嘉宾介绍与早期职业生涯

Tracy Britt Cool is the co-founder of Cambrich (long-term investment partnership: an investment firm focused on building enduring businesses). She is best known for working directly with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, where she served as his financial assistant before becoming CEO of Pampered Chef and serving on the board of several Berkshire companies, including Benjamin Moore and Kraft Heinz. She combines investor discipline with hands-on operating experience, bringing a rare perspective on what it takes to grow and sustain great companies.

Tracy Britt Cool 是 Cambrich（长期投资合伙企业：一家专注于建立持久业务的投资公司）的联合创始人。她最广为人知的是在伯克希尔哈撒韦公司直接与沃伦·巴菲特共事，在那里她曾担任他的财务助理，之后成为 Pampered Chef 的首席执行官，并担任包括 Benjamin Moore 和 Kraft Heinz 在内的多家伯克希尔公司的董事会成员。她将投资者的纪律与实际运营经验相结合，对如何发展和维持优秀公司带来了独特的视角。

CEO 的挑战与伯克希尔的经验

When I was CEO, I felt it was very lonely, challenging, and hard. I was out navigating and trying to find resources and support.

当我担任首席执行官时，我感到非常孤独、充满挑战且艰难。我四处摸索，努力寻找资源和支持。

>> Tracy: Thank you. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate it.

>> Tracy: 谢谢。很荣幸能来到这里。我很感激。

>> Host: I want to start with what you're reading recently.

>> 主持人: 我想从你最近在读什么书开始。

>> Tracy: On the biographies, I just read Melinda Gates' transition book that she just came out with not too long ago, which I thought was super interesting. I reread Alan Mulally's "American Icon," which I think is fascinating in terms of a turnaround and the impact of that. I recently reread Katharine Graham's autobiography.

>> Tracy: 关于传记，我最近读了梅琳达·盖茨刚出版不久的转型之书，我觉得非常有趣。我重读了艾伦·穆拉利（Alan Mulally）的《美国偶像》（American Icon），我认为这本书在企业转型及其影响方面引人入胜。我最近还重读了凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆（Katharine Graham）的自传。

>> Host: Yeah, it's so amazing.

>> 主持人: 是的，太棒了。

>> Tracy: 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 in this new world.

>> Tracy: 这就是我最近关注的焦点，也是我最感兴趣的地方。此外，还有几本关于育儿的书，比如《焦虑的一代》（The Anxious Generation）显然很多人都在谈论，但这促使我深入阅读更多关于孩子和“放养式育儿”（Free-Range Kids）的书籍，思考在这个新世界中如何育儿。

>> Host: How many kids do you have?

>> 主持人: 你有几个孩子？

>> Tracy: We have four.

>> Tracy: 我们有四个。

>> Host: Oh gosh. Okay. What are the ages?

>> 主持人: 哦，天哪。好的。他们多大了？

>> Tracy: 10, seven, five, and two.

>> Tracy: 10岁、7岁、5岁和2岁。

>> Host: We had Alan on the show. I'm curious what you took away from his biography.

>> 主持人: 我们邀请过艾伦来节目。我很好奇你从他的传记中学到了什么。

>> Tracy: 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, and just the discipline with which he did it. Everything from his team coming in 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. So, I really appreciated that insight and just how he did it. 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, and making mistakes. I thought that was just really eye-opening and how he did it in the backdrop of the time that he did it. 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." And 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.

>> Tracy: 我认为那是关于驾驭企业转型最好的书。他在商业转型中所处的时代，其挑战性，2008年、2009年的环境，福特汽车行业，我的意思是，真的非常非常具有挑战性，以及他所展现的纪律。从他的团队每周都带着“绿色”报告进来，尽管他试图让他们庆祝业务中出现“红色”和挑战，以及如何从中学习，犯错也没关系。所以，我非常欣赏那种洞察力以及他做事的方式。我自己也曾进行过规模小得多的转型，我对他在人、纪律、以及建立持续改进、学习和犯错文化方面的专注印象深刻。我认为那真的非常具有启发性，以及他在那个时代背景下如何做到这一点。他提到的一件事至今仍让我记忆犹新，那就是他阐述了他的运营理念，然后说：“如果你不参与其中，那么你就是选择不成为我们团队的一员。”我认为这是一种非常有趣的方式，将选择权交还给个人，让他们决定是否想成为团队的一部分。

>> Host: 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." When I was CEO, we were going through transformation. And I said to our team often, they almost told me to stop saying it, "If you're not having fun four days out of five in this new culture and environment, it's probably not the 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.

>> 主持人: 是的，我完全同意。我认为，当你在一家公司里建立了一种文化、期望和运营体系时，你就可以对你的员工说：“这是你想参与的吗？”如果不是，“我们理解，你可以选择离开公司，但如果你想留在这里，你就需要加入进来。”当我担任首席执行官时，我们正在经历转型。我经常对我们的团队说，他们几乎叫我别再说了：“如果在这个新的文化和环境中，你五天中有四天不开心，那它可能就不适合你。我们鼓励你继续前进。我们会把你‘提拔’为客户”，无论是什么。我认为你希望你的团队真正投入、参与，专注于推动业绩，同时也希望这能引起他们的共鸣，让他们关心这份事业。

Pampered Chef 的转型之路

>> Host: And the turnaround you're talking about is Pampered Chef. Can you walk me through that? What was that like?

>> 主持人: 你说的转型是 Pampered Chef。你能给我讲讲吗？那是什么样的经历？

>> Tracy: 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 (acquisition of a controlling stake in a company) side. You see it more in venture capital (funding for new, high-growth businesses), but less on buyout. 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, I decided to become CEO of Pampered Chef. Pampered Chef was a business that was in need of transformation. It had been in decline since Berkshire bought it for about 10 years. The fundamentals were intact. It had a really strong brand and a strong channel. So, the moat (sustainable competitive advantage) was really there in terms of the business, but it had lost its way. It was not dissimilar from a lot of ebbs and flows of consumer businesses where you grow, but your customer changes or the world changes. 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, shopping online. Pampered Chef was originally started 45 years ago 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. In 2014 or 2015, 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 had never done it before. So, it was a fundamentally new role for me to take on 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.

>> Tracy: 那真的很有趣。我接任 Pampered Chef 的职位时，没有任何运营企业的经验。我已经在伯克希尔工作了大约五年。我确实认为投资格局正在发生变化，未来更多的价值将在运营方面创造，但很少有投资者真正拥有运营经验，尤其是在更偏向于收购（buyout: 收购一家公司的控股权）的领域。在风险投资（venture capital: 为新兴高增长企业提供资金）领域你看到更多，但在收购方面则较少。我想，如果我能走出董事会，进入作战室，真正去运营一家企业，我就会成为一个更好的投资者。所以我决定担任 Pampered Chef 的首席执行官。Pampered Chef 是一家需要转型的企业。自从伯克希尔收购它以来，它已经衰退了大约十年。但其基本面完好无损。它拥有非常强大的品牌和强大的销售渠道。所以，从业务角度来看，护城河（moat: 可持续的竞争优势）确实存在，但它迷失了方向。这与许多消费品企业的起伏并无二致，你虽然在增长，但你的客户或世界却在变化。在这种情况下，世界发生了相当大的变化，互联网在21世纪初出现，从根本上改变了业务模式，然后客户开始以不同的方式购物，在线购物。Pampered Chef 最初是由 Doris Christopher 在她家地下室创办的，距今已有45年，旨在通过直销模式，为全国各地的家庭提供高质量的厨具产品。因此，有销售顾问负责销售产品。在我2014年或2015年接手时，它已经连续十年衰退。所以，这是一个有趣的机会，进入一家需要转型的企业，有机会重新思考商业模式，重新思考方法，但我以前从未做过。因此，对我来说，这是一个全新的角色，在一个我不熟悉的行业中。讽刺的是，我不会做饭，所以我不得不学习基本知识，但这是一个非常好的机会。

投资价值创造的转变

>> Host: There are 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.

>> 主持人: 你刚才说的有两点我非常感兴趣。其中一点是价值创造从投资转向运营。能多谈谈吗？

>> Tracy: 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 a few years later, some minor improvements, sell them for 10, 11, 12 times. I think 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 (investment firms that buy and restructure companies) firms. In 2020, we got close to 20,000 in the US. So, a significant shift in terms of the capital that was out there as sellers rightfully gaining more of that value when they're being partnered with. That means you have to create more 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. 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 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."

>> Tracy: 我认为在投资界，长期以来，在收购方面，你看到的机会是，你可以以七、八、九倍的价格购买企业，几年后，进行一些小的改进，然后以十、十一、十二倍的价格出售。我认为这种情况已经改变了，因为资本现在已经商品化了。卖家可以获得的资本比以往任何时候都多。例如，在20世纪80年代，大约有20到25家私募股权（private equity: 购买并重组公司的投资公司）公司。到2020年，美国接近2万家。因此，在资本方面发生了重大转变，卖家在合作时理所当然地获得了更多的价值。这意味着你必须在合作开始后创造更多价值，而这意味着更多地关注运营。传统的私募股权，其关注点非常短期。你购买一家企业，你专注于在三到四年后将其出售。我认为这样做最终会导致你对企业做出短期决策。如果你真的想创造长期价值，我认为采取长期方法是有价值的。当我想成为一名运营商时，我的想法是：“我知道一旦与公司合作，我需要为它们创造价值。我该如何思考这个问题，以及如何成为一名更好的运营商？这将使我成为一名更好的投资者。”

企业难以适应现实的原因

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 我想回到你之前谈到的关于不断变化的格局和公司不适应的问题。是自满吗？是他们按照过时的地图来经营业务吗？为什么公司难以适应现实？

>> Tracy: I think there are a few reasons it happens. One is, I think change is happening faster and faster than it ever has. It's very hard when you're managing a business and you're focused on your customer and you're focused on your product or your service to also focus on this outside world and landscape. 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? As a leader, that's challenging to navigate. Second, I think if you think about most leaders, they usually grow up in a business oftentimes. 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. So, you lose some of that perspective. You gain the depth of experience, but that perspective is harder to have. For us, it's like how do we help leaders think about that and help them see around the curves that might be challenging. But I think those are a couple of reasons that it's becoming more difficult for leaders.

>> Tracy: 我认为发生这种情况有几个原因。首先，我认为变化发生的速度比以往任何时候都快。当你管理一家企业，专注于你的客户、产品或服务时，很难同时关注外部世界和环境。你面临着像新冠疫情、关税、供应链这样的问题。现在总是发生着一些事情，比如人工智能（AI）。这对你的业务意味着什么，你该如何应对？同时，也有很多虚假的开端。你不知道，这个趋势会持续下去，还是会很快消失？作为领导者，这很难驾驭。其次，我认为如果你考虑大多数领导者，他们通常是在一个企业中成长起来的。当你在一个企业中成长时，你会成为该企业、该领域、该行业的专家，但有时你缺乏看到其他行业发展的视角，这些行业可能在你之前出现，它们虽然不同，但在发生的事情上却有相似之处。所以，你失去了一些那种视角。你获得了深厚的经验，但那种视角更难拥有。对我们来说，就像我们如何帮助领导者思考这些问题，帮助他们预见可能出现的挑战。但我认为这些是领导者面临越来越大困难的几个原因。

从农场到哈佛：早期教育与独立精神

>> Host: Let's go back all the way to the beginning. You grew up on a farm in Manhattan, Kansas. Is that correct?

>> 主持人: 让我们回到最初。你在堪萨斯州曼哈顿的一个农场长大。是这样吗？

>> Tracy: 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 started to ask, "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: 是的。我上大学时，人们经常问：“你来自哪里？”我就会说：“曼哈顿。”因为在堪萨斯州就是这么说的。然后人们开始问：“哦，你来自上东区还是哪里？”我就会说：“嗯，那里并没有上东区。”我很快意识到，说我来自堪萨斯州就足够了，因为大多数人并不完全了解还有另一个小得多的曼哈顿。

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 你从农场长大以及在那么小的年纪就承担责任的经历中，记住了哪些教训？你现在如何将这些与育儿联系起来思考？

>> Tracy: 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 work ethic, commitment, and problem-solving, all the things that come with being on a farm. My dad, he owned this farm, and he loved it. 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. 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. It wasn't working; it was what he loved. That passion was something that I recognized and saw early on. Second, I learned a lot of independence on a farm. Just the nature of it is you're figuring things out. There are 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. And then I also learned, in essence, business from a very fundamentally young age. When I was probably in third, fourth grade, I started running my own farmers' market stand. 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. We got really busy, and I started hiring my friends. 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. I saw as we grew watermelons, at the 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 farmers' market stand, 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. I saw our farmers' market stand going from making $500 a week to $1,000 to $1,500 by the time I had really scaled it up, which was great for me and really just a fascinating learning experience.

>> Tracy: 我开玩笑说，我生命中的大部分时间都在努力离开农场。而现在，我希望我的孩子也能拥有一个农场，因为我认为那是一个学习职业道德、承诺和解决问题等所有与农场生活相关的宝贵环境。我父亲拥有这个农场，他热爱它。所以，我学到的第一课是：当你找到你热爱的事物时，它真的是一种激情，是你享受的事情，你根本不觉得自己在工作。我父亲工作比我见过的任何人都努力。深夜、清晨、整个夏天、整个冬天，他只休息一小会儿，仅此而已。那不是工作；那是他所热爱的事物。那种激情是我很早就认识并看到的。其次，我在农场学到了很多独立性。它的本质就是你自己摸索解决问题。有很多固有的危险或风险。我11、12岁时就在农场开车了，虽然不一定是在公路上，但我学会了如何应对不熟悉的情况，这对我来说是很早的一个重要教训。然后，我还在很小的时候就从根本上学到了商业知识。大概在我三、四年级的时候，我开始经营自己的农贸市场摊位。我父亲早上送我去，把我放下，我经营一整天，他会在一天结束时来接我。我们变得非常忙碌，我开始雇佣我的朋友。我开始实践：“我是按小时付钱给他们？还是给他们提成？还是给他们奖金？我如何才能让他们发挥出最好的表现？”我开始思考供需和定价。我看到，当我们种植西瓜时，在季节初期，数量非常有限，每个卖8美元。到了旺季，当我们有很多西瓜时，每个卖2美元。学习商业基本原理真的很有价值。即使只是一个农贸市场摊位，我每周都能做得越来越好。我能够建立一个可重复、可扩展的系统基础，以提高我的成功几率。我看到我们的农贸市场摊位每周从赚500美元到1000美元，再到1500美元，直到我真正将其规模化，这对我来说很棒，也确实是一次引人入胜的学习经历。

>> Host: Was this your parents helping you or all self-driven, like reading and applying?

>> 主持人: 这是你父母帮助你，还是完全靠自己驱动，比如阅读和实践？

>> Tracy: 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. What I saw in that was he just let me do a lot, probably more so than your average kid because he was older and he had seven kids, and he had seen it all. My brother navigated the farming part of the business. That wasn't my passion, but the business side I did love. So, it started out small, my own farmers' market stand, but over time it was running our whole store and running more and more of the business. 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 is really amazing.

>> Tracy: 是的，绝对是自我驱动的。我父亲，我是七个孩子中最小的。他之前结过婚。所以，他第一次婚姻有四个孩子，我们有三个。我从中看到的是，他就是让我做很多事情，可能比一般孩子更多，因为他年纪大了，有七个孩子，他什么都见过了。我哥哥负责经营农场业务，那不是我的热情所在，但我确实热爱商业方面。所以，它从一个小小的农贸市场摊位开始，但随着时间的推移，我开始经营我们整个商店，并越来越多地管理业务。我想他很欣赏这一点。那也不是我父亲的激情所在。他热爱农场方面，而这对我来说是一个在相对安全的空间里真正学习、成长和尝试不同事物的机会，这真的很棒。

追求哈佛：离开农场的雄心

>> Host: Where did the ambition come from to go to Harvard?

>> 主持人: 去哈佛的雄心是从哪里来的？

>> Tracy: 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 very, very hard manual work, and I wanted to get off the farm and do something else. I didn't know what that something else was, but I knew I wanted to leave. In high school, I decided education was the way to get there. I had always had good grades and done a lot of extracurriculars and managed a lot on the farm, but I wanted to apply to a lot of colleges. 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 applied everywhere because I didn't know anyone at that time who had gone to Harvard or other schools, really outside of Kansas. So, it was a great opportunity for me to just put my hat in the ring and see what would come from it.

