今年4月西爾斯宣布要開三家小型門店,，從而收獲了近幾年最友善的媒體關(guān)注,。《今日美國》在充滿希望的標(biāo)題中說“西爾斯新時代的開始,？這家零售商宣布開店,，而不是關(guān)閉”，引發(fā)了美國媒體的共鳴,。

但仔細(xì)品味就會發(fā)現(xiàn),，媒體報道中更多的是憐惜，而不是振奮,。對這家昔日的全球零售巨人來說,，現(xiàn)在新聞中的好消息卻只是：三家門店，其中一家設(shè)在阿拉斯加,，西爾斯的前CEO艾迪·蘭伯特的房子都比這些門店要大,，門店內(nèi)的商品搭配也有些令人困惑，大多是家電和床墊,。西爾斯堅持說這番“小動作”是一項(xiàng)新戰(zhàn)略的開端,，將帶來“一家更強(qiáng)大、盈利更多的公司”,。而零售業(yè)的同行們都不覺得西爾斯還有機(jī)會,。長期從事零售咨詢的波特·弗里金格指出：“蘭伯特推出的模式?jīng)]有不失敗的?！蔽鳡査骨案吖苁返俜颉さつ崴沟目捶ㄊ牵骸斑@些舉措最終會毫無收獲,，帶來或帶走一些微不足道的東西?！?/p>

14年來西爾斯關(guān)閉了3500多家門店,，并在去年秋天申請破產(chǎn)，現(xiàn)在它可以利用一些真正的好消息了,。該公司的發(fā)言人表示,，申請破產(chǎn)以后西爾斯“有許多可以使其致勝的資產(chǎn)和優(yōu)勢”。但實(shí)際上,，除了蘭伯特,，別人都不相信西爾斯能夠扭轉(zhuǎn)命運(yùn),，而且從2005年蘭伯特的對沖基金ESL Investments收購西爾斯并將其與凱馬特合并后，他就已經(jīng)讓大家明白不要相信他的那些樂觀言論,。盡管蘭伯特預(yù)言“戰(zhàn)略轉(zhuǎn)型”會讓西爾斯變成“真正偉大的零售企業(yè)”,，但2010年以來該公司的年收入一直都沒能增長，也沒有實(shí)現(xiàn)任何利潤,。最新的劇情反轉(zhuǎn)是：西爾斯控股,，也就是將資產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)讓給蘭伯特的破產(chǎn)實(shí)體已經(jīng)起訴蘭伯特等人，理由是后者在擔(dān)任CEO期間侵吞了公司數(shù)十億美元資金,。蘭伯特和ESL Investments則否認(rèn)自己有任何行為不當(dāng)之處,。

The kindest media attention Sears has attracted in years arrived in April, when the company announced it was opening three small stores. “The start of a new Sears era? The retailer announces openings, not closings,” read USA Today’s hopeful headline, which echoed others nationwide.

But viewed through a longer lens, the coverage was more pathetic than upbeat. This is what now passes for good news at the onetime colossus of global retailing: three stores, one of them in Alaska, each smaller than owner Eddie Lampert’s house, offering a somewhat puzzling product line consisting mostly of appliances and mattresses. Sears insists this tiny event is the leading edge of a new strategy for becoming “a stronger, more profitable business.” No one else in retailing seems to think it has a chance. “Lampert has never initiated a format that didn’t fail,” notes longtime retail consultant Burt Flickinger. The verdict of consultant Steve Dennis, a former Sears executive: “It will almost certainly amount to zilch, plus or minus bubkes.”

After shedding more than 3,500 stores over the past 14 years and filing for bankruptcy last fall, Sears could use some genuine good news. A Sears spokesman says the post-bankruptcy business “has many assets and advantages that position the company for success.” But virtually no one other than Lampert expects a reversal of fortune, and he has taught the world not to believe the happy talk he has been dispensing since ESL Investments, his hedge fund, bought Sears in 2005 and merged it with Kmart. Despite Lampert’s predictions of a “strategic transformation” that would make Sears “a truly great retail business,” the company hasn’t managed a single year of revenue growth since then, or earned a dime of profit since 2010. The latest twist: Sears Holdings, the bankrupt entity that sold its assets to Lampert, is suing him and others for stripping the company of billions when he was CEO. Lampert and ESL have denied any wrongdoing.

即使是今天,，純粹的慣性或許也能夠讓西爾斯品牌維持下去,。雖然受了致命傷，但在截至去年10月底的12個月中,，西爾斯仍然實(shí)現(xiàn)收入132億美元,。但對這家公司來說，唯一重要的問題是它能夠撐多久,。丹尼斯的結(jié)論是：“沒有哪項(xiàng)業(yè)務(wù)有任何生存能力,。”保險公司Allstate的CEO湯姆·威爾森曾經(jīng)于20世紀(jì)80,、90年代在西爾斯擔(dān)任高管,，他說蘭伯特“是清理爐灰的鍋爐工。西爾斯根本不可能起死回生,?！?/p>

在蘭伯特時代，災(zāi)難性數(shù)字和負(fù)面新聞層出不窮,，西爾斯也在這個階段浪費(fèi)掉了內(nèi)在優(yōu)勢和革新機(jī)遇,。但對管理和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)專業(yè)的學(xué)生來說，今天的垂死掙扎只是西爾斯這部大戲的結(jié)局,。真正注定西爾斯失敗命運(yùn)的史詩性沖突發(fā)生在很久以前,，那時西爾斯還處于主導(dǎo)位置,，人們根本不可能想到它會衰敗。這正是今天的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者應(yīng)該從中吸取教訓(xùn)的地方,。當(dāng)然,，西爾斯的故事獨(dú)一無二，而且那些決策出臺的時代和我們這個時代有很大的不同,。但仔細(xì)觀察就會發(fā)現(xiàn),，西爾斯的致命失誤具有普遍性,，而且就和明天要播出的新聞一樣適用于當(dāng)下,。

Still, even today, sheer inertia may enable the Sears brand to linger. Despite its mortal wounds, the company brought in $13.2 billion of revenue in the 12 months through last Oct. 31. But the only significant question about Sears is how long it can hang on. Dennis’s bottom-line take: “There’s nothing in the portfolio with any viability.” Allstate CEO Tom Wilson, a Sears executive in the 1980s and 1990s, says Lampert “is the janitor cleaning up the ashes. There’s no way it’s going to come back.”

