与雅诗兰黛前CEO共进午餐Lunch with the FT: Leonard Lauder

A few weeks before I was supposed to have lunch with Leonard Lauder, the beauty patriarch and philanthropist, he sent me the following e-mail: “The question is, where? Power: the Four Seasons. Media: Michael’s. The Art World: the Whitney.” Up to you, I responded. He picked the Four Seasons. Then, the day of our lunch, his secretary called me. “Can you speak to Leonard Lauder?” she said. “We’re scheduled for lunch today,” he began. Yes, I said, at the Four Seasons, I confirmed it with your secretary.

就在我与化妆品界的教父及慈善家伦纳德•劳德(Leonard Lauder)相约共进午餐前的几周，他曾给我发过这样一封电子邮件：“问题是：在何处见面？若是谈论权力话题，采访地点就在四季酒店(the Four Seasons)；若是谈论媒体话题，采访地点就在迈克尔餐馆(Michael’s)；若是探讨艺术界话题，地点就选在惠特尼美国艺术博物馆(Whitney Museum of American Art)。”我回复：您定。于是他选中了四季酒店。然而就在我们午餐会前一天，他的秘书打电话给我，“您能跟劳德先生说几句话吗？”她问。电话中他一上来就说：“我们约好今天一起共进午餐。”我说，没错，是在四季餐厅，我正与你秘书敲定此事呢。

“Wait!” he said. “Listen to where I’m going with this. I was there yesterday, and it was dead. Dead! We should go somewhere buzzy. Let’s go to Michael’s. There will be action.” OK, I said, and duly showed up at Michael’s a few minutes early because I like to get places first when I am doing an interview. But Lauder was already there, in a blue seersucker suit, tie and paisley pocket square, seated at a prime table in a window bay, bathed in early autumn sunshine, from which he could survey the entire room. “I was here first!” he said, delighted, and nudged me. “I didn’t want that Marc Jacobs thing to happen to me.”

“稍等一下！”他说。“听我说咱这次午餐会去哪儿。我昨天去了四季酒店，那个地方死气沉沉！我们应该找个热闹点的地方。咱们去迈克尔餐馆吧，那儿动感十足。”就依你，我说，并提前几分钟赶到了迈克尔餐馆，原因是作采访时，我喜欢先行赶到会谈地。但没想到劳德先生已经捷足先登了，他坐在靠凸窗的那张主桌旁，沐浴在阳光里，身穿蓝色泡泡沙西服，扎着领带，还配着涡纹花呢装饰方巾(pocket square)，他坐那儿能纵览整个餐厅。“我先到了！”他高兴地激将我。“我可不想让马克•雅可布(Marc Jacobs)那样的事发生在我身上。”

“That Marc Jacobs thing” was a reference to a Lunch with the FT I had done with the said designer, which began with a story about his being late. In other words, even before we had sat down to begin eating, Lauder had demonstrated that: (1) he was very concerned that I have a good time, even though he was the guest; (2) he could get a fabulous table pretty much anywhere he wanted at very short notice; and (3) he had done his research.

“马克•雅可布那样的事” 是指我曾邀这位LV设计师参加与《金融时报》共进午餐访谈会，当时采访首先从他迟到说起。换言之，甚至就在我们坐定开吃之前，劳德就以实际行动表明：首先，他很在意我心情快乐与否，即便他是采访对象；其次，他能在短时间内在任何地方订上自己中意的餐桌；再有就是这个地方他已事先踩过点了。

As a demonstration of the strategy of “I’m going to do the best I can to make this work to my advantage, and I know you know I’m doing this, and you know I know, but we’re not going to talk about it because we are both smarter than that”, it was most impressive. He managed to flatter and control at the same time – which, when you think about it, is a pretty good description of the abilities that successful beauty industry executives need (or for that matter, any executives). Except that Lauder, who is 77, is no longer a beauty executive.

这表明了他一贯的策略：“我会竭尽全力于我有利的方向做事，我知道你知道我会以身作则，你也心知肚明，但今天咱俩不谈这问题，因为咱俩都要聪明许多”，这一点让人印象深刻。他设法同时做到奉承与操控——仔细一想，觉得这很准确地指出了化妆品界高管成功所需的能力素质（或者就此而言，所有高管皆是如此）。例外情况是：77岁的劳德已不是化妆品界的高管了。

“I’m retired!” he laughs, waving away the waiter who appears with the bread basket and then, when the waiter moves to me, saying, “No, no, she doesn’t want any either.”

