out to everybody.” And that was a huge mistake. It was too fast and the organization wasn’t ready. We should have started and sequenced it and started just with the executive team in year one. Once you have the executive team understanding, aligned, working towards it, then you go to the next level and then ultimately you go to the next level. We thought we could move faster and just roll it out because it was a small business.
但我们吸取的那些教训很早就开始了。比如在 Pampered Chef，我们第一次推 KPIs 的时候，是直接全员铺开——我们说：“好，太好了，我们要做 KPIs，我们要给 500 个员工全部铺下去，给每个人都铺。”这其实是一个巨大的错误。推进太快了，组织根本没准备好。我们应该从一开始就做“顺序推进”（sequencing）：第一年只从高管团队（executive team）开始。等高管团队理解了、对齐了、一起朝着 KPIs 走，再下沉到下一层，然后最终再下沉到更下一层。我们当时以为公司小就能跑得更快，所以直接全量上线。
Related to that, when we rolled out our KPIs, we were like, “Okay, great, KPIs, go figure them out.” And what we thought was employees will figure out how to go do it. Well, it turns out you have to help people and you have to understand problem solving and help them understand how do I go solve a KPI. Just because you give me a KPI doesn’t mean I actually understand how do I go drive it. It doesn’t mean I’m not capable or I can’t figure it out. But it’s going to be much more effective if I give you problem solving training, help you have some case studies and examples of what this looks like in action.
还有一个相关的错误是：我们把 KPIs 推下去时，基本是说：“好，KPIs，自己去搞明白吧。”我们以为员工会自己摸索怎么做。结果发现：你必须帮助人，你必须理解“问题解决”（problem solving），并帮助他们理解：我怎么去“解一个 KPI”？你给我一个 KPI，并不代表我就知道怎么把它驱动起来。这不代表我不行、我学不会，但如果你给我问题解决训练（problem solving training），给我一些案例（case studies）和实际例子（examples），告诉我在真实场景里它怎么长什么样，那推进效率会高得多。
On the people side, when we first started, we rolled out 360 degree feedback in year one. And what we found with 360 degree feedback, where people get feedback from not just their manager but peers as well as direct reports, is if you’re an organization where you don’t have trust or psychological safety, it doesn’t work. The feedback isn’t very good. It’s shallow. People are defensive. People attack. It’s not productive or constructive feedback.
在人这一侧，我们刚开始的时候，第一年就推了 360-degree feedback（360 度反馈）。360 反馈是指：一个人不仅从经理那里拿反馈，也从同级同事和直接下属那里拿反馈。我们发现：如果一个组织缺乏信任或心理安全（psychological safety），这套机制就会失效。反馈质量很差——很浅，大家会防御、会攻击，反馈就不再是建设性的（constructive），也不高效。
So in doing that, what we realized was, okay, organizations aren’t ready for this in terms of people in year one. We need to build up to it. We need to build communication and engagement in the organization and transparency. We need to show them that we’re going to do this. First we need to explain why we’re doing development. It’s not to exit people, it’s to help them in terms of their career progression.
所以我们由此意识到：好，在“人”的层面，很多组织在第一年并不准备好推这套东西。我们需要“铺垫”到它。我们需要先把沟通（communication）、参与度（engagement）和透明度（transparency）建立起来。我们要让大家看到我们真的会这么做。首先要解释清楚：我们为什么做发展（development）？不是为了“清人/淘汰人”（exit people），而是为了帮助他们的职业发展（career progression）。
And so by learning those things along the way, we get better at what we’re doing. In the recent years, we’ve realized more simple, clear, less as concise as possible. Dawson Shamblin, who leads our KBS team, is terrific at this. He’s just a natural learner and working on improving the system. And after each partnership, we reflect and say, “Okay, what went well? What could have gone better? What do we think needs to shift and alter?”
因此，我们一路学习这些东西，就让我们做得越来越好。近几年我们更深刻地意识到：要更简单、更清晰，尽可能少（as concise as possible）。带领我们 KBS 团队的 Dawson Shamblin 在这方面特别强——他天生就是个学习者，一直在改进系统。每完成一次合作，我们都会复盘：哪些做得好？哪些还能更好？哪些需要调整与改变（shift and alter）？
And it’s also great. We’ll go into businesses and we learn of what they’re doing really well and like, “Oh wow, they actually do that better than us. Okay, can we tweak this or can we utilize them?” And we see it in our community too, the group of 3,000 owners. We learn from them of how they’re navigating these types of topics and that helps us get better as well.
而且这也很棒：我们进入一些企业，会看到他们某些事情做得特别好，我们会想：“哇，他们这块 actually 比我们做得更好。那我们能不能把系统微调一下？或者我们能不能借鉴/利用他们的做法？”我们在社群里也能看到这一点——那 3,000 位 owner 的群体。我们从他们那里学习：他们是怎么应对这些议题的，这也会帮助我们变得更好。
The Cambric Community
Cambric 社群
SHANE PARRISH: I love the idea of the community. I think you had mentioned there’s sort of like accelerators for startup companies, but there’s no real accelerators or network for mid-sized businesses.
SHANE PARRISH：我很喜欢“社群”这个想法。我记得你提过：创业公司有各种 accelerator，但中型企业并没有真正的 accelerator 或者网络。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. My view is that mid-sized companies are in this middle sort of gap area. On the smaller side, startups have accelerators, they have different programs. Bigger companies have more resources. They can bring in a consulting firm or someone to help them or pay for a resource on a specific topic. If you’re in the middle, you’re constrained by resources, typically both time, people and dollars. And so but you have many of the same challenges to figure out and to navigate.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我认为中型企业处在一个“中间的空档”。更小的一端，startup 有 accelerators、有各种项目；更大的一端，大公司资源更多——可以请咨询公司，或者为某个专题付费购买资源与支持。但如果你在中间，你往往受资源限制：时间、人手、资金都紧张；但你需要解决、需要穿越的挑战却跟他们一样多。
And so we built the Cambric community for what we wanted, which was resources and people to learn from that have done this and have made mistakes and learned and gotten better. And by bringing those people together, we’re sharing our own resources and content and perspective and experience. But also other people in the community are sharing theirs as well. And so that sort of shared ecosystem of learning, improving, getting better has made everyone in the community participate better in their businesses, but also helps us as well.
所以我们建立 Cambric community，是为了我们自己也渴望拥有的东西：资源，以及可以学习的人——他们做过这些事，犯过错，学到东西，变得更好。把这些人聚在一起，我们会分享自己的资源、内容、视角和经验；社群里的其他人也会分享他们的。于是这种共享的学习生态——学习、改进、变得更好——既让社群里的每个人在自己的企业里表现得更好，也同样反过来帮助我们。
Conservative Approach to Debt
对负债（debt）的保守态度
SHANE PARRISH: And then how do you think about debt when you take over a company?
SHANE PARRISH：那当你们接手一家企业时，你们如何看待 debt（负债/杠杆）？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, so we’re pretty conservative. So back to that margin of safety. We believe if everything has to go well to be successful in the business, that makes us nervous. And leverage is one of those things that the more leverage you put on the business, the more everything has to go well for that to be able to service that.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们相当保守。回到安全边际（margin of safety）：如果一家企业要成功必须“所有事情都顺利”，那会让我们紧张。杠杆（leverage）就是这种因素之一——你给企业上的杠杆越多，就意味着为了能持续偿债（service that debt），你越需要“所有事情都得顺”。
So maybe a traditional private equity might put four to six times the leverage on a business, we’ll probably do two or three times. We might also use a turn of a seller note where the seller is helping finance that which is a little bit more friendly than bank debt or some other debt option. And so we’re in general a little bit more conservative. Our view is that leverage amplifies returns on the upside, but also on the downside. And so we want to have a bit more margin of safety. We don’t want to put the company at risk, we don’t want to push ourselves to make short term decisions because of a structural decision that maybe juiced returns a little bit, but isn’t actually what we think is best for the business.
比如传统 private equity 可能会给企业上 4 到 6 倍的杠杆，我们可能只会做 2 到 3 倍。我们也可能用一轮 seller note（卖方票据/卖方融资），让卖方协助融资——这通常比银行债或其他债务工具更“友好”。总体而言我们更保守。我们的观点是：杠杆会放大上行收益，也会放大下行损失。所以我们希望留出更多安全边际。我们不想让公司处在风险之中，也不想因为某个结构性的决策——它可能让回报“榨得更高一点”（juiced returns），但并不一定对企业最好——就把自己逼到必须做短期决策的境地。
SHANE PARRISH: I have a hunch, maybe correct me if I’m wrong, but when you’re buying these businesses, they don’t have a lot of debt on them.