The Lampert era has played out in a continual drumbeat of catastrophic numbers and negative headlines, during which Sears squandered intrinsic advantages and opportunities for reinvention. But for students of management and leadership, today’s death throes are merely the denouement of the Sears drama. The truly epic conflicts that doomed the company happened long ago, when Sears was dominant and its demise was unthinkable. That’s where to look for the lessons for today’s leaders. Sears’ story is unique, of course, and the decisive events took place in an era much different from ours. But a close examination shows that its critical mistakes are universal and as contemporary as tomorrow’s news.

直到1991年,，西爾斯還是世界上收入最高的零售商。所以看到它的市值在1965年5月4日見頂會讓人冷靜下來,，這是芝加哥大學(xué)布斯商學(xué)院安全價格研究中心按照不變美元推算的結(jié)果,。按現(xiàn)在的價格水平計算，西爾斯在那個春天的市值高點(diǎn)為921億美元,，此后再也沒能突破該水平,。西爾斯自己的分析后來發(fā)現(xiàn)，它在零售領(lǐng)域的統(tǒng)治力于1969年達(dá)到頂峰,。在那一年,，西爾斯的銷售額占美國整體經(jīng)濟(jì)規(guī)模的1%；每個季度都有三分之二的美國人在西爾斯購物,；一半的美國家庭都有西爾斯信用卡,。

從那時到現(xiàn)在的50年里，西爾斯一直在為自救而戰(zhàn),，但屢戰(zhàn)屢敗,。像全球最大零售商倒閉這樣的大事件絕不會只有一個原因或者即刻發(fā)生,。回過頭來看,，轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)在于當(dāng)時西爾斯并未意識到的兩大失誤,。

As late as 1991, Sears was the world’s largest retailer by revenue. So it’s sobering to see that its market value, calculated in constant dollars, peaked on May 4, 1965, according to data from the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Sears has never been more valuable than it was on that spring day—worth $92.1 billion in today’s money. Sears’ own analysts would later determine that its domination of retailing reached its apex in 1969. That year, its sales were 1% of the entire U.S. economy; two-thirds of Americans shopped there in any given quarter; and half the nation’s households had a Sears credit card.

From then till now—for 50 years—Sears has been fighting and losing a war to save itself. Nothing as large as the demise of the world’s biggest retailer happens for a single reason or all at once. But looking back, two major errors stand out as turning points, unrecognized at the time.

幾乎所有公司倒閉都可以追溯到失敗的CEO更迭，而這正是西爾斯的第一個重大失誤,。實(shí)際上,，可以認(rèn)為這家公司做了5、6次糟糕的換屆,，原因是董事會讓這個錯誤存在了20年,。這個錯誤讓西爾斯的弱點(diǎn)逐步堆積，最終變得幾乎無法應(yīng)對,。

第二個重大失誤是選擇了糟糕的策略，也就是為了多元化向金融服務(wù)大舉進(jìn)軍,。當(dāng)時這項(xiàng)計劃看起來還不壞,，而且有幾年它似乎取得了成功,。但實(shí)際上這是一場災(zāi)難,。在1981年開始實(shí)施這項(xiàng)策略時,，西爾斯是零售之王,。而整整12年后,，當(dāng)它放棄這項(xiàng)策略時,，西爾斯已經(jīng)在滑坡，已經(jīng)不再是全球或者美國最大零售商,，也已經(jīng)永遠(yuǎn)失去了重新奪回這個稱號的機(jī)會,。

CEO更迭問題始于1954年,，當(dāng)時西爾斯董事會在一個偉大人物的統(tǒng)領(lǐng)之下,。我們不能責(zé)怪他們。董事長羅伯特·E·伍德將軍推動西爾斯做出了該公司歷史上最成功的三項(xiàng)決策,。第一項(xiàng)是在1925年將業(yè)務(wù)擴(kuò)展到目錄零售之外并開設(shè)商店,。其次是1931年創(chuàng)建Alllstate汽車保險公司。第三是在二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束時決定大舉增設(shè)門店,，特別是在城市郊區(qū)和美國西部（西爾斯的主要競爭對手Montgomery Ward做出了相反決定，也就是在戰(zhàn)后的衰退中進(jìn)行收縮,，結(jié)果再也沒能復(fù)蘇）,。

后來,，75歲的伍德決定退休了,。這讓董事會有機(jī)會任命一位靠得住的繼任者,，某位饑渴的年輕經(jīng)理人,，可以帶領(lǐng)西爾斯開啟新的未來,。但伍德在任的時間太長了,，幾位年紀(jì)較大的潛在繼任者都在排隊(duì)。董事會不僅沒有忽略他們,，反而認(rèn)為每個人都值得一試,。隨后的四位CEO平均任職時間都只有三年多——他們都按照新的退休制度在65歲卸任。

