高德思：說到符合公司的核心價值觀,，現在中國的情況是,，各種公司的高管都認為最大的壓力或挑戰(zhàn)是尋找合適的員工，之后將其留住,、加以發(fā)展,，等等。我們現在觀察到一個很有意思的趨勢,，五年前最理想的雇主是跨國公司?，F在這個趨勢已經逆轉了，最優(yōu)秀的人才都想進中國企業(yè),。所以,，我的問題是如果在一個競爭超級激烈的人才市場，大家都在搶奪合適的高層員工,，而如果甲公司和乙公司的核心價值觀非常相近怎么辦,？公司怎樣才能適當地將其核心價值觀差異化，從而對最優(yōu)秀的人才產生更大的吸引力呢,？

吉姆·柯林斯：這個問題很有意思,。我將給你一個簡短的回答和一個更長的、富含細節(jié)的回答,。

簡短的回答就是,，當我和杰里?波拉斯（Jerry Porras）進行《基業(yè)長青》（Built to Last）的研究工作時，我們發(fā)現生命力持久的卓越公司的確有著長期堅守的核心價值觀,，這是一個不容爭辯的事實，也是我們的關鍵發(fā)現之一,，而且這些公司的核心價值觀并不隨著時間推移而改變,。他們會改變做法,、策略，改良文化,，進入新的行業(yè),，等等。但是價值觀就像地面上固定的路標一樣（不容改變）,。

我們還想知道,，是否存在一套普遍正確的核心價值觀？我們發(fā)現由于公司的不同,，這樣普遍正確的價值觀幾乎是不存在的,。可能有些價值觀在哪里都是錯誤的,，但是肯定沒有一套價值觀是絕對正確的,。你會發(fā)現惠普（HP）那樣的公司非常注重員工個體，同時也會發(fā)現迪士尼公司（Disney）非常注重對客戶的服務,，而不是關注員工,。這兩套價值觀體系區(qū)別巨大，但是都很成功,。

隨著研究的深入,，我們發(fā)現唯一正確的核心價值觀是不存在的。關鍵是你的確擁有了核心價值觀,，而并非它是什么樣的價值觀,。關鍵是你要知道自己的核心價值觀是什么，對此深信不疑,，并且持之以恒,。

???

Thomas D. Gorman: With the fit with company core values, now we have a situation that in China, today, if you talk to top management in different kinds of companies, the biggest constraint or biggest challenge that they face is, finding the right people, and then, retaining them, developing them and so on. We're seeing an interesting trend where five years ago the most desirable employers in China were multinational companies. Now, the tide is turning and increasingly really top talent wants to work for Chinese companies. So my question is, in the kind of, sort of, hyper-competitive talent market for the right people, for senior people. Question, what if company X's core values are pretty comparable to company Y's? What can companies do, to differentiate their core values in ways that enhances their ability to attract the top talent?

Jim Collins: You know, it's interesting; I think that, I'm going to give you a short answer and somewhat longer answer that has some detail in it.

The short answer is, when Jerry Porras and I did the "Built to Last" research, it's an absolutely clear, empirical fact, that enduring great companies did have a strong set of core values that they held onto over a long period of time. This is one of the key findings, and they didn't change those values over time, they changed their practices, they changed their strategies, they evolved their culture, they moved in different businesses, they did all that. The values were like the fixed guide posts in the ground.

And then we asked the question, is there a right set of core values? And we found that actually among different companies, there was no one right set of core values, there may be some wrong ones, but there certainly was no right one. You would have a company like HP, which would put a lot of emphasis on its orientation to the individual, and you find at Disney a tremendous orientation to its service to its customer as opposed to focus on employees. Very different value systems but both very, very successful.

And we went through, well we said, there's no one set of values here and what we learned is, it's not what core values you have; it's that you have core values. That you know what they are, that you believe in them very deeply, and that you live them very consistently over time.

?

Jim Collins: And then the question becomes, so how does it, how does this translate into something differential? That brings me to the key point. It's really how they translate the values into a set of mechanisms that is enormously powerful, so just bear with me for a moment; you can do with this what you want. It's fascinating, there's a passionate intensity of culture and it's translated into various specific things.

So we were speaking earlier about Nucor, and Ken Iverson,who had this incredible sense of egalitarianism.He built this company that would basically defy gravity, which would be enormously profitable in the steel business, year in and year out. And from a small company to the most profitable steel company,the largest most profitable steel company in terms of total profits in the United States. And how do you do this? And he said, I'm going to make this egalitarian work ethic come alive. He didn't write this down on a sheet of paper, what he did was things like this.

The corporate headquarters staff, when they were a Fortune 500 company, had less than twenty-five people. So, this sends a signal that corporate is not where it happens. If corporate grows too much it becomes unegalitarian, there's corporate and then there's everyone else. They were crammed into a rented office the size of a dental suite. It had cheap veneer furniture and Ken Iverson would, of course, answer his own phone. The corporate dining room was a little strip mall diner across the street called, Phil's Diner, ok? Interestingly, the workers in the company had more perks than the executives -- it was inverted. So, for example all workers, but not executives, were eligible to receive $2,000 per year, for each child to be able to go to post-high school education. That was anybody that was making steel, but it wasn't for somebody who was, for example, the Chief Financial Officer.

When they had a highly profitable year everyone in the company would share in that. But here's what's very interesting. In times when profits would go down, even though they never had a loss, the folks at the top took the biggest hit, rather than the other way around. So, in the '82 recession, you had, I think workers' compensation went down about 25%, but officers' pay went down 60%. So, the idea for management was was, we're all in this together, and by the way, we're going to suffer more percentage-wise than everyone else. Still to this day, if you get the annual Nucor report, every name of every employee in the company, I think it's like 10,000 now, appears on the cover of the annual report. It's a very specific message, you're sort of saying, you talk to me about egalitarianism and all that, I don't know of another company that lists every single employee of the company on the cover of the annual report. And they've had to make the cover multi-pages, to get them all on there in alphabetical order.

Also interesting to note that, all this productivity, they had these productivity mechanisms, they had competing teams and the steel workers were the best paid steelworkers, but only because they had the best productivity, and their pay was tied directly to the productivity of their teams. And they would have people who would come in to work, I mean, it was an incredibly intense place to work. I mean, it was like the starting gun at the races and everybody would have their tools lined up and then it's time to go, and boom, they would go. And anyone who kind of just came in there who just kind of wanted to hang out, didn't want to work that hard, usually didn't last. Very high turnover in the first year, something like 50%, followed by almost no turnover, thereafter, with people who stayed for a long time. So, it was a little bit like a boot camp, right? And if you made it, it was a great place for you and if you didn't make it, you just didn't make it.

So, then you step back and say ok, was it that Nucor's values were distinctive, or was it their ability to translate them into a whole series of specific tangible mechanisms and consistencies that brought it to life. And that is really how they differentiated themselves.

So, if you're a company, or an entrepreneur, or you're building a company, you're bringing folks in, you're trying to get this sort of feeling of momentum and specialness and uniqueness. The critical question is, how do you build those tangible mechanisms of alignment with your values? And not just one, or two, but a whole series of them.

What's interesting in all this stuff I just described to you, it wasn't that they had a better value statement, in fact, we never really found a value statement in Nucor. What we found were these very specific attributes and that's where you really build the company. Then the culture becomes distinctive. Then people that love it stay, people who don't fit with it leave, and that's the whole process.