评论
打印
Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Knowing when to quit
直到什么时候退休
Bosses have a shelf life and plenty of incentives to misjudge what it is.
老板们有保质期，也有很多动机去错误判断保质期有多长。
Deciding to call it quits is a relatively simple judgment early on in a career.
在职业生涯早期，决定辞职是一个相对简单的判断。
If you find the prospect of going to work on Monday morning more depressing than a Lars von Trier film, it is time to leave.
如果你觉得周一早上要去上班比拉斯·冯·提尔的电影还令人郁闷，那么你就该辞职了。
If you have nothing left to learn in your current organisation, you should probably grab more stimulating opportunities elsewhere.
如果在你目前的组织中已经没有什么可学的了，那么你或许应该去其他地方寻找更能激励人的机会。
But knowing when to quit is less easy when you are in a role that already confers lots of status, novelty and purpose.
但是，当你处于一个已经赋予你很多地位、新鲜事物和目标的职位时，要知道什么时候退出就不那么容易了。
And moving on is particularly difficult when it might be the last big job you have.
而且当这是你最后的职业顶峰时，辞职换工作就变得尤其困难。
What is true of American presidents is also true of chief executives.
美国总统的情况与首席执行官的情况是一样的。
Bob Iger has made not leaving Disney into an art form.
鲍勃·艾格将不离开迪士尼变成了一种艺术形式。
The surest way to know you will not succeed Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase is to be anointed his successor.
要最确定地知道你不会接手杰米·戴蒙在摩根大通的工作，办法就是被指定为他的继任者。
Both bosses are stars, and their firms have reasons to hang on to them.
这两位老板都是明星，他们的公司有理由留住他们。
The same cannot be said of Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, who will lead the company until the end of the year despite the enormous reputational damage it has sustained on his watch.
但波音公司的CEO戴夫·卡尔霍恩并不是这种情况，尽管在他的领导下公司声誉遭受了巨大损害，但他仍将继续领导公司直到今年年底。
(Mr Calhoun was supposed to have departed years ago; instead the firm raised the mandatory retirement age to allow him to stay.)
（卡尔霍恩本应在多年前就离职；相反，公司提高了强制退休年龄，以便他能留下来。）
The incentives for CEOs and other leaders to stick around are material: assistants, chauffeurs, private jets and all.
CEO和其他高管留下来的动机是物质的：助理、司机、私人飞机等等。
They are also psychological.
这种动机也是心理上的。
People who reach the top of organisations do not often lack ego; the idea that someone else can do the job well may be hard to stomach.
能爬到组织高层的人通常并不缺乏自负心；别人也能做好这份工作的想法可能很难让他们接受。
Michael Watkins, a professor at IMD Business School in Switzerland, calls this “the aura of indispensability”.
瑞士IMD商学院的教授迈克尔·沃特金斯将此称为“必不可少光环”。
The prospect of retirement can be particularly gruesome—this week, a farewell trip to Davos; next week, a strategic review of the spice rack.
退休的前景可能尤其可怕——这周还去达沃斯进行告别，下周就只能对调料架进行战略评估。
There is some research that can help bosses think about how long to stay in a role.
有一些研究可以帮助老板思考，在一个职位上要待多长时间。
A study by Francois Brochet of Boston University and his co-authors looked at the relationship between CEO tenure and firm value to see if they could identify an optimal period in charge.
波士顿大学的弗朗索瓦·布罗谢及其合著者进行了一项研究，观察了CEO任期与公司价值之间的关系，看看是否可以确定一个最佳在职期限。
They found that firm value started to decline, on average, after a CEO had been in the job for 14 years.
他们发现，平均而言，CEO上任14年后，公司价值开始下降。
That is not particularly helpful.
这个结论并不是特别有帮助。
There are too many differences between executives, firms and industries for one number to be a useful guide.
高管、公司和行业之间存在太多差异，一个数字不可能成为有用的指南。
Many chief executives get booted out an awful lot quicker than that; some bosses will warrant more time in the job, not less.