在20世紀(jì)50年代剩下的時間里以及20世紀(jì)60年代,，這些還算稱職的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者帶領(lǐng)西爾斯穩(wěn)步前行,。公司規(guī)模增大，股價上漲,。但世界開始發(fā)生變化,，西爾斯的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者則沒有看到，也許是不想看到他們基于大范圍挑選,、高質(zhì)量服務(wù)和定期大幅打折的業(yè)務(wù)模式成為老古董,。

西北大學(xué)的經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家羅伯特·J·戈登將1870年至1970年稱為美國經(jīng)濟(jì)增長的“特殊世紀(jì)”，他說“這是一個不可復(fù)制的高增長階段”,。在此期間,，西爾斯已經(jīng)成長為杰出的美國企業(yè)。對1886年成立的西爾斯來說,，這個特殊世紀(jì)就是它所知的全部現(xiàn)實(shí),。它讓這種快速增長及其中的基本人員組成，也就是年輕的藍(lán)領(lǐng)家庭走向繁榮,。但隨著這個特殊世紀(jì)在20世紀(jì)60年代走向尾聲,，新建立的藍(lán)領(lǐng)家庭變少了，剩下的那些藍(lán)領(lǐng)家庭的可支配收入也下降了,。

與此同時,，消費(fèi)者開始滿懷熱情地接納一種新的購物方式,，那就是折扣店，后者基于低價格,、最少量的服務(wù)以及高商品周轉(zhuǎn)率,。1962年是零售業(yè)的奇跡之年，沃爾瑪,、凱馬特和塔吉特先后開業(yè),；2005年蘭伯特上任時，前三家零售商的年收入都已經(jīng)超過西爾斯,。西爾斯的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者清楚這種情況,，但他們沉著地認(rèn)為自己沒有受到威脅。他們對自己說,，畢竟西爾斯是折扣零售行業(yè)的王者,。他們似乎未能發(fā)現(xiàn)這種新業(yè)態(tài)在本質(zhì)上有所區(qū)別，后者采用較為基本的陳設(shè),，商品價格則要低得多,。但消費(fèi)者注意到了二者的差異。

西爾斯的表現(xiàn)是如此之好,，以至于領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者們顯然認(rèn)為沒有必要更新控制和成本會計系統(tǒng),，這讓經(jīng)理們無從知曉自身業(yè)績優(yōu)劣,，這種情況令人震驚,。如此之多的成本——商品、物流,、資金成本等等都在整個公司平攤,，幾乎不可能弄清楚盈利和虧損之處。雖然沃爾瑪老員工都知道對創(chuàng)始人山姆·沃爾頓來說,，damncomputer（即damn computer,，該死的電腦）是一個詞，但在用IT管理物流和分析經(jīng)營狀況方面,，他讓沃爾瑪遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)走在了別人前面,。本有可能率先這樣做的西爾斯卻未采取這樣的措施，這讓它的成本效率在幾十年時間里一直落后于競爭對手,。

20世紀(jì)60年代對自身繁榮的滿足感,，再加上董事會未能找到下一個羅伯特·E·伍德為西爾斯陷入困境埋下了伏筆。1967年,，西爾斯意識到自己需要調(diào)整策略,。新方案——用定價較高的商品吸引較富裕的購物者一度奏效。1969年,，該公司的毛利率達(dá)到近40%的最高點(diǎn),。但此項(xiàng)策略削弱了西爾斯長期打造的根基,，那就是美國面向大眾的偉大供應(yīng)商。接下來出現(xiàn)了經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退,，幾年后又爆發(fā)了更嚴(yán)重的衰退,，通脹率也達(dá)到兩位數(shù)。特殊世紀(jì)告終,，西爾斯的新策略也大錯特錯,。消費(fèi)者想要便宜商品，而所有的折扣店都處于完美的位置,，可以為這些消費(fèi)者提供服務(wù),。

到了20世紀(jì)70年代中期，西爾斯再也無法忽視這些問題,，并且因此進(jìn)入了否定的下一個階段——堅持說業(yè)績滑坡并不是自己的過錯,。西爾斯的研究人員認(rèn)為，這要怪經(jīng)濟(jì),。同時,，美國的百貨商場實(shí)在太多了。此外,，整個行業(yè)的利潤率都在下降,。還有就是人口老齡化?？傊痪湓?，錯的是世界，不是我們,。1983至1987年,，作家唐納德·卡茨獲準(zhǔn)近乎無限制地參加公司會議。他在《大商店》（The Big Store）一書中這樣總結(jié)西爾斯20世紀(jì)70年代的內(nèi)部觀點(diǎn)：“日復(fù)一日,，無論我們有多優(yōu)秀,，賺錢就是會變得更加困難?！?/p>

終極結(jié)論就是,，試圖讓西爾斯及其零售業(yè)務(wù)恢復(fù)到以前大家所知的樣子是徒勞的?？ù膶懙?，1978年開始擔(dān)任CEO的愛德華·特林相信“僅靠現(xiàn)有業(yè)務(wù)，西爾斯帝國無法重新占據(jù)無可匹敵的位置,，超越幾乎所有其他公司,。特林認(rèn)為西爾斯需要一個全新的企業(yè)信條……如果那意味著如此顯著地改變西爾斯，以至于當(dāng)特林完成任務(wù)時這家公司會變得面目全非,，那么這就是他們要做的,?！?/p>

Almost every corporate demise can be traced to a blown CEO succession, and that was Sears’ first decisive error. Indeed, it could be regarded as five or six bad successions because the board perpetuated its error for 20 years. This error permitted a gradual accumulation of weaknesses that became almost insurmountable.

