在美国的汽车城底特律，搞财务的人——也就是数钱的人，是最不受待见的。虽然他们的工作也许很重要，不过他们就是对车柱上的特殊曲线、肩线上的镀铬和前卫的N辐铝合金轮毂说“不”的人。

    在我对汽车业长达35年的报道生涯中，我记得在通用汽车公司（General Motors）里搞财务的人一向被视为公司成功发布新产品的最大阻碍。不过他们的权力大都来自围绕着他们建立起来的官僚主义作风。

    在钱上最锱铢必较的人当属福特前CEO雷德•波林。波林有他自己的一套原则，而且为了坚持原则不惜和任何人作对。他得罪过的工程师、设计师和产品策划师不下几十人。他与时任福特高管的鲍伯•卢茨的冲突尤为经典——至少在鲍伯•卢茨后来的复述中是这样的。

    福特公司1989年解聘了时任董事长兼CEO的唐•彼得森，让时年63岁的波林接掌帅印，带领公司应对即将到来的经济衰退。现在看来，福特家族的选择很明智。

    波林于5月12日去世，享年86岁。福特公司上周二宣布了他的死讯。

    波林生前有三个原则：一、赢得汽车业务的办法就是做成本最低的生产商；二、做成本最低的生产商的办法就是设立积极的成本目标，然后实现它们；三、新车的后备厢总是要比在售的老款大。（作为一个业余高尔夫球手，波林对车子装载高尔夫球袋的能力非常敏感。）

    如果公司没有满足某个财务目标，波林可能就会“火山爆发”。作家玛丽•沃顿在《汽车》（Car）一书中讲述了1996年福特Taurus轿车背后的研发故事。书中说，“一款车型的成本对他来说是最重要的事。”1986版的Taurus轿车采用了符合空气动力学的“糖豆”型设计，对于福特来说是一个革命性的突破，虽然这款轿车取得了巨大的成功，但也并未满足福特之前设定的目标。它的实际成本比计划成本高出216美元/台，而且投产日期也比计划晚了三个月。

    Taurus轿车后来获得了“年度轿车”之类的美誉，不过波林当时并不满意。他对总工程师卢•沃拉尔迪说：“他无法信任他了，因为他超出了预算。”Taurus的成功可能使沃拉尔迪在福特成了神一样的人物，不过在波林却不以为然。几年后，波林和沃拉尔迪都退休了，但波林还是耿耿于怀。他对波林说：“我本来非常看重卢•沃拉尔迪。不过他不像我想象的那样关心成本。”

    The finance guys, the ones who count the money, are the least popular guys in Detroit. Essential though their job may be, they are the ones who say "no" to the special curve in the roof pillar, the extra bit of chrome on the shoulder line, or the fancy spokes on the aluminum wheels.

    In my 35 years covering the auto industry, the finance guys at General Motors (GM) were reputed to be the biggest obstacles to successful new product programs, but their power mostly stemmed from the bureaucracy that had been erected around them.

    The toughest bean counter in town, hands down, was Red Poling. Poling had his principles and he was willing to defend them against anyone. He took on engineers, designers, and product planners by the dozen, and his clashes with Bob Lutz, then a Ford (F) executive, were monumental -- at least in Lutz's dramatic retelling of them.

    So the Ford family knew what it was doing when it pushed Don Petersen out as chairman and CEO in 1989 and installed a 63-year-old Poling to keep the company afloat during the oncoming recession.

    Poling died last Saturday at the age of 86. Ford Motor reported his death on Tuesday.

    Poling had three principles: the way to win in the car business is to be the low-cost producer, the way to be the low-cost producer was to set aggressive cost targets and hit them, and the trunk of a new car always had to be bigger than the one on the outgoing model. (As a low-handicap golfer, Polling was sensitive to carrying capacity for golf bags).

    Missing a financial target could be the occasion for a volcanic explosion from Poling. In "Car," the story behind the development of the 1996 Taurus, author Mary Walton describes him as "a man to whom the cost of a car was paramount." The '86 Taurus, the hugely successful jelly bean shaped model that revolutionized Ford, did not meet its targets. It cost $216 more to make each one than planned and its production had started three months behind schedule.

    The Taurus would go on to win Car of the Year accolades, but Poling wasn't satisfied. He told the engineer in charge, Lew Veraldi, that "he couldn't trust him because he'd overrun his budget." The success of the Taurus would make Veraldi a deity at Ford, but not to Poling. Years later, after both men had retired, Poling was still angry. He told Walton, "I thought very highly of Lew Veraldi. He was not as concerned with cost as I felt he should be."

    波林也把部分权力下放给了他小圈子里的人，比如前F1方程式车手杰基•斯图尔特就是其中的一个。斯图尔特也是福特的一名顾问，一向以喋喋不休、固执己见出名。由于他和波林很熟，因此他负责评测福特的新车型。沃顿在书中写道：“人们普遍相信，只要他想，斯图尔特可以随时走进福特全球总部12楼波林的办公室，坐在波林的椅子上，对他畅所欲言。没人希望斯图尔特告诉福特汽车公司的首席执行官，他对新Taurus感到失望。”

    波林在福特公司上世纪末的夺嫡大戏中也扮演了一个幕后角色。时任董事长兼CEO的彼得森给亨利•福特的两个曾孙——比尔和艾德赛尔安排了职位，但却没有把他们安排进任何董事委员会里，因此开罪了福特家族。80年代末福特的销量上扬大概让彼得森有些飘飘然了，他的傲慢自大和火爆脾气又开罪了一些外部董事。当时福特又恰好花了五倍的账面价值收购了捷豹（Jaguar），公司上下一致认为彼得森的支票开得太爽快了。与此同时，时年63岁、一向谨小慎微的副董事长波林已经快到了退休的年龄。那年10月，董事会开始向彼得森“逼宫”，要求他辞职。彼得森到这时也死撑着姿态，称离职是为了让自己的“伙伴和朋友里德•波林”能有一个当一把手的机会。对于他自己，彼得森则表示他要把自己“移栽”到别处去。

