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.
首席执行官们都不喜欢去华盛顿。没有一个人能说行，但所有人都可以说不行；有100个人出面，任何事情都能搞定。一个全国性问题只要不会直接影响到公司，首席执行官们通常会听从政府关系主管的意见，后者说：“别掺和，不要激怒任何人，只关注那些为了我们公司利益有必要讨论的具体问题；我们不能让自己处于不利地位。”通常而言，这是一个安全的建议。然而，有的问题非常重要，需要我们为之大声疾呼。