>> Tracy: 它不像我原以为的那样有条理或有纪律。我知道我想离开农场。尽管我喜欢商业方面，但那很辛苦。那是非常非常辛苦的体力活，我想离开农场去做别的事情。我不知道那“别的事情”是什么，但我知道我想离开。高中时，我决定教育是实现这一目标的方式。我一直成绩很好，参加了很多课外活动，并在农场管理了很多事情，但我想申请很多大学。我不知道是哪一所。我不知道去哪里。我只知道我可以申请所有这些学校，而且我可能会被一两所我感兴趣的学校录取。所以，我只是到处申请，因为当时我并不认识任何去过哈佛或其他学校的人，真的，堪萨斯州以外的学校。所以，对我来说，这是一个很好的机会，可以尝试一下，看看会发生什么。

本科毕业直读商学院的考量

>> Host: And then you immediately went to HBS after. What was the decision process like to just do an undergrad and then right into HBS? You knew what you wanted, I assume.

>> 主持人: 然后你本科毕业后就直接去了哈佛商学院（HBS）。本科毕业后直接进入哈佛商学院的决策过程是怎样的？我猜你当时已经知道自己想要什么了。

>> Tracy: I think there were a couple of 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 do. I also think going straight from college to business school, which I advise to students now, is you really need to be ready on three metrics. So, you need to make sure you're ready 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. Socially, I'd always felt like I was older than my peers. I think the nature of growing up in a farm or a family business is you often 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. So, I felt like I had experiences to draw from that would help me in the classroom and be relevant. Then third, from a career perspective, I didn't know where it would 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.

>> Tracy: 我认为有几个组成部分。首先，我有一位导师在另一所学校做过类似的事情，她真的主张，如果我知道自己想做什么，那这是一条更有效率的道路，而且以后生活中也不必再重新考虑。在那个阶段，我发现了商业。我发现了投资。我知道我对这些领域充满热情。我觉得自己有明确的方向。我还认为，大学毕业后直接读商学院，我现在也这样建议学生，你需要从三个方面做好准备。所以，你需要确保你在社交上做好准备。你将与平均年龄比你大得多的学生在一起。在学术上，你能否为课堂带来有价值和有见解的东西？然后，在职业方面，你将与比你经验更丰富的人竞争工作。在社交上，我一直觉得我比同龄人更成熟。我认为在农场或家族企业中成长的特点是，你通常会获得更多的独立性，并且成熟得更快一些。其次，我认为在学术方面，我虽然没有从事过传统职业，但我从小就经营我们的家族企业。所以，我觉得我有一些经验可以借鉴，这会帮助我在课堂上发挥作用并保持相关性。第三，从职业角度来看，我不知道它会走向何方，但我觉得我会搞清楚，对此我并不那么担心。我上商学院不是为了这个。它是为了学习和成长，并在自己的专业知识和技能方面成为一个更好的人。

写信求职：与巴菲特的结缘

>> Host: 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.

>> 主持人: 那么在找工作时，我了解到你给很多不同的首席执行官写了信。能谈谈吗？

>> Tracy: 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." 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. He was, obviously, a legend in the finance field, but he was gracious and willing to spend time with me. 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. 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 him a little bit through that. I wasn't actually writing letters for jobs. I was writing letters to learn. When I met Warren over the student group visits, I decided to write him a letter. That's how I ultimately ended up at Berkshire.

>> Tracy: 实际上，我大学时就开始给首席执行官们写信，我只是想学习。所以我给商业和金融领域的不同首席执行官写信，说：“我能来向您请教吗？”我给贝尔斯登的 Ace Greenberg 写了一封信，他很客气地说：“好的，过来拜访吧。”于是我去了，去了交易大厅，和他坐了几个小时，他只是回答了我关于投资的问题。他显然是金融领域的传奇人物，但他很和蔼，愿意花时间和我在一起。我认为这对我来说是一个巨大的教训，因为人们都想帮助别人，尤其想帮助年轻人。作为一名学生，我能够接触到那些否则可能会拒绝我的人，从他们的时间角度来看，他们可能也应该拒绝。他们非常忙碌，但这真是一个很好的机会。我曾给沃伦·巴菲特写过一封信，邀请一群大学生到奥马哈参观，通过那次机会我对他有了一些了解。我当时并不是为了找工作而写信。我写信是为了学习。当我在学生团体访问中遇到沃伦时，我决定给他写一封信。这就是我最终进入伯克希尔的方式。

在伯克希尔的十年：巴菲特的智慧

>> Host: What do you take away from Berkshire? You worked there 10 years, right?

>> 主持人: 你从伯克希尔学到了什么？你在那里工作了十年，对吗？

>> Tracy: 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 in 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 exposes relatively consistently through those maxims, which I think is great because everyone can learn from him. But really the value of long-term thinking and long-term compounding (the process of generating earnings on an asset's reinvested earnings). The eighth wonder of the world is compounding and the value of that. If you think long-term and are set up structurally to think long-term, there's a lot of value in that. 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. Lastly, just the value of continuous learning and improvement. Warren reads every single day. "Get smarter" is better. Those in the Berkshire ecosystem do the same. 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.

>> Tracy: 我认为沃伦在学习和知识方面非常慷慨，他广泛分享。他在年度会议上分享。他在年度信件中分享，我觉得我获得了近距离观察和理解这些并看到其付诸实践的机会。但我认为这些教训是永恒的，它们是他通过那些格言相对一致地揭示出来的，我认为这很棒，因为每个人都可以向他学习。但真正重要的是长期思维和长期复利（compounding: 资产再投资收益产生收益的过程）的价值。世界第八大奇迹是复利及其价值。如果你进行长期思考，并且在结构上能够进行长期思考，那其中蕴含着巨大的价值。其次，人的价值，以及找到高诚信、关心自己所做事情的合适人才，然后给予他们正确的激励和鼓励。沃伦给予他身边的人，他的首席执行官或其他高管，极大的自主权和高期望，但真正让人们拥有灵活性，我看到了这方面的价值。最后，就是持续学习和改进的价值。沃伦每天都阅读。“变得更聪明”更好。伯克希尔生态系统中的人也这样做。我认为这与我小时候在农场时的感受产生了共鸣。我父亲也专注于在不同领域变得更好和持续改进，但这是我在伯克希尔看到被强化的东西。

离开伯克希尔：创立 Cambrich 的初衷

>> Host: So, why leave?

>> 主持人: 那么，为什么要离开呢？

>> Tracy: 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. I saw this opportunity to help midsize companies with a long-term approach to creating value. As much as I loved my time at Berkshire and would have been happy there forever, I felt like there was this opportunity to create something new and special that was serving a market that I didn't think was being served well today.

>> Tracy: 伯克希尔是一个非凡的地方。我的意思是，它是独一无二的。我认为不会再有第二个了，但伯克希尔在资本方面非常庞大。部署资本很困难。找到真正伟大的投资很困难，但当你规模非常大时，尤其困难。我看到了一个机会，可以帮助中型公司以长期方法创造价值。尽管我热爱在伯克希尔的时光，并且永远都会在那里感到快乐，但我感到有机会创造一些新的、特别的东西，服务于一个我认为目前服务不佳的市场。

Cambrich 的投资理念与运营模式

>> Host: Let's dive into Cambrich a little. Compare and contrast the framework at Berkshire and what you're doing that's different.

>> 主持人: 让我们深入了解一下 Cambrich。比较一下伯克希尔的框架和你们正在做的不同之处。

>> Tracy: It's hard to say what's similar in the 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 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. Second is finding high-quality businesses that have some sort of moat or competitive advantage. Great businesses are hard to find. When you find a great business with a moat or competitive advantage and you have a long runway, you can really invest behind that. 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. That came from when I was CEO. When I was CEO, I felt it was very lonely, challenging, and hard. I was out navigating and trying to find resources and support. People would come before me who could help me in that seat. 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 "great" looks like in these different aspects of managing a business. So, when Brian Humphrey and I started Cambrich, we really wanted to focus on how do we build a system that we can help these midsize companies and be the resource that we wanted when we were operators. We built the Camber Business System (KBS) (a proprietary management framework developed by Cambrich) really focused on that.

>> Tracy: 很难说有什么相似之处，因为伯克希尔是如此独特和特别。它是独一无二的，我们不认为我们能以任何方式复制它。我们正在努力做的，是真正专注于建立一个具有长期视野的长期结构，以正确的方法购买和建立企业，我们认为这种方法对公司、员工、客户以及最终的投资者都很有价值。其次是寻找具有某种护城河或竞争优势的高质量企业。优秀的企业很难找到。当你找到一个具有护城河或竞争优势的优秀企业，并且拥有长期的发展空间时，你就可以真正地投入其中。然后，我认为对我们来说，与伯克希尔明显不同的一点是，我们在运营上更加亲力亲为。这源于我担任首席执行官时的经历。当我担任首席执行官时，我感到非常孤独、充满挑战且艰难。我四处摸索，努力寻找资源和支持。人们会来找我，他们可以在那个位置上帮助我。我一直在想，如果有人能告诉我如何进行出色的战略规划过程，或者如何提高我的招聘技能，或者如何建立正确的文化，或者在管理企业的这些不同方面，“优秀”到底是什么样子，那该多好啊。所以，当 Brian Humphrey 和我创立 Cambrich 时，我们真正想专注于如何建立一个系统，我们可以帮助这些中型公司，并成为我们作为运营商时所希望获得的资源。我们建立的Camber 商业系统（KBS）（Camberich 开发的专有管理框架）正是专注于此。

长期思维：言行一致的挑战

>> Host: 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 thing that's easy to say. What's the difference between saying it and living it?

>> 主持人: 这里有很多值得探讨的地方。我想回到第一个切入点，那就是“长期”。每个人都说“长期”，这已经变成了一句容易说出口的话。说出来和真正做到之间有什么区别？

>> Tracy: 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. 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. Then the third is, I think there are differing degrees of long-term. There is the 50-year long-term, which I think is really, really long-term, and then there are differing gradients of that that can be utilized and be thought about. I don't think all long-term is equal, and I don't think you need to do 50 years to be 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.

>> Tracy: 我从三个不同的角度来思考这个问题。第一，你是否具有长期思维？你是否有长远的眼光？很多人会说“我考虑长期”，他们可能确实如此，但这只是一个组成部分。第二，你是否拥有一个真正允许你进行长期思考的结构？因为如果你天生就有一个不允许或不鼓励长期思考的结构，你就会让你的长期愿景与鼓励你做出短期决策的结构相冲突。从本质上讲，如果你的目标是在三到五年内出售一家企业，那么如果你的结构要求或激励你这样做，你就会做出短期决策。第三，我认为长期也有不同的程度。有50年的长期，我认为那是非常非常长期的，然后还有不同程度的长期可以被利用和思考。我不认为所有的长期都是平等的，我也不认为你需要做到50年才算是长期。我认为中间有一些程度，可以让你利用那个视野，利用那个结构，但又给你一些灵活性，让你不会永远被束缚。

>> Host: 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.

>> 主持人: 即使你是一个长期思考者，这也有点奇怪，对吧？因为你考虑的是更长的时间，25年或50年，但你必须今天就行动。

>> Tracy: 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 dynamics. 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. We were a couple of years into the turnaround, and the business was actually doing quite well. Then in year three, we had this setback. 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, the blocking and tackling of today. What we had thought was, "Hey, we had focused on those for two years. We had improved them. Now we could set our sights on longer-term thinking." But the reality is you have to manage the short-term and you have to manage the long-term. For us, we had to refocus, really work on the sales today, the challenges we were facing in the moment, in order to give us the space to think about the long-term as well.

>> Tracy: 是的。我们总是说短期和长期之间需要平衡。你不能只考虑长期。如果你只考虑长期，你可能无法摆脱短期困境，因为你会错过今天的情况，短期的动态。当我们在 Pampered Chef 时，我们正在扭转业务。Brian 是首席财务官，我是首席执行官，我们有一个管理团队帮助我们推动这次转型。我们转型了几年，业务实际上做得相当好。然后在第三年，我们遇到了挫折。我们发现我们过于关注长期：我们的长期战略举措，我们在国际增长和新类别上的投资。我们忽视了基本面，忽视了今天的“阻挡和应对”（blocking and tackling: 指处理日常基本任务）。我们当时认为：“嘿，我们已经专注于这些两年了。我们已经改进了它们。现在我们可以着眼于更长期的思考。”但现实是，你必须管理短期，也必须管理长期。对我们来说，我们必须重新聚焦，真正解决今天的销售问题，解决我们当时面临的挑战，以便为我们提供思考长期的空间。

简单与基本：芒格的智慧

>> Host: 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."

>> 主持人: 你提到了“阻挡和应对”，我想这里可能有一个观点，关于我们如何陷入复杂性，把事情弄得过于复杂，有时仅仅是记住基本原则。正如芒格所说：“采纳一个简单的想法，并认真对待它。”

>> Tracy: Yes. I mean, I think that oftentimes we think of the big things we could do, 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. I think some of the best CEOs out there focused on the fundamentals. Sam Walton at Walmart, he was all about the fundamentals. He was in a store every week, 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. I think that's really important, especially in mid-size companies where there's a lot of blocking and tackling to be done every single day. 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.

>> Tracy: 是的。我的意思是，我认为我们常常会考虑我们能做的“大事”，比如战略应该是什么样子，或者未来的愿景是什么，或者这意味着什么，而不是我们如何做好基本功，并把基本功做好。我认为一些最优秀的首席执行官都专注于基本功。沃尔玛的山姆·沃尔顿（Sam Walton）就完全专注于基本功。他每周都会去一家商店，甚至每周去多家商店，专注于如何更有效地为我们的客户服务。这是一种非常重要的技能，但常常被低估或不被重视。我认为这非常重要，尤其是在中型公司中，每天都有大量的“阻挡和应对”工作要做。通常，这会一直上升到管理团队和首席执行官层面。这并不是仅仅由你的前线员工就能处理的“阻挡和应对”工作。实际上，每个人都需要专注于此。

Pampered Chef 转型中的团队变动

>> Host: Was the turnaround at Pampered Chef with the same people, or was there a changeover in a lot of the team?

>> 主持人: Pampered Chef 的转型是由同一批人完成的，还是团队中很多人都换了？

>> Tracy: In this situation at Pampered Chef, we did change much of the team. The business had been in decline for about 10 years. During that period, we saw a lot of probably great people in the organization leave, or they had the skill sets that we needed for the transformation weren't there or had atrophied. So, we needed an infusion of talent. 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. What we saw was, "Wow, the customer is shifting dramatically. They're shopping more online. They're shopping more mobile." And we're selling through an in-person party model. 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?" What we found in doing that was we needed to be more digitally focused. We needed to shift our own thinking about technology from back office and support to a true revenue generator. 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 we thought about technology and then how we serve the customer. We took the business from 10% digital to 75%. We still did that through the channel, so through the sales consultants. We didn't go on Amazon or sell direct, but we really focused on how do we utilize our competitive advantage, which was the channel, but help them be more effective digitally. 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.

>> Tracy: 在 Pampered Chef 的这种情况下，我们确实更换了大部分团队。这家企业已经衰退了大约十年。在此期间，我们看到组织中许多可能很优秀的人才离开了，或者他们不具备我们转型所需的技能，或者这些技能已经萎缩。所以，我们需要注入新的人才。举个例子，当我刚开始在 Pampered Chef 工作时，10% 的业务是数字化的。90% 是通过线下派对面对面销售的。员工甚至没有笔记本电脑。我们看到的是，“哇，客户正在发生巨大转变。他们更多地在线购物。他们更多地通过移动设备购物。”而我们正在通过线下派对模式进行销售。所以，我们需要转变思维方式，说：“好的，我们如何才能真正满足客户的需求，以及在这个过程中对他们来说什么最重要？”我们发现，要做到这一点，我们需要更加注重数字化。我们需要将我们对技术的看法从后台和支持转变为真正的收入创造者。因此，我们需要一位新的技术领导者，然后最终需要一个全新的技术团队以及营销和销售团队来真正补充这一点。我们引进了一位新的领导者，他真正改变了我们对技术的看法，以及我们如何服务客户。我们将业务从10%的数字化提升到75%。我们仍然通过渠道，也就是通过销售顾问来做到这一点。我们没有在亚马逊上销售或直接销售，而是真正专注于如何利用我们的竞争优势——渠道，但帮助他们更有效地进行数字化。我认为这是一个很好的例子，说明有时你需要不同的技能组合或不同的经验才能在企业中达到你想要的目标，而有时原有的团队并不总是具备这些。

吸引人才：逆境中的故事讲述

>> Host: What was it like attracting talent to a declining business? I liken this 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 waiting to see progress before they jump in or waiting to see a critical mass. How did you go about attracting talent to that?