SHANE PARRISH：我有个直觉——你纠正我如果不对：你们买的这些企业，本身通常也没有太多债务。
急着做成事。
TRACY BRITT COOL: No, typically not. Most entrepreneurs we meet at some point had some moment in their business where it was a bet the business type situation. And oftentimes that might have been leverage or something else where they almost lost the whole business. And when you have those situations you’ve gone through, typically as an entrepreneur you’re like, “I don’t ever want to be there again, so I’m not going to ever put myself at risk.”
TRACY BRITT COOL：对，通常没有。我们见到的大多数创业者，在某个阶段都经历过一次“押上公司”（bet the business）的时刻。很多时候那可能就是杠杆（leverage）或别的原因，差点把整个公司都丢了。经历过那种情况之后，创业者通常会想：“我再也不想回到那个位置，所以我不会再把自己放到风险里。”
And so oftentimes I think some mid-sized companies are actually almost too debt adverse where they won’t even have mortgage on a property or use financing on an area where it might actually be prudent and they’d be more inclined to take equity or more expensive capital or not use the capital options they have because they’re so afraid of something bad happening. And it typically is stemming from something bad happened at some stage and they almost lost their business and they don’t want to be ever close to that again. Which we can respect and we understand. If you have a great business, you don’t want to put yourself in a situation where your business is at risk because of a capital financing decision.
所以很多时候，我觉得一些中型企业甚至“过度厌恶负债”（too debt adverse）：他们甚至不会给物业上按揭（mortgage），或者在某些其实可能很审慎（prudent）的场景里使用融资；他们更倾向于用 equity（股权）或更昂贵的资本，或者干脆不用自己可以使用的资本工具，因为他们太害怕发生坏事。通常这背后来自于：过去某个阶段确实发生过坏事，他们差点失去公司，所以他们再也不想接近那种边缘。我们尊重也理解这一点——如果你有一家很棒的企业，你确实不想因为一次融资决策就让企业处在风险之中。
Embracing AI at Cambric
在 Cambric 拥抱 AI
SHANE PARRISH: You guys have embraced AI internally at Cambric, how are you using it?
SHANE PARRISH：你们在 Cambric 内部拥抱了 AI，你们具体怎么用它？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, so we think of AI in three different ways. One is at Cambric, how do we use it and ultimately become smarter, more efficient, more productive in our own processes and how we operate. And so that’s everything from we use it for better note taking, research on businesses, moving faster as we sort of deep dive in a space and getting smarter. As we think about the businesses more holistically, we definitely are using it.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们把 AI 的使用分成三种方式。第一是在 Cambric 自己内部：我们如何用 AI，让自己的流程与运营变得更聪明、更高效、更有生产力。包括更好的记录（note taking）、对企业的研究（research）、在我们深挖某个领域时更快推进、变得更懂。我们从更整体的角度思考企业时，确实在用 AI。
The second way we’re thinking about it is what are the industries and businesses where AI will affect the industry and potentially strengthen the moat as we sort of talked about a bit earlier. And are there spaces that we think are attractive? So looking into what we call AI enabled services businesses where we think it can strengthen the moat of the business. We’re still in earlier stages on that because I think there’s a lot of uncertainty of what happens in different businesses. But we’re spending time thinking about that.
第二个层面是：AI 会影响哪些行业与企业，并且可能像我们之前聊的那样，让护城河变强？有没有我们觉得有吸引力的领域？所以我们在研究我们称之为 AI enabled services businesses（AI 赋能的服务型企业）的方向——我们认为 AI 可能会强化它们的护城河。我们仍然处在早期阶段，因为不同业务里会发生什么还有很多不确定性，但我们正在投入时间思考。
And then the third is in our companies. And in our companies there’s two main ways we think it can be helpful. One is just a structured way to help our businesses think about the key management aspects where they can be more effective. So an example would be hiring. We have a hiring process, we have a structured, you do a scorecard and you do this in terms of sourcing and then you do this in terms of selection and an interview process. And if you do this, it will improve your odds of success. But it’s very hard to be disciplined to it because it takes time and it takes you requiring to step back and think about it. You need to build a case study, you need to do all of these things.
第三是在我们的被投公司里。在被投公司里，我们认为 AI 主要有两种帮助方式。第一是用一种结构化的方式，帮助企业在关键管理议题上变得更有效率。比如招聘（hiring）。我们有一套招聘流程——结构化地做：做 scorecard（评分卡），做 sourcing（候选人来源），再做 selection（筛选）与面试流程。如果你按这套做，成功概率会提高。但真正难的是“有纪律地坚持”，因为它很花时间，而且要求你退后一步认真思考。你要做案例（case study），要做很多工作。
And so can we build a hiring tool that takes away some of the work required, that allows you to still adhere to the process with discipline, but not all the time to build the process. So can we build a scorecard for a role more effectively? Can we pull from other similar type roles and pre-populate it and make you a little bit more efficient as a hiring manager? So we’re spending time on AI on topics like that that will affect every business.
所以我们在想：能不能打造一个招聘工具，把其中一部分“必须做的劳动”拿走，让你依然能有纪律地遵守流程，但不必每次都花大量时间去搭建流程本身？比如：我们能不能更高效地为一个岗位建立 scorecard？能不能从其他相似岗位抽取内容、预填充（pre-populate），让你作为招聘经理更高效？我们正在把 AI 用在这种“会影响每一家企业”的议题上。
And then we’re spending time on can we think about our productive workflows in our business and how do we be more effective? I think people are starting with the simple stuff like how do I become more efficient or can I think about my call center. But we’re thinking probably more on the revenue generating side. Can we quote? Right now we have a business that takes 48 hours to quote. Can we get that down to 48 minutes without sacrificing quality by utilizing AI more effectively?
第二种是：我们如何重新思考企业里的生产性工作流（productive workflows），让它们更有效？我觉得很多人先从简单的事情开始，比如“怎么更高效”、或者“怎么优化 call center”。但我们可能更关注收入端（revenue generating side）：比如报价（quote）。我们现在有一家企业，从客户询价到完成报价要 48 小时。我们能不能在不牺牲质量的前提下，通过更有效地使用 AI，把它缩短到 48 分钟？
Are there other workflows like that on the sales or marketing or productivity side where we can significantly improve how we are engaging with customers or making decisions or speeding up things that will then allow us to attract more customers or service our customers better. And so that’s the third aspect that we’re working on when it comes to AI.
在销售、营销或生产力侧，还有没有类似的工作流：我们可以显著提升与客户互动的方式，提升决策效率，或者加速一些流程——从而吸引更多客户、或更好地服务客户？这就是我们在 AI 上工作的第三个方面。
The Hiring Process
招聘流程
SHANE PARRISH: Hiring, what does that process look like? What does that nitty gritty look like in the details? You guys have recently hired a new CEO for one of the companies you had. What does that mean, process?
SHANE PARRISH：招聘这件事，你们的流程到底是什么样？细节上（nitty gritty）长什么样？你们最近给其中一家企业招了一个新 CEO，这在流程上意味着什么？
The “Who” Hiring Process
“Who” 招聘流程
TRACY BRITT COOL: So we very much subscribe to the “Who” process. By GH Smart, there’s a book called “Who” (W-H-O). It is, I think, single-handedly the best simple book on hiring. And if you read that book, almost everyone will become a better hiring manager.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们非常认可并采用 “Who” 流程。它来自 GH Smart，有一本书就叫《Who》（W-H-O）。我认为它几乎是关于招聘最好的、最简单的一本书。你读完它，几乎每个人都会成为更好的招聘经理。
There’s a few components to it and we’ve augmented and added our own. But the first is building a really in-depth scorecard for the role. Most people completely skip this process. They just jump to, “I’m going to write a JD, I’m going to post the role, I’m going to start interviewing and then I’ll sort of figure it out.”