“我已经退休了！”他笑着说，挥手示意提面包篮的服务员走开，于是当服务员走到我跟前时，劳德说，“不，不！她也啥都不需要。”

Actually, I say, I do.

事实上，我说我需要。

“Really?” He looks surprised, then scolds himself: “You’re thin, so I assumed you didn’t want any.” He orders a salade Niçoise with no olives, an extra plate and extra dressing, and leans in close. “Every morning, I eat one fat-free yogurt with a sliced peach when peaches are in season, and one thin slice of wholewheat bread. The same thing. I don’t want to get fat. And I want to keep my fitness.” He pokes himself in the stomach and pauses a beat. “Do you think I’m Type A?”

“真的吗？”他看上去有点吃惊，然后开始自责起来：“你很苗条，所以我自以为你不需要。”他要了份不加橄榄的尼斯沙拉(Salade Niçoise)，又要了一个空盘子，还要了点调味品，然后凑近我跟前说：“每天早晨，我喝一杯无脂酸奶，若桃子上市时，就吃一个切成片的桃子，还有薄薄一块全麦面包。早餐就只吃这些东西，我可不想长胖，还想保持好体型。”他用手指了指自己的胃，停了一会儿接着说：“你觉得我是A型血的人吗？”

Actually, what I think is: if Leonard Lauder is retired, I’m a nuclear physicist.

实际上，要我说：若是伦纳德•劳德退休，那我就该是核物理学家了。

“Well, now I’m chairman emeritus,” Lauder says. “And Dick Parsons [the former chief executive of Time Warner], who is head of our compensation committee, said to me, ‘You have to go off regular compensation. What should we do?’ So we talked about it and he said, ‘How about a per diem?’ and I said, ‘OK’. And he said, ‘But we have to cap it.’ I said, ‘Fine’, and I worked for six months, and that was my per diem for the year, so now I’m working for free,” he laughs.

“哎，现在我是公司的名誉主席，”劳德说。“公司薪酬委员会的负责人迪克•帕森斯（Dick Parsons，时代华纳(Time Warner)前CEO）对我说，‘您不能再领正常的薪酬了，我们该怎么办？’所以我们对此进行了讨论，他对我说，‘按天给您津贴如何？’我说，‘行啊’。然后他又说，‘但我们得上有封顶。’我说，‘可以’，我上了6个月班，这就是我今年按日领津贴的最高上限，所以嘛现在我属于免费上班，”他笑着说。

“Of course, I’m also the biggest shareholder, so I’m doing fine for myself. But I always said I would pay to do what I’m doing. Why would I say a crazy thing like that?” I open my mouth to respond but he has already continued: “Because this is the most interesting time of all in my business. It’s multi-ethnic, multi-brand, multi-dimensional, multi-country! It’s never been so much fun!”

“当然，我是公司最大股东，因此嘛，我也算为自己打工。但是我经常说我上班就得有报酬。为什么我老提这样一件不可思议的事呢？”但当我正要说时，他已经接着往下说了：“因为这是我从商以来最快意的时刻。如今的公司是跨种族、多品牌、跨空间、跨国经营！现在真的是其乐无穷！”

Lauder would know. He’s been in the business officially since 1958, when he took over the company his mother Estée started in 1946, though unofficially he’s been in the business since he was born, save for a two-year stint in the navy. He has seen it grow from sales of $800,000 in 1958 to $5bn, from a presence in one country to a foothold in 140, from one brand to 29. He has taken it public and transformed it into one of the top five beauty companies in the world (behind mass-market companies such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble). He has passed it on to his son William, who is now Estée Lauder’s chairman. Coincidentally, William is also at Michael’s, and comes over to say “Hi,” to his father and discuss dropping off one of his daughters at the University of Pennsylvania.

劳德肯定清楚。1958年他从母亲艾丝黛(Estée)手中接过公司（创办于1946年）起，一直在从事化妆品行业，虽说自他出生后，他一直非正式地涉足此行业（除了两年在海军服役外）。他亲眼看到公司年销售额从1958年的80万美元飚升至如今的50亿美元，从只在一国发展到如今在全球140个国家开设门店，旗下品牌从一个发展为29个，并成功使公司上市，还把它发展成为全球化妆品五大巨头之一（位列联合利华(Unilever)与宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble)这样的大众市场公司之后）。他已将公司交由儿子威廉(William)掌舵，威廉如今是公司的董事长。巧的是，威廉也在迈克尔餐厅，他走过来向父亲打招呼，并与之商讨送自己女儿到宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)的事。

The business has made him rich – this year Forbes named Leonard Lauder number 212 on the list of the world’s billionaires, with a reported net worth of $4.2bn. He has a duplex penthouse on Fifth Avenue filled with art, and houses in Florida, in Switzerland and in upstate New York. With his money, he has co-endowed (with younger brother Ronald) the Lauder Institute at the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater, which is also sort of the Lauder family academy (William went there; so did Ronald’s daughter Aerin, senior vice-president and creative director at Estée Lauder). Along with his wife, Evelyn, he helped create the Evelyn H Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. In 2008, he gave the largest gift ever to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York ($131m; he was chairman from 1994-2008 and remains chairman emeritus). And in 1998, he founded, with Ronald, the Institute for the Study of Aging to help turn Alzheimer’s research into commercial drugs.