>> 主持人: 吸引人才到一家正在衰退的企业是什么感觉？我把它比作体育运动，对吧？如果你在一个0胜17负的球队里，很难吸引到有能力、有竞争力并且能改变文化的自由球员。他们在看到进展之前会观望，或者等待看到一个临界点。你是如何吸引人才到那里的？

>> Tracy: It was something we really focused a lot on early on, understanding what was our employee value proposition. Why would someone want to come to Pampered Chef? What we found was people weren't coming to Pampered Chef because they necessarily 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 being a meritocracy that they could learn and grow more quickly and get rewarded for that and be excited by what we were doing. In essence, we really focused on storytelling and saying, "What are we going to do? We're transforming a business. We're going to reinvent mealtime. We're going to focus on our purpose, which was 'imagining lives one meal and one memory at a time.'" That's what we're going to focus on. That really started to resonate with employees who were passionate about learning, growing, and then doing something that was unique and special. Then we focused on our culture of how do we actually accomplish that through the culture we were creating, both in terms of opportunities, promotions, incentives, growth, but also in terms of engagement, giving feedback, helping people grow and develop. 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.

>> Tracy: 这是我们早期非常关注的一点，即了解我们的员工价值主张是什么。为什么会有人想来 Pampered Chef 工作？我们发现，人们来 Pampered Chef 并不是因为他们一定一直喜欢我们的产品、我们的地理位置或其他因素。他们来是因为他们想学习和成长，而我们可以通过建立一个精英管理制度（meritocracy: 凭能力而非背景晋升的制度）来给他们机会，让他们更快地学习和成长，并因此获得回报，并对我们正在做的事情感到兴奋。从本质上讲，我们真正专注于讲故事，说：“我们要做什么？我们正在转型一家企业。我们将重新定义用餐时间。我们将专注于我们的宗旨，即‘一次一餐，一次一回忆，构想生活’。”这就是我们要关注的。这真正开始引起那些对学习、成长以及做一些独特而特别的事情充满热情的员工的共鸣。然后，我们专注于我们的文化，即我们如何通过我们正在创造的文化来实现这一目标，这既包括机会、晋升、激励、成长，也包括参与度、提供反馈、帮助人们成长和发展。我们最终吸引了许多通常不会去厨具产品业务的人。我通常也不会去厨具产品业务，但看到了这个机会，可以建立一些独特而特别的东西，并真正专注于我们如何也能在公司内部做到这一点。

长期思维与企业结构

>> Host: I love that. I want to go back to structure being critically 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 points 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. We have a mutual friend, Brent Bash, who set up the same thing from what I wouldn't call 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. That enables a lot more patient deployment of capital, enables you to make investments today that are going to bear fruit in five or six years, but you won't do that if you're just flipping a business.

>> 主持人: 我喜欢这一点。我想回到结构对长期思维至关重要这一点。作为伯克希尔的局外人，我一直认为其许多成功源于这样一个事实：在某些时候，没有人能够进来告诉巴菲特做一些不同的事情。这种结构与他从长期思维角度所做的事情是一致的。我们有一个共同的朋友，Brent Bash，他也建立了同样的东西，我不会称之为私募股权模式，但他没有采用七年期的基金，那种有倒计时时钟的模式。他将其设定为28年，并称之为永久股权。这使得资本的部署更加耐心，使你能够进行今天投资，并在五六年内开花结果，但如果你只是倒卖企业，你就不会这样做。

>> Tracy: 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. 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?" 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. So, I think that the nature of the structure just creates the wrong incentives. Any leader in a business will say you don't usually get payback on things as quickly as you think. To get payback 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 or your incentives are on a shorter-term duration, it's just hard to make those decisions.

>> Tracy: 绝对如此。我的意思是，我认为如果你的业务时间范围是三到五年，“我将在三到五年内出售这家企业”，那么你所做的一切都将是短期性质的，仅仅因为人性和你的激励方式。所以，你会进来然后说：“好吧，我是应该投资于拓展新市场，还是现在就提价？我是应该真正建立一个强大的人力系统、文化和参与度，这可能需要三、四年、五年才能获得回报，还是现在就削减成本，这将增加我的短期价值？”你可能做出的每一个决定，都将非常非常难以做出长期决策，因为压力是如此偏向于采取短期行动。所以，我认为这种结构的性质只会产生错误的激励。任何企业领导者都会说，你通常不会像你想象的那样快速获得回报。在一两年或三年内获得回报是很难的，而不是说：“好吧，我们将进入一个新市场。”这可能需要我们几年时间来建立，或者“我们将投资于在我们的组织中培养一批新人才，以便他们五年后能够领导。”这些都是长期性质的事情。但如果你的结构或激励是基于较短期的，那么做出这些决定就很难。

>> Host: 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 (Return on Investment: a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment) is not what we thought it would be," and "abandon ship" sort of mentality.

>> 主持人: 即使你做出了这些决定，内部也往往很难，除非所有人都朝着同一个方向努力，因为这就像是，“哦，我们为此投入了五年，但突然之间投资回报率（ROI: Return on Investment: 衡量投资效率的绩效指标）不如我们预期的那样”，然后就产生了一种“弃船”的心态。

>> Tracy: 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% or 12%," and I'm like, "Well, that's really hard to do." 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 what needed to be done. Then I just needed to go do it. I thought it would take me a year or two to drive the change that was needed to get the business back on track. It took almost three or four because everything took longer and was harder. 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. I think that if my task was to 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 in the business.

>> Tracy: 哦，当然。我的意思是，我曾参与过许多企业，人们会说：“哦，如果我们能把利润率从10%提高到12%或12%，”我就会说：“嗯，那真的很难做到。”但我记得当我接任 Pampered Chef 的职位时，我已经为这家企业提供了大约一年的咨询。所以，我对需要做什么有相当好的了解。然后我只需要去执行。我以为我需要一两年时间来推动所需的变革，让业务重回正轨。结果却花了将近三四年，因为一切都花了更长时间，也更困难。组建合适的团队，建立合适的文化，投资于企业中正确的系统。我们想更新营销和产品。所有这些都花费了相当多的时间。我认为，如果我的任务是在三四年内出售那家企业，我不知道我是否会做所有同样的事情。我可能会做出一些短期决策，而这些决策最终可能会为企业创造更少的价值。

>> Host: 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. CEO turnover, at least in the S&P 500, is as fast as it's ever been, if not faster. 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."

>> 主持人: 我认为这就是文化变革如此困难的部分原因，它们比你预期的要更漫长、更艰难。时间线也存在错配。首席执行官的更替速度，至少在标普500指数公司中，达到了前所未有的快，甚至更快。所以，你进入一家公司，或者想想体育团队的教练，对吧？你进入一个正在输球的团队，你会抛出很多“孤注一掷”的策略，因为期望就是这样，“我不会在这里待十年。我会交易掉那个首轮选秀权。我会做那些可能在三到四年内才能见效的事情。”

>> Tracy: Yeah. I think that we all have incentives in life. Recognizing what the incentives are oftentimes shows us what behaviors we'll have or what decisions we'll make. I think you mentioned culture. I think culture and people are the most foundational and fundamental aspects of any business, any size. In mid-size companies, in particular, it's incredibly valuable because you often have more limited resources. Your team is smaller, so people are doing more in terms of their scope of responsibilities, their capabilities. They oftentimes are very passionate and committed, but we don't always invest in that culture. So, how do we continue? I think the best businesses figure that out. 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?" 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 execute that purpose and impact? Then we think about performance third. 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 purpose?" 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.

>> Tracy: 是的。我认为我们生活中的每个人都有激励因素。认识到这些激励因素通常会告诉我们我们将采取何种行为或做出何种决定。你提到了文化。我认为文化和人是任何规模企业最基础和最根本的方面。特别是在中型公司中，它具有极其重要的价值，因为你通常拥有更有限的资源。你的团队规模较小，因此人们在职责范围和能力方面承担更多工作。他们通常充满热情和投入，但我们并不总是投资于这种文化。那么，我们如何继续呢？我认为最优秀的企业能够解决这个问题。但我认为随着公司规模扩大，事情在人员方面会变得更加复杂。所以，我们总是从人开始。“我们是否在正确的岗位上拥有合适的人？我们是否拥有正确的文化？我们是否拥有正确的参与度？我们是否拥有正确的人才发展和人才管理？”当我们思考企业时，你可以通过关注人和基础来真正提升一家企业。我们首先关注这一点。其次关注目标。企业的目的是什么？我们为世界带来了什么不同？我们是否围绕这一点达成一致？执行这一目标和影响的战略是什么？然后我们第三步才考虑绩效。所以我们然后说：“好的，我们如何才能真正实现这些目标？我们如何推动一致性和问责制？我们如何专注于目标？”我认为如果你从关注绩效开始，那么你就会错过这些基础设置，而这些基础设置对于实现一致性并最终为企业带来最大价值至关重要。

人才管理：结构化与纪律性方法

>> Host: 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 so hard to live that because that means investing in your people. It means probably lowering your margins at certain points in time. It's taking a disciplined approach to how we think about people. So, it's not just, "How do I reward people more?" or "How do we have more holiday parties?" It's actually taking a structured, disciplined approach. We always say with our companies, typically businesses have a structured view to thinking about strategy or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators: quantifiable measures used to track progress towards a business objective) or budgeting. They have a calendar. They have discipline and a proactive approach to that. We often say, "Where's your people calendar? What is your same level of disciplined approach you have on people?" because you should have the same. 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, on 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?" And then engagement. "Are we engaging our talent? Are we thinking about the culture? Are we thinking about incentives? Are we thinking about communication? And how are we doing that most effectively to support the whole organization?" 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-size 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. So, that weight all falls on usually the CEO to navigate it. That's a lot when you're trying to navigate everything. 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 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.

>> 主持人: 这又是人们随口说出的一句话。“人是我们最宝贵的资产。”但说这些话很容易，真正做到却很难，因为这意味着投资于你的员工。这可能意味着在某些时候降低你的利润率。这需要我们以一种有纪律的方法来思考人。所以，这不仅仅是“我如何更多地奖励员工？”或者“我们如何举办更多的节日派对？”它实际上是采取一种结构化、有纪律的方法。我们总是对我们的公司说，通常企业在思考战略、关键绩效指标（KPIs: Key Performance Indicators: 用于衡量业务目标进展的可量化指标）或预算时，都有一个结构化的视角。他们有时间表。他们对此有纪律和积极的方法。我们经常说：“你的人力资源日历在哪里？你对员工采取的纪律性方法与你对其他方面的方法是否一致？”因为它们应该是一致的。我们将其分为三个方面：“我们如何吸引合适的人才？”这包括从招聘到雇主价值主张，再到哪些是最关键的岗位以吸引合适的人才。这是关于吸引人才。 “我们如何发展人才？我们是否在思考人们的职业发展方向？我们是否在帮助他们实现目标？我们如何思考这些？”然后是参与度。“我们是否在激励我们的人才？我们是否在思考文化？我们是否在思考激励措施？我们是否在思考沟通？以及我们如何最有效地做到这一点以支持整个组织？”整个人力资源框架在组织中可以做的事情方面非常重要，但它通常是事后才考虑的。如果你看看高管团队，通常在中型公司中，甚至可能没有人力资源负责人。如果有的话，那也是一个更初级的、通才型的人，而不是一个真正的人才伙伴。所以，所有这些重担通常都落在首席执行官身上来驾驭。当你试图驾驭所有事情时，这会非常繁重。随着你规模的扩大，它变得越来越重要，因为当你规模小时，每个人都与首席执行官很亲近。他们看到、感受到文化。他们看到职业道德和纪律。当你规模变大时，你需要退后一步，拥有一个更系统、更结构化的体系来让这一切继续下去，因为不是每个人都能与首席执行官并肩而坐。

人才评估与招聘：KBS 的实践

>> Host: How do you evaluate talent?

>> 主持人: 你如何评估人才？

>> Tracy: 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-size companies have between 15 and 30 roles that are the most critical roles to get right. These are the ones that are creating the most value. 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 on what those are? Do we have the right capabilities? Sometimes you might have a mission-critical role that you don't have today that you need the capabilities for. 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 do, so we had to build it. 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. I find the best way is you go in and with someone, and I can usually send a list of questions that are, I usually have a few different frameworks, but industry questions, company questions, department questions, and I ask those different questions. What I find is you can usually get someone's assessment and understanding and their view of a world pretty effectively by just talking to them about what they're seeing. That helps us learn and get better about the business as well. So, that's typically when we go into business. What we do once we're in a business, then we really focus, "Okay, how do we develop our talent?" We're using different conversations and different processes along the way to really make sure that we're aligned in doing that. 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? So, you have KPIs of what are we going to achieve, and then you give people the flexibility to achieve those. You don't tell them how to achieve them. You say, "Okay, you have the autonomy to achieve these," but you give them the skills. So, we do problem-solving training. We help support them so that they're more equipped to actually achieve those goals. They have visibility, and then they have the alignment. "We're all going in this direction. These are the most important KPIs." 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." Through that, you're implementing a talent management process. Alongside 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. So, it's a very structured way of saying, "How do we bring in people at the right stages at 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?"

>> Tracy: 在我们思考人才时，我们会在企业内部做几件事。当我们进入一家新企业时，首先，我们真正努力了解这家企业中哪些是任务关键型角色。我们发现大多数中型公司有15到30个最关键的角色需要正确配置。这些是创造最大价值的角色。每家企业可能略有不同。在一家企业中可能是销售。在另一家企业中可能是产品开发。在另一家企业中可能是财务，这取决于他们正在做什么以及他们如何处理。但我们是否真正清楚这些是什么？我们是否拥有正确的能力？有时你可能有一个任务关键型角色，你今天没有，但你需要具备这些能力。我之前举的 Pampered Chef 的例子，当我开始时，对我们来说一个任务关键型角色是技术。我们没有我们所需的能力，所以我们必须建立它。但真正评估我们拥有的任务关键型角色是什么，然后一旦我们做到这一点，我们就会评估：“好的，我们今天在这些角色中拥有哪些人？他们是明星吗？有没有那些在职业发展方面有很多机会的人，或者他们是今天还不错但长期来看可能不合适的人？”所以，我们努力以一种有纪律的方式来评估这一点。我发现最好的方法是，你和某人一起进去，我通常会发送一份问题清单，我通常有几个不同的框架，但包括行业问题、公司问题、部门问题，我问这些不同的问题。我发现，通过与他们谈论他们所看到的东西，你通常可以非常有效地获得某人的评估和理解以及他们对世界的看法。这也有助于我们学习并更好地了解业务。所以，这通常是我们进入企业时的情况。一旦我们进入一家企业，我们就会真正专注于：“好的，我们如何发展我们的人才？”我们在此过程中使用不同的对话和不同的流程，以确保我们在这方面保持一致。对我们来说，它始于：“我们是否在年初设定目标？我们是否有明确的 KPI？”因为如果你没有明确的 KPI，你如何评估人员？所以，你有关于我们要实现什么的 KPI，然后你给予人们实现这些目标的灵活性。你不会告诉他们如何实现。你说：“好的，你有自主权去实现这些目标，”但你给予他们技能。所以，我们进行解决问题培训。我们帮助支持他们，使他们更有能力实际实现这些目标，他们有可见性，然后他们有了一致性。“我们都朝着这个方向前进。这些是最重要的 KPI。”然后我们融入对话或反馈，我们实际上会实时提供反馈，例如：“嘿，你做得非常好。这是我们可以做得更好的地方。”通过这种方式，你正在实施人才管理流程。与此同时，你还在进行领导力发展流程，你正在识别你的领导者，你正在帮助他们理解愿景、期望、战略。最终，他们正在帮助塑造那个战略。所以，这是一种非常有结构化的方式，说明：“我们如何在正确的阶段、正确的时间引入人才，以真正帮助他们提升自己的发展、学习和贡献，从而我们可以更关键地利用他们的专业知识和洞察力？”

招聘中的“手舞足蹈”现象与洞察力

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 在你对人们进行的面试中，有没有一些迹象表明他们可能不适合你们的方向，或者这个人不如你最初想象的那么好？

>> Tracy: I would say the biggest tell I say is called "handwaving," 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 handwaving around, or you start to drill in more, and the handwaving begins where they can't really understand or explain it. 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 fix it, but they understand what the issues are and what the problems are. Our goal is to help them understand, "Okay, this is how we can address that or solve it." 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?" It doesn't mean they need to understand everything in the business. They need to understand the area that they're responsible for. I find oftentimes the best people just have a natural interest and curiosity to solve the issues, or they'll have views on things even outside of their area. One of the questions I'll often ask is, "What are we not doing that we should be?" People often 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." Things like that help me see if they have that innate engagement or excitement about the business and curiosity.

