向福爾摩斯學點職場決策技巧大綱

For this installment, 250 Words’ Sam McNerney sits down with Max Bazerman. Bazerman is the co-director of the Center for Public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Straus Professor at the Harvard Business School, and the author of numerous books. His latest, The Power of Noticing: What The Best Leaders See, explores how to make the best business decisions by deploying a little corporate detective work.

本期，《財富》書評欄目250 Words的山姆?麥克納尼將採訪馬克斯?巴澤曼。巴澤曼是哈佛大學肯尼迪學院（Harvard Kennedy School）公共領導力中心（Center for Public Leadership）聯席主任，哈佛商學院（Harvard Business School）施特勞斯教席教授，曾出版過多部作品。他的新書《警覺的力量：最優秀的領導人會看到什麼？》（The Power of Noticing: What The Best Leaders See）探討了如何通過一些偵探工作，做出最佳商業決策。

Sam talks to Bazerman about arch corporate villains Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Skilling, what we can learn from magicians, and what it takes to be a “first-class noticer.”

山姆與巴澤曼談論了商界大反派伯尼?麥道夫和傑弗裏?思科林，我們從魔術師身上可以學到什麼？以及要成爲“一流的觀察者”需要哪些條件？

McNerney: In another recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman talks about our intractable tendency to only consider readily apparent information. He even has an acronym for it: WYSIATI, or What You See Is All There Is. You write that “what you see is not all there is.” We fail to consider additional information, even when it’s available. Is there hope for us?

麥克納尼：最近出版的另外一本書《思考，快與慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow）中，丹尼爾?卡尼曼談到了一種比較棘手的傾向，即人們只會考慮顯而易見的信息。他還用一個縮寫來代表這種情形：WYSIATI，意思是“眼見即爲事實(What You See Is All There Is)”。而你卻寫道“眼見不見得是事實。”我們疏於考慮唾手可得的額外信息。這種情況能改變嗎？

Bazerman: Danny Kahneman and I do not disagree here. His wonderful book argues that humans act as if what they see is all there is, and there is amazing evidence supportive of this position. The Power of Noticing focuses on the benefits of seeking additional information. First-class noticers differ from most of us in that they move beyond the limitations that Danny so accurately describes.

巴澤曼：丹尼?卡尼曼和我在這方面確實有點分歧。他的著作中提到，人類會根據眼見爲實的想法行事，並且提出了有力的證據支持這種立場。而《觀察的力量》則主要討論尋找額外信息帶來的好處。一流的觀察者與大多數人的區別在於，他們會超越丹尼精確描述的侷限性。

We can all move toward becoming what I call first-class noticers. The first step is to put it on your agenda to look around to see what information around you is important. Second, I recommend taking a break from the intense focus that is typical of successful professionals and ask what information you might be missing. Third, ask what features of your organization may be preventing employees from noticing critical information, and take steps to change the organization to reward people for noticing key threats and challenges to the organization.

我們都可以成爲我所說的“一流的觀察者”。第一步是從周圍尋找重要信息，並將其作爲一項日常工作。其次，我建議在強烈的專注之後休息一下，檢查你可能錯過了哪些信息。強烈的專注是成功專業人士的典型特點。第三，詢問有哪些組織結構特性可能妨礙了員工注意到關鍵信息，並採取措施對組織結構進行改革，對於指出組織面臨的重大威脅和挑戰的員工，要給予獎勵。

And, finally, you need to do better than the hedge funds that fed money to Madoff, and the executives at Penn State, and take a closer look when something seems wrong.

最後，你需要比那些爲麥道夫“送錢”的對衝基金和賓夕法尼亞州州立大學（Penn State）的高管們做得更好，一旦發現任何錯誤跡象，都要更仔細地觀察。

Bernie Madoff. Jeffrey Skilling. There are bad guys in every industry. But you write that maybe they’re not the real problem—that instead, there are actually a lot of little, maybe unwitting nefarious decisions and innocent but silent bystanders that really do the most harm. Could you talk about how “implicit blindness” can lure good people into unethical behavior?

伯尼?麥道夫。傑弗裏?思科林。每一個行業都有壞人。但你在書中說，他們或許並不是真正的問題——相反，那些或許無意間做出的看似微不足道的不公決定，以及雖然無辜但保持沉默的旁觀者，反而會造成最大的傷害。

There will always be bad guys. In the next decade, new crooks will emerge, and philosophers and religious leaders haven’t provided too many insights on how to stop them. But psychology has unlocked a number of tools to help the rest of us do a better job of seeing and acting on the unethical behavior of others. Madoff would have been caught many years earlier if those who should have noticed had acted on what they saw. But, too often, people do not see information that would cause short-term negative effects. We do not see the limitations of the employee we hired or the possible ethical challenges of the investment that we chose.

壞人會不斷出現。未來十年，又會出現新一批惡棍，哲學家和宗教領袖們對此也束手無策。但心理學家卻研究出一系列工具，可以幫助我們更有效地發現和應對其他人的不道德行爲。如果當初本該有警惕性的人能採取一些措施，恐怕麥道夫會提前許多年鋃鐺入獄。然而，通常情況下，人們不會看到會造成短期負面影響的信息。我們不會看到我們聘用的員工的侷限性，或者我們選擇的投資所面臨的倫理挑戰。