它有几个组成部分，我们也在此基础上做了一些增强与补充。但第一步是：为这个岗位建立一份非常深入的 scorecard（评分卡/岗位画像）。大多数人会完全跳过这一步，直接进入：我要写 JD、我要发布岗位、我要开始面试，然后我再慢慢“面着面着就知道了”。
People usually do that because you’re in pain, you’re trying to fill a role and you don’t have someone in the role or you don’t have the right person, and so you just want to get going. And we always say by doing that you may save your time today, but you’re going to lose time down the road because you’re not aligned with your counterparts on it. You don’t market to the right people, you don’t interview the right candidates, or you hire the wrong person and then you’ve got to exit that person and you lose lots of time and money in doing that.
人们之所以这么做，通常是因为“很痛”：你急着补人，你要填一个坑，你现在要么没人、要么人不对，所以你只想赶紧开始。我们总说：你今天这样做可能省了一点时间，但未来你会付出更多时间，因为你和关键相关方并没有对齐。你没把岗位信息“营销”给对的人，你没面到对的候选人，或者你招错了人，最后你不得不把这个人请走（exit），在这个过程中你会损失大量时间和金钱。
So how do you actually start up front and get aligned and get clarity on what you need in the role? A good scorecard in our mind has three critical components.
所以你到底应该怎么在一开始就对齐、并把这个岗位需要什么想清楚？在我们看来，一份好的 scorecard 有三个关键组成部分。
# Building the Scorecard
# 构建 Scorecard（评分卡/岗位画像）
The first is what’s the mission of the role? Really clearly, what are you going to go drive in this role? And how do you make it specific? You want it time-bound, you want it as measurable as possible.
第一是：这个岗位的 mission（使命）是什么？非常清楚地说，这个角色要驱动什么？你如何把它说得具体？你希望它有时间边界（time-bound），并且尽可能可衡量（measurable）。
So if you’re hiring a VP of sales, you might say we want to double revenue over three years by improving our industrial account management and adding large industrial contracts. And we want to build a team of farmers or we want to build a team of hunters, whatever it may be. By doing that, what do you want to achieve? What’s the time you want to achieve it? And some level of the how.
比如你要招一个 VP of sales，你可能会说：我们希望在三年内把收入翻倍，方式是提升我们的工业客户管理（industrial account management），并新增大型工业合同（large industrial contracts）。我们希望组建一支 farmer 团队，或者组建一支 hunter 团队——看情况而定。这样做，你到底想实现什么？你希望在什么时间内实现？以及在一定程度上，你需要什么样的“怎么做”（how）。
The how is important because sales leaders are very different. If you’re going to sell through Amazon, you probably need a different sales leader than if you’re going to sell direct or if you’re going to sell through large customers. Are you clearly articulating what you need? So that mission is important.
how 很重要，因为不同的销售负责人差别巨大。如果你要通过 Amazon 来卖，你需要的销售负责人可能和“直接销售（sell direct）”或“向大客户销售（sell through large customers）”完全不同。你有没有清晰表达你需要什么？所以 mission 很关键。
The second is the outcomes. Three to five really clear outcomes of what you’re going to go drive. So that might be growth and revenue, but it also might be we need to grow margin or we need to improve from four national accounts to 10, whatever the outcomes are that you need for that role, as clear and crisp as possible.
第二是 outcomes（结果）。列出三到五个非常清楚的 outcomes：这个角色要驱动哪些结果？可能是增长与收入，也可能是我们需要提升利润率（grow margin），或者把 national accounts 从 4 个提升到 10 个……不管这个角色需要什么 outcomes，都要尽可能清晰、利落（clear and crisp）。
And then the third are competencies. What are the competencies needed for this role? We think of competencies on two levels. One is functional. So there’s some roles where you need a certain type of competency. You might need analytical or you might need relationship-based, whatever it is for that role. And then there’s company or cultural competencies. We need everyone to be humble or open to feedback or aggressive, whatever it is for your business.
第三是 competencies（能力/胜任力）。这个岗位需要哪些胜任力？我们把胜任力分成两层：一层是 functional（功能/专业能力），有些岗位你需要特定类型的能力，比如分析型（analytical），或者关系型（relationship-based）——视岗位而定。另一层是公司/文化层面的胜任力：我们希望每个人都谦逊（humble）、愿意接受反馈（open to feedback）、或者更进取（aggressive）……取决于你的业务需要什么样的人。
So the scorecard is putting those things together. The hiring manager puts those together and then shares that with their counterparts and other stakeholders. And then you beat it up. What you’ll find is people will say, “Well, you think we need to grow through national accounts? I think we should be going to mom and pops.”
所以 scorecard 就是把这些东西组合起来。hiring manager 先把它写出来，然后分享给同级伙伴（counterparts）和其他相关方（stakeholders），接着大家一起“打磨/拷打”（beat it up）。你会发现有人会说：“你觉得我们要通过 national accounts 来增长？我觉得我们应该去做 mom and pops（小店/小商户）。”
That conversation is had early in the process where you can get alignment, have disagreement, but then move forward on what you want to go do. Once you have that scorecard, then the hiring manager or the recruiter or the search firm know, “Okay, this is what the person needs to go do. I can find people who can go do this. I can build a JD that’s going to market to people who want to go do this, and I can more clearly articulate it.”
这种对话在流程早期就发生，这样你可以尽早对齐：可以有分歧，但最终能在“我们要做什么”上达成一致并往前走。一旦有了 scorecard，hiring manager、recruiter 或 search firm 就知道：“好，这个人需要做什么。我可以去找能做这件事的人；我可以写一份能吸引想做这件事的人的 JD；我也能更清楚地把岗位讲明白。”
And then that scorecard flows through the interview process. Now I have to know how to interview. So that’s the first component of the scorecard.
然后 scorecard 会贯穿整个面试流程。接下来你得知道怎么面试。所以这就是 scorecard 的第一部分。
基本上是CRM的初级选手。
# Sourcing and Selection
# 寻访与筛选（Sourcing & Selection）
The second component is the sourcing. Most sourcing in most companies is very reactive. You post the job and people apply. My view is that oftentimes the people applying aren’t always the people you want. They’re the people usually who don’t have a job or are unsatisfied in their job.
第二个组件是 sourcing（寻访/找人）。大多数公司的 sourcing 都很被动：你把岗位发出去，然后等人来投。我认为很多时候，来投的人未必是你真正想要的人——他们通常是没有工作的人，或者对现有工作不满意的人。
Oftentimes your best performers are happy in their job and they’re doing really well. And so you need to go find those people. Having the hiring manager or the recruiter reaching out and taking ownership of that to actually find the people that you want to have and not just waiting for people to come to you. Really diving into more specifics of how do you go source.
很多时候，你最好的候选人其实在自己岗位上做得很好，也挺满意。所以你需要主动去找他们。让 hiring manager 或 recruiter 主动出击、对 sourcing 负责，真正去找到你想要的人，而不是只等人上门。这就需要更深入、更具体地研究“到底怎么做 sourcing”。
And then the third is around selection and how do you improve your selection process. This is what most people think about when they think about hiring—the selection part. Our selection has a few different components to it.
第三个部分是 selection（筛选/选拔），以及如何提升你的 selection 流程。这是大多数人一提“招聘”首先想到的东西——也就是“挑人”这一段。我们的 selection 也有几个组件。
The first is actually the hiring manager. We do a screen with the recruiter, but then the hiring manager going deep on different areas that we think are important in the role from the scorecard. So the outcomes, the competencies in that first interview, and then actually have an interview panel that have different people interviewing different areas.
第一步其实是 hiring manager。我们会先由 recruiter 做一个初筛（screen），但接下来 hiring manager 会基于 scorecard 深入不同关键领域：比如 outcomes、competencies——在第一次面试里就把这些问深。然后我们会组成 interview panel（面试小组），让不同的人分别面不同的维度/领域。
What we find is most interviews start with, “Tell me a little bit about yourself,” and, “Tell me about your background,” and then 20 minutes later that candidate’s had that same conversation with three or four different people. Versus saying, “Your job is to interview on outcomes and all you’re going to focus on are these outcomes. Your job is to focus on functional competencies. All you’re going to focus on is, are they analytical if that’s what you’re looking for?”
我们发现大多数面试都从“跟我介绍一下你自己”“说说你的背景”开始，然后 20 分钟后，这个候选人又把同一套话对另外三四个人重复一遍。相比之下，更好的做法是明确分工：比如对某位面试官说——“你的任务是只面 outcomes，你只关注这些 outcomes。”对另一位面试官说——“你的任务是只面 functional competencies，你只关注：如果我们要找分析型能力，那他到底是不是 analytical？”
SHANE PARRISH: Right.