>> Tracy: 我会说，我所说的最大的迹象叫做“手舞足蹈”（handwaving），当你和某人谈论某事，你问一个问题，他们不是直接回答问题，而是东拉西扯。他们会手舞足蹈地解释，或者当你开始深入追问时，他们就开始手舞足蹈，无法真正理解或解释。通常，真正了解自己专业、了解自己业务、了解基本原理的人，能够真正解释我们为什么做某些事情，为什么不做。他们可能不具备解决所有问题的技能，但他们理解问题所在。我们的目标是帮助他们理解：“好的，我们如何解决这个问题？”但对我来说，这通常是最大的迹象：“他们能说清楚吗？他们能说得简洁明了吗？他们真的了解自己领域内正在发生什么吗？”这并不意味着他们需要了解业务中的所有事情。他们需要了解他们负责的领域。我发现，通常最优秀的人对解决问题有着天生的兴趣和好奇心，或者他们甚至对自己领域之外的事情也有看法。我经常问的一个问题是：“我们没有做但应该做的事情是什么？”人们通常会谈论自己领域内的事情，但他们也经常会谈论其他领域的事情，比如：“嘿，我真的认为如果我们能更专注于数字化地向客户销售，那将使我们能够转型业务，而我们今天没有这样做。”诸如此类的事情帮助我了解他们是否对业务有那种内在的投入、兴奋和好奇心。

>> Host: 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-foot level to the 30,000-foot, and then transcend the same problem.

>> 主持人: 我非常喜欢这一点。我想你刚才说的时候，我想到的是以不同“分辨率”进行沟通的能力，从一英尺的细节到三万英尺的宏观，然后超越同一个问题。

>> Tracy: 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? I find that people who are on the front line may not have the 30,000-foot 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 figuring out what's the right level to have that conversation.

>> Tracy: 对我和我的角色来说，关键在于理解我们在这段对话中处于什么位置，以及我在和谁交谈？我们如何达到那个层次，以及什么是正确的层次？我发现，一线员工可能没有对业务发展方向的3万英尺高空视角，但他们会非常擅长10英尺的近距离视角，并理解他们试图解决的问题，或者是什么限制或阻碍了他们。所以，关键在于弄清楚进行这种对话的正确层次。

Cambrich 的公司寻找与投资标准

>> Host: How do you go about finding companies? You've acquired a few now.

>> 主持人: 你们是如何寻找公司的？你们现在已经收购了几家。

>> Tracy: We find areas that we like. We say, "If we want to go fishing, we want to find a pond with a lot of great fish." So, we want to understand what is an industry that we think has a strong moat or competitive advantage, and we usually look at that by saying, "Okay, what are the returns on capital in the space?" So, quantitatively, can we see if there is a moat? 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? So, we're trying to find those spaces. 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. Then we really try to get smart and find how do we add value in these companies. Another group of businesses we have are just people who come to us, people who hear about what we're doing, who are excited. So, they'll come to us and say, "Are you interested in my business?" which we appreciate. 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?" 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. Through that, we learn about new businesses. We learn new spaces, which helps us also be better in terms of finding businesses that might be a fit for us. 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.

>> Tracy: 我们会寻找我们喜欢的领域。我们说：“如果我们要钓鱼，我们想找到一个有很多好鱼的池塘。”所以，我们想了解哪个行业我们认为具有强大的护城河或竞争优势，我们通常通过说：“好的，这个领域的资本回报率（Return on Invested Capital, ROIC: 衡量公司利用投入资本创造利润的效率）是多少？”来观察。所以，从定量上，我们能看到是否存在护城河吗？然后从定性上，我们能更有效地理解护城河吗？护城河有多宽？它随着时间推移是变宽还是变窄？它是否持久？它能否经受住时间的考验？所以，我们正在努力寻找这些领域。一旦我们找到我们认为合适的行业，我们就会花费大量时间联系企业，寻找企业，被介绍给企业。我们有运营顾问也帮助我们理解。然后我们真正努力变得聪明，并找出我们如何为这些公司增加价值。我们拥有的另一类企业是那些主动找上门的人，那些听说我们正在做的事情并感到兴奋的人。所以，他们会来找我们说：“你对我的业务感兴趣吗？”我们对此表示感谢。我们总是以同样的标准进行评估：“这家企业的护城河是什么？从定量和定性上，我们能否评估它？然后我们如何思考这些领域？”我们还做了一件事，就是建立了一个由3000名首席执行官、所有者和创始人组成的社区，我们将他们聚集在一起，提供内容、资源和支持。通过这个社区，我们了解新的企业。我们了解新的领域，这也有助于我们更好地找到可能适合我们的企业。我们每年只投资一两家公司。我们会考察500家。所以，我们在寻找具有长期发展潜力的最高质量企业方面非常挑剔。

>> Host: Is that the most important part of the process, evaluating the moat?

>> 主持人: 评估护城河是这个过程中最重要的部分吗？

>> Tracy: We call them the Five Ms that we look at. First is moat (sustainable competitive advantage: a business's ability to maintain competitive advantages over its competitors). What is the moat? What's the competitive advantage? Second is the market. You 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? 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 are 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? The fourth is what we call more potential (untapped growth opportunities: additional avenues for growth or improvement not yet fully leveraged). 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. Then for us, the fifth is margin of safety (investment principle: buying assets at a price significantly below their intrinsic value). We don't want 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, 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.

>> Tracy: 我们称之为我们关注的“五M”。首先是护城河（moat: sustainable competitive advantage: 企业相对于竞争对手保持竞争优势的能力）。护城河是什么？竞争优势是什么？其次是市场。你可能拥有护城河，但市场是否在增长，我们是否认为这是一个有吸引力的市场？增长率是多少？其可能的动态是什么？第三，我们看管理层。它今天是否拥有一个强大的管理团队？或者，如果存在机会，我们是否认为我们可以帮助建立管理团队？有时会有一家很棒的企业。它有三位强大的领导者，但他们需要培养一名销售主管、人才主管或财务主管。我们能帮助他们做到这一点吗？第四是我们所说的更多潜力（more potential: untapped growth opportunities: 尚未充分利用的额外增长或改进途径）。今天有一些机会尚未被充分利用，我们认为我们可以帮助他们。这可能是拓展新市场。这可能是他们今天管理业务的更结构化的方法。在更多潜力方面有各种不同的途径，但绝对是一个重点。然后对我们来说，第五是安全边际（margin of safety: investment principle: 以远低于其内在价值的价格购买资产）。我们不希望一切都必须完美无缺才能成功。我们希望有一些灵活性，这样如果出现像新冠疫情、经济衰退或关税这样的情况，我们能够与管理团队很好地应对，并且我们不会因为发生了一些可能超出我们控制范围的事情而给企业施加不必要的压力，迫使其做出短期决策。

>> Host: What does moat mean?

>> 主持人: 护城河是什么意思？

>> Tracy: For us, moat is what we consider a competitive advantage. The simple example of why a moat is, it's a castle, right? Do you have a castle that is a strong business? 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. A moat can be driven by different dynamics. It might be you have a brand and a channel that in combination allow you to 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 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. There are lots of different types of moats. There's network effect (a phenomenon whereby increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service for others). There's limited supplier power, customer 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. 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 are other businesses where the moats are getting stronger. So, we're trying to find those businesses where we think we can expand the moat.

>> Tracy: 对我们来说，护城河就是我们所说的竞争优势。护城河的简单例子就是一座城堡，对吧？你有没有一个强大的企业作为城堡？然后你想要围绕它的护城河就是防御城堡、保护城堡的东西。宽阔的护城河能更好地保护城堡。狭窄的护城河保护作用较小。护城河可以由不同的动态驱动。它可能是你拥有一个品牌和一个渠道，两者结合起来可以让你将竞争对手排除在你的业务之外。你可能拥有一个竞争地位，使你能够成为低成本供应商，从而吸引客户并在你的市场中获得路线密度，然后进一步降低价格和成本，从而让你吸引更多客户，这将使其他人无法进入你的业务。护城河有很多不同的类型。有网络效应（network effect: 随着用户数量增加，产品或服务对其他用户的价值也随之增加的现象）。有限的供应商议价能力、客户集中度都可能限制或扩大你的护城河。但我们真正关注的是如何建立一个尽可能有效地将竞争对手或新进入者排除在外的企业。我们发现护城河每天都在变化，一些过去拥有惊人护城河的企业，比如报纸，现在已经相当程度地被侵蚀了，而另一些企业的护城河则变得越来越强大。所以，我们正在努力寻找那些我们认为可以扩大护城河的企业。

AI 对商业护城河的影响

>> Host: Where do you think moats are getting stronger?

>> 主持人: 你认为哪些地方的护城河正在变得更强？

>> Tracy: 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." I think AI is a good example of that. It probably will erode a lot of moats in 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. I do think there probably will be a subset of businesses where AI actually makes their moat stronger because they already have some sort of structured system that is allowing them to have a competitive advantage. So, it might be, maybe they've built out a salesforce with a technician base that is hard to replicate, and now AI allows them to quote more effectively or reduce their cost or improve their productivity, so that then their costs go down. 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. 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.

>> Tracy: 很难当下就说：“这个护城河正在变强”，因为通常回顾过去十年会更容易判断。“护城河是变好了还是变差了。”我认为人工智能（AI）就是一个很好的例子。它可能会侵蚀许多行业和企业的许多护城河，因为它降低了新进入者的摩擦或成本，他们可以更有效地驾驭这个领域。我确实认为可能会有一部分企业，人工智能实际上会使它们的护城河更强，因为它们已经拥有某种结构化的系统，使其具有竞争优势。所以，这可能是，也许他们已经建立了一支拥有技术人员基础的销售队伍，这很难复制，而现在人工智能允许他们更有效地报价，或者降低成本，或者提高生产力，从而降低成本。如果他们的成本降低，那么他们就可以将这种优势传递给客户，并将其循环利用，从而更有效地留住更多客户。我认为在人工智能的背景下，现在判断“谁将是最大的赢家，谁将是最大的输家”可能还为时过早，因为在这个阶段，这更像是一场赌博。

>> Host: I've been thinking about that a little bit recently. There are 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. 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."

>> 主持人: 我最近一直在思考这个问题。有很多服务型企业，如果有人拥有人工智能背景，并具备一种反射性的人工智能思维，他们就可以进入并可能在未来三到五年内降低成本，创造暂时的优势。但随后你可以利用这种优势，与客户建立定价权的飞轮效应，即提供更好的价格，从而始终保持业务繁忙，同时也可以说：“哦，我们可以以相同的倍数收购企业，并获得比其他人好得多的回报。”

>> Tracy: Yeah. I think probably the biggest question on my mind is, "How temporary is it, and how quick is it?" Will it just 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? 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? That's interesting. We're spending some time thinking about that as well, especially in the service businesses. I think there are some that it's just harder for a new entrant to come in. If it's a regulated space where you have to get credentialed, and there's a limited number of credentials, that's harder for someone to come in. If you have a huge salesforce or a 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. So, do you have that aspect of your moat already that you can reinforce, and what does that look like? But I think that disruption is 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?

>> Tracy: 是的。我认为我心中最大的问题可能是：“它有多短暂，有多快？”它会变成一场价格战，价格会一路走低，然后其他竞争者进入市场，价值会被客户而非公司获取吗？或者你已经拥有护城河，或者你能在一段时间内建立护城河，使其能够持续，然后你最终获得一个更强大的企业吗？这很有趣。我们也在花时间思考这个问题，尤其是在服务型企业中。我认为有些企业，新进入者很难进入。如果这是一个受监管的领域，你需要获得资质，并且资质数量有限，那么其他人就很难进入。如果你拥有庞大的销售团队或服务团队，他们正在外出实施和支持你的客户，那么其他人就很难复制。并非不可能，但更难。所以，你是否已经拥有护城河的这方面优势，你可以加强它，它会是什么样子？但我认为颠覆正在到来。我认为它将在不同的企业和行业中相当广泛地发生。所以，如果你今天拥有一家优秀的企业，你是否正在思考这个问题，你是否能够加强你的护城河，使其变得更强大？

定量与定性评估：ROIC 与护城河

>> Host: When it comes to quantitative assessment of these businesses, what are you looking at?

>> 主持人: 在对这些企业进行定量评估时，你关注的是什么？

>> Tracy: In essence, we're looking at Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) (a financial metric that measures the percentage return that a company gains from capital that has been invested). 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? 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 in your returns in the business on what you're doing and your return on capital. But beyond the quantitative is then the qualitative. Can you define it? Can you explain why? Do you understand that? 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. 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.

>> Tracy: 从本质上讲，我们关注的是投入资本回报率（ROIC）（Return on Invested Capital: 衡量公司从已投入资本中获得回报百分比的财务指标）。当我们思考这一点时，它是在上升、下降还是保持不变？我们认为这在行业内是否合理？我们发现这只是其中一部分。你需要了解定量方面，通常如果你有护城河，你可以在你的业务回报中看到它，看到你正在做什么以及你的资本回报率。但除了定量之外，还有定性方面。你能定义它吗？你能解释为什么吗？你理解吗？我认为这变得更重要，因为如果你看看报纸行业，我会说一旦护城河开始在定量上被侵蚀，它在相当长一段时间内看起来仍然不错，尽管在定性上它已经开始被侵蚀。在那个阶段，财务数据滞后，然后才赶上来。但我认为这通常是我们试图做的，即同时关注定量和定性两方面。

>> Host: And when it comes to return on invested capital, what is that?

>> 主持人: 那么，投入资本回报率（ROIC）具体指什么？

>> Tracy: For us, it's really looking at what's the earnings (profit a company makes) in the business and then what's the capital required in the business to report those earnings. So, you can do the calculation and get a ratio. 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.

>> Tracy: 对我们来说，它实际上是考察企业中的收益（earnings: 公司所赚取的利润）是什么，以及企业报告这些收益所需的资本是多少。所以，你可以进行计算并得到一个比率。我们通常说一家不错的企业可能拥有20%的资本回报率。一家优秀的企业可能拥有50%以上的资本回报率。

>> Host: And when you say earnings, there are a lot of ways that people are defining that now between EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization: a measure of a company's operating performance) and EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes: a measure of a firm's profit before interest and income tax expenses are deducted). What is earnings?

>> 主持人: 当你说收益时，现在人们有很多定义方式，介于息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）（Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization: 衡量公司运营绩效的指标）和息税前利润（EBIT）（Earnings Before Interest and Taxes: 衡量公司在扣除利息和所得税费用之前的利润）之间。收益到底是什么？

>> Tracy: 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 and amortization are real. 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 because, in essence, you're trying to get a proxy for cash flow and cash generation. So, when we look at it, we'll usually look at EBIT as an earnings approach, and then we'll focus on what's the capital in the business. But earnings we usually define as EBIT. In some cases, we'll look at EBI, but we try to be pretty selective of how we do that in the industries where depreciation and amortization are real.

>> Tracy: 我们通常看息税前利润（EBIT），也就是未计利息和税收的利润。我们对**息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）**的看法是，在某些行业它有意义，但在大多数行业中，折旧和摊销是真实存在的。如果你只关注 EBITDA，我认为有时你会给自己一种虚假的信心，关于企业真实的面貌和它真正产生的价值，因为从本质上讲，你试图获得现金流和现金产生的替代指标。所以，当我们评估时，我们通常会把 EBIT 作为收益方法，然后我们会关注企业中的资本。但收益我们通常定义为 EBIT。在某些情况下，我们也会看 EBI，但我们尽量在折旧和摊销真实存在的行业中，非常选择性地这样做。

>> Host: And how are you defining capital? Is that just equity?

>> 主持人: 那么，你们如何定义资本？仅仅是股权吗？

>> Tracy: In capital, 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 (Property, Plant, and Equipment: long-term assets essential for business operations), if you need lots of AR (Accounts Receivable: money owed to a company by its customers for goods or services that have been delivered or used but not yet paid for) 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. 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. Then that business is probably a little less good because you have to have this inventory to support it. That sometimes may be you have a lot of locations, so you need to have facilities with all the inventory. It may be your customers require you to have a lot of inventory to support the business. There are 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. Your best businesses usually don't require a lot of capital. There are caveats to that too. 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. 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. 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.

>> Tracy: 在资本方面，我们关注几件不同的事情。企业实际需要多少资本？所以，你投入的资金，你的不动产、厂房和设备（PP&E）（Property, Plant, and Equipment: 对企业运营至关重要的长期资产），如果你需要大量的应收账款（AR）（Accounts Receivable: 客户因已交付或使用但尚未支付的商品或服务而欠公司的款项）来支持你的业务，真正从根本上理解支持这项业务需要多少资本，支持这项业务需要多少库存。每家企业都略有不同，但可能有一家企业，其收益看起来非常好，但其资产负债表上却有大量的库存来支持这种收益水平。那么这家企业可能就不那么好，因为你必须有这些库存来支持它。这有时可能是你有很多门店，所以你需要有配备所有库存的设施。也可能是你的客户要求你拥有大量库存来支持业务。有很多不同的动态因素在其中发挥作用，但我们真正试图理解的是，支持这项业务中你所拥有的收益水平需要多少资本。你最好的企业通常不需要大量资本。这也有一些注意事项。你可以获得更高的资本回报率，但如果你企业中没有资本，其他人也可能更快地进入。如果你的企业中有资本，那么其他人通常更难进入，但你可以获得其他类型的护城河或影响。我认为你正在看到这种转变。如果你看看科技企业，历史上，它们不需要大量资本。谷歌或其他公司，它们拥有网络效应和驱动护城河的其他动态。所以，你没有资本。现在有了人工智能，这种情况正在发生相当大的转变。但同时，这也可能使其他人更难进入这项业务。

吸引力市场与增长潜力

>> Host: And when you look at market, what makes an attractive market?