经营化妆品让劳德成了富翁——去年的《福布斯》富豪榜上，伦纳德•劳德位列第212名，公布的净资产达42亿美元。他在纽约第五大道(Fifth Avenue)有一套专门收集艺术品的复式公寓，在弗罗里达、瑞士以及纽约州北部均有豪宅。他与他弟弟罗纳德(Ronald)共同出资在母校宾夕法尼亚大学商学院创建了劳德学院(Lauder Institute)，宾州大学快成劳德家族成员共同的母校了（威廉曾就读于此，罗纳德的女儿、现雅诗兰黛副总裁兼创意总监艾琳(Aerin)也曾就读于此）。劳德与妻子伊芙琳还在纽约纪念斯隆－凯特琳癌症中心帮助设立了伊芙琳•劳德乳腺癌研究中心(Evelyn H Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)。2008年，他与罗纳德一起创建了老龄化研究所(Institute for the Study of Aging)，帮助研制治疗阿尔茨海默氏症（Alzheimer's disease，即老年性痴呆）的临床新药。

When I ask him how he would describe his current position in the company, since it has no official description, he says, “Moral centre.” Given the general perception of big business these days, which tends to be seen as a bunch of robber barons out for their own bucks, I think this is an interesting statement.

由于没有正式头衔，当我问他该如何定位自己目前在公司的角色时，他告诉我，“道德核心人物。”鉴于目前世人对大公司的普遍评价（越来越把它们看作是一群唯利是图的强盗资本家），我觉得这算是个蛮有趣的称呼。

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being paternalistic as a company,” Lauder says. “We are very paternalistic. We have a very good health plan – we take care of people.” As our salads arrive and Lauder starts moving slices of Parmesan off his and on to the extra plate he requested, I ask what he means.

“我不觉得公司执行家长制有啥不妥，”劳德说。“我们公司的家长制氛围很浓。我们有非常不错的健康计划——我们对员工体贴入微。”我们点的沙拉端上来后，劳德开始把他点的帕尔马干酪(Paternalistic Parmesan)夹到所要的空盘子中，我就问他说这话什么意思。

“One senior sales rep had cancer and her doctor told her she could die from it. She called me, sobbing, and I got a doctor I know to see her, and then got my secretary to go pick her up in a limo and take her over to see him, and she’s alive and well today,” he says. He looks sternly at me. “You are only as successful as the people who work for you want you to be,” he says.

“我们有位高级销售代表患了癌症，她的医生告诉她将不久于人世。她给我打电话，哭得很伤心，我马上叫我认识的一位医生给她看病，并让秘书用专车接她去看医生，如今她活得好好的，”他说，正色看着我。“只有手下员工想让你成功，你方能成功，”他说。

Another way Lauder describes his current position is as “chief teaching officer”, and he is clearly aware of passing on nuggets of wisdom he has honed over time. One of the things he still does at the company is hold various classes for employees. He holds one, for example, about “what went right with other companies, and what went wrong”, where they look at case studies such as Krispy Kreme, Starbucks and Home Depot. The first thing he does in the seminar, Lauder says, is to pull products out of a paper bag: Chanel No 5, Clinique, Ritz crackers, Nabisco or Coke, for example. Then he asks the class what the products have in common. He asks me, pausing only a second before saying, “I’ll tell you! They didn’t monkey with their logo or their colour code.”