SHANE PARRISH：对。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Relationship-based. And then one person focusing on cultural. In your interview, you’re not worried about what their past role is or how competent they are in terms of the outcomes, you’re worried about their culture. Having the interview set up from that.
TRACY BRITT COOL：关系型（relationship-based）。然后再安排一个人专门看文化（cultural）。在这位面试官的面试里，你不关心对方过去做过什么岗位、也不关心他在 outcomes 上有多强；你关心的是他的文化匹配。也就是用这种方式来设计面试。
And then we augment those interviews with behavioral assessment. We usually do behavioral and cognitive, which we think helps us better understand some of the cultural and aptitude aspects. We usually do a case study, which is a deep dive on real topics that we’re facing.
然后我们会用行为测评（behavioral assessment）来增强这些面试。我们通常会做 behavioral（行为）和 cognitive（认知）两类测评，我们认为这能帮助我们更好地理解文化匹配和能力倾向（aptitude）的一些维度。我们通常还会做 case study（案例作业/案例分析），针对我们真实正在面对的议题做一次深挖。
And then we usually do a top-grading interview, which is an in-depth, usually 90-minute to three-hour interview where we’re going through every past role that they’ve done. What were the outcomes or the scope of responsibility? How did they perform? What would their manager say about them? Those types of conversations.
然后我们通常还会做 top-grading interview（深度履历面试/顶级甄选面试）：这是一种非常深入的面试，通常 90 分钟到 3 小时，我们会把候选人过去做过的每一个角色都过一遍：当时的 outcomes 是什么？职责范围（scope of responsibility）是什么？他表现如何？他的经理会怎么评价他？类似这样的问题与对话。
So it’s a pretty in-depth process based on “Who,” but it significantly improves your outcome of success.
所以这是一套基于《Who》的、相当深入的流程，但它能显著提高你成功招对人的概率。
Why Not Insurance?
为什么不做 Insurance（保险）？
SHANE PARRISH: One of the businesses you’re not interested in acquiring is insurance. I’d love to hear more about that.
SHANE PARRISH：你们不太想收购的业务之一是 insurance（保险）。我很想听听背后的原因。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of industries we don’t invest in. Healthcare, financials, insurance, real estate. Typically we want to focus on what’s our circle of competence. Where do we think we have value and expertise that’s going to enhance what we’re doing?
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的，我们不投的行业其实很多：healthcare、financials、insurance、real estate。我们通常会聚焦在自己的能力圈（circle of competence）里——我们在哪些领域真正能带来价值与专业能力，从而增强我们所做的事情？
So we focus on services, industrials, consumer, both by our background but also where we think there’s attractive opportunities. Insurance can be a really good business, but a lot of capital has come into it in the last 15 years. And so it probably is a more competitive business. There’s more risk in it than there has been, and there probably will be times where it’s a really good business, but there’ll be times where there’s more capital, so the pricing gets less disciplined and then it ends up being less attractive of a business.
所以我们更关注 services、industrials、consumer——一方面基于我们的背景，另一方面也因为我们认为这些地方机会更吸引人。保险可以是一门很好的生意，但过去 15 年有大量资本涌入，所以它可能变得更竞争、更拥挤。里面的风险也比以前更高。可能会有一些阶段它很好做，但也会有一些阶段因为资本太多，定价纪律变差（pricing gets less disciplined），最后它就变得没那么吸引人。
There are other dynamics that are attractive. If we ever found the perfect insurance business, it’s not saying we wouldn’t do it, but it’s probably not a focus for us, for those dynamics. And the fact that where we are playing, there’s a lot of opportunity. So there’s just more there than we see possible in insurance or some of these other sectors.
当然，保险里也有其他吸引人的动态。如果我们真遇到一门“完美的保险生意”，也不是说我们一定不做；但基于这些动态，它不是我们的重点。而且在我们当前深耕的领域里，机会非常多——相比之下，我们在 insurance 或其他这些行业里看到的空间更小。
And some of them are just more complex. The risks are higher. If you misprice insurance, you don’t understand your costs for a long time, but it can be very, very difficult to an organization and you can erode all your profits if you misprice.
另外有些行业本身更复杂，风险更高。比如保险，如果你定价错了（misprice），你可能很长时间都看不清真实成本，但对组织的伤害会非常大——一旦定价错，你可能把所有利润都侵蚀掉。
Lessons from Board Experience
从董事会经历中学到的东西
SHANE PARRISH: You’ve been on a lot of boards, so you’ve been on the Dairy Queen board, Johns Manville, Kraft Heinz. I would love to hear about what you learned from those experiences and then how you took that and you’re applying that now at Cambric.
SHANE PARRISH：你上过很多董事会，比如 Dairy Queen、Johns Manville、Kraft Heinz。我很想听听你从这些经历里学到了什么，以及你如何把这些经验带到 Cambric 来应用。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. So I’d say each board I’ve been on, I’ve learned different things, both in terms of what to do, sometimes what not to do. Some of them have been unique, where it was the CEO reporting to me directly and not a formal board, and other times a more formal public board or private board.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我会说：每一个我参加过的董事会都让我学到不同的东西——既有“应该怎么做”，也有时候是“不要怎么做”。有的经历很特殊，比如 CEO 直接向我汇报，但并不是一个正式的 board；也有一些是更正式的 public board 或 private board。
What I find is, for the most part, most boards don’t add a lot of value to the businesses. And I think they oftentimes go too deep on areas that are less critical and not enough time on the areas that are most critical, that they can provide the most value.
我的观察是：大多数情况下，很多董事会并没有给企业带来太多价值。我觉得他们经常在“没那么关键”的领域钻得太深，却没有把足够的时间花在“最关键”的领域上——而这些最关键的领域才是他们最有可能提供最大价值的地方。
So within each business, really understanding, what are the three to five big levers that are going to shift and create the most value in this business? And how do you spend your time talking about those levers versus all the smaller things that might be urgent, they might be happening, they may be important, but they’re not going to fundamentally change the direction of the business?
所以在每一家企业里，真正要理解的是：这家企业里哪三到五个“大杠杆”（big levers）会改变局面、创造最多价值？然后你怎么把时间花在讨论这些杠杆上，而不是被那些更琐碎的小事牵着走——那些小事可能很紧急、正在发生、也可能重要，但它们不会从根本上改变企业方向。
I think the best boards figure out what those are, focus on them and drive conversation around them, and then provide insights or value to the management team. I think most management teams would come out of most board meetings and say, “That wasn’t a good use of my time because I was just updating and telling them what I did for the last quarter or whatever it may be,” versus more forward-thinking. “This is what I’m struggling with.”
我认为最好的董事会能找出这些“大杠杆”，聚焦它们，围绕它们推动对话，并给管理团队提供洞见或价值。我想很多管理团队从很多董事会会议出来时会觉得：“这不是对我时间的好使用，因为我基本只是在更新情况、告诉他们我上个季度做了什么之类。”而不是更面向未来的讨论：比如“我现在卡在什么问题上”。
Most boards don’t have the context in the business enough to be able to add value. So how do you make sure the board is knowledgeable enough about the business and can also ask the right questions, even if they’re not going to be as deep as the CEO or the management team? And I think it’s a fine line of you getting that right balance. But those are some of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve thought about different boards and how we think about our boards.
多数董事会对业务缺乏足够的“上下文”，因此很难真正提供价值。所以问题是：你如何确保董事会对业务足够了解，能够问出正确的问题——即便他们不可能像 CEO 或管理团队那样深入？我认为这里有一条很细的线，要在两边之间找到正确平衡。但这就是我在不同董事会经历中学到的一些东西，也影响了我们现在如何设计与思考自己的 boards。
SHANE PARRISH: And do you think the role of the board is different in public companies versus private companies?
SHANE PARRISH：你觉得董事会在上市公司和非上市公司里的角色有区别吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yes and no. I mean, absolutely. There’s a public dynamic where you have a fiduciary responsibility, there’s an enhanced governance and some other dynamics that are important and regulated in terms of where you need to spend your time. I think there’s some that’s less valuable. Earnings and quarterly reports. I think that’s probably less valuable to value creation in the business.