The second decisive error was a bad strategic choice: to diversify heavily into financial services. The plan didn’t look bad at the time, and for a few years, it seemed to succeed. But in fact, it was disastrous. When the strategy was adopted in 1981, Sears was the king of retailing. By the time it was fully abandoned 12 years later, Sears was in decline, no longer the world’s or America’s largest retailer, and it had forever lost any chance of regaining the title.

The succession blunder began in 1954 with the Sears board of directors in the thrall of a Great Man. You couldn’t blame them. Gen. Robert E. Wood, the chairman, had been the driving force behind what remain the three most successful decisions in the company’s history. The first was the strategy in 1925 to move beyond being a catalog-only retailer and establish stores. Next was the creation of Allstate auto insurance in 1931. The third was Wood’s idea at the end of World War II to add stores aggressively, especially in the suburbs and in the West. (Archrival Montgomery Ward made the opposite decision, pulling back in the postwar recession, and never recovered.)

Now, at age 75, Wood had decided it was time to step down. This was the board’s chance to name a worthy successor, some hungry young manager who could lead Sears into a new future. But Wood had held on so long that several aging potential successors were lined up at the turnstile. Instead of looking past them, the directors decided each deserved a shot. There followed four CEOs who on average served barely over three years, with each stepping down at the company’s newly mandated retirement age of 65.

These blandly competent managers steered Sears on a steady course through the rest of the 1950s and the 1960s. The company grew, the stock boomed. But the world was changing, and Sears leaders didn’t see, perhaps didn’t want to see, that their business model—based on broad selection, high service, and periodic steep-discount sales—was becoming an antique.

Sears had grown into a towering American institution during the period that Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon dubs “the special century” of U.S. economic expansion, 1870 to 1970, which Gordon calls “a singular interval of rapid growth that will not be repeated.” For Sears, founded in 1886, the special century was the only reality the company had ever known. It rode that fast growth and its human essence, young blue-collar families, to greatness. But as the special century faded in the 1960s, fewer new blue-collar families were being formed, and those that remained had less to spend.

At the same time, consumers were enthusiastically embracing a new way of buying: the discount store, built on low prices, minimal service, and high merchandise turnover. In 1962, a miracle year for retailing, Walmart, Kmart, and Target all opened their doors; all three would surpass Sears in annual revenue by the time Lampert took over in 2005. Sears leaders were aware of the phenomenon but felt serenely unthreatened. After all, they told themselves, Sears was the monarch of discounters. They seemed not to grasp that this new breed was fundamentally different, offering much lower prices in relatively bare-bones settings. But customers noticed the difference.

Sears was doing so well that its leaders apparently saw no need to update its control and cost-accounting systems, leaving managers shockingly ignorant of how well or poorly they were performing. So many costs—merchandise, logistics, capital, and more—were averaged across the company that deciphering where money was being made and lost was virtually impossible. Though Walmart veterans recall that “damncomputer” was one word, not two, in founder Sam Walton’s vocabulary, he put the company far ahead of the field in using IT to manage logistics and analyze operations. By failing to adapt when it first could have, Sears trailed ?competitors on cost-efficiency for decades.

Sears’ prosperous complacency of the 1960s, compounded by the board’s failure to find the next Robert E. Wood, set the stage for trouble. By 1967 the company realized it needed to shift strategy. Its new plan—stocking higher-priced goods to attract more affluent shoppers—worked briefly. Gross margins peaked near 40% in 1969. But the strategy undermined Sears’ long-built-up foundation as America’s great supplier to the masses. Then a recession hit, followed a few years later by a deeper recession and double-digit inflation. The special century was over, and Sears’ new strategy was exactly wrong. Consumers wanted cheap, and all those discounters were perfectly positioned to serve them.

By the mid-1970s Sears could no longer ignore these problems, so it moved to the next stage of denial: insisting its declining performance was not the company’s fault. It’s the economy, said Sears’ researchers. Also, there are just too many stores in the U.S. Plus, profit margins are shrinking across the industry. And the population is getting older. Bottom line: It’s everything except us. “As night follows day, no matter how good we are, it’s just going to be more difficult to make money” is how Donald Katz summarized the 1970s internal view in his book The Big Store, for which he was granted nearly unlimited access to company meetings from 1983 to 1987.

The ultimate conclusion: Trying to revive what the world knew as Sears—its retailing business—was futile. Edward Telling, who became CEO in 1978, believed that “the Sears empire could not retain its incomparable position above almost all other companies by relying solely on existing businesses,” Katz reported. “Telling believed Sears needed entirely new reasons for being?…?if that meant changing Sears so profoundly that it looked like something else when he was through, then that was what they would do.”

西爾斯的第二個重大失誤由此開始，把零售降為二等業(yè)務(wù)（當(dāng)然它從來沒有這樣說過）,，同時通過遙遠(yuǎn),、非常遙遠(yuǎn)的合并來追求金光閃閃的新前景。最初的合并伙伴“愿望名單”包括美國電話電報公司,、雪佛龍,、約翰迪爾、IBM和迪士尼,。所有這些候選人都在內(nèi)部或西爾斯與之接觸時被否定了,。最終，這些戰(zhàn)略規(guī)劃者認(rèn)定,，新業(yè)務(wù)必須能顯著受益于西爾斯的既有強(qiáng)項(xiàng),。而稍早一些時候，民意調(diào)查機(jī)構(gòu)Roper經(jīng)調(diào)查指出,，西爾斯是美國最受信賴的公司,。在哪個行業(yè)信任最有價值呢？這些規(guī)劃者覺得答案是金融服務(wù)業(yè),。