>> 主持人: 那么，当你审视市场时，是什么造就了一个有吸引力的市场？

>> Tracy: When we look at market, we're looking for a few things. One is, is it growing? What's the growth rate in it? Is it growing at GDP (Gross Domestic Product: the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period)? Is it growing above GDP? Do we think that that's sustaining? 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 to grow at 20% plus a year for 10 plus years. So, we're trying to understand what the growth rate is. How's it relate to GDP? Second, we're trying to understand what are the dynamics of the market. Is it a situation where there are a lot of fragmented players? Is there a couple of behemoths? Is it one where there's opportunity for consolidation or not? We're trying to just understand what the dynamics are and how it works. Are the other players in the market rational if it's more concentrated? What are, 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 growth rate and dynamics.

>> Tracy: 当我们审视市场时，我们关注几件事。首先，它是否在增长？增长率是多少？它是否以国内生产总值（GDP）（Gross Domestic Product: 一个国家在特定时期内生产的所有最终商品和服务的货币或市场总价值）的速度增长？它是否高于 GDP 增长？我们认为这种增长是否可持续？可能存在这样一种情况，即企业或行业市场目前增长非常快，但在未来五年内会下降。或者，不，我们认为它将在未来十年甚至更长时间内每年继续增长20%以上。所以，我们试图了解增长率是多少。它与 GDP 有何关系？其次，我们试图了解市场的动态。是否存在大量分散的参与者？是否存在几个巨头？是否存在整合的机会？我们只是想了解动态是什么以及它是如何运作的。如果市场更集中，市场中的其他参与者是否理性？我们如何思考未来的发展道路以及它可能是什么样子，以及我们认为我们将在那个市场中扮演什么角色，以及我们认为未来的发展道路是什么？但我们首先从增长率和动态开始。

>> Host: We've already talked a little bit about management, and I think most of our listeners will understand a little bit of margins of safety enough for the conversation. Anyway, what did you mean by more potential? Is that like a lottery ticket?

>> 主持人: 我们已经谈了一些关于管理层的问题，我想我们的大部分听众对安全边际的理解已经足够这次对话了。那么，你说的“更多潜力”是什么意思？那就像一张彩票吗？

>> Tracy: No, it's less of a lottery ticket, but really, where's the opportunity to grow this business, and what does it look like? For example, we partnered with a company, Marine Concepts, that sells boat covers. When we partnered with the company, it was started by Randy Kent, based out of Lake of the Ozarks. He had a facility and a market in Lake of the Ozarks. He had great market share there, great NPS (Net Promoter Score: a widely used market research metric that typically takes the form of a single survey question asking respondents to rate the likelihood of them recommending a company, product, or service to a friend or colleague). The product was incredibly strong. He had moved a little bit and sold some in Florida, but he hadn't expanded beyond that. 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?" 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: 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, right? The business is operating super well, not as many growth drivers or growth opportunities left. What are you going to do? It's growing at GDP, probably. It's going to be hard to accelerate growth in Coke. Whereas for us, playing in the mid-size market, there's a lot more opportunity. Or JM Test, that was a 40-year-old business that we partnered with, a family business started by the Morrison family. It grew 20% a year over the last 20 years in tent branches and regions today, but an opportunity to move geographically into new regions, increase penetration in our existing markets, and then look at potential acquisitions for other family businesses that want a long-term partner. So, for us, that was the more potential in that business. Each business is a bit different, but really understanding what's not being fully optimized today. We always start with our purpose, which is helping organizations and people reach their full potential. So, as we think about a new partnership, how do we think about what that full potential may be? What's the opportunity for us to help get them there? Do we bring some sort of skill set, experience, or perspective that can help accelerate that?

>> Tracy: 不，它更不像彩票，而是真正地，发展这项业务的机会在哪里，它会是什么样子？例如，我们与一家名为 Marine Concepts 的公司合作，该公司销售船罩。当我们与该公司合作时，它是由 Randy Kent 在奥扎克斯湖地区创立的。他在奥扎克斯湖地区拥有一个工厂和市场。他在那里拥有很大的市场份额，很高的净推荐值（NPS）（Net Promoter Score: 一种广泛使用的市场研究指标，通常以一个简单的调查问题形式出现，询问受访者向朋友或同事推荐公司、产品或服务的可能性）。产品非常强大。他曾稍作扩张，在佛罗里达州销售了一些产品，但除此之外他没有再扩张。所以，更多的潜力在于：“我们能否将这家拥有优秀产品、良好声誉、高 NPS、高利润的公司进行扩张？”在这种情况下，我们想建立一个经销商网络。那么，我们能否通过经销商网络和增长来扩张？所以，那家企业更多的潜力在于：我们如何扩张它，并做一些他们今天没有做的事情，而不是一家你可能进入时它已经达到全部潜力的企业，对吧？这家企业运营得非常好，没有那么多增长动力或增长机会了。你会怎么做？它可能以 GDP 的速度增长。加速可口可乐的增长会很困难。而对我们来说，在中型市场中，有更多的机会。或者 JM Test，那是一家40年的企业，我们与它合作，一家由 Morrison 家族创立的家族企业。在过去的20年里，它在今天的帐篷分支机构和地区每年增长20%，但有机会地理性地进入新的地区，增加我们在现有市场的渗透率，然后寻找其他希望长期合作伙伴的家族企业的潜在收购机会。所以，对我们来说，那就是那家企业更多的潜力。每家企业都略有不同，但真正理解今天哪些方面没有被充分优化。我们总是从我们的宗旨开始，即帮助组织和个人发挥其全部潜力。所以，当我们考虑新的合作伙伴关系时，我们如何思考这种全部潜力可能是什么？我们帮助他们实现这一目标的机会是什么？我们是否带来某种技能组合、经验或视角，可以帮助加速这一进程？

>> Host: And when you look at the potential, does that factor into the margin of safety, or no, that's like in addition to, "We're going to have a margin of safety anyway. This is more like an added layer to that."

>> 主持人: 那么，当你审视潜力时，这是否会影响安全边际？或者说，不，这更像是额外的考量，即“我们无论如何都会有安全边际。这更像是额外的保障。”

>> Tracy: I think if we think of this as growth potential, but it may contribute to margins 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 drive this growth, then that gives us more comfort and the margin of safety and where we are." They can be interconnected, but it's not necessarily have to be.

>> Tracy: 我认为如果我们将此视为增长潜力，它可能会有助于安全边际。如果我们说：“如果这家企业在目前的估值下能够运作，即使我们什么都不做，然后我们能够推动这种增长，那么这会给我们带来更多的信心和安全边际，以及我们所处的位置。”它们可以相互关联，但不一定非要如此。

投资后的行动：KBS 的实施

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 那么接下来会发生什么？交易完成后有什么行动计划？你们找到了一家公司，喜欢管理团队，喜欢员工，它在一个很棒的市场，你认为还有更多潜力。第一天，接下来呢？

>> Tracy: Actually, before even 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. Our Camber Business System team will spend time meeting with 70 to 75 people in the business and understanding where they think the opportunities are as well. So, we're doing that during that diligence process going up to the close. Once we close with a business, we're really trying to understand where are they on their own journey. 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? So, 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 build together? What does it look like?" There are a few critical components of the initial partnership that we do. Usually, it's part of a strategic planning process. 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, where are the challenges facing the business? So, having those types of conversations, and 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?" If we say, "We want to expand into new markets," do we have that capability? If we want to 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? Then we're really building a roadmap out for the first 12 to 18 months of, "What are we going to 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." 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.

>> Tracy: 实际上，甚至在第一天之前，当我们完成交易时，在相互了解、进行尽职调查、与他们共度时光的过程中，我们真正了解他们对行业的看法，他们对业务的看法，管理层认为最大的机会是什么。我们经常进行访谈。我们的 Camber 商业系统团队将花费时间与企业中的70到75人会面，并了解他们认为机会在哪里。所以，我们在交易完成前的尽职调查过程中会这样做。一旦我们与一家企业完成交易，我们就会真正努力了解他们在自己的发展旅程中处于什么位置。我们有一个诊断工具，可以评估所有这些框架：人员、吸引人才、发展人才、激励人才、战略、KPI、预算。他们在这些领域的复杂程度的自我诊断是什么？所以，他们会这样做，然后我们也会这样做，然后我们会进来并说：“好的，鉴于此，我们想一起建立什么？它会是什么样子？”我们最初的合作有几个关键组成部分。通常，它是战略规划过程的一部分。我们的 KBS 团队将进来与管理团队合作，真正思考业务的未来方向是什么，机会是什么，我们今天做得好的地方是什么，我们今天做得不够好的机会在哪里，我们可以在哪里增长，业务面临的挑战是什么？所以，进行这些类型的对话，这确实是一种协作的、实践的经验，我们与他们合作进行评估。在这样做的同时，我们也在说：“好的，我们是否拥有正确的能力？我们是否拥有正确的角色？我们是否拥有合适的人来帮助支持这种增长？”如果我们说：“我们想拓展新市场”，我们是否拥有这种能力？如果我们想进行收购，我们是否拥有这种能力？如果不是，我们如何建立这种能力或在内部增加这种人才，从而使我们拥有这种灵活性？然后我们真正为未来12到18个月制定一个路线图：“我们打算一起做什么，它会是什么样子？”我们从我们的角度说：“我曾担任首席执行官，我的合伙人曾担任首席财务官。我们不想再次担任首席执行官和首席财务官。我们不是想做你的工作。我们想成为我们曾经希望获得的资源。”所以，我们会在你企业中做出的最大战略决策上提供帮助，并真正与他们合作，然后在这些关键领域提供反馈和帮助。

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 能再多谈谈吗？就是说，你们现在是多数股权所有者，而首席执行官创始人成功地经营着公司，你们不是告诉他们该做什么，而是在“推动”。这具体是如何运作的？

>> Tracy: 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. What we'll bring is outside perspective and a lot of questions. 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?" 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 build and what that looks like. In essence, we think of it as we're their strategic partner in assessing that. Then once we've assessed that, we come in and help them with the skills and frameworks to do it. 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. On the budgeting, or we think of it as resource allocation side. "Do we have the right resources to fund our future growth and what we want to do? How do we become more efficient in some areas so that we can invest in other areas?" So, we're helping do that. Or we have someone on our people team who's going in on the people side and saying, "Okay, we understand that we need to drive this growth in the business. We want to drive this growth. 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?" And then, "Oh wow, we're going to really need to engage our middle-level management if we're going to 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." 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 do, and they want to help us at that next phase."

>> Tracy: 我将其视为共同创造。所以，他们有自己的观点。他们对这个行业的了解会比我们更深入。他们拥有深厚的知识、经验，知道什么有效，什么无效。我们带来的是外部视角和大量问题。所以，我们会说：“你有没有考虑过这个，或者那个呢？”或者，“嘿，有一个类似的行业，我们看到十年前发生了这样的事情，看起来可能很相似。有什么相似或不同之处？”所以，我们试图与他们合作共同完成这些，以便我们能够共同创造并达成对世界以及我们想要建立什么、它会是什么样子的共同愿景。从本质上讲，我们认为我们是他们评估过程中的战略合作伙伴。然后一旦我们评估完成，我们就会进来，帮助他们掌握执行所需的技能和框架。例如，我们团队中有人专门负责 KPI 和预算流程。所以，如果他们还没有 KPI 流程，他会帮助他们实施一个 KPI 流程，告诉他们：“好的，你如何建立 KPI？好的 KPI 是什么样子的？这项业务中重要的驱动因素是什么？正确的基准是什么？你希望有多积极？”并帮助他们思考这些。在预算方面，或者我们将其视为资源分配方面。“我们是否有足够的资源来资助我们未来的增长以及我们想做的事情？我们如何在某些领域变得更高效，以便我们能够投资于其他领域？”所以，我们正在帮助做这些。或者我们的人力资源团队中有人负责人员方面，他们会说：“好的，我们明白我们需要推动这项业务的增长。我们想推动这项增长。我们今天有哪些任务关键型角色？这些角色中我们是否拥有正确的技能和合适的人才？如果不是，我们可能需要做出哪些改变？”然后，“哦，哇，如果我们想要增长和扩张，我们真的需要让我们的中层管理人员参与进来。我们是否为他们提供了正确的发展机会？好的，我们需要为这个群体实施季度总监日，这样我们就可以帮助他们成为更好的领导者，以便他们能够在新的增长阶段帮助我们。”或者，“也许我们在参与度或沟通方面做得不够，我们需要实施季度全体会议，帮助公司理解愿景、战略和方向，以便我们能够加速增长，让每个人都觉得他们理解愿景，认同我们正在努力做的事情，并希望在下一个阶段帮助我们。”

>> Host: And when you say KBS, you mean the Cambrich Business System.

>> 主持人: 当你说 KBS 时，你指的是 Cambrich 商业系统。

>> Tracy: Correct.

>> Tracy: 正确。

>> Host: 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.

>> 主持人: 我们现在谈论的这些都是它的组成部分。为什么要提出一个可重复的系统？它与丹纳赫（Danaher）的系统相似还是不同？也许可以给我一些比较和对比。

>> Tracy: When 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. If you do one in isolation, you get less value than if you do them together, and they're complementary in nature. 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. If you have amazing people and a great culture and a 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. There are amazing examples, Danaher being one, that has created tremendous value by having a structured, systematized way of managing a business. What we found is that most mid-size companies are 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?" 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 do it, and this is the sequencing that works for where you are in your business that we can help you with.'" That very much has been our approach to how we think about it with our business system. 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 distilled them into our own 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, 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.

>> Tracy: 当我担任首席执行官时，我想向其他人学习，我发现一些最优秀的公司都拥有可扩展、可重复的商业系统。丹纳赫（Danaher）、马蒙（Marmon）、丰田（Toyota），它们都以一种整合的方式管理业务，使其不是零敲碎打，而是一种整体方法，其中各个组成部分相互强化。如果你孤立地做其中一项，你获得的价值会比将它们结合起来做要少，而且它们本质上是互补的。所以，你可能有一个战略流程，但如果你没有合适的人和合适的技能，你在实施该战略流程时效率就会较低。如果你拥有优秀的人才、良好的文化和环境，但你没有 KPI 和一致性，你就无法与这些人一起取得更大的成就。因此，通过添加这些不同的组成部分并专注于业务中最重要的事项，你总体上创造了更多的价值。有很多令人惊叹的例子，丹纳赫就是其中之一，它通过结构化、系统化的业务管理方式创造了巨大的价值。我们发现，大多数中型公司都在为同样的事情而挣扎。“我如何让合适的人坐在合适的位子上？我如何建立正确的文化和参与度？我如何才能在不花钱请麦肯锡或贝恩帮助我的情况下制定正确的战略？我如何执行该战略并推动业务的问责制和行动？”我们正在努力做的是说：“与其让你去弄清楚，我们已经完成了工作，告诉你说，‘嘿，这里有结构化的方法来做这件事，这是适合你业务当前阶段的顺序，我们可以帮助你。’”这正是我们对我们的商业系统的思考方式。我们所做的是，我们向丹纳赫、马蒙、星座等一些最优秀的公司学习，并从中汲取我们认为最成功的部分，将其提炼成我们自己的商业系统。我们的系统可能比其他系统更注重人和文化，但我认为这是当今世界与二三十年前许多商业系统开始时相比的一个特点。但它在持续改进、战略规划或 KPI 等方面具有许多商业系统共有的类似方法，我们觉得我们正站在那些在构建这些系统方面做得非常出色的巨人的肩膀上，我们可以增强它们并根据我们自己的业务类型进行定制。

>> Host: 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 of years to implement throughout the organization, but it works.