许多首席执行官被解雇的速度比这快得多；而有些老板应该工作更长时间，而不是更短。
More usefully, however, the researchers did confirm a hump shape in firm performance.
然而，更有用的是，研究人员确实证实了公司业绩呈驼峰形状。
Things improve over time as CEOs master the complexities of their role but fall away later as they become more fixed in their ways and accrue more power.
随着CEO们逐渐掌握其职位的复杂性，情况会逐渐改善，但随着CEO们的行事方式更固定并积累了更多权力，情况又会逐渐恶化。
Similar humps have been observed from college basketball to Hollywood.
从大学篮球队到好莱坞，类似的驼峰形状都有出现。
Changes in circumstances can shorten the duration of the hump.
外部情况的变化可能会缩短驼峰期的持续时间。
Separate research, by Bradley Hendricks of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Travis Howell, then at the University of California, Irvine, suggests that firms led by founder-CEOs are associated with a valuation premium when they first list on public markets but that this premium disappears within three years as the demands of the top job evolve.
北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的布拉德利·亨德里克斯和当时在加州大学欧文分校的特拉维斯·豪厄尔进行的另一项研究表明，由创始人担任CEO的公司在首次公开上市时与估值增加相关，但随着这一最高职位的要求发生变化，这种增加的估值会在三年内消失。
If bosses are prone to misjudge when to quit, what can be done?
如果老板们容易误判何时退出，那该怎么办呢？
Blunt instruments do exist, from mandatory retirement ages to explicit term limits.
确实存在生硬的手段，从强制退休年龄到明确的任期限制。
But strict rules have drawbacks, too.
但是严格的规定也有缺点。
CEOs may be approaching their peak, not past it, at the time they are required to throw in the towel.
CEO们在被要求辞职的时候，可能正接近他们的巅峰，而不是已经过了巅峰。
Bosses approaching the end of their terms risk being seen as lame ducks, says Mr Watkins.
沃特金斯表示，任期即将结束的老板可能有被视为不中用的风险。
And the knowledge that the end is nigh can change a CEO’s own behaviour in potentially unhelpful ways.
而且，知道职业大限将近会以可能无益的方式改变CEO自己的行为。
Research by Sam Yul Cho of Oregon State University and Kim Sang Kyun of Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea suggests that firms run by bosses with short “career horizons” (ie, less time to go until they retire) generate fewer big innovations.
俄勒冈州立大学的森宇州（音译）和韩国成均馆大学的金尚均（音译）的研究表明，由“职业天际线”较短（即距离退休较近）的老板经营的公司产生的重大创新更少。
Another paper, by Dirk Jenter of the London School of Economics and Katharina Lewellen of the Tuck School at Dartmouth, found that the likelihood a firm would be taken over jumped when a CEO was at retirement age.
由伦敦经济学院的德克·詹特和达特茅斯塔克商学院的凯瑟琳娜·勒韦伦撰写的另一篇论文发现，当CEO达到退休年龄时，公司被收购的可能性会突增。
The bosses of target firms often lose their jobs; that is less of a concern when a career is winding down.
作为收购目标的公司往往会（在收购后）换掉老板；如果老板的职业生涯正在接近尾声，换老板就不是什么问题了。
Rigid rules are not the best defence against people overstaying their welcome.
严格的规定并不是防止人们在职位逗留过久的最佳措施。
More important are institutional constraints on CEO power—most obviously, a board that has a mind of its own—and bosses with the self-awareness to recognise that everyone has a natural shelf life.
更重要的是对CEO的权力进行制度上的约束——最明显的是董事会要有自己的想法——以及老板要自己认识到，每个人都有天然的保质期。
One of the first questions to ask a would-be senior hire is how long they think they should last.
雇佣未来的高管时，首先要问的一个问题就是，他们认为自己应该在职位上待多久。