鎖定了“黃金目標(biāo)”后,，西爾斯開始收購其業(yè)務(wù)。1981年,，它收購了住宅房地產(chǎn)公司Coldwell Banker和證券經(jīng)紀(jì)商Dean Witter Reynolds,。將這些公司與Allstate合并后，西爾斯突然成為美國收入規(guī)模最大的金融服務(wù)公司,。一項(xiàng)宏大戰(zhàn)略的元素已經(jīng)到位,。

回頭看去,，當(dāng)時奔潰的跡象已經(jīng)很明顯,。和許多全局戰(zhàn)略分析師一樣，西爾斯的主要規(guī)劃者沒有把顧客視為要服務(wù)的人,，而是將其當(dāng)作要開發(fā)的自然資源,。宣布上述收購事項(xiàng)后，副董事長唐納德·克雷布解釋了緣由：“我們打算讓Dean Witter和Coldwell Banker獲得這個龐大的客戶群體,?！边@是出于公司需要，而非客戶需要制定策略的典型例子,。

另一個不詳征兆是西爾斯向投資者給出的收購上述公司的理由非常側(cè)重于協(xié)同效應(yīng)和交叉銷售,。幾乎所有收購者都會提到這兩大益處，而且差不多都會夸大,。西爾斯自然也不例外,。西爾斯門店中的Dean Witter柜臺的業(yè)務(wù)量低于獨(dú)立的Dean Witter營業(yè)網(wǎng)點(diǎn),。新策略實(shí)施四年后，在312家西爾斯店鋪中以多種組合方式集Allstate,、Coldwell Banker和Dean Witter于一身的Sears Financial Center整體上仍未盈利,。實(shí)際情況證明，為交叉銷售整合客戶數(shù)據(jù)極為困難,。一些措施取得了成功,。Dean Witter推出了Discover信用卡——它很受歡迎，1992年Dean Witter從西爾斯剝離出來后甚至更是如此,，而且其他零售商可以在不為其競爭提供支持的情況下接受該信用卡,。但時任西爾斯顧問的約翰·派汀格說，整體而言,，“它跟其他公司幾乎沒有產(chǎn)生協(xié)同”,。

多元化以后，西爾斯在兩方面都遇到了最糟糕的局面,。金融服務(wù)沒能像它此前預(yù)期的那樣帶來協(xié)同效應(yīng),。零售也不再是西爾斯關(guān)注的核心，這在該公司歷史上還是頭一遭,。Allstate的CEO威爾森說：“我覺得他們剛開始并沒有打算不以零售為重點(diǎn),，但后來出現(xiàn)的情況就是這樣?！睂σ患也辉訇P(guān)注主業(yè)的零售商來說,，那是一個可怕的時間點(diǎn)——家得寶、史泰博,、百思買和Bed Bath & Beyond等倉儲式“殺手”公司正在改變這個行業(yè),，沃爾瑪則開始成為行業(yè)巨人。派汀格說：“董事會把門店視為現(xiàn)金牛,，以前是這樣,。他們打算繼續(xù)從零售業(yè)務(wù)身上‘?dāng)D奶’，直到擠不出來為止,?！?/p>

業(yè)績受到的影響很明顯。當(dāng)1981年宣布進(jìn)行多元化時,，西爾斯零售業(yè)務(wù)的銷售回報率已經(jīng)比零售行業(yè)中值低36%,，這已經(jīng)很嚇人了。在西爾斯擁有那些金融公司期間,，其零售業(yè)務(wù)平均銷售回報率和行業(yè)中值的差距達(dá)到了49%,。表現(xiàn)欠佳的金融業(yè)務(wù)和走下坡路的零售業(yè)務(wù)共同產(chǎn)生了一個無法想象的結(jié)果：按不變美元計算，西爾斯1988年的市值已經(jīng)比1965年的高點(diǎn)大幅下滑66%,，華爾街也將西爾斯列為收購目標(biāo),。

1992年,，西爾斯最終叫停了自己的金融服務(wù)策略，而它宣布的出售或剝離對象不光是Coldwell Banker和Dean Witter,，還包括已經(jīng)在它旗下61年的Allstate,。對這三家公司來說，這是它們的最美好經(jīng)歷,。擺脫了西爾斯后,，三家公司均得以蓬勃發(fā)展。

但對在大多數(shù)人眼中代表著西爾斯這塊招牌的零售業(yè)務(wù)來說,，重拾輝煌已經(jīng)為時已晚,。1991年初，在經(jīng)歷了15年來最糟糕的假期旺季后,，新數(shù)據(jù)表明沃爾瑪已經(jīng)超越西爾斯,，成為美國最大的零售商——《時代》周刊在一篇宣布新王登基的文章中將沃爾瑪稱為“曾經(jīng)的邊遠(yuǎn)地區(qū)廉價物品商店”。西爾斯一如既往地將二者的比較斥為毫無意義,。該公司發(fā)言人不以為然地說：“我們銷售的商品中只有30%和沃爾瑪存在競爭關(guān)系,。”回過頭來看,，這似乎是在無意之中承認(rèn)西爾斯的商品中只有30%是顧客最想要的,。

沃爾瑪?shù)氖杖胫本€上升，西爾斯卻基本上在原地踏步,，這種情況下西爾斯根本找不到“重奪王位”的途徑,。派汀格說：“到90年代初，游戲就結(jié)束了,。策略的最重要之處在于跟歷史站在一邊,，他們卻站在了另一邊?！?/p>

Thus began Sears’ second decisive error, relegating the retail business to second-class status (without ever saying so, of course) while seeking gilded new prospects for a merger far afield—very far afield. An initial wish list of merger partners included AT&T, Chevron, John Deere, IBM, and Walt Disney. All those candidates got shot down internally or when Sears approached the target. Eventually the strategic planners concluded that the new business must be one that would benefit heavily from Sears’ existing strengths. A Roper poll had recently declared Sears to be America’s most trusted corporation. In what industry was trust most valuable? The answer, the planners determined, was financial services.

