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反覆無常的老闆最可怕 Why we prefer nasty bosses to be horrible

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By far the most difficult boss I’ve ever had was an inspiring, morally upstanding man. I respected him and learnt a lot from him. The problem was that I could never predict how he would respond to anything.

反覆無常的老闆最可怕 Why we prefer nasty bosses to be horrible

迄今爲止,我遇到過的最難相處的老闆是一位能夠啓發他人、爲人正直的男士。我很尊敬他,也從他那裏學到了很多。問題在於我永遠沒有辦法預測他對任何事情的反應。

Sometimes he would sidle past and say something sarcastic about a piece I’d written. At other times he would bound up, full of praise. Occasionally he would perch on the edge of my desk and talk as if he valued my opinion. The following day he would revert to glowering and ignore me entirely.

有時候他會悄悄經過,對我寫的某篇文章挖苦幾句。有時候他會跳起來,對我讚不絕口。偶爾他會坐在我的辦公桌沿和我聊天,話裏話外好像很看重我的觀點似的。第二天他又回到怒目而視的狀態,完全無視我的存在。

The very sight of him advancing down the corridor was enough to make me feel anxious. When he was being nice, his face looked the same as when he was horrid and so I started to wonder if his praise was ironic. It was most disconcerting.

僅僅看到他從走廊上走過來我就會緊張。他友好的時候和兇惡的時候臉上的表情是一模一樣的,這讓我開始懷疑他的稱讚其實是諷刺。這是最讓人難堪的。

I thought of him the other day when I read a piece of research from the University of Michigan suggesting we would far rather have a manager who was horrible all of the time, than one who was horrible only some of it. When it comes to our bosses, it seems we can cope with more or less anything — save unpredictability.

不久前,當我讀到密歇根大學(University of Michigan)的一篇研究論文時,我又想起了他。這篇論文認爲,比起一個在某些時候很可怕的管理者,我們寧願要一個總是很可怕的管理者。對於老闆,不論什麼事情我們似乎多多少少總能應付——除了反覆無常。

The researchers conducted a series of experiments in which they divided students into three groups and gave them all a job to do. The first group was subjected to constant compliments; the second to constant abuse and the third to a mix of the two. The first group wasn’t stressed at all; the second was mildly so, while the third — the group that didn’t know if they were going to get sticks or carrots — was by far the most stressed and least happy.

研究人員進行了一系列實驗,他們將學生分成三組並指派所有人做一項工作。第一組不斷地受到表揚;第二組不斷地受到責罵;第三組表揚和責罵兼而有之。第一組完全沒有壓力;第二組感到一點壓力;不知道自己接下來得到的是大棒還是胡蘿蔔的第三組則是壓力最大、最不快樂的一組。

This experiment, written up in the American Academy of Management, reminds me of an earlier study in which rats were given electric shocks. One group heard a bell ring to herald each shock; a second group had shocks with no warning. The first group of rats fared more or less fine. The second group, who could not predict the timing of the shocks, developed stomach ulcers. Workers and rats have a lot in common.

這篇由美國管理學會(American Academy of Management)發表的實驗報告讓我想起了一個更早的實驗,那是一個大鼠受到電擊的實驗。第一組大鼠每次受到電擊前都會聽到一聲鈴響;第二組受到電擊前則沒有任何警示。第一組大鼠的狀況總的來講還好。而那些無法預測電擊時機的第二組大鼠則患上了胃潰瘍。員工與大鼠有很多相似之處。

Yet this idea that consistency is important is nowhere in the leadership literature. Predictability is considered boring and unglamorous, in a world that reveres creativity and disruption.

但在有關領導力的文獻中,有關領導者行爲一致性很重要的觀點無處可尋。在這個崇尚創造力和顛覆的世界,可預測性被視爲一種無趣和缺乏魅力的特質。

A couple of weeks ago the Harvard Business Review published a blog about the most important traits of leaders, as reported by 195 global leaders themselves. These turned out to be a more or less soppy list of “competencies” including “strong ethics”, “nurtures growth”, “has the flexibility to change opinions” and “is committed to ongoing training”. And so on. Predictability was nowhere on the list.