劳德描述自己目前另一个角色是“首席教官”( chief teaching officer)，他清楚地意识到要把自己一生积累的真知灼见向员工传授。他如今仍在公司做的一件事就是举办各种各样的员工培训班。比方说，他举办的一个培训班，通过研究卡卡圈坊(Krispy Kreme)、星巴克(Starbucks)以及家得宝(Home Depot)等经典案例来探讨“怎么与其它公司处好关系，怎样会交恶”，劳德说，他在培训班上做的第一件事就是从纸袋里取出香奈儿五号香水(Chanel No 5)、倩碧 (Clinique)、乐之饼干、纳贝斯科(nabisco)与可乐，然后问培训员工这些产品共性的东西是什么。他问我，停了一会儿就说，“告诉你吧，它们不胡捣鼓自己的标识和色码。”

In his courses, he has Ten Commitments, and a list of Don’ts. He likes to make signs. One says, “Just say no.” That’s in reference to retail partners who might want a Lauder salesman to do something Lauder doesn’t want to do. Lauder wants his people to understand that the absolutely most important thing if you are a luxury brand is controlled distribution. “Last Friday I had a meeting with a group of Clinique senior executives, and I gave a talk about power,” he says. “Power is winning the battle over who owns the customer: the brand or the retailer. If they worry that they will upset an important partner, I hold up another sign: ‘Blame it on Leonard’.”

在课上，他总结了十条承诺以及诸多禁忌。他喜欢做标牌。其中一个写道，“就直截了当拒绝。”这指的是零售合伙人可能想让推销雅诗兰黛的销售员做劳德不允许做的事。劳德反复灌输他的员工：对奢侈品牌来说，最最重要的是控制式分销。“上周五，我召集倩碧高级销售总管开了个会，我谈了很多关于能力的问题，”他说。“能力就是俘获消费群的拥有者：品牌或零售商。如果员工担心会得罪重要的合伙人，我就举起另一标牌：‘一切归咎于伦纳德’。”

Lauder is a performer – there’s an old vaudevillian “badda boom badda bing” to many of his statements that reminds me of Bob Hope, or of the way that those who are used to many years of others appreciating them act a bit as though they are on stage all the time – but it’s a role he has grown into. People who knew him back in the day often describe him as “shy”. When he talks about his younger self, he says: “I didn’t realise how good-looking I was until about 50 years later.”

劳德是个演技高手——他所说的话中，就象杂耍老手一样显得游刃有余，这让我想起了鲍伯•霍普(Bob Hope)以及其他表演高手，多年来他们已经习惯了观众欣赏他们露一手，似乎他们一直在台上表演似的——但这个角色他已习以为常。早期了解他的人老说他“腼腆”。谈及他年轻时的样子，他说：“过了50年，我才意识到自己年轻时是多么帅。”

He leans in close: “You know, I had a 34in waist when I was in the navy, and now it’s 35 or 36.” He says the navy was transformative: “It made me a leader.”

他凑到我跟前说：“你知道吗？我当海军时，腰围是34英寸，现在也就是35、36英寸的样子。”他说当兵的经历让他脱胎换骨：“让我明白该如何当好头。”

When he came back, he had an idea; turn his mother’s company into the beauty industry’s General Motors. “In the beginning, selling to the US market was the simplest thing in the world. We sold to aspirational women. There were new suburban malls opening up every day in the 1960s. They were our customers. But I had another idea. I wanted to go into the international market.”

从海军退役后，劳德立下了宏愿：要把他母亲创办的公司发展成为化妆品界的通用公司(General Motors)。“刚开始，在美国本土市场销售化妆品不费吹灰之力，我们把产品卖给有抱负的女性。上世纪60年代，美国郊区每天都有新商场开张，它们就是我们的客户。但我萌生了另一个想法：我要进军国际市场。”

He picked the UK. People told him he was crazy – that “the English were cheap. They wouldn’t pay our prices”. But he had been in London in 1953 and “nothing was happening, it was dead,” and then again in 1957 with the navy, “and I saw a huge transformation, so I knew they were wrong. And I thought, ‘If you have a good idea, don’t let anyone talk you out of it’.”

他选中了英国，大家都说他疯了——都说“英国人没钱，不会花这么高价格买化妆品的”，但1953年，他曾在伦敦呆过，看到“丝毫没有复兴的迹象，一切死气沉沉，”1957年他随美国海军再次来伦敦时，“我看到了天翻地覆的变化，所以我知道劝我的那些人都错了。我心里想，‘脑子里有好点子时，千万不要因为别人的劝而打退堂鼓’。”

He took the same drive to the USSR in 1989 – “People said to me, ‘How can you sell to the communists?’” – and China in 1993. Going public, which he did in 1995, was motivated primarily by family concerns – he says there were some members who needed access to more liquidity – but he talks about it with a slight tinge of regret. His personal life is easier now but his business life is harder.