TRACY BRITT COOL：有，也没有。确实有区别。上市公司有“公共市场”的动态：你有受托责任（fiduciary responsibility），治理（governance）要求更高，还有一些重要但受监管约束的事项，决定了你必须把时间花在某些地方上。我也认为其中有些内容价值不大——比如财报（earnings）和季度报告。我觉得这些对企业价值创造的贡献可能相对有限。
I think at the private side, people set up their boards in different ways. Sometimes it’s set up more as governance and oversight and shareholder management. Other times it’s set up more as advisory or insight. And I think different private boards do it differently.
而在私营（private）一侧，人们搭建董事会的方式差异更大。有时它更偏治理、监督（oversight）和股东管理（shareholder management）；有时更偏咨询、建议（advisory）和洞见（insight）。不同的私营董事会做法不一样。
I think our view is that you probably want somewhere in the middle where you’re having some governance. But at Cambric, we provide most of that. But really it’s the valuable insights, perspective, relationships, introductions that are going to create the most value that we want our boards focused on.
我们的看法是：你可能需要一个“中间态”——有一定的治理，但在 Cambric，我们会承担其中大部分。我们希望董事会真正聚焦的是能创造最大价值的部分：有价值的洞见、视角、人脉、引荐（introductions）。
SHANE PARRISH: Is there a moment without naming the company, where you were in a board meeting and you were just taken back by what was happening?
SHANE PARRISH：有没有某次董事会会议——不必说是哪家公司——你坐在那儿，看到正在发生的事情，简直被震住了？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Like in a bad way? Yeah. I mean many of them and some of them good boards. But I remember there was a board meeting we were in and we were assessing the packaging of the products in detail, which I think that’s very important. The packaging of the product is very important. I don’t know if the board is the best people to be assessing and commenting on the packaging of business. I think that’s what the management team and the marketer should be doing.
TRACY BRITT COOL：你是说“糟糕的那种震住”吗？有的，很多次——当然也有一些很好的董事会。但我记得有一次董事会会议，我们在非常细地评估产品包装（packaging）。我承认包装很重要，产品包装确实非常重要。但我不确定董事会是不是最合适来评估和评论“包装细节”的人。我觉得那更应该是管理团队和市场负责人该做的事。
And I think those are conversations you have to be thought about. You’re in a slide deck and it’s slide 112 and you’re being read the slides and really, this is how we’re going to use this time. I don’t think any slide deck should be 112 for a board. I mean, usually there’s 20 slides maybe that get to the heart of the most important topics you’re facing at a time. And then most of the time should be discussion and not presentation. It’s not a dog and pony show.
我觉得这些对话需要反思：你在一个 slide deck 里，翻到第 112 页，还在逐页念 PPT——我们真的要这样用时间吗？我不认为任何董事会的 slide deck 应该有 112 页。通常 20 页左右就应该能打到当下最关键议题的核心。然后会议大部分时间应该是讨论，而不是演示。这不应该是一场“走过场的表演”（dog and pony show）。
But I think it’s set up typically for the management team to come up and say all the things that we’ve done and how smart we are and how talented we are and how you should be applauding us. And the board is doing that on the other side versus that is going to create the most value versus, hey, these are the three biggest issues we’re facing right now. This is what we’re struggling with, this is what we need your help with, and this is what we want your perspective and insights on.
但很多会议的设置，往往是让管理层上来汇报：我们做了什么、我们多聪明、我们多能干、你们应该为我们鼓掌；董事会在另一边配合着做这件事。相比之下，真正能创造价值的方式应该是：嘿，我们现在面临的三大问题是什么？我们卡在哪里？我们需要你们在哪些方面帮忙？我们希望你们在哪些点上给出视角与洞见？
Now that’s a completely different dynamic. You need to have psychological safety. You need to have trust. You need the management team to be open to receive the feedback. You need to have board members who are capable of providing valuable feedback. You need all of those dynamics to come together.
那将是完全不同的一种动态。你需要心理安全（psychological safety），需要信任（trust）；管理团队要愿意接收反馈；董事会成员要有能力给出真正有价值的反馈。所有这些因素都必须同时具备，才能把董事会开成“有用的会议”。
Learning Financial Literacy from Buffett
向 Buffett 学财务素养
SHANE PARRISH: You mentioned Katherine Graham and her biography earlier. I want to circle back to this because it just brought back a little bit of a memory and it involves Buffett. But it was interesting. She had mentioned something, if I can get this right, where he had brought all these annual reports to her and he was teaching her sort of the financial aspect of running the Washington Post. And one of the things he mentioned that stood out to me was he was just showing her a balance sheet over 5 or 10 year period of time. What can you learn from a balance sheet, just a pure balance sheet over that period of time? What insights do you get?
SHANE PARRISH：你之前提到 Kathryn Graham 以及她的自传。我想回到这个点，因为它让我想起一个与 Buffett 有关的片段。很有意思：她提到（如果我没记错的话），Buffett 带了一堆年报给她，教她理解经营 Washington Post 的财务层面。让我印象很深的是：他只是拿出一张资产负债表（balance sheet），拉了 5 到 10 年的时间跨度给她看。仅仅从这张“纯粹的资产负债表”上，你能学到什么？能得到哪些洞见？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I mean, you can see a lot in a balance sheet. You can see how much inventory do you have. You can see what capital is required. You can see are your accounts receivables going up? Are they going down? There’s a lot of insights that you can see from all three financial statements. And then if you start to understand the business drivers of the business, you can understand this as well.
TRACY BRITT COOL：资产负债表里其实能看到很多东西。你能看到库存（inventory）有多少；你能看到业务需要多少资本（capital）；你能看到应收账款（accounts receivables）是在上升还是下降。事实上，从三张财务报表（three financial statements）里都能读出很多洞见。而一旦你开始理解这门生意的业务驱动因素（business drivers），你就能把这些数字也“读懂”。
And I think what typically you’ll see is that most leaders don’t always—I think we assume they understand all of that in a business. And I think some do and understand it fundamentally really well. Some understand it tactically well, sometimes people understand it in practice, but not necessarily the theoretical, how it actually works.
我觉得通常你会看到的是：很多领导者并不总是——我们常常以为他们一定懂这些。但实际上，有些人确实懂，而且在底层逻辑上懂得很扎实；有些人是战术层面懂；还有些人是在实践中“会做”，但未必理解背后的理论——它到底是怎么运转的。
And when I think it’s really valuable though for your leaders and not to assume your leaders understand all of that because some people are more financially literate or have more financial acumen than others. And it doesn’t mean they can’t learn it, but if you equip them with those skills, they’re going to be better.
所以我认为，对领导者来说这件事非常有价值，而且你不应该假设领导者一定都懂，因为每个人的财务素养（financial literacy）和财务敏锐度（financial acumen）不一样。这并不意味着他们学不会；但如果你给他们配齐这些技能，他们会变得更强。
If you think about a CEO, for example, oftentimes CEOs are great operators. They usually have come from sales or marketing or operations. They seldom come from finance. And it’s not usually the career directory. And so have they actually learned those aspects and where along the way did they learn them and do they understand?
比如你想 CEO：很多 CEO 是很强的运营者（operators），他们通常来自销售、市场或运营；很少来自财务（finance）。这也不是常见的职业路径。所以他们是否真的学过这些方面？他们在职业生涯的哪个阶段学的？他们是否理解到位？
And oftentimes in a business you’re making really important operational decisions, but you’re also making really important capital allocation decisions. And you can really ruin a good business with poor capital allocation decisions. And we think of big ones, acquisitions being the biggest, where we destroy value, often by acquiring a business that isn’t a very good business or paying the wrong valuation for it.
而在企业里，你经常在做非常重要的运营决策，同时也在做非常重要的资本配置决策（capital allocation）。糟糕的资本配置可以把一门好生意彻底毁掉。我们想到的大项里，并购（acquisitions）往往是最大的——价值往往就在这里被毁掉：要么收了一门并不好的生意，要么估值付错了。
But there’s capital allocation decisions every day in a business. Should we invest in this factory? Should we open this distribution center? Should we move into this new market? We think of hiring with the same level of complexity. It’s not a capex decision, but if you thought of it as a capex decision, if you’re going to hire someone for 100 grand a year, and you think that you discount the value of that, it’s a million dollar investment that you’re making in that person.
