Chief executives hate going to Washington. No one person can say yes, everyone can say no, and it takes 100 people to get anything done. When there is a national issue that does not directly affect their company, CEOs generally follow the advice of their government relations chief, who says “stay away from it, don’t antagonise anyone, just focus on the specific issue we need to talk about for our company; we don’t want to put ourselves in a bad position”. In general, this is safe advice. However, sometimes there is an issue so important it requires us to speak up.
執行長們都不喜歡去華盛頓。沒有一個人能說行，但所有人都可以說不行；有100個人出面，任何事情都能搞定。一個全國性問題只要不會直接影響到公司，執行長們通常會聽從政府關係主管的意見，後者說：「別摻和，不要激怒任何人，只關注那些爲了我們公司利益有必要討論的具體問題；我們不能讓自己處於不利地位。」通常而言，這是一個安全的建議。然而，有的問題非常重要，需要我們爲之大聲疾呼。