Having located El Dorado, Sears began acquiring portions of it. The company bought the Coldwell Banker residential real estate firm and the Dean Witter ?Reynolds brokerage firm in 1981. Combining these with Allstate made Sears suddenly the largest financial services company in America by revenue. The elements of a grand strategy were in place.

In retrospect, signs of a debacle were apparent. The company’s planning masterminds, like many big-picture strategists, regarded the company’s customers not as humans to be served but as a natural resource to be mined. After the acquisitions were announced, vice chairman Donald Craib explained the rationale: “We’re going to allow Dean Witter and Coldwell Banker exposure to this tremendous customer base.” It was a classic example of a strategy derived from the company’s needs, not customers’ needs.

Another ominous sign was Sears’ justification to investors for buying these companies, which leaned heavily on synergies and cross-selling. Almost all acquirers invoke those two blessings, and nearly all overestimate them. Sears certainly did so. Dean Witter offices in Sears stores did less business than freestanding offices. Four years into the new strategy, the Sears Financial Centers, which combined Allstate, Coldwell Banker, and Dean Witter in various permutations at 312 Sears stores, were still unprofitable overall. Merging customer data for effective cross-selling proved extremely difficult. Some initiatives succeeded. Dean Witter launched a credit card, the Discover card, which became highly successful—even more so after Dean Witter was spun off from Sears in 1992 and other retailers could accept the card without supporting the competition. But overall, says John Pittinger, a consultant to Sears at the time, “there was almost no synergy with the other companies.”

By diversifying, Sears got the worst of both worlds. It didn’t achieve the synergies it had counted on from financial services. And for the first time in Sears history, retailing was not the company’s central focus. “I don’t think they set out not to be focused on the merchandise group,” says Allstate’s Wilson, “but that’s what happened.” It was a terrible time for a retailer to take its eye off the ball, with big-box category killers—Home Depot, Staples, Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond—transforming the industry, and Walmart becoming a giant. “The board viewed the stores as a cash cow, which they were,” says Pittinger. “The directors were planning to milk the retail operation until it stopped.”

The effect on performance was stark. In 1981, when the diversification was announced, the Sears retail group’s return on sales was already an appalling 36% worse than the retail industry median; during the period when Sears also owned the financial firms, it averaged 49% worse. Combining an underperforming finance business with a cratering retail business produced an unthinkable result: By 1988, Sears’ market value had plunged 66% in constant dollars from its 1965 peak, and Wall Street had Sears pegged as a takeover target.

Sears finally pulled the plug on its financial services strategy in 1992, announcing it would sell or spin off not just Coldwell Banker and Dean Witter but also Allstate, which had been part of the company for 61 years. It was the best thing that ever happened to those three businesses. Liberated from Sears, all of them blossomed and thrived.

But it was too late for the retail operation—what most people meant by the word Sears—to return to glory. In early 1991, after its worst holiday season in 15 years, new figures showed that Sears had been surpassed as North America’s largest retailer by Walmart, “a onetime backwoods bargain barn,” as Time called it in a story announcing the new king. Sears, characteristically, dismissed the comparison as meaningless: “We compete with Walmart on only 30% of the goods we sell,” sniffed a spokesman. It seems, in hindsight, an unwitting admission that Sears was selling only 30% of the goods consumers wanted most.

With Walmart’s revenue rocketing while Sears’ was essentially stagnant, Sears couldn’t plot any path to regaining the throne. “By the early ’90s, the game was over,” says Pittinger. “The most important part of strategy is being on the right side of history, and they were on the wrong side of history.”

近30年后,，西爾斯勉強(qiáng)活了下來。20世紀(jì)90年代,，它一度重獲動力,。當(dāng)時，孤注一擲的高管和董事會打破了100年來的傳統(tǒng),，聘請了一位外部人士來經(jīng)營公司。他就是薩克斯第五大道精品百貨店的高管亞瑟·馬丁內(nèi)斯,。他發(fā)現(xiàn)西爾斯仍然無法正常運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn),。馬丁內(nèi)斯回憶道：“那時只有投向內(nèi)部和上方的目光。所有東西都要弄到最高層去,。根本就沒有責(zé)任制可言,?！彼麕砹俗约旱耐獠咳藛T團(tuán)隊(duì)，并且迅速提高了銷售額,、營業(yè)利潤,、股價和士氣。但在2000年馬丁內(nèi)斯卸任時,，西爾斯的股價又回到了他剛上臺時的水平,。

馬丁內(nèi)斯的繼任者，前首席財務(wù)官艾倫·萊西非常努力地想把西爾斯從購物中心里搬出來,。萊西說,，他這樣做的原因是這些“門店的模式以服務(wù)為基礎(chǔ)，而我們的顧客不愿意在這樣的模式上花錢”,。他試圖建立類似于沃爾瑪?shù)姆琴徫镏行娘L(fēng)格店鋪,，稱為Sears Grand，但并未成功,。西爾斯的股價大幅波動,。當(dāng)艾迪·蘭伯特于2004年上任時，董事會認(rèn)為他的收購建議是他們面對的最佳選擇,。