但企业每天都有资本配置决策：我们要不要投资这个工厂？要不要开这个配送中心（distribution center）？要不要进入新市场？我们也用同样的复杂度来思考招聘：它不是一个 capex（资本开支）决策，但如果你把它当作 capex 来看——你招一个人年薪 10 万美元，做个折现（discount），那你其实是在对这个人做一笔“百万美元级”的投资。
If you can fire them, but you probably won’t, they’ll stay at the organization. So do you have that same level of discipline and rigor in your decision making on all those types of topics? And CEOs who are more equipped at fundamentally understanding capital allocation usually can make better decisions in their businesses.
你当然可以解雇他，但你大概率不会那么快；他们会在组织里待下去。所以你是否在这些议题上也用同样的纪律性与严谨性（discipline and rigor）来决策？而那些在资本配置底层逻辑上更扎实的 CEO，通常能在企业里做出更好的决策。
Now a lot of entrepreneurs, they do that instinctively. They’ve had to do it, they figure it out. But sometimes just taking a step back and helping a leader, making sure a leader understands it. When I started as CEO, we took all of our leaders through a business driver meeting and training that we did once a year, which was what are the business drivers? Let’s go through an income statement and let’s understand what are all the components of an income statement. And we just did it for everybody.
当然，很多创业者会“本能地”做这些事：他们不得不做，所以就摸索出来了。但有时候你需要退后一步去帮助领导者，确保他们真的理解。当我刚当 CEO 时，我们每年做一次 business driver meeting 和培训：业务驱动因素是什么？我们把利润表（income statement）过一遍，理解利润表的所有组成部分。我们把这套培训对所有领导者都做了一遍。
Just because it’s also something that people assume they should know. And so if they don’t, they oftentimes feel embarrassed or they don’t feel like they should ask. And so we would go through it and explain what everything is. Because ultimately finance is just a vocabulary and a language that people, if explained to can understand, but if you’ve never been explained to it, it can be tough to understand and you just need someone to walk you through it.
因为这也是一种“大家都以为你应该懂”的东西，所以如果一个人不懂，他往往会觉得尴尬，或者觉得自己不该问。于是我们就把它摊开来讲，解释每一个项目到底是什么。因为归根结底，财务就是一套词汇与语言：你只要被解释清楚，是可以理解的；但如果从来没有人解释过，它就会很难懂——你只是需要有人带你走一遍。
Evaluating Integrity in Hiring
在招聘中评估“诚信（integrity）”
SHANE PARRISH: How do you evaluate integrity when it comes to hiring?
SHANE PARRISH：在招聘时，你们如何评估一个人的 integrity（诚信）？
TRACY BRITT COOL: We think of it as one of those cultural competencies. And how do you assess it? So one, you can try to get to situational questions. Tell me about a time you struggled with something. Tell me about a time you made a mistake. Tell me about a time you did the wrong thing, whatever it may be and see what people share.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我们把 integrity 看作一种文化胜任力（cultural competency）。那怎么评估？第一，你可以用情境问题（situational questions）去逼近：讲讲你曾经在某件事上很挣扎的时候；讲讲你犯过的一个错误；讲讲你做过一件不对的事——等等，看看对方愿意分享什么、怎么分享。
We use it through our behavioral assessment. So the actual way to get at sort of motivators and drivers. And some of those things come through like integrity or others. And then we get at it through reference checks. You know, both ones they provide, but also ones that they don’t provide.
我们也会通过行为测评（behavioral assessment）来评估——它能帮助我们触达一个人的动机与驱动（motivators and drivers），其中一些维度会映射到 integrity 等等。然后我们还会通过 reference checks（背调/推荐人核查）去验证——不仅打他们提供的推荐人，也打他们没有提供的推荐人。
Our view is the hiring process is fundamentally you’re trying to learn as much as you can about a person and how they’ll behave in the role. You don’t actually know until they get into the role, but you can improve your odds of success by being disciplined on some of those dynamics.
我们的观点是：招聘流程本质上是在尽可能多地了解一个人——以及他在岗位上会如何行为。你在他真正进入岗位之前不可能“百分之百知道”，但你可以通过对这些关键环节保持纪律性（discipline），显著提高成功概率。
SHANE PARRISH: I remember when I got hired at a three letter agency and they were doing my background check, they talked to numerous references that I hadn’t provided. And I always found that an interesting insight because the ones that you provide are the least likely to give insightful information.
SHANE PARRISH：我记得我以前被一家“三字母机构”录用时，他们做背景调查，联系了很多我并没有提供的联系人。我一直觉得这很有意思，因为你自己提供的推荐人，反而最不可能给出真正有洞见的信息。
So they would go and they just talk to anybody in my life who would have been around, including a neighbor to my family’s house. Does he party? What time is he coming home? I don’t know what questions they asked, but I always found it interesting because my neighbor came over one night to my mom and she’s like, I always knew that boy of yours was going to get in trouble. And it was just a background check and it was a reference check. And it was a really interesting way to find out information about people in a non controlled sort of way.
所以他们会去找任何可能认识我的人——甚至包括我家隔壁邻居。比如：他爱不爱出去玩？几点回家？我不知道他们具体问了什么，但我一直觉得很有意思。因为有天晚上邻居来我妈那儿，说：“我早就知道你家那小子迟早要惹麻烦。”结果那只是一次背景调查和推荐人核查。这是一种很有趣的方式：用一种非受控（non controlled）的方式去了解一个人。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, it can be really helpful to see what people share. We also in our interview process based off of who—also when you go through the top grading exercise, I go through each role you’ve had, what your scope was, what you did, what were your outcomes. But then I ask who your manager was, I write that person’s name down.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的，看看人们会分享什么非常有用。我们基于《Who》的面试流程里——尤其是在 top grading（深度履历面试）环节——我会把你做过的每个角色过一遍：职责范围（scope）是什么？你做了什么？outcomes 是什么？然后我会问：你的经理是谁？我会把那个人的名字写下来。
And so if you say your manager, Sally Smith. Okay, what years was Sally your manager? You know, write them down and what was Sally’s role? Okay, she was the manager of this. And then when I call Sally, what is she going to say about your biggest strengths and what is she going to say about your biggest development areas?
比如你说你的经理是 Sally Smith。好，Sally 当你经理是哪几年？写下来。Sally 的角色是什么？好，她是负责这个的经理。然后我会问：当我打给 Sally 时，她会怎么说你的最大优势？她会怎么说你最大的需要改进之处（development areas）？
And just shifting that from if, from if I call versus when I call, people shift what they say they’re more often. And also just by writing down Sally’s name, I know who your manager was now versus oftentimes you don’t know who their manager was. So you couldn’t even get to it if you wanted.
而仅仅把措辞从 “if I call（如果我会打）”换成 “when I call（当我打给她时）”，人们往往就会改变他们的说法——更倾向于讲得更真实、更一致。此外，把 Sally 的名字写下来也很重要：我现在知道你的经理是谁了；而很多时候你根本不知道候选人的经理是谁——那即便你想去核查，也无从下手。
And so getting people to be more, not necessarily more honest, but more direct and more forthright with what they’re sharing is a way to also get some of that out. And then ideally you do verify it and have those conversations and see if what they said and what Sally said match up is really helpful.
所以这是一种让人更直接、更坦率（forthright）地表达的方法——不一定是“更诚实”，但会更清楚、更具体。然后理想状态下，你再去验证：把电话打出去，看看他讲的和 Sally 讲的是否对得上——这会非常有帮助。
这些工作，真正掌握方法不超过5分钟就能看出对方脑回路中关注的重点，但如果结构本身，局限在一些一般企业中找一批一般的人，那就比较难，正态分布处于中间部分的没有明显的区别。
SHANE PARRISH: This whole world is so interesting to me because I, for 15 years I effectively worked with people you could trust by default. It was a non representative portion of society. And then getting outside of that and learning, you know, not everybody has integrity and not everybody does the right thing and not everybody is trustworthy.
SHANE PARRISH：这个世界对我来说太有意思了，因为我有 15 年基本是在一个“默认可以信任”的环境里和人共事。那其实不是社会的代表性样本。后来走到外面才发现：不是每个人都有 integrity，不是每个人都会做正确的事，也不是每个人都值得信任。
And it’s so weird just coming from an area where I would say a disproportionate percentage of people had integrity and trustworthy and all of these things that we look for on the outside. And then you go outside and it’s like, whoa, that is a non representative sample of the population.