>> 主持人: 你认为为什么更多人没有复制丹纳赫商业系统？我的意思是，最近一个很好的例子就是拉里·卡尔普（Larry Culp）用它来扭转通用电气（GE）的局面。这是一个经过验证的系统。它很成功。它可能需要几年时间才能在整个组织中实施，但它确实有效。

>> Tracy: 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. You actually have to have it become part of the DNA and the culture of the business. So, I think in longer-term holds, people don't do it because it's a 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. 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? For us, having a longer-term horizon, we can invest in that, and we see the value of it. We have the team to help support the discipline and the adherence to it. I also think a lot of investors haven't actually been operators. So, it's really hard to go into a business and say, "This is what you should do to operate a business," if you've never actually operated a business. You probably don't have the same insights or the value of that or understand the value of it. You might have an operating team who's doing it for you, but usually, a lot of firms, the operating team is sort of second-class citizens where they're not at the same seat of the table as the investing organization.

>> Tracy: 我认为更多人不做它，因为它真的非常非常困难。它需要极度的纪律、结构、专注和对系统的坚持才能奏效。你不能只做其中的一部分，或者只做一小部分，或者只做六个月。你必须让它真正成为企业 DNA 和文化的一部分。所以，我认为在长期持有方面，人们不做它是因为它是一种纪律。我认为在短期持有方面，如果你是私募股权，你没有足够的时间来获得这样做的收益。当你需要在第三年或第四年退出企业时，你为什么要花两年时间去实施一些你可能无法完全获得收益的东西呢？对我们来说，拥有更长的投资期限，我们可以投资于此，我们看到了它的价值。我们有团队来帮助支持纪律和对它的遵守。我还认为很多投资者实际上并没有担任过运营商。所以，如果你从未真正运营过一家企业，就很难进入一家企业并说：“这是你运营企业应该做的事情。”你可能没有相同的洞察力，或者不理解它的价值。你可能有一个运营团队为你做这些，但通常，很多公司，运营团队有点像二等公民，他们与投资机构在决策桌上的地位不同。

Cambrich 商业系统的演变与经验教训

>> Host: 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?

>> 主持人: 那么，你们在2020年启动了 KBS。这五年里有什么变化？从过去五年实施这个系统中学到了什么？

>> Tracy: We actually started it when we were at Pampered Chef, right? Without ever the foundational pieces where we were learning and trying things, and then we formally codified it when we started Camber in 2020. It has changed a lot, and it gets better every year and every season in every business we work in, and we think of it as living and breathing. It's not a stagnant system you go and implement and then you forget about it. It really is focused on continuous improvement, and each company we engage with helps us get better at it. But the mistakes that we learned from started very early on. When we were at Pampered Chef, we first rolled out KPIs. We rolled out KPIs to the 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." 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. Related to that, when we rolled out our KPIs, we're like, "Okay, great. You have KPIs, go figure them out." What we thought was employees will figure out how to 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 solve a KPI. Just because you give me a KPI doesn't mean I actually understand how do I 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 to help you have some case studies and examples of what this looks like in action. On the people side, when we first started, we rolled out 360-degree feedback (a system or process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them) in year one. 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 in an organization where you don't have trust or psychological safety (a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking), 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. So, in doing that, what we realized was 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. By learning those things along the way, we get better at what we're doing. In recent years, we've realized just more simple, clearer, as concise as possible. Dawson Shamblin, who leads our KBS team, is terrific at this. He's a natural learner and working on improving the system. 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?" 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?" We see it in our community, too. The group of 3,000 owners, CEOs, we learn from them of how they're navigating these types of topics, and that helps us get better as well.

>> Tracy: 实际上，我们是在 Pampered Chef 时就开始了它，对吧？当时还没有那些基础性的部分，我们只是在学习和尝试，然后我们在2020年创立 Camber 时正式将其编纂成文。它已经改变了很多，而且每年、每个季度，在我们合作的每个企业中，它都在变得更好，我们认为它是一个活生生的、会呼吸的系统。它不是一个你实施后就忘记的停滞系统。它真正专注于持续改进，我们合作的每一家公司都帮助我们做得更好。但我们从中吸取的教训很早就开始了。当我们在 Pampered Chef 时，我们首先推出了 KPI。我们将 KPI 推向了整个组织，我们说：“好的，太棒了。我们要实施 KPI。我们要把它推广给500名员工。我们会推广给所有人。”那是一个巨大的错误。速度太快了，组织还没有准备好。我们应该循序渐进，第一年只从高管团队开始。一旦高管团队理解、达成一致并为此努力，然后你再进入下一个层面，最终再进入下一个层面。我们以为我们可以更快地行动，直接推广，因为它是一个小企业。与此相关的是，当我们推出 KPI 时，我们说：“好的，太棒了。你们有 KPI，自己去搞清楚。”我们当时认为员工会自己弄清楚如何做。结果发现，你必须帮助人们，你必须理解解决问题，并帮助他们理解如何解决 KPI。仅仅因为你给了我一个 KPI，并不意味着我真正理解如何去推动它。这并不意味着我没有能力或我无法弄清楚，但如果你给我解决问题的培训，帮助你有一些案例研究和实际操作的例子，那会更有效。在人员方面，当我们刚开始时，我们在第一年推出了360度反馈（360-degree feedback: 员工从经理、同事和下属那里获得保密、匿名反馈的系统或流程）。我们发现，在360度反馈中，人们不仅从经理那里获得反馈，还从同事以及下属那里获得反馈，如果你在一个没有信任或心理安全感（psychological safety: 团队成员之间存在共同信念，认为在人际交往中冒险是安全的）的组织中，它是无效的。反馈质量不高。它很肤浅。人们会采取防御姿态。人们会攻击。这不是富有成效或建设性的反馈。所以，在这样做之后，我们意识到，在第一年，组织在人员方面还没有准备好。我们需要逐步建立。我们需要在组织中建立沟通、参与度和透明度。我们需要向他们展示我们首先会这样做。我们需要解释我们为什么要进行发展。这不是为了淘汰人员。它是为了帮助他们在职业发展方面。通过一路学习这些东西，我们做得越来越好。近年来，我们意识到越简单、越清晰、越简洁越好。领导我们 KBS 团队的 Dawson Shamblin 在这方面非常出色。他是一个天生的学习者，并致力于改进系统。每次合作之后，我们都会反思并说：“好的，什么做得好？什么可以做得更好？我们认为需要改变和调整什么？”这也很棒。我们会进入企业，我们学习他们做得非常好的地方，然后会想：“哦，哇，他们做得比我们好。好的，我们能调整一下吗，或者我们能利用他们吗？”我们在我们的社区中也看到了这一点。由3000名所有者、首席执行官组成的群体，我们从他们那里学习他们如何处理这些类型的话题，这也有助于我们变得更好。

中型企业社区与债务管理

>> Host: I love the idea of the community. There's, I think you had mentioned, there are accelerators for startup companies, but there's no real accelerators or network for midsize businesses.

>> 主持人: 我喜欢社区这个想法。我想你提到过，有针对初创公司的加速器，但没有真正针对中型企业的加速器或网络。

>> Tracy: My view is that mid-size companies are in this middle gap area. On the smaller side, their 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. But you have many of the same challenges to figure out and to navigate. So, we built the Camber 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. 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. So, that shared ecosystem of learning, improving, getting better has made everyone in the community participate better in their businesses, but also helps us as well.

>> Tracy: 我的观点是，中型公司处于这种中间的空白区域。在规模较小的一端，初创公司有加速器，有各种不同的项目。大公司有更多的资源。他们可以聘请咨询公司或某人来帮助他们，或者为某个特定主题付费购买资源。如果你处于中间，你通常会受到资源的限制，包括时间、人员和资金。但你面临着许多相同的挑战需要解决和应对。所以，我们建立了 Camber 社区，以满足我们自己的需求，即提供资源和可以学习的人，这些人已经做过这些事情，犯过错误，并从中学习和改进。通过将这些人聚集在一起，我们分享我们自己的资源、内容、观点和经验，社区中的其他人也分享他们的。所以，这种共享的学习、改进、变得更好的生态系统，让社区中的每个人都能更好地参与到他们的业务中，同时也帮助了我们自己。

>> Host: And then how do you think about debt when you take over a company?

>> 主持人: 那么，当你接管一家公司时，你如何看待债务问题？

>> Tracy: We're pretty conservative. So, back to that margin of safety. We believe if everything has to go well and to be successful in the business, that makes us nervous. 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. 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 term of like 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. 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. 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.

>> Tracy: 我们相当保守。所以，回到安全边际。我们认为，如果一切都必须顺利才能在业务中取得成功，那会让我们感到紧张。杠杆就是其中之一，你给企业施加的杠杆越多，就越需要一切顺利才能偿还债务。所以，传统的私募股权可能会给企业施加四到六倍的杠杆。我们可能会做两到三倍。我们也可能会使用卖方票据（seller note）这样的条款，由卖方帮助融资，这比银行债务或其他债务选择更友好一些。所以，我们总体上更保守一些。我们的观点是，杠杆在上涨时会放大回报，但在下跌时也会放大。所以，我们希望有更多的安全边际。我们不想让公司面临风险。我们不想因为一个结构性决策而迫使自己做出短期决策，这个决策可能稍微提高了回报，但实际上并非我们认为对企业最有利的。

>> Host: 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.

>> 主持人: 我有一个预感，如果我错了请纠正我，但当你们收购这些企业时，它们身上并没有很多债务。

>> Tracy: 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. 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." So, oftentimes, I think some mid-size companies are actually debt-averse, where they won't even have a mortgage on a property or use financing on an area where it might actually be prudent. They may 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. 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.

>> Tracy: 不，通常没有。我们遇到的大多数企业家在他们的业务中都曾经历过某种“赌上一切”的局面，通常那可能涉及杠杆或其他因素，他们几乎失去了整个业务。当你经历过那些情况时，作为一名企业家，你通常会想：“我再也不想回到那种境地了。所以，我永远不会让自己处于风险之中。”因此，我常常认为一些中型公司实际上是厌恶债务的，他们甚至不会对房产进行抵押，或者在可能实际上是审慎的领域使用融资。他们可能更倾向于接受股权或更昂贵的资本，或者不使用他们拥有的资本选项，因为他们非常害怕发生不好的事情。这通常源于在某个阶段发生了不好的事情，他们几乎失去了业务，他们不想再接近那种境地，对此我们表示尊重和理解。如果你拥有一家优秀的企业，你不会想因为一个资本融资决策而让你的企业面临风险。

AI 在 Cambrich 的应用

>> Host: You guys have embraced AI internally at Cambrich. How are you using it?

>> 主持人: 你们 Cambrich 内部已经采用了人工智能。你们是如何使用它的？

>> Tracy: We think of AI in three different ways. One is at Cambrich: how do we use it and ultimately become smarter, more efficient, more productive in our own processes and how we operate? That's everything from we use it for better note-taking, research on businesses, moving faster as we deep dive in a space and getting smarter as we think about the businesses more holistically. We definitely are using it. 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 talked about a bit earlier. Are there spaces that we think are attractive? We're looking in what we call AI-enabled services businesses where we think it can strengthen the moat of the business. We're still at earlier stages on that because I think there's a lot of uncertainty about what happens in different businesses, but we're spending time thinking about that. Then the third is in our companies. In our companies, there are 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. An example would be hiring. We have a hiring process. We have a structured approach: 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. 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 requires you to step back and think about it. You need to build a case study. You need to do all of these things. 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. 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? 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? That's the third aspect that we're working on.

>> Tracy: 我们从三个不同的角度来思考人工智能。首先是在 Cambrich 内部：我们如何利用它，并最终在我们的流程和运营方式上变得更聪明、更高效、更具生产力？这包括我们用它来更好地做笔记、研究业务、在深入某个领域时更快地行动，以及在更全面地思考业务时变得更聪明。我们肯定正在使用它。我们思考的第二种方式是，哪些行业和企业会受到人工智能的影响，并可能像我们之前谈到的那样，加强其护城河。有没有我们认为有吸引力的领域？我们正在关注我们所说的“人工智能赋能的服务型企业”，我们认为人工智能可以在这些企业中加强其护城河。我们在这方面仍处于早期阶段，因为我认为不同企业中会发生什么存在很多不确定性，但我们正在花时间思考这个问题。第三个方面是在我们的投资组合公司中。在我们的公司中，我们认为人工智能可以通过两种主要方式提供帮助。一种是提供结构化的方法，帮助我们的企业思考关键的管理方面，从而提高效率。招聘就是一个例子。我们有一个招聘流程。我们有一个结构化的方法：你制作一个记分卡（scorecard: 衡量候选人与职位要求匹配度的工具），在人才搜寻方面这样做，然后在筛选和面试过程中这样做。如果你这样做，你的成功几率就会提高。但要严格遵守它非常困难，因为它需要时间，需要你退后一步思考。你需要建立一个案例研究。你需要做所有这些事情。那么，我们能否建立一个招聘工具，减少所需的一些工作，让你仍然能够有纪律地遵守流程，但又不需要花费所有时间来构建流程呢？所以，我们能否更有效地为某个职位建立一个记分卡？我们能否从其他类似职位中提取信息并预填充，从而让你作为招聘经理效率更高一些？所以，我们正在人工智能方面投入时间，研究这些会影响每个企业的话题。然后，我们正在投入时间思考，我们能否思考我们业务中的生产性工作流程，以及我们如何提高效率？我认为人们正在从简单的事情开始，比如我如何变得更高效，或者我能否考虑我的呼叫中心？但我们可能更多地关注创收方面。我们能否报价？目前，我们有一家企业需要48小时才能报价。我们能否在不牺牲质量的前提下，通过更有效地利用人工智能，将时间缩短到48分钟？在销售、营销或生产力方面，是否存在其他类似的工作流程，我们可以显著改善我们与客户互动或做出决策的方式，或者加快速度，从而吸引更多客户或更好地服务客户？这是我们正在努力的第三个方面。

招聘流程的细节与“WHO”方法

>> Host: When it comes to 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 is that process like?

>> 主持人: 谈到招聘，那个过程是怎样的？具体细节是怎样的？你们最近为你们的一家公司招聘了一位新的首席执行官。那个过程是怎样的？

>> Tracy: We very much describe the WHO process (a structured hiring methodology based on the book "Who: The A Method for Hiring"). There's a book called "Who," it is, I think, single-handedly the best simple book on hiring. If you read that book, almost everyone will become a better hiring manager. There are 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 figure it out." 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, so you just want to get going. 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. So, how do you actually start upfront and get aligned and get clarity on what you need in the role? A good scorecard in our mind has three critical components. The first is what's the mission of the role? So, really clearly, what are you going to drive in this role, and how do you make it specific? You want it time-bound. You want it as measurable as possible. 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. 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. So, are you clearly articulating what you need? That mission is important. The second is the outcomes. So, three to five really clear outcomes of what you're going to drive. That might be growth within 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. Then the third are competencies. What are the competencies needed for this role? We think of competencies on two levels. One is functional. There are some roles where you need a certain type of competency. So, you might need analytical, or you might need relationship-based, whatever it is for that role. Then there are company-wide cultural competencies. We need everyone to be humble or open to feedback or aggressive, whatever it is for your business. So, the scorecard is putting those things together. The hiring manager puts those together and then shares that with their counterparts and other stakeholders. Then you beat it up. What you'll find is people will say, "Whoa, you think we need to grow through national accounts? I think we should be going to mom-and-pops." That conversation is had early in the process where you can get alignment, have disagreement, but then move forward on what you want to do. Once you have that scorecard, then the hiring manager or the recruiter or the search firm knows, "Okay, this is what the person needs to do. I can find people who can do this. I can build a JD that's going to market to people who want to do this, and I can more clearly articulate it." That scorecard then flows through the interview process. So, now I know how to interview. That's the first component, the scorecard. The second component is the sourcing. Most sourcing in most companies is very reactive. "I post the job, and people apply." My view is oftentimes the people applying aren't always the people you want, right? They're the people usually who don't have a job or are unsatisfied in their job. Oftentimes your best performers are happy in their job, and they're doing really well. So, you need to go find those people. So, 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. So, really diving into more specifics of how do you source. Then the third is around selection. How do you improve your selection process? This is what most people think about when they think about hiring, is the selection part. Our selection has a few different components to it. The first is actually the hiring manager. We do a screening with the recruiter, but then the hiring manager goes deep on different areas that we think are important in the role from the scorecard. So, the outcomes, the competencies in that first interview. Then actually having an interview panel that has different people interviewing different areas. What we find most interviews start with, "Tell me a little bit about yourself, and tell me about your background," and then 20 minutes later, you've had that same conversation, or 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, right? Relationship-based." 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." So, having the interview set up from that. Then we augment those interviews with a behavioral assessment (a tool used to evaluate a candidate's personality traits, work style, and potential fit with a company's culture). We usually do behavioral and cognitive (related to mental processes such as perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning) 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. Then we usually do a top-grading interview (a highly structured interview process designed to identify "A players" by thoroughly reviewing a candidate's career history and performance). This 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. So, it's a pretty in-depth process, based on "Who," but it significantly improves your outcome of success.