我們應(yīng)該從這個令人嘆息的長故事里汲取哪些教訓(xùn)呢,？撰寫或參與撰寫了超暢銷商業(yè)書《基業(yè)長青》（Built to Last）、《從優(yōu)秀到卓越》（Good to Great）和《選擇成就卓越》（Great by Choice）的吉姆·柯林斯還寫過一本較薄而且不那么出名的書,，叫做《巨人如何倒下》（How the Mighty Fall）,。他說分析和敘述衰退要比描寫成功難得多?？铝炙拐f：“成為偉大公司的路很窄,。有些事必須得做。但為走下坡路的公司確立一個框架非常困難,。這就像打臺球——用三角框擺球的方法只有幾種,，卻有無數(shù)的辦法把球打散?！?/p>

柯林斯并沒有為了寫書而研究西爾斯,，但他發(fā)現(xiàn)的并且在最近幾次采訪中闡述的框架幾乎可以精準(zhǔn)地套用在西爾斯的潰敗上。這個框架始于自大——西爾斯就非常的傲慢,。在20世紀(jì)70年代陷入困境前,，西爾斯的零售業(yè)務(wù)從未聘請過顧問，也從不相信外人能夠給他們提出任何有價值的建議,?！拔鳡査谷恕睆牟粎⒓恿闶坌袠I(yè)會議，他們自覺高人一等。這種傲慢的最響亮表述來自于110層的芝加哥西爾斯大廈,，它在20世紀(jì)60年代投入使用,。時任CEO的戈登·梅特卡夫?qū)Α稌r代》周刊解釋說：“作為世界上最大的零售企業(yè)，我們覺得自己應(yīng)該有世界上最大的總部,?！痹摴井?dāng)時還預(yù)測，到2000年,，西爾斯員工將占據(jù)全部110個樓層,。而實(shí)際上，西爾斯并沒有出現(xiàn)增長,，反而萎縮了,，并在1995年搬出了這幢大樓。現(xiàn)在這座建筑被稱為威利斯大廈,。

傲慢會削弱自律,，而自律是柯林斯企業(yè)衰退分析的核心。成本自律往往第一個消失,；西爾斯當(dāng)然也是這樣,。在很長一段時間里，外界一直認(rèn)為規(guī)模效益或許能夠讓西爾斯在為商品定價時永遠(yuǎn)具有無可匹敵的成本優(yōu)勢,，其實(shí)并非如此,。西爾斯的商品采購價或許確實(shí)比其他公司都低，但它浪費(fèi)的經(jīng)常性開支是非常之多（想想那座大樓）,，以至于它的總成本遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過行業(yè)平均水平,。

成功帶來增長，增長孕育出官僚作風(fēng),，官僚作風(fēng)則破壞自律,。柯林斯說：“是什么取代了為什么,。你要確保的可不僅僅是10名,、100名或者1000名員工能夠完成工作，所以你給每個人都發(fā)了錦囊妙計,。諷刺的是這些人都不知道自己為什么要遵循這樣的方法,。它變成了教條，而不是得到理解,?！痹谖鳡査梗瑔栴}和這家公司一樣大,；據(jù)說它的員工手冊有29000頁,。

柯林斯指出，在衰退的下一個階段,，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者會把問題歸咎于外部因素,；20世紀(jì)70年代的西爾斯就是這么做的。一個相關(guān)的毛病是忽視“基本飛輪”,，也就是構(gòu)建企業(yè)的基本商業(yè)理念,。柯林斯說：“人們往往低估了一個偉大飛輪的作用,?！蔽鳡査诡I(lǐng)導(dǎo)層押注在金融服務(wù)上，因?yàn)樗麄冇X得自己的“飛輪”,，也就是零售業(yè)務(wù),，40年前就已經(jīng)停止增長。家得寶,、勞氏和沃爾瑪?shù)裙疽呀?jīng)證明他們錯的有多離譜,。

在四處想辦法解決問題時，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者往往會重組公司,，而且有時會重組上癮,；這也是西爾斯的特征之一。20世紀(jì)70和80年代,，西爾斯曾經(jīng)多次采用控股公司結(jié)構(gòu),，并將龐大的金融服務(wù)業(yè)務(wù)的邊邊角角在相互敵對的高管統(tǒng)領(lǐng)的不斷變形的私人領(lǐng)地之間顛來倒去。這些措施一點(diǎn)兒用也沒有,。在衰退晚期,，公司有可能把希望寄托在外人身上，希望他成為救世主一樣的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者,。這樣的負(fù)責(zé)人剛上臺時,，公司一般都會變得有起色，但接下來卻仍然會令人失望,。亞瑟·馬丁內(nèi)斯掌權(quán)時的局勢符合這樣的模式,。

最后一個階段是真正的公司衰亡期——資不抵債并且銷聲匿跡，或者干脆變得無足輕重,，西爾斯就是這樣,。一個名叫西爾斯的實(shí)體也許可以再撐幾年。但說到作為當(dāng)今美國文化的元素之一,，作為長期增長前景令人稱道的零售商,，西爾斯已經(jīng)不在其列。

這個過程耗時之長令人咂舌,。憑借鼎盛時期的成功,，西爾斯的衰退期比大多數(shù)公司都長的多。但即使是不那么大的公司，敗亡也幾乎總是一個迷惑人的緩慢過程,?？铝炙拐f：“構(gòu)筑偉大的過程非常緩慢，想想沃爾瑪或西南航空就會明白,?；聞t和崛起完全一樣，都是一個積累的過程,。一家偉大公司的衰退只是看起來像是發(fā)生在一瞬間,，這是因?yàn)閱栴}已經(jīng)很嚴(yán)重時人們才會注意到。而這也正是它如此危險的原因,?！?/p>