从一个“我会说：其中拥有诚信、值得信任的人比例异常高”的领域出来，再走到外面，你会感觉很奇怪——就像突然意识到：哇，原来我之前所处的环境，确实不是人群的代表性样本。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah. And I think I by and large think people want to do the right thing and want to do good and are trustworthy, but I think people have blind spots about themselves as you’re talking. They want to impress you. It’s a bit like dating where you’re not always, you’re covering up a little bit and putting your best foot forward.
TRACY BRITT COOL：是的。我总体上相信大多数人是想做正确的事、想做好事、也希望自己是值得信任的。但正如你说的，人对自己往往有盲点。他们想给你留下好印象。这有点像约会：你不一定会完全展现真实的自己，而是会稍微掩饰一些，把最好的一面先摆出来。
And we want to disarm people and try to get them to be as honest as possible. Because what we find sometimes is you could be a great person and really talented, but just not be the right fit for what we need in this role. And so try to get people to be as upfront and honest and then ideally screen out those that perhaps aren’t. But you know, our view is we want to help everyone find the right role and the right fit for them.
我们想做的是“解除对方的防御”（disarm people），尽可能让他们坦诚。因为我们有时会发现：一个人可能非常优秀、也很有才，但就是不适合我们这个角色真正需要的东西。所以我们努力让人更直接、更坦白，然后理想情况下也能筛掉那些可能不合适的人。但我们的总体理念是：我们希望帮助每个人找到适合他们的角色与匹配的位置。
SHANE PARRISH: Do you keep tabs on those people after? So it’s like, oh, this person was great. They’re not a fit for this role. But you know, something comes up in six months, you’re like, oh yeah, think of this person again.
SHANE PARRISH：你们后续会跟踪那些候选人吗？比如，这个人很棒，但不适合这个岗位。然后六个月后出现了别的机会，你会想：哦，对，把他再想起来。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, we love to keep a talent bench. Both people we’ve interviewed, but also people that we just know and we think are impressive that, you know, if we have this type of role or in this geography that we can reach out to. We think it’s a great way to cultivate talent and sort of see opportunities.
TRACY BRITT COOL：会的，我们很喜欢维护一个 talent bench（人才储备池）。包括我们面试过的人，也包括我们认识的、觉得很优秀的人——当我们有某种类型的岗位，或者在某个地区有岗位需求时，我们就可以去联系他们。我们觉得这是培养人才、并持续观察机会的一种很好的方式。
But we definitely, we’ll get to know people and then a year, two, three years later, there might be some role that’s a fit that we end up working on. I always say life is long. People come back in and out of your life in different ways. And when you meet really great people, you try to keep them close because really great people, just not only from a cultural or integrity perspective, but also from a competency and a capability perspective, are rare to find that combination. So when you find them, how do you keep them close?
确实如此：我们认识一个人后，一年、两年、三年之后，可能会出现一个真正合适的岗位，我们最终会一起合作。我总说人生很长，人会以不同方式进出你的生活。当你遇到真正优秀的人，你会想把他们留在身边，因为“既在文化/诚信上优秀、又在能力/胜任力上强”的组合非常稀缺。所以当你找到这种人时，你要想：怎么把他们留得更近？
Business History Lessons and Long-Term Thinking
商业史的教训与长期思维
SHANE PARRISH: You’ve studied a lot of business history, I’m sure, curious about some of the principles, lessons and stories that you constantly find yourself thinking about.
SHANE PARRISH：我猜你研究了很多商业史。我很好奇：有哪些原则、教训、故事，是你不断会想起、反复回味的？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Oh, there’s, I think, too many to tell. I mean, I think we’ve talked a lot about long term. One thing that Warren always said to the CEOs is, “Think about this business as if it’s your family’s only asset and you can’t sell it for 50 years. Make decisions with that in mind.”
TRACY BRITT COOL：太多了，可能讲不完。我们聊了很多长期。其中一个 Warren 经常对 CEO 说的话是：“把这门生意当成你家唯一的资产，而且 50 年内你都不能卖掉。用这个前提来做决策。”
And that to me embodies true long term thinking, how to think about your business. And that’s one that I sort of come back to now. Maybe you’d not be thinking about every business for 50 years, but I think that’s something I think a lot about. But I feel I learned through those types of examples and those types of stories like most of us do, I think. And so trying to remember those is really valuable.
对我来说，这句话体现了真正的长期思维，也是一种“如何看待生意”的方式。我现在也经常回到这个框架上。也许你不一定会用 50 年来思考每一门生意，但我确实经常想到它。我觉得我和很多人一样，都是通过这些例子、这些故事学到东西的，所以努力记住它们很有价值。
Or you know, Warren’s comment on your reputation. “And if you lose money, I’ll be understanding, but if you lose a reputation, I’ll be ruthless.” We think about that. Or you know, the newspaper test, if this were on the front page of the newspaper by a fair critical reporter that your family would read, how would you feel about it? Things like that, you know, always stand out to me.
还有 Warren 关于声誉的那句评价：“如果你亏了钱，我会理解；但如果你丢了声誉，我会毫不留情（ruthless）。”我们会把这句话放在心里。或者所谓的“报纸测试”（newspaper test）：如果这件事被一位公正但尖锐的记者写上报纸头版，而你的家人会读到，你会怎么看、会有什么感受？这些东西总是让我印象很深。
现在看来大部分是本本主义，不是真正意义上的理解。
SHANE PARRISH: I wanted to speak just a little bit about inflation. How do you think about inflation in relation to investing?
SHANE PARRISH：我想稍微聊聊通胀（inflation）。你在投资中如何看待通胀？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, I mean, I think that a few things. One is when we think about businesses, we try to find businesses that we think—and this goes back to—has the moat, is that typically they’re a little bit more insulated from inflation because they usually can pass it on to their customers.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我会从几个点来想。第一，当我们看企业时，我们会努力寻找那些——回到护城河（moat）——通常对通胀更有“隔离能力”的企业，因为它们往往能把成本压力转嫁给客户（pass it on）。
If you have a better business that’s higher quality, that has a moat, you usually can pass on inflation. And so it’s less, it’s an issue. But it’s less of an issue for the businesses that can do that. And so we’re trying to be thoughtful about that.
如果你拥有一门更好的生意——质量更高、护城河更强——你通常就能转嫁通胀。所以通胀仍然是问题，但对能转嫁的企业来说，它没那么致命。我们会在这方面更谨慎地思考。
Second, with our businesses, you know, even if there is inflation, we don’t want to pass it on or pass on all of it is like, how do we improve productivity in our business? So that in essence we’re combating some of the inflation we may be experiencing. And we think most businesses can improve productivity 2 to 5% a year, every year, just by being disciplined about it. And so that’s a way to also counter some of the impacts with it.
第二，对我们的企业来说，即便有通胀，我们也不希望把它全部转嫁出去。我们会问：我们如何提升生产力（productivity）？这样本质上我们就在抵消一部分通胀影响。我们认为大多数企业只要足够有纪律，每年都能把生产力提升 2% 到 5%。这也是对冲通胀冲击的一种方式。
But I think that’s like the level of how we think about it in our businesses. You also have to think about new investments, what that means in terms of your willingness to pay the consequences with that, ultimately it translates into interest rates as well. Those are all things that we factor in.
这大概就是我们在企业层面思考通胀的方式。你也必须考虑新投资：你是否愿意承担随之而来的代价？最终它也会反映到利率（interest rates）上。这些都是我们会纳入考虑的因素。
That being said, I’ve never been a macro investor. I think it’s hard to predict the macro, it’s hard to invest based on that. And so I’d much rather focus on the fundamentals of find high quality businesses at reasonable valuations that have good dynamics and aspects of the business and then you can absorb more dynamics like inflation or tariffs or things like that that are going to inevitably probably happen at some time in some space.
但即便如此，我从来不是一个宏观型投资者（macro investor）。我觉得宏观很难预测，也很难基于宏观去投资。所以我更愿意把注意力放在基本面：以合理估值买到高质量企业，它本身的动态和要素足够好，那么你就能更好地“吸收”外部的冲击——比如通胀、关税（tariffs）等等，这些事情迟早会在某些时候、某些地方发生。
Quarterly Versus Annual Reporting
季度披露 vs 年度披露
SHANE PARRISH: The president today came out and suggested that financial reporting should move to six months instead of quarterly. So I’m wondering how you think about quarterly reporting versus annual reporting and how that affects behavior of CEOs.
