如何終結那些"哈欠連天"的會議

One of my resolutions this New Year is to popularize the term “thick presence.” It sounds lurid, but it’s not.
我的新年決心之一就是宣傳“親密共處”這個理念。聽起來有些聳人聽聞，但事實上並非如此。

The phrase isn’t mine—it belongs to Tim Leberecht, author of the soon-to-be released The Business Romantic. But the moment I heard it, I recognized the phenomenon. It describes an effect I’ve experienced several times but couldn’t easily define, let alone know how or why it was so gratifying.
這種說法並非我的原創——它的版權屬於蒂姆o列伯萊希特。他的新書《商業羅曼蒂克》（The Business Romantic）即將出版。最初聽到這種說法，我就立刻確認出這種現象。它描述的效果，我也曾經歷過許多次，但不知道該如何定義，更不知道這種效果如何或者爲什麼令人如此滿意

Thick presence is spending several unbroken hours with someone, unplugged and untethered to phones. For a stricter definition, imagine a daylong meeting with one other person to discuss one project—without the interference of email, phones, or other obligations.
所謂“親密共處”就是連續幾個小時與某個人在一起，不插電，遠離電話。更嚴謹的說法是，想象與另外一個人進行一整天的會談，討論一個項目——沒有電子郵件、電話或其他職責的干擾。

I realize this may sound dreadful. The thick presence moments I experienced over the past year went something like this: Meet client shortly after 9 a.m. Have coffee and a pastry. Sit down at a big table amid all the documents and deliverables we’ll be discussing. Chat for a long while then get to work. A few hours in, we order in lunch, stopping only to tip the delivery person and for bathroom breaks. We let the conversation wander into personal territory at times because we are not relentlessly on task—in fact, we’re being very much ourselves. What matters is that for the approximately nine hours we’re together, we are stuck with each other. Stuck in the moment. Stuck with this one item on our shared to-do list, and we can’t call it a day until it’s crossed off.
我知道這聽起來可能有些可怕。我在過去一年經歷過這種“親密共處”時刻：上午剛過9點去見客戶。一起喝咖啡，吃點心。坐在一張大桌子前面，桌子上擺滿了我們將要討論的所有文件和可交付成果。我們聊了一會兒，然後開始工作。幾個小時之後，我們訂了午餐，期間除了給送餐員小費，去了一趟洗手間，我們一直沒有中斷討論。我們有時候會聊一聊私人的事情，因爲我們不可能永遠專注於任務——事實上，我們非常自由，非常放鬆。重要的是，在大約九個小時內，我們都沉浸在兩個人的世界裏，沉浸在當下，沉浸在我們兩人都需要完成的待辦事項上，直到任務完成，我們才結束了一天的工作。

I’ve noticed that three things happen during these long days. Both my client and I have more energy at the end than we did at the start. Everything that we hoped to do gets done. And difficult decisions we’d dithered on for weeks suddenly become easy to make. Sometimes, in fact, the best answer appears so head-smackingly obvious that we wonder why we never realized it before.
我注意到在這期間發生了三件事。我和我的客戶在臨近結束的時候，比開始的時候精力還要充沛。我們希望做的每件事都圓滿完成。我們糾結數週的艱難決定，突然之間變得非常容易。事實上，有時候，最好的答案變得如此顯而易見，我們都納悶爲什麼此前沒有意識到這一點。

When I described my experience to Leberecht, he said the rare intensity and the “slightly captive” element to thick presence partly explains its effectiveness.
我向列伯萊希特描述我的經歷時，他說“親密共處”所具有的罕見強度和“輕微被監禁”元素，一定程度上可以解釋其效果。

“Kind of like getting stuck in an elevator, and a stranger becomes your new best friend because of the extreme situation,” he added. “We rarely obtain this sense of thickness anymore, because our ever-connected lives are designed for giving us an abundance of exit options for most of our experiences.”
他補充道：“就像困在電梯裏一樣，由於極端的環境，一位陌生人會成爲你最好的新朋友。我們已經很少能獲得這種親密感，因爲永遠在線的生活，讓我們在大多數體驗中有很多退出選項。”

In Leberecht’s view, if you want to forge a deep connection with someone, you’re better off spending 10 non-stop hours together than meeting them 10 times for one hour. It’s the same footprint in terms of total time spent, but the two approaches deliver vastly different outcomes.
按照列伯萊希特的觀點，如果你希望培養與某人的深層關係，你最好用不間斷的10個小時與對方在一起，而不是見他或她10次，每次持續1個小時。雖然所用的時間是相同的，但兩種方法的結果卻截然不同。