>> Tracy: 我们非常推崇WHO 流程（WHO process: 基于《WHO：招聘的A方法》一书的结构化招聘方法）。有一本书叫做《WHO》，我认为它无疑是关于招聘最简单、最好的书。如果你读了那本书，几乎每个人都会成为更好的招聘经理。它有几个组成部分，我们在此基础上进行了补充和完善。但首先是为这个职位建立一个真正深入的记分卡（scorecard: 衡量候选人与职位要求匹配度的工具）。大多数人完全跳过这个过程。他们只是直接开始：“我要写一份职位描述。我要发布这个职位。我要开始面试，”然后“我会搞清楚的。”人们通常这样做是因为他们很痛苦。你正在努力填补一个职位，而你没有合适的人，或者你没有正确的人，所以你只想尽快开始。我们总是说，这样做你今天可能会节省时间，但长远来看你会浪费时间，因为你没有与你的同事就此达成一致。你没有向合适的人进行市场推广。你没有面试合适的候选人，或者你雇佣了错误的人，然后你不得不解雇那个人，你在这个过程中浪费了大量的时间和金钱。那么，你如何才能真正从一开始就达成一致，并明确你在这个职位上需要什么？我们认为一个好的记分卡有三个关键组成部分。第一个是这个职位的使命是什么？所以，非常清楚地说明你在这个职位上将推动什么，以及你如何使其具体化？你希望它有时间限制。你希望它尽可能可衡量。如果你要招聘一名销售副总裁，你可能会说：“我们希望通过改进我们的工业客户管理和增加大型工业合同，在三年内使收入翻倍，并且我们希望建立一个‘农民’团队或‘猎人’团队，”无论是什么。通过这样做，你希望实现什么？你希望在什么时间实现？以及某种程度上的“如何”。“如何”很重要，因为销售领导者非常不同。如果你通过亚马逊销售，你可能需要一个与直接销售或通过大客户销售不同的销售领导者。所以，你是否清楚地阐述了你所需要的？这个使命很重要。第二个是成果。所以，三到五个非常明确的你将要推动的成果。这可能是收入的增长，但也可能是“我们需要增加利润”，或者“我们需要从四个全国性客户增加到十个”。无论你在这个职位上需要什么成果，都要尽可能清晰明了。然后第三个是能力。这个职位需要哪些能力？我们从两个层面来思考能力。一个是职能性的。有些职位你需要某种特定的能力。所以，你可能需要分析能力，或者你可能需要基于人际关系的能力，无论这个职位需要什么。然后是公司层面的文化能力。我们需要每个人都谦逊，或者乐于接受反馈，或者积极进取，无论你的企业需要什么。所以，记分卡就是将这些东西整合在一起。招聘经理将这些整合在一起，然后与他们的同事和其他利益相关者分享。然后你们进行讨论。你会发现人们会说：“哇，你认为我们需要通过全国性客户来增长？我认为我们应该去找小商贩。”这种对话在流程早期就进行了，这样你就可以达成一致，即使有分歧，但随后可以就你想要做的事情向前推进。一旦你有了这个记分卡，那么招聘经理或招聘人员或猎头公司就知道：“好的，这就是这个人需要做的事情。我能找到能做这件事的人。我能制定一份职位描述，向想做这件事的人进行市场推广，我能更清楚地阐述它。”然后这个记分卡会贯穿整个面试过程。所以，现在我知道如何面试了。这是第一个组成部分，记分卡。第二个组成部分是人才搜寻。大多数公司的人才搜寻都非常被动。“我发布职位，然后人们申请。”我的观点是，通常申请的人并不总是你想要的人，对吧？他们通常是没有工作或对工作不满的人。通常你最优秀的员工对自己的工作很满意，而且做得很好。所以，你需要去寻找那些人。所以，让招聘经理或招聘人员主动出击，并承担起责任，真正找到你想要的人，而不是仅仅等待人们来找你。所以，真正深入了解如何进行人才搜寻。然后第三个是关于筛选。你如何改进你的筛选流程？这是大多数人在考虑招聘时所想到的，就是筛选部分。我们的筛选有几个不同的组成部分。首先实际上是招聘经理。我们与招聘人员进行初步筛选，但随后招聘经理会深入探讨我们认为在记分卡中对该职位很重要的不同领域。所以，在第一次面试中会探讨成果、能力。然后实际上会有一个面试小组，由不同的人面试不同的领域。我们发现大多数面试都以“请简单介绍一下你自己，以及你的背景”开始，然后20分钟后，你已经进行了同样的对话，或者那个候选人已经与三四个人进行了同样的对话。而不是说：“你的工作是面试成果，你只关注这些成果。你的工作是关注职能能力。如果你正在寻找分析能力，你只关注他们是否具有分析能力，对吧？或者基于人际关系的能力。”然后一个人专注于文化。“在你的面试中，你不用担心他们过去的职位是什么，或者他们在成果方面有多么有能力。你担心的是他们的文化。”所以，面试就是这样设置的。然后我们用行为评估（behavioral assessment: 一种用于评估候选人性格特征、工作风格以及与公司文化潜在契合度的工具）来补充这些面试。我们通常会进行行为和认知（cognitive: 与感知、记忆、判断和推理等心理过程相关的）评估，我们认为这有助于我们更好地理解一些文化和能力方面。我们通常会进行案例研究，这是对我们面临的实际问题的深入探讨。然后我们通常会进行高分面试（top-grading interview: 一种高度结构化的面试流程，旨在通过彻底审查候选人的职业历史和表现来识别“A级人才”）。这是一种深入的、通常90分钟到三小时的面试，我们会回顾他们做过的每一个过去的职位，成果或职责范围是什么，他们表现如何，他们的经理会如何评价他们，诸如此类的对话。所以，这是一个相当深入的流程，基于《WHO》这本书，但它显著提高了你的成功结果。

投资偏好：避开复杂与高风险行业

>> Host: One of the businesses you're not interested in acquiring is insurance. I'd love to hear more about that.

>> 主持人: 你们不感兴趣收购的业务之一是保险。我很想听听更多关于这方面的信息。

>> Tracy: I think there are 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 (a concept describing the areas in which an individual or organization has deep knowledge and expertise). Where do we think we have value and expertise that's going to enhance what we're doing? So, we focus on services, industrials, consumer, both by our background, but also where we think there are attractive opportunities. Insurance can be a really good business, but a lot of capital has come into it in the last 15 years. So, it probably is a more competitive business. There's more risk in it than there has been. 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. There are other dynamics that are attractive, like 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, 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.

>> Tracy: 我认为有很多行业我们不投资：医疗保健、金融、保险、房地产。通常，我们希望专注于我们的能力圈（circle of competence: 个人或组织拥有深厚知识和专业技能的领域）。我们认为我们在哪里拥有能够提升我们所做事情的价值和专业知识？所以，我们专注于服务、工业、消费品，这既是基于我们的背景，也是基于我们认为存在有吸引力的机会。保险可能是一个非常好的业务，但在过去15年里，大量资本涌入。所以，它可能是一个更具竞争力的业务。其中的风险也比以前更高。可能有些时候它是一个非常好的业务，但也会有些时候资本更多，定价变得不那么有纪律，然后它最终会成为一个吸引力较低的业务。还有其他一些有吸引力的动态，比如如果我们真的找到了完美的保险业务。这并不是说我们不会做。但由于这些动态以及我们所处的领域有很多机会，它可能不是我们的重点。所以，那里有比我们在保险或其中一些其他行业中看到的更多机会，而且其中一些行业只是更复杂。风险更高。如果你对保险定价错误，你很长时间都无法了解你的成本，但这可能对一个组织来说非常非常困难，如果你定价错误，你可能会侵蚀你所有的利润。

董事会的角色与价值

>> Host: You've been on a lot of boards, so you've been on the Dairy Queen board, John Mansville, Kraft Heinz. I would love to hear about what you've learned from those experiences and then how you took that and you're applying that now at Cambrich.

>> 主持人: 你曾担任过很多董事会成员，比如 Dairy Queen、Johns Manville、Kraft Heinz 的董事会。我很想听听你从这些经历中学到了什么，以及你现在如何在 Cambrich 运用这些经验。

>> Tracy: 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 the CEO reported to me directly and not a formal board, and other times a more formal public board or 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. 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. 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." 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? I think it's a fine line of 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.

>> Tracy: 我所参与的每一个董事会，我都学到了不同的东西，既包括该做什么，有时也包括不该做什么。其中一些是独特的，首席执行官直接向我汇报，而不是一个正式的董事会，而另一些则是更正式的上市公司董事会或私人公司董事会。我发现，在大多数情况下，大多数董事会并没有为企业增加太多价值，而且我认为他们常常在不太关键的领域投入过多精力，而在他们能提供最大价值的关键领域投入不足。所以，在每一项业务中，真正理解哪些是能够改变并为这项业务创造最大价值的三到五个主要杠杆，以及你如何将时间花在讨论这些杠杆上，而不是所有那些可能很紧急的小事情上？它们可能正在发生。它们可能很重要，但它们不会从根本上改变业务的方向。我认为最好的董事会能够找出这些杠杆，专注于它们，并围绕它们展开讨论，然后向管理团队提供洞察力或价值。我认为大多数管理团队在参加完大多数董事会会议后会说：“那不是对我时间的有效利用，因为我只是在更新和告诉他们我上个季度做了什么，而不是更具前瞻性地思考。这是我正在挣扎的问题。”大多数董事会没有足够的业务背景来增加价值。那么，你如何确保董事会对业务有足够的了解，并且能够提出正确的问题，即使他们不会像首席执行官或管理团队那样深入呢？我认为这需要微妙的平衡。但这些是我在思考不同董事会以及我们如何看待我们的董事会时学到的一些东西。

>> Host: And do you think the role of the board is different in public companies versus private companies?

>> 主持人: 你认为董事会在上市公司和私人公司中的角色有所不同吗？

>> Tracy: Yes and no. I mean, absolutely, there's a public dynamic where you have a fiduciary responsibility (a legal obligation to act in the best interest of another party). There's 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. On 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 insights. I think different private boards do it differently. Our view is that you probably want somewhere in the middle where you're having some governance, but at Camber, 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.

>> Tracy: 是的，也不是。我的意思是，当然，在上市公司中存在一种公开的动态，你负有信托责任（fiduciary responsibility: 法律义务，要求以另一方的最佳利益行事）。在时间分配方面，有更强的治理和一些重要的受监管动态。我认为有些方面价值较低：收益和季度报告。我认为这对于企业价值创造的价值可能较低。在私人公司方面，人们以不同的方式设立董事会。有时它更多地被设置为治理、监督和股东管理。其他时候，它更多地被设置为咨询或提供见解。我认为不同的私人董事会做法不同。我们的观点是，你可能希望介于两者之间，既有一些治理，但在 Camber，我们提供了大部分治理，但我们真正希望我们的董事会关注的是那些能够创造最大价值的宝贵见解、视角、关系和引荐。

>> Host: 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? Like in a bad way?

>> 主持人: 有没有一次董事会会议，你不用说出公司名称，但你被当时发生的事情震惊了？是那种不好的震惊吗？

>> Tracy: 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 a 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. I think those are conversations you have to be thoughtful about. Or you're on a slide deck, and it's slide 112, and you're being read the slides. Really, like, "This is how we're going to use this time?" I don't think any slide deck should be 112 for a board. Usually, there are 20 slides maybe that get to the heart of the most important topics you're facing at a time. Most of the time should be discussion and not presentation. It's not a 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, "Is that 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.'" 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.

>> Tracy: 是的。我的意思是，很多次，其中一些还是不错的董事会。但我记得有一次董事会会议，我们正在详细评估产品的包装，我认为这非常重要。产品的包装非常重要。但我不知道董事会是否是评估和评论业务包装的最佳人选。我认为这应该是管理团队和营销人员应该做的事情。我认为这些是你必须深思熟虑的对话。或者你正在看幻灯片演示，到了第112页，有人在给你念幻灯片。真的，就像，“我们就要这样利用这段时间吗？”我认为任何董事会的幻灯片演示都不应该有112页。通常，可能只有20页幻灯片能触及你当时面临的最重要问题的核心。大部分时间应该是讨论，而不是演示。这不是一场作秀，但我认为它通常是为了让管理团队上来讲述我们所做的一切，我们有多聪明，我们有多有才华，以及你们应该如何为我们鼓掌，而董事会则在另一边做着同样的事情，而不是说：“这会创造最大的价值吗？或者说，‘嘿，这是我们目前面临的三个最大问题。这是我们正在挣扎的地方。这是我们需要的帮助，这是我们希望您提供观点和见解的地方。’”现在，那是一个完全不同的动态。你需要有心理安全感。你需要有信任。你需要管理团队乐于接受反馈。你需要有能够提供有价值反馈的董事会成员。你需要所有这些动态因素共同作用。

财务素养与资本配置

>> Host: You mentioned Katharine 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 the financial aspect of running the Washington Post. One of the things he mentioned that stood out to me was he was just showing her a balance sheet over a five or 10-year period. What can you learn from a balance sheet, just a pure balance sheet over that period of time? What insights do you get?

>> 主持人: 你之前提到了凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆和她的自传。我想回到这个话题，因为它勾起了我的一些回忆，而且它涉及到巴菲特。但有趣的是，她曾提到，如果我没记错的话，巴菲特把所有这些年度报告带给她，教她华盛顿邮报运营的财务方面。他提到的一件事让我印象深刻，那就是他只是给她看了一份五年或十年期间的资产负债表。从资产负债表，仅仅是一份纯粹的资产负债表，在那个时期内，你能学到什么？你能获得哪些洞察？

>> Tracy: 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 are a lot of insights that you can see from all three financial statements. If you start to understand the business drivers of the business, you can understand this as well. I think what you typically see is that most leaders don't always, I think we assume they understand all of that in a business. 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. 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. It doesn't mean they can't learn it, but if you equip them with those skills, they're going to be better. 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 trajectory. So, have they actually learned those aspects? Where along the way did they learn them? Do they understand? Oftentimes in a business, you're making really important operational decisions, but you're also making really important capital allocation (the process of distributing financial resources to different assets or projects) decisions. You can really ruin a good business with poor capital allocation decisions. 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 their own valuation for it. But there are 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 a hundred grand a year, and you discount the value of that, it's a million-dollar investment that you're making in that person. 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? CEOs who are more equipped at fundamentally understanding capital allocation usually can make better decisions in their businesses. 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." We just did it for everybody just because it's also something that people assume they should know, and so if they don't, they often feel embarrassed or they don't feel like they should ask. 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.

>> Tracy: 你可以在资产负债表中看到很多东西。你可以看到你有多少库存。你可以看到需要多少资本。你可以看到，你的应收账款是在增加还是减少？你可以从所有三份财务报表中看到很多洞察。如果你开始理解业务的驱动因素，你也能理解这些。我认为你通常会看到，大多数领导者并不总是，我们认为他们理解业务中的所有这些。我认为有些人确实理解，并且从根本上理解得非常好。有些人战术上理解得很好。有时人们在实践中理解，但不一定理解理论，即它实际是如何运作的。但我认为这对你的领导者来说非常有价值，不要假设你的领导者理解所有这些，因为有些人比其他人更具财务素养或财务敏锐度。这并不意味着他们不能学习，但如果你赋予他们这些技能，他们会做得更好。例如，如果你考虑一位首席执行官，通常首席执行官都是优秀的运营者。他们通常来自销售、营销或运营部门。他们很少来自财务部门，这通常不是职业发展轨迹。那么，他们是否真正学习了这些方面？他们是在哪个阶段学习的？他们理解吗？在企业中，你经常做出非常重要的运营决策，但你也做出非常重要的资本配置（capital allocation: 将财务资源分配给不同资产或项目的过程）决策。糟糕的资本配置决策真的可以毁掉一家好企业。我们想到一些大的例子，收购是最大的，我们常常通过收购一家不是很好的企业或为其支付过高的估值来破坏价值。但企业中每天都有资本配置决策。“我们应该投资这家工厂吗？我们应该开设这个配送中心吗？我们应该进入这个新市场吗？”我们以同样复杂的程度来思考招聘。这不是一项资本支出决策，但如果你将其视为一项资本支出决策，如果你每年招聘一个人，薪水十万美元，然后你折现其价值，那么你对这个人投入的是一百万美元的投资。你可以解雇他们，但你可能不会。他们会留在组织中。那么，你在所有这些类型的问题上做出决策时，是否也具有相同程度的纪律性和严谨性？那些在根本上更擅长理解资本配置的首席执行官通常可以在他们的企业中做出更好的决策。很多企业家，他们是凭直觉做到的。他们不得不这样做。他们会想办法。但有时只是退后一步，帮助一位领导者，确保一位领导者理解它。当我开始担任首席执行官时，我们每年都会对所有领导者进行一次业务驱动因素会议和培训，内容是：“业务驱动因素是什么？让我们过一遍损益表，了解损益表的所有组成部分是什么。”我们只是为每个人都做了这个，因为这也是人们认为他们应该知道的事情，所以如果他们不知道，他们通常会感到尴尬，或者觉得不应该问。所以，我们会过一遍并解释所有内容，因为最终财务只是一种词汇和语言，如果有人解释，人们就能理解。但如果你从未被解释过，它可能很难理解，你只需要有人引导你。

评估诚信与人才培养

>> Host: How do you evaluate integrity when it comes to hiring?