在為西爾斯哀嘆之際，我們或許不該為它的崩塌而哭泣過長時間,。沒有哪家公司能永遠(yuǎn)存在下去,，但它的生命必須持續(xù)較長時間，值得稱贊而且成績卓著,。同時,，西爾斯的故事應(yīng)該讓我們感到害怕。它向所有公司領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者表明,，無論他們有多出名,，抑或在自己的公司多么有統(tǒng)治力，毀滅之力都有可能正在暗中作祟,，它可能源于成功而又為成功所掩蓋,，并且正在破壞這些領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者所做的一切工作。在它們帶來難看的結(jié)局前,，能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)這些毀滅之力的高管確實(shí)少之又少,。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

本文另一版本登載于《財富》雜志2019年6月刊，標(biāo)題為《70年的自我毀滅》,。

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Nearly 30 years later, Sears survives, barely. It regained momentum briefly in the 1990s when top executives and the board became so desperate that they broke with a century of tradition and hired an outsider to run the place—Saks Fifth Avenue executive Arthur Martinez. He found an organization still in its dysfunctional mode. “It was inward-looking and upward-looking,” he recalls. “Everything rose to the top. There was no accountability.” He brought in his own team of ?outsiders, quickly elevating sales, operating profit, the stock price, and morale. But when he left in 2000, the stock was right back where it had been when he took over.

His successor, former CFO Alan Lacy, tried hard to move Sears out of its mall locations because those stores “had a service-based model that our customers weren’t willing to pay for,” he says. He tried a Walmart-like, off-mall style of store called Sears Grand, but it didn’t take. The stock swung wildly. When Eddie Lampert came along in 2004, the board decided his buyout offer was the best option they faced.

What lessons should we distill from this long, sorry tale? Jim Collins, author or coauthor of business mega-sellers Built to Last, Good to Great, and Great by Choice, also wrote a slimmer, less famous book called How the Mighty Fall. Collins describes analyzing and writing about decline as a far tougher task than writing about success. “To become a great company is a narrow path,” he says. “There are things you have to do. But it’s so hard to get a framework of decline. It’s like a pool table—there are only a few ways to rack the balls but an infinite number of ways to disorder them.”

Collins didn’t study Sears for his book, but the framework he identified, and on which he elaborated in recent interviews, fits Sears’ demise almost precisely. It begins with arrogance, which Sears developed at mammoth scale. Until the troubles of the 1970s, Sears’ retail operations had never hired a consultant, believing no outsider could possibly tell them anything of value. “Searsmen” didn’t attend retail industry conferences, considering themselves members of a higher caste. The loudest expression of arrogance was the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, commissioned in the 1960s. “Being the largest retailer in the world, we thought we should have the largest headquarters in the world,” then-CEO Gordon Metcalf explained to Time. By 2000, the company forecast, Sears employees would occupy all 110 floors. In reality, Sears shrank rather than grew and had vacated the building by 1995. It’s now known as the Willis Tower.

Arrogance erodes discipline, and discipline is central to Collins’s analysis of decline. Cost discipline is often the first to go; it certainly went at Sears. Outsiders long assumed that economies of scale would forever give Sears an unassailable cost advantage in pricing merchandise, but it wasn’t true. The company could indeed buy goods for less than anyone else—but its profligate corporate overhead was so massive (think of that building) that its total costs were bloated far beyond the industry average.

Success creates growth, which spawns bureaucracy, which subverts discipline. “The what replaces the why,” Collins says. “You have to make sure not just 10 or a hundred or a thousand people can do something, so you give everyone the recipe book. The irony is that all those people don’t know why they do it this way. It becomes dogma rather than understanding.” At Sears, the problem was as big as the company; the employee manual reportedly ran to 29,000 pages.

In the next stage of decline, leaders externalize the blame for what’s going wrong, Collins says; Sears certainly did that in the 1970s. A related pathology is neglect of “the fundamental flywheel,” the basic business idea on which the company is built. “People often underestimate how far a great flywheel can go,” Collins says. Sears’ leaders bet on financial services because they thought that retail, their own flywheel, had run out of growth 40 years ago. Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, and others showed how wrong they were.

As leaders cast about for solutions, they typically reorganize the company, sometimes obsessively, and Sears checks that box. At various times in the 1970s and 1980s, it adopted a holding company structure and shuffled bits and pieces of its financial services empire among shape-shifting fiefdoms overseen by warring executives. None of it helped. In the late stages of decline, companies may invest their hopes in an outsider as savior-leader, under whom an initial upswing is common, followed by disappointment. The Arthur Martinez era fits that bill.

The final stage can be literal corporate death—insolvency and disappearance—or it can just be irrelevance, which the company has already reached. An entity bearing the Sears name could persist for years. But as an element of today’s American culture, and as a retailer with plausible prospects for long-term growth, Sears is done.

It’s astonishing how long it has taken. By virtue of its tremendous success at its height, Sears extended its decline much longer than most. But even for lesser companies, failure is almost always a deceptively slow process. “Greatness gets built very slowly—think of Walmart or Southwest Airlines,” says Collins. “Decline is just like ascent, a cumulative process. The decline of a great company only looks instantaneous because you notice it when it’s acute. That’s what’s so dangerous about it.”

As we mourn Sears, maybe we shouldn’t weep too long over its demise. No company lives forever, and it has had a long, laudable, productive life. But the Sears story should scare us. It shows every business leader that no matter how celebrated or dominant his or her business may be, the forces of destruction could be at work right now, unnoticed, caused by success but also hidden by success, undermining all the work the leader has done. Rare indeed is the executive who can spot those forces before they lead to an ugly end.

A version of this article appears in the June 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Seven Decades of Self-Destruction.”