Leberecht also believes thick presence is rewarding because it’s actually quite hard—and the amount of effort we put into something often determines how much we value it. “Suffering a little,” as Leberecht puts it—“in this case, spending a whole day together in quasi-captivity and with no distractions”—disrupts our routine in a way that feels valuable. Doing this out-of-the-ordinary thing heightens the sense that the task as well as the people are involved are important.
此外，列伯萊希特還認爲，“親密共處”是有益的，因爲我們真的很難做到這一點，而我們對一件事情的重視程度通常取決於我們爲之付出的努力。正如列伯萊希特所解釋的那樣，“承受一點痛苦”——“在這個案例中，這種痛苦指的是，類似被囚禁一樣相處一整天，沒有其他干擾”——可以用一種讓我們覺得有價值的方式打破常規。做這種不平常的事情，會增強一種感覺，即需要完成的這項任務，以及需要相處的這個人都非常重要。

But why did my clients and I actually get more done? Leberecht believes it’s a function of the risk involved. The probability of getting on each other’s nerves is off the charts. And that’s a good thing. “In thick settings, conflicts rise and escalate faster, which, by the way, is another business argument for thick presence,” he says. “It is an effective incubator and testing ground for ideas.”
但爲什麼我和我的客戶實際上完成了更多任務？列伯萊希特認爲，這是相關風險的一種功能。讓對方緊張不安的可能性非常高，而這是好事。他說道：“在親密情景中，衝突會更快出現和升級，而這也是支持親密共處的另外一個商業理由。這是一種非常有效的創意孵化器和試驗場。”

Sitting so near each other makes it hard to disguise disagreements—and there’s less incentive to do so. One might as well say whatever needs saying. It’s easier to share a prickly, possibly unpleasant truth when one can cushion the impact with a wobbly smile or a small kindness, even something as trivial as refilling someone’s water glass or getting up to fetch them another napkin.
彼此如此靠近，隱瞞分歧變得更難——而且人們也沒有這樣做的動機。一個人可能會說任何需要說的話。分享棘手的、可能令人不快的事實也變得更加容易，因爲一方可以通過一絲微笑或小小的善意，甚至幫對方倒水或再拿一張餐巾紙這種細微的動作，來消除說出這些事實的影響。

It’s no coincidence, Leberecht posits, “that conflict resolution often requires the conflict parties to spend face-time together and that negotiations typically do not follow a 9-to-5 schedule. In politics or in business, thick settings force each side to truly ‘see’ the other and their agenda. This can catalyze the decision-making process.”
列伯萊希特斷定：“解決衝突通常需要衝突雙方面對面談判，而且談判一般不會按照朝九晚五的安排進行，這並非巧合。在政治或商業當中，親密的環境迫使雙方真正‘看到’對方和他們的議程。這樣做可以推動決策進程。”

Perhaps thick presence is best appreciated when one considers the more common alternatives: meetings in which half the participants are tuned out or checking email—all while the other half drones on with self-important status reports; the conference calls that feel like utter wastes of time. Leberecht suggests that instead of weekly two-hour conference calls, collaborators on a project should spend one full day with each other once a month. Participants will take care of whatever the point of the call was, but they’ll also get more. The strengthened personal connections will transcend and outlast the project.
或許當人們在考慮更常見的替代方案時，才最能體會到親密環境的價值。比如，開會的時候，一半與會者在考慮自己的問題或查看電子郵件，而另外一半則在滔滔不絕地講述自以爲是的狀態報告；電話會議讓人感覺純粹是在浪費時間。列伯萊希特建議，不要每週拿出兩個小時召開電話會議，項目的合作方應該每個月拿出一整天，在一起討論問題。與會者將處理會議的所有議題，不過他們也會得到更多。人際關係的增強，要比項目本身更有價值，也更加持久。

Empathy is required going into thick presence, but thick presence also generates new empathy. It’s a virtuous cycle,” Leberecht says. “I truly believe the world would be a better place if we had Thick Days at work.”
要想進入親密共處狀態，必須具備同理心，而這種狀態也會產生新的同理心。這是一個良性循環。列伯萊希特表示：“我相信，如果我們在工作當中都能推行這種理念，世界將變得更美好。”

Does this mean that companies should somehow institutionalize this practice? Not exactly.
這是否意味着公司應該將這種做法制度化？未必要這樣做。

“What I’m hoping for, though, is that we establish a different mindset that embraces experiences of thickness as valuable and critical ingredients of business,” Leberecht says. “Not because they add up to heightened productivity or directly impact the bottom line, but because they allow us to make our companies more humane and bring our full selves to work, meeting others and ourselves in unexpected, more meaningful ways.”
列伯萊希特表示：“但我希望我們能夠建立一種不同的思維，將親密體驗作爲商業活動寶貴而關鍵的組成部分。並非因爲這種做法能提高工作效率或直接影響收益，而是因爲它可以將我們的公司變得更加人性化，讓我們全身心投入工作，用意想不到的、更有意義的方式去接觸其他人和我們自己。”（財富中文網）