    波林通过在北美地区严苛的成本削减政策带领福特挺过了经济危机，然后在1993年把位子让给了埃里克斯•特罗特曼。不过在谈到个人贡献的时候，他从来不把荣誉往自己身上揽。在一次盛大的庆祝晚宴上，他居然当众羞辱了负责1989款雷鸟（Thunderbird）轿车的总工程师和他的团队，原因是他们设立了一系列重量和成本控制目标，但却未能实现。波林在整个演讲中都不忘斥责他们：“你们做出了承诺，但却没有信守诺言。”【这件事被记载在《华尔街日报》（the Wall Street Journal）记者保罗•英格拉西亚和乔伊•怀德撰写的《复原》（Comeback）一书中。】

    不过波林却没有守住自己对财务高管艾伦•格里默的承诺。格里默告诉我，波林在90年代初曾亲口许诺会让他当上福特的下一任CEO。当时福特的高管队伍人丁不旺，格里默本人也很有能力，而且人缘很好。后来当格里默发现特罗特曼成了CEO继承人时，他找到波林当面对质。

    就像我的回忆录《从60到0》（Sixty to Zero）中描写的那样，波林对他说，与特罗特曼相比，格里默缺乏广泛的运营经验。当时格里默是个没有“出柜”的“同志”，他问波林：“是不是还有别的特殊原因？”波林答道：“没有。”格里默后来回忆道：“我一直不明白我为什么被过滤掉了，不过我认为，波林当时把继任的问题抛到了董事会上，而且没有采取强硬的立场。是不是因为我的同性恋身份妨碍了我的机会，说实话我不知道。”

    福特的公关部门想尽了一切办法，想把波林包装成一个“汽车型男”。他们让波林穿上一件福特的防风夹克衫，与其他的福特董事站在一起照相，还把他送到了美国殿堂级的鲍伯•邦杜兰特驾校去学习。不过我看收效不大。在一次采访中，我偶然把我的录音机调到了“声音启动”模式，也就是每次我们俩中有人停止说话，录音机就会自动暂停。波林不知怎么注意到了，然后每次他都会告诉我，你的录音机出故障了。

    真是一日守财奴，终生守财奴。

    译者：朴成奎

    Such was Poling's power that it cascaded down to those below him who were believed to be in his inner circle. Former Formula One driver Jackie Stewart, a Ford consultant, was one of them. Stewart, who could be garrulous and opinionated, got handled with kid gloves when he was reviewing new models because he was close to Poling. "It was widely believed that Jackie could walk into Red's office on the twelfth floor of World Headquarters whenever he wanted, sit down in one of Red's chairs, and talk to Red about whatever was on his mind," Walton writes. "No one wanted Stewart to tell the chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company that he was disappointed with the new Taurus."

    Poling was an offstage player in one of Ford's notorious succession dramas. Chairman and CEO Petersen had a falling out with the founding family for appointing Bill and Edsel, two great-grandsons of Henry Ford, and then not assigning them to any board committees. Petersen, coasting on an upturn in sales at the end of the 1980s, was turning off Ford's outside directors too with his arrogance and temper. Ford had just paid five times book value for Jaguar and Petersen was seen as too free with the checkbook. Poling, meanwhile, was loyally serving as vice chairman, at age 63, serving out his time until retirement. But in October, the board turned on Petersen, forcing him out. The way Petersen would frame the issue, he was leaving so that his "partner and friend Red Poling" could have a shot at the top job. For his part, Petersen said he was going off to "repot" himself.

    Poling managed the numbers and got Ford through the recession with draconian cuts in North America before handing off the top job in 1993 to Alex Trotman. But he didn't cover himself with glory when it came to personnel relations. He humiliated the engineer in charge of the 1989 Thunderbird, along with his team, at a big celebratory dinner for signing up for a set of numbers on weight and cost and then not delivering. Poling hammered away at them all through his speech. "You made a commitment, but you didn't keep it," he scolded. (The incident was reported in "Comeback" by the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia and Joe White).

    But Poling didn't keep his own commitment to Allan Gilmour, a top financial executive. Gilmour told me that Poling had assured him in the early 1990s that he was on track to succeed him as Ford's next CEO. The company's executive ranks were thin, and Gilmour was capable and well-liked. Butt when Gilmour discovered that the job was going to Trotman instead, he confronted Poling.

    As I reported in my memoir "Sixty to Zero," Poling told him that compared with Trotman, Gilmour didn't have broad operating experience. Gilmour, who was a closeted gay at the time, asked Poling, "Is there any particular trouble?" And Polling said, "No." Recalled Gilmour: "I'll never know why I was passed over, but I think Red left the succession question to the board and did not take a strong stand. Whether being gay hurt my chances, I honestly don't know."

    Ford public relations would struggle to make Poling into an archetypal car guy, photographing him in a Ford windbreaker along with other Ford directors, and sending him to Bob Bondurant's performance driving school. But I suspected differently. During one interview I accidentally set my tape recorder on "voice activate," meaning it would pause every time one of us stopped talking. Poling somehow noticed this and would tell me each time that the recorder was malfunctioning.

    Once a bean-counter, always a bean-counter.