幾周前,《哈佛商業評論》(Harvard Business Review)發佈了一篇博文,內容是195名全球領導者自己提出的最重要的領導者特質。這是一張多少有點乏味的“素質”列表,包括“道德觀念強”、“注重增長”、“能夠靈活改變觀點”和“致力於持續培訓”等等。可預測性並不在這份列表上。

The only company I can find that explicitly values this is Google. Because it delights in collecting data and measures all leaders constantly, it has found that consistency is one of the most important qualities there is. When the boss isn’t consistent, people can’t do their best.

我能找到的唯一一家公開看重這一特質的公司是谷歌(Google)。由於谷歌喜歡收集數據並對所有領導者持續做出評估,該公司發現一致性是最重要的特質之一。如果老闆前後不一致,員工就無法盡其所能。

Predictability matters at work not just in relation to your boss — but to almost everything. People claim they love jobs in which every day is different, but there is little evidence to back this up. Instead, studies in the US have shown that workers with unpredictable hours are more stressed and less happy than those who keep a regular timetable.

在工作中,可預測性的重要性不僅僅是與你的老闆有關——而是幾乎與一切有關。人們聲稱他們喜歡每一天都不一樣的工作,但沒有多少證據能夠支持這種說法。相反,美國的多項研究表明,比起那些工作時間規律的員工,工作時間無法預測的員工壓力更大,幸福度更低。

If I think of my peers, I would probably tell you that I love working with people who surprise me. But that isn’t true. I like working with people who interest me, but who do not surprise me at all. One close colleague is dependably always late. Even though I am obsessively punctual, I’ve become so used to his lateness that when last week he turned up early, I wasn’t delighted; I was slightly put out.

說到同事,我很可能會告訴你,我喜歡和能讓我驚訝的人共事。但這不是事實。我喜歡的是與讓我感興趣的人共事,根本不是讓我驚訝的人。有一位和我關係很近的同事總是遲到。即使我非常看重準時,我也已經非常習慣他遲到,以至於上週他很早就露面的時候我不是很開心;我稍微有點惱火。

And it is not as if consistency is easy. Being consistent is very hard indeed. I know this from having spent a quarter of a century at the coalface of motherhood. When bringing up my four children I have tried to stick to some pretty basic principles that I consider important. For instance, that all family members must sit around a table once a day with no computer screens, eating the same thing at the same time. Some evenings I am unyielding in my adherence to this principle. Yet there I was last week sprawled on the sofa with my son who was eating a supermarket pizza and watching something unsuitable on his iPad, while I both ate and watched something else.

而且這並不是說保持一致是件容易的事。保持一致實際上非常困難。在做媽媽的“一線”度過25年後,我明白了這一點。在撫養我的4個孩子的時候,我嘗試堅持一些我認爲很重要的相當基本的原則。比如,所有家庭成員必須每天有一次圍着桌子坐下,在同一時間吃着同樣的東西,沒人盯着電腦屏幕。有一些夜晚我毫不妥協地堅持這一原則。然而上週,我四仰八叉地和我的兒子坐在沙發上,他在吃一塊超市裏買的披薩,在他的iPad上看一些不適宜的內容,而我吃着別的食物,看着別的東西。

Predictability is the advanced class: unpredictability seems to be the default human condition.

可預測性是高級狀態:不可預測性似乎是人類的默認設置。

I’ve just read an article in Psychology Today arguing that we became that way because it made it harder for other hunter gatherers to take advantage of us in the jungle.

我剛剛讀到了《今日心理學》(Psychology Today)的一篇文章,這篇文章主張,我們之所以會變成這樣是因爲這會讓叢林之中的其他狩獵採集者更難以佔到我們的便宜。

Maybe, although I suspect we are unpredictable at work because managing is unnatural and we are weak and capricious. And self-control is not only difficult, it is sadly out of fashion.

可能是這樣,不過我懷疑我們在工作中不可預測是因爲管理本身就是不自然的,我們本身則既軟弱又善變。而且自控不僅很難,還非常可悲地不時髦。