SHANE PARRISH：今天总统出来提议，财务披露应当从“按季度”改为“每六个月一次”。所以我想听听你怎么看季度披露与年度披露，以及它们如何影响 CEO 的行为。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Quarterly reporting, especially in the public markets, is a net negative for companies. For investors, I think it’s intended to provide transparency, but it ends up doing short term thinking. What am I going to do to drive the results this quarter? And you see it all the time, right?
TRACY BRITT COOL：季度披露——尤其在公开市场——对公司整体而言是净负面。对投资者来说，它本意是提供透明度，但结果往往强化了短期思维：我这一个季度要怎么把结果做出来？你会经常看到这种情况，对吧？
I’m going to try to move sales into this quarter. I’ll get a discount if you buy my product this quarter. I need to hit my number or I’m going to invest in something that I can do this quarter or next quarter to achieve it. So I think it fundamentally doesn’t support what’s best for the company and what’s best for the investor.
我会想办法把销售“挪进”这个季度；如果你这个季度买我的产品，我给你折扣；我必须打到数字，所以我会去投一些能在本季度或下季度见效的东西来达成它。所以我认为，从根本上它并不支持“对公司最好的事”，也不支持“对投资者最好的事”。
That being said, I think that you want someone, presumably I think the CEO can do it managing the business more frequently than every six months or every year. If you’re only going to look at your financials or your performance once a year or once every six months, I think you’re going to miss opportunities to make adjustments where needed in the business.
但话说回来，我也认为你需要有人——我想 CEO 应该能够做到——以比“每六个月一次”或“每年一次”更高的频率来管理业务。如果你一年只看一次、或每六个月才看一次财务与经营表现，我认为你会错过在需要时做调整的机会。
But I don’t think you necessarily need investors to do that. If you have the right management team and you have confidence. I think the challenge is if you don’t have the right management team, are you getting visibility into that and how to navigate it? I would probably err on the side of not having quarterly earnings because of all the negative aspects of it. But I think you’ve got to solve that other issue in terms of are you managing the business close enough?
但我不认为一定需要投资者来做这件事——前提是你有合适的管理团队，并且你对他们有信心。我认为真正的挑战在于：如果你没有合适的管理团队，你是否还能看清问题、以及该如何应对？考虑到季度披露的种种负面效应，我可能会倾向于不做季度财报/季度业绩披露。但与此同时，你必须解决另一个问题：你是否在足够“贴身”地管理这门生意？
Public Company CEOs to Admire
值得敬佩的上市公司 CEO
SHANE PARRISH: Are there public companies or public company CEOs that you admire?
SHANE PARRISH：有没有哪些上市公司或上市公司 CEO 是你敬佩的？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, of course. I mean, I think there’s businesses like—I think there’s different things that I’d say in terms of admiring. So I think if you look at Danaher, that business, Mitch Rales and Steve Rales, and ultimately the CEOs that have followed is remarkable. Both the performance of the business, the success of the business, how they’ve done it, their system. Incredibly, I have a lot of respect for them.
TRACY BRITT COOL：当然有。我觉得“敬佩”这件事可以从不同角度说。如果你看 Danaher 这家公司，Mitch Rales、Steve Rales，以及后续接任的一系列 CEO，都非常了不起——无论是业绩表现、企业成功本身、他们怎么做到的、以及他们的体系化方法。我对他们非常敬重。
If you look at Nick Howley at Transdigm, the performance, he’s no longer CEO, but the performance during his CEO tenure was significant. I mean, remarkable performance, and he had his own business system in terms of how he was doing that.
如果你看 Transdigm 的 Nick Howley，他现在已经不再是 CEO 了，但他任内的表现非常突出——可以说是惊人的表现，而且他也有自己的一套 business system 来支撑他如何做到这一点。
I think there’s other people I have tremendous respect for, from what they’ve accomplished. I mean, if you look at Bezos built at Amazon, I mean, that’s incredibly remarkable in terms of the world and the impact that it’s had. I learn a lot from other people who have come before us in terms of how they manage and what they do.
我也非常敬佩其他一些人，基于他们所取得的成就。比如你看 Bezos 在 Amazon 所建立的一切——就其对世界造成的影响而言，确实非常了不起。我从很多前辈身上学到很多：他们如何管理、他们如何做事。
心目中的英雄决定了人生的方向。
I think the pressure is there’s a lot for any CEO, especially public CEOs, in terms, especially right now, of what they’re expected to have a view on, what they’re expected to manage. What the consequences of having those views and everything, I think is particularly challenging for any CEO, but especially those in the public view.
我认为压力在于：对任何 CEO 来说——尤其是上市公司 CEO——现在他们被期待要对太多事情“有观点”，被期待要管理太多事情；而表达这些观点所带来的后果等等，也都很现实。我觉得这对所有 CEO 都很难，但对处在公众聚光灯下的人尤其难。
The Role of Politics in Companies
公司中的政治：政治观点应不应该存在？
SHANE PARRISH: How do you think about the role of politics in companies? Should companies have political opinions?
SHANE PARRISH：你怎么看待政治在公司中的角色？公司应该有政治立场/政治观点吗？
TRACY BRITT COOL: I don’t think there’s a right answer or a wrong answer to that. I think you need leaders who are authentic and genuine and if they are people who have views and share those views or want to share those views and that’s key to who they are in the business. I think that I can understand why they do that and the benefit of that.
TRACY BRITT COOL：我不认为这个问题有绝对的对或错。我的看法是，你需要真实、真诚（authentic and genuine）的领导者；如果他们确实有自己的观点，并且愿意分享这些观点，而这又是他们在企业中身份与人格的一部分，那我能理解他们为什么这么做，也能理解这样做可能带来的好处。
That being said, I think we’re in a very divisive time right now. And I think sometimes people have a lot of views and they share those views and they assume their customers have the same views. And sometimes I think there’s businesses where that may not be the best approach for the companies by and large.
但话说回来，我认为我们正处在一个非常撕裂（divisive）的时代。有时人们观点很多，也会把观点表达出来，并且默认自己的客户也有同样的观点。但我觉得在一些企业里，从整体利益来看，这未必是公司最好的做法。
My approach is I think that CEOs should be really thoughtful before they have views on topics publicly, especially if those are topics that their customers or their employees may have differing views. But if it’s, you know, a founder or someone who has strong views, I don’t think they necessarily have to cover those up either. So I think it’s a little bit of a “it depends” answer, which is it feels like a cop out, but it’s hard.
我的做法是：我认为 CEO 在公开表达对某些议题的看法之前，应该非常谨慎、想得非常清楚——尤其是当这些议题很可能让客户或员工产生分歧时。但如果是创始人，或是一个观点非常强烈的人，我也不认为他们就一定要把这些观点全部掩盖起来。所以我的答案多少是“看情况（it depends）”——听起来像是在回避，但这确实是个很难的问题。
What Is Success?
什么是成功？
SHANE PARRISH: I think that’s the best answer I’ve heard in a long time. Tracy, we always end these interviews with the same question, which is, what is success for you?
SHANE PARRISH：我觉得这是我很久以来听过的最好答案。Tracy，我们总会用同一个问题结束访谈：对你来说，什么是成功？
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, I mean, success for me is really leaving things better off than I found them. And that is both in terms of the companies I work with, the people I engage with, my family, building my own life and building the lives around me of the people around me to be something great that they care about, that are special, that are impactful and that are sort of creating value for them and creating value for those around them.
TRACY BRITT COOL：对我来说，成功就是：让一切在我离开时，比我刚遇见时更好。这既包括我合作的公司、我接触的人，也包括我的家庭——包括把我自己的生活建设好，也包括帮助我身边人的生活变得更好：成为他们真正关心的、特别的、有影响力的东西；并且既为他们创造价值，也为他们周围的人创造价值。
SHANE PARRISH: That’s a beautiful answer. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
SHANE PARRISH：这是一个很美的回答。非常感谢你今天抽出时间。
TRACY BRITT COOL: Yeah, of course.
TRACY BRITT COOL：当然。
SHANE PARRISH: Thanks for listening and learning with us. Until next time.
SHANE PARRISH：感谢你和我们一起收听、一起学习。下次见。
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