>> 主持人: 在招聘时，你如何评估诚信？

>> Tracy: 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. We use it through our behavioral assessment. So, it's an actual way to get at motivators and drivers, and some of those things come through like integrity or others. Then we get at it through reference checks, both ones they provide but also ones that they don't provide. 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.

>> Tracy: 我们认为它是一种文化能力，你如何评估它？所以，第一，你可以尝试提情境性问题。“告诉我你什么时候遇到过困难。告诉我你什么时候犯过错误。告诉我你什么时候做错了事。”无论是什么，看看人们分享了什么。我们通过行为评估来运用它。所以，这是一种实际了解动机和驱动因素的方法，其中一些通过诚信或其他方面体现出来。然后我们通过背景调查来了解，包括他们提供的推荐人，也包括他们没有提供的推荐人。我们的观点是，招聘过程从根本上讲，你试图尽可能多地了解一个人以及他们在这个职位上的行为方式。你实际上直到他们进入这个职位才能真正了解，但你可以通过在某些动态方面保持纪律性来提高你的成功几率。

>> Host: I remember that 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.

>> 主持人: 我记得我被一家三字母机构录用时，他们进行背景调查，他们联系了我没有提供的许多推荐人，我一直觉得这是一个有趣的洞察，因为你提供的那些人最不可能提供有见地的信息。

>> Tracy: Yeah. So, they would go, and they just talk to anybody in my life who would have been around, including a neighbor to my house, and like, "Does he party? What time is he coming?" I don't know what questions they asked, but I always found it interesting because my neighbor came over one night to my mom. It was just like, "I always knew that boy of yours was going to get in trouble." 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.

>> Tracy: 是的。所以他们会去，他们会和任何与我生活有过交集的人交谈，包括我家邻居，问：“他开派对吗？他什么时候回来？”我不知道他们问了什么问题，但我一直觉得很有趣，因为有一天晚上我邻居来找我妈妈，她就说：“我一直知道你家那小子会惹麻烦。”那只是一个背景调查，一个推荐人调查，这是一种非常有趣的方式，以一种不受控制的方式了解人们的信息。

>> Tracy: It can be really helpful to see what people share. We also in our interview process, based off of "Who," 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. So, if you say your manager, Sally Smith, "Okay, what years was Sally your manager?" Write them down. "What was Sally's role?" "Okay, she was the manager of this." "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 errors?" Just shifting that from "if I call" versus "when I call," people shift what they say. They're more honest. 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. 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. Ideally, you do verify it and have those conversations and see if what they said and what Sally said match up. It's really helpful.

>> Tracy: 看到人们分享的内容真的很有帮助。在我们的面试过程中，基于《WHO》这本书，当你进行高分评估练习时，我会回顾你担任过的每一个职位，你的职责范围是什么，你做了什么，取得了哪些成果，然后我会问你的经理是谁。我会把那个人的名字写下来。所以，如果你说你的经理是 Sally Smith，“好的，Sally 是你哪几年间的经理？”写下来。“Sally 的职位是什么？”“好的，她是这个部门的经理。”“那么当我打电话给 Sally 时，她会怎么评价你最大的优点，以及她会怎么评价你最大的发展失误？”仅仅把“如果我打电话”改为“当我打电话时”，人们所说的话就会改变。他们会更诚实。此外，仅仅通过写下 Sally 的名字，我现在就知道你的经理是谁了，而通常你并不知道他们的经理是谁，所以即使你想联系也联系不上。所以，让人们更直接、更坦率地分享他们的信息，不一定是更诚实，也是一种获取信息的方式。理想情况下，你确实会进行核实，进行这些对话，看看他们说的和 Sally 说的是否一致。这真的很有帮助。

>> Host: This whole world is so interesting to me because for 15 years, I effectively worked with people you could trust by default. There wasn't a, it was a non-representative portion of society. 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." It's so weird just coming from an area where I would say a disproportionate percentage of people were 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's a non-representative sample of the population."

>> 主持人: 整个世界对我来说都非常有趣，因为在过去的15年里，我基本上默认与可以信任的人共事。那不是社会的一个代表性部分。然后走出那个圈子，我才了解到，“你知道，不是每个人都有诚信，不是每个人都做正确的事情，也不是每个人都值得信任。”从一个我可以说绝大多数人都具有诚信、值得信任以及我们所寻求的所有这些品质的领域出来，然后你走到外面，就会觉得：“哇，那是一个非代表性的人口样本。”

>> Tracy: Yeah. I think by and large, 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 covering up a little bit and putting your best foot forward. 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. So, try to get people to be as upfront and honest, and then ideally screen out those that perhaps aren't. Our view is we want to help everyone find the right role and right fit for them.

>> Tracy: 是的。我认为总的来说，人们都想做正确的事情，想做好事，而且值得信任。但我认为人们对自己有盲点。正如你所说，他们想给你留下好印象。这有点像约会，你总是会稍微掩饰一下，展现自己最好的一面。我们希望解除人们的防备，让他们尽可能诚实，因为我们有时发现，你可能是一个很棒的人，非常有才华，但就是不适合我们在这个职位上所需。所以，我们努力让人们尽可能坦诚和诚实，然后理想情况下筛选掉那些可能不适合的人。我们的观点是，我们希望帮助每个人找到适合他们的正确职位和匹配度。

>> Host: 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 something comes up in six months, and you're like, 'Oh yeah, think of this person again.'"

>> 主持人: 之后你会关注这些人吗？比如，“哦，这个人很棒。他们不适合这个职位，但六个月后有新的机会出现，你就会想，‘哦，对了，再想想这个人。’”

>> Tracy: 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 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 see opportunities. We definitely will 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. When you meet really great people, you try to keep them close because really great people, 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?

>> Tracy: 是的，我们喜欢建立一个人才储备库，包括我们面试过的人，也包括我们认识并认为很出色的人，如果出现这种类型的职位或在这个地理区域，我们可以联系他们。我们认为这是培养人才和发现机会的好方法。我们肯定会认识一些人，然后一两年三年后，可能会出现一个合适的职位，我们最终会合作。我总是说人生漫长。人们以不同的方式进出你的生活。当你遇到真正优秀的人时，你会努力让他们留在身边，因为真正优秀的人，不仅从文化或诚信的角度来看，而且从能力和专业技能的角度来看，这种组合是很难找到的。所以，当你找到他们时，你如何让他们留在身边？

商业历史的启示与巴菲特的格言

>> Host: You've studied a lot of business history. I'm curious about some of the principles, lessons, and stories that you constantly find yourself thinking about.

>> 主持人: 你研究了很多商业史。我很好奇你经常思考的一些原则、教训和故事。

>> Tracy: There are 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." That to me embodies true long-term thinking, how to think about your business. That's one that I come back to. Now, maybe not be thinking about every business for 50 years, but I think that's something I think a lot about. I feel I learned through those types of examples and those types of stories, like most of us do, and so trying to remember those is really valuable. Or Warren's comment on your reputation, "If you lose money, I'll be understanding, but if you lose a shred of reputation, I'll be ruthless." We think about that. Or 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 always stand out to me.

>> Tracy: 太多了，说不完。我的意思是，我想我们已经谈了很多关于长期的问题。沃伦总是对首席执行官们说的一件事是：“把这家企业看作是你家族唯一的资产，而且你50年内不能出售它。带着这种心态做决策。”对我来说，这体现了真正的长期思维，如何思考你的企业。这是我经常回味的一点。现在，也许不是每家企业都考虑50年，但我认为这是我经常思考的事情。我觉得我通过这些类型的例子和故事学到了很多，就像我们大多数人一样，所以努力记住这些非常有价值。或者沃伦关于你声誉的评论：“如果你亏钱，我会理解，但如果你失去一丝声誉，我将毫不留情。”我们思考这一点。或者报纸测试：“如果这件事被一位公正、批判性的记者刊登在报纸头版，你的家人会读到，你会作何感受？”诸如此类的事情总是让我印象深刻。

通货膨胀与投资策略

>> Host: I want to speak just a little bit about inflation. How do you think about inflation in relation to investing?

>> 主持人: 我想简单谈谈通货膨胀。你如何看待通货膨胀与投资的关系？

>> Tracy: I think a few things. One is, when we think about businesses, we try to find businesses that we think, and this goes back to having the moat, are typically a little bit more insulated from inflation because they usually can pass it on to their customers. If you have a better business that's higher quality, that has a moat, you usually can pass on inflation. So, it's an issue, but it's less of an issue for the businesses that can do that. So, we're trying to be thoughtful about that. Second, with our businesses, even if there is inflation and we don't want to pass it on or pass on all of it, it's like how do we improve productivity in our business so that in essence, we're combating some of the inflation we may be experiencing? We think most businesses can improve productivity two to five percent a year every year just by being disciplined about it. So, that's a way to also counter some of the impacts with it. That's the level of how we think about it in our businesses. You also have, as you think about new investments, what that means in terms of your willingness to pay the consequences with that, ultimately translates into interest rates as well. Those are all things that we factor in. 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. So, I'd much rather focus on the fundamentals of finding high-quality businesses at reasonable valuations that have good dynamics and aspects of the business. Then you can absorb more dynamics like inflation or tariffs or things like that that are going to inevitably happen at some time in some space.

>> Tracy: 我认为有几点。首先，当我们考虑企业时，我们试图找到那些我们认为——这又回到了拥有护城河的问题——通常更能抵御通货膨胀的企业，因为它们通常可以将通货膨胀转嫁给客户。如果你拥有一家质量更高、拥有护城河的优秀企业，你通常可以将通货膨胀转嫁出去。所以，这是一个问题，但对于能够这样做的企业来说，它不是一个大问题。所以，我们正在努力深思熟虑这一点。其次，对于我们的企业，即使存在通货膨胀，我们也不想转嫁或完全转嫁，而是思考如何提高我们企业的生产力，从而从本质上对抗我们可能正在经历的一些通货膨胀？我们认为大多数企业每年都可以通过严格遵守纪律来提高两到五个百分点的生产力。所以，这也是抵消其一些影响的一种方式。这就是我们在企业中思考它的层面。当你考虑新的投资时，你还需要考虑这意味着你愿意为此承担的后果，这最终也会转化为利率。这些都是我们考虑的因素。话虽如此，我从来都不是一个宏观投资者。我认为预测宏观经济很困难。基于宏观经济进行投资也很困难。所以我宁愿专注于基本面，寻找估值合理、动态良好、各方面都优秀的高质量企业。这样你就可以吸收更多的动态变化，比如通货膨胀、关税或类似的事情，这些事情在某个时候、某个领域是不可避免地会发生的。

季度报告与CEO行为

>> Host: 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 the behavior of CEOs.

>> 主持人: 今天总统出来建议财务报告应该改为半年一次，而不是季度报告。所以，我想知道你如何看待季度报告与年度报告，以及这如何影响首席执行官的行为。

>> Tracy: 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?" You see it all the time, right? "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. That being said, I think that you want someone, and 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. 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, but I think you've got to solve that other issue in terms of, "Are you managing the business close enough?"

>> Tracy: 季度报告，尤其是在公开市场中，对公司和投资者来说都是负面的。我认为它的本意是提供透明度，但最终却导致了短期思维。“我这个季度要做什么来推动业绩？”你总是看到这种情况，对吧？“我将努力把销售额转移到这个季度。如果你这个季度购买我的产品，我就会给你折扣。我需要达到我的目标，否则我将投资于我这个季度或下个季度可以做的事情来实现它。”所以，我认为它从根本上不支持对公司和投资者最有利的事情。话虽如此，我认为你希望有人——我猜首席执行官可以做到——比每六个月或每年更频繁地管理业务。如果你每年只看一次财务报表或业绩，或者每六个月看一次，我认为你会错过在业务中需要调整的机会。但如果你有合适的管理团队并且有信心，我认为你并不一定需要投资者来做这件事。我认为挑战在于，如果你没有合适的管理团队，你是否能看到这一点，以及如何驾驭它？我可能会倾向于不进行季度财报，因为它的所有负面影响，但我认为你必须解决另一个问题，即“你是否足够密切地管理业务？”

值得钦佩的上市公司CEO

>> Host: Are there public companies or public company CEOs that you admire?

>> 主持人: 有没有你钦佩的上市公司或上市公司首席执行官？

>> Tracy: Of course. I mean, I think there are different things that I'd say in terms of admiring. 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. If you look at Nick Howley of Transdigm, the performance during his CEO tenure was significant. Remarkable performance, and he had his own business system in terms of how he was doing that. I think there are other people I have tremendous respect for, like what they've accomplished. If you look at Bezos's build at Amazon, 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. I think the pressure is there's a lot for any CEO, especially public CEOs, 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.

>> Tracy: 当然。我的意思是，我认为在钦佩方面，有不同的说法。如果你看看丹纳赫（Danaher），那家企业，Mitch Rales 和 Steve Rales 以及最终接任的首席执行官，都非常出色。无论是业务表现、业务成功、他们如何做到这一点，他们的系统，都令人难以置信，我非常尊重他们。如果你看看 Transdigm 的 Nick Howley，他在担任首席执行官期间的表现非常出色。令人瞩目的表现，他在如何做到这一点方面有自己的商业系统。我认为还有其他人我非常尊重，比如他们所取得的成就。如果你看看贝佐斯在亚马逊的建设，那在世界范围和其产生的影响方面都令人难以置信。我从那些在我们之前的人那里学到了很多关于他们如何管理和他们做什么的知识。我认为任何首席执行官，尤其是上市公司首席执行官，尤其是在现在，都面临着巨大的压力，他们被期望对什么有看法，他们被期望管理什么，以及持有这些观点和所有事情的后果。我认为这对任何首席执行官来说都特别具有挑战性，尤其是那些处于公众视野中的首席执行官。

企业与政治立场

>> Host: How do you think about the role of politics in companies? Should companies have political opinions?

>> 主持人: 你如何看待政治在公司中的作用？公司应该有政治观点吗？

>> Tracy: 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 I can understand why they do that and the benefit of that. That being said, I think we're in a very divisive time right now. I think sometimes people have a lot of views, and they share those views, and they assume their customers have the same views. Sometimes I think there are businesses where that may not be the best approach for the companies. By and large, 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 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 an "it depends" answer, which feels like a copout, but...

>> Tracy: 我认为这个问题没有正确答案或错误答案。我认为你需要真实、真诚的领导者，如果他们是有观点并分享这些观点或想分享这些观点的人，而且这对于他们在企业中的身份至关重要，我认为我可以理解他们为什么这样做以及这样做的好处。话虽如此，我认为我们现在正处于一个非常分裂的时代。我认为有时人们有很多观点，他们分享这些观点，并且他们假设他们的客户也有相同的观点。有时我认为有些企业，这可能不是公司最好的方法。总的来说，我的方法是，我认为首席执行官在公开表达对某个话题的看法之前应该深思熟虑，特别是如果这些话题是他们的客户或员工可能持有不同看法的。但如果是一位创始人或某人持有强烈观点，我认为他们也不必 necessarily 掩盖这些观点。所以，我认为这是一个有点“视情况而定”的答案，这感觉像是在推卸责任，但是……

>> Host: I think that's the best answer I've heard in a long time.

>> 主持人: 我认为这是我很久以来听到的最好的答案。

成功的定义

>> Host: Tracy, we always end these interviews with the same question, which is, "What is success for you?"

>> 主持人: Tracy，我们总是以同样的问题结束这些采访，那就是：“对你来说，成功是什么？”

>> Tracy: Success for me is really leaving things better off than I found them. 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 creating value for them and creating value for those around them.

>> Tracy: 对我来说，成功真正的含义是让事情比我发现时更好。这既包括我合作的公司，我接触的人，我的家人，建立我自己的生活，以及建立我身边的人的生活，让他们成为他们所关心、特别、有影响力、并为他们自己和周围的人创造价值的伟大存在。

>> Host: That's a beautiful answer. Thank you so much for taking the time today.

>> 主持人: 这是一个美丽的答案。非常感谢你今天抽出时间。

>> Tracy: Of course.

>> Tracy: 当然。