1989年，他以同样的锐意进取精神进军前苏联市场——“有人对我说，‘你怎么能把化妆品卖给共党呢？’再往后到了1993年，我进军中国市场。公司上市是1995年，动因主要是考虑到家族因素”——他说有些家族成员需要更多流动性资金——但他话语之间，略带一丝遗憾。他的个人生活如今很安逸，但公司生意却越来越难做。

“The hardest thing I have done is given up power,” he says. “It took me a long time. In 2000, I gave up the job of CEO and asked Fred Langhammer to take over [the current chief is Fabrizio Freda]. And we were talking about something, or arguing, and he said to me, in the kindest way possible, ‘Leonard, you are not CEO any more.’ In this case, I knew I was right, and they were wrong, but I had to let them do it anyway. I had seen this problem with my mother, who had a very hard time letting other people – letting me – do things, but at a certain point you have to accept that people may not do them quite the same way you do but that does not mean they are doing them badly.”

“我做的最痛苦决定就是放弃权力，”他说。“我花了很长时间才适应。2000年，我从CEO位子上退下来，请弗雷德•连翰墨(Fred Langhammer)执掌公司（目前的CEO是傅懿德(Fabrizio Freda)）。有时我俩商讨（或争论）时，他会以尽可能委婉的口气提醒我，‘伦纳德，您已不再是CEO。’在此情况下，我知道自己是对的，对方是错的，但我还得按对方的意思办。这样的问题以前也发生在我母亲身上，她为了让别人（也让我）照她的意思办，也颇费心思，但有时你得接受这样的现状：对方也许与你行事方式大不一样，但那并不意味着对方做得糟糕。”

At which point, he orders an iced cappuccino and I order mint tea. “I have three cups of coffee a day because the guy who heads up our Alzheimer’s foundation found this Finnish study that says if adults have three to four cups of coffee a day, it helps prevent Alzheimer’s,” Lauder says. “Should we get some cookies?” he asks, and orders some. But when they come, he doesn’t eat any.

说到这儿，他又点了冰牛奶咖啡(cappuccino)，我则点了薄荷茶。“我每天喝三杯咖啡，因为我的老年痴呆症基金会主席曾看到一份芬兰人的研究报告，说成年人每天喝三到四杯咖啡会有助于防止得老年痴呆症，”劳德说。“我们是否再来点饼干？”他问我，随后要了些。但端上来后，他却压根没吃。

“Here’s where I think we’re headed,” he says instead. “The balance of power in this nation has shifted between big business and the consumer. The era of celebrity is leaving us, and the awe of the rich and famous is leaving us. What is emerging is the smart shopper, and the idea of cocooning, broadly defined.” He orders another coffee. “I see 10 years, 20 years ahead of everyone else. But I have to be quiet about that now.”

“这就是我思考的公司未来发展方向，”他转而说。“美国国内的力量对比已经从大企业转至消费者手中。名人的时代已渐行渐远，对富人以及名人的敬畏感也正在消失。社会上层出不穷的是精明的购物者，以及足不出户的观念，界定得很宽泛。”他又要了一杯咖啡。“我的观念要比其他人超前10至20年。但我现在对此只得保持缄默。”

He sighs. No matter what he does, no matter how much he teaches, or how careful he is with his diet, he “can’t guarantee that in 30 years the company will be the same. In 30 years, I can guarantee it will be different.”

他叹了口气。不管他做什么，不管他多么苦口婆心地说教，也不管他对自己的饮食如何挑剔，他也“不能保证30年后，公司还会是现在的样子。30年后，我能保证的是公司会不同于现在。”

Then he whips out his schedule; he has to go. I ask for the bill. He looks surprised. “What a treat!” he says – though I had warned his office going in that I would pay. I know, and he knows I know, so even as he gets up to leave, I keep waiting for the wink.

这时，他突然叫道还有其它约会，他得马上走。我准备买单。他吃惊地看着我。“今天可吃了好多喔！”他说——虽然我早就给他同行的手下人打过招呼今天由我买单。我知道这是玩笑话，这一点他也心知肚明，所以即便他起身准备离开，我还在等他给我使眼色。

Vanessa Friedman is the FT’s fashion editor. Read her Style column

范妮莎•弗瑞德曼是《金融时报》时装编辑。详情可以读其时尚专栏。

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Michael’s restaurant

迈克尔餐厅地址：纽约市西55大街24号

24 West 55th Street, New York

科布沙拉(Cobb salad)：36美元

Cobb salad $36

尼斯沙拉：36美元

Salade Niçoise $36

两份饼干：3美元

Two cookies $3

薄荷茶：6.5美元

Mint tea $6.50

2份冰牛奶咖啡：19美元

Iced cappuccino x2 $19

瓶装Panna矿泉水：9美元

Bottle of Panna water $9

总计（包括小费）：144.22美元