如何避免成爲老古董 How to avoid becoming out of date
Five years ago, when I became dean of Nottingham University Business School, the inclination among many of my students to view me as a dinosaur was not only painfully manifest, but entirely understandable. After all, the vast majority of undergraduates are in their late teens, whereas I am, well, comfortably past that particular milestone.
5年前，當我出任諾丁漢商學院(Nottingham University Business School)的院長時，很多學生都明明白白地傾向於把我視爲老古董，這讓我很鬱悶，但我也完全可以理解。畢竟，絕大部分的大學生都還踩着青春期的尾巴，而我，好吧，已毫無疑問度過了這一時期。
What is much more obvious to me now, as I hand over the reins to my successor, is the speed at which we all risk becoming “out of date”. Each of us might continue to contribute very effectively, yet the truth is that most of us soon find ourselves, to some extent, removed from the cutting edge of technology and development.
如今，當我把院長的重任交給我的繼任者時，在我看來明顯得多的是，我們所有人加速面臨“過時”的風險。我們每個人或許非常高效地繼續做着貢獻，但事實是，我們中大多數人很快發現，自己或多或少地脫離了科技和發展的前沿。
As someone whose research has long focused on innovation and creative problem-solving, I consider this one of the most perturbing issues I encountered during my deanship. I also believe it is one that deans have a duty to address. It is a concern pertinent to business schools everywhere, because it is illustrative of a worrying acceleration in the uncertainty of students’ future requirements.
作爲長期專注於研究創新和創造性解決問題的人，我認爲這是我擔任院長期間遇到的最令人焦慮的問題之一。我認爲這也是院長們有義務解決的問題。這與世界各地的商學院息息相關，因爲它表明未來對學生要求的不確定性也在令人擔憂地加速增長。
I had responsibility for around 2,000 students in the UK, as well as oversight of another 3,200 within the business schools at the University of Nottingham’s campuses in China and Malaysia. Steering the curriculum so that it would best meet their needs in terms of content and delivery was among the most important elements of my remit.
我曾對英國大約2000名學生負有責任，還對諾丁漢大學中國和馬來西亞校區商學院裏的另外3200名學生負有監督義務。從整體上把握課程設置，使之可以最好地滿足學生在教學內容和教學效果方面的需求，是我工作職責中極爲重要的一部分。
As I increasingly came to appreciate, this is no easy task for any dean. A major hurdle – and I know from attending conferences that the successes and shortcomings with which I became familiar are shared by deans the world over – is the disconnect between one’s own experiences and the environment that students are preparing to face.
正如我在工作中逐漸領會的，這對任何一位院長來說都非易事。主要的障礙是院長的個人閱歷與學生將要面對的環境脫節，而通過參加各種會議，我瞭解到，我在工作中逐漸熟悉的種種成功和不足，也是世界各地的商學院院長們都會遇到的。
This detachment exists even where the rise to deanship, unlike my own, has been meteoric. The pace of transformation is nowadays so rapid, so relentless, that the struggle to remain genuinely relevant to the “real world” is constant. Even many students may find that by their mid-twenties they are slightly distanced from the new actualities confronting teenagers. Dinosaurs are getting younger.
即便一位院長很快就升到了這一位置（不像我是花了很長時間），這種脫節也會存在。如今的轉型步伐如此之快、如此之殘酷，以至於真正與“真實世界”保持聯繫成爲一場持久戰。甚至很多學生也可能發現，到25歲左右，他們已經與青少年面對的新現實稍有脫節。老古董越來越年輕了。
How do business schools guard against this threat? Needless to say, complacency is not an option. A dean’s most significant contribution to the cause may well be to demonstrate that a truly meaningful culture of change, adaptation and improvement – as opposed to mere rhetoric – must start at the top and be all-encompassing.
商學院的守護者如何防範這種威脅？不用說，故步自封肯定是不行的。院長對這份事業最重要的貢獻，很可能就是用行動（而不只是言語）證明，真正有意義的崇尚改變、適應和改善的文化，必須從領導層做起、把所有人和事都包括進來。
Alternative perspectives are vital in this regard. Although, I felt authoritative confidence should be a crucial component of my leadership, I surrounded myself with a close team whose members were sufficiently self-assured and curious to provide me – and each other – with much-needed reality checks.
就這點而言，不同的視角至關重要。儘管我當時覺得，作爲領導的自信應該是構成我領導力的關鍵組成部分，但我讓一個團隊緊密包圍在自己身邊，團隊的成員有充分的自信和好奇心，可以讓我——以及我們彼此——提供亟需的現實檢驗。
Similarly, the advice, perceptions and outlooks of those from beyond academia can be of enormous worth. In some ways this is the very essence of creative problem-solving: the acknowledgment that answers lurk everywhere. The chances are that every one of us, even if unwittingly, has dealt with a difficulty by redefining it in more expansive terms, discovering an analogous instance where it has been overcome and tailoring the solution to suit our circumstances. There is much to be said for shifting from the specific to the general and back again.
同樣，學術界以外人士的建議、看法和設想也可以非常有價值。在某些方面，這就是創造性解決問題的實質所在——承認答案可能來自任何地方。我們每個人在處理難題時，即便是無意的，也很可能先對它進行更普遍的界定，發現曾經解決過的類似問題，然後據此制定適用於眼下情況的解決方案。從特殊到普遍、再從普遍到特殊，這其中有太多值得大書特書的道理。
It is also essential that academics continue to teach. It is not uncommon for senior staff to feel their research eminence somehow absolves them of this commitment, at least as far as undergraduate teaching is concerned. Some have lost confidence in their own abilities; others have forgotten the huge value of such work. The more you isolate yourself from the student population, the likelier you are to be seen as a dinosaur.
學校繼續授業解惑也是至關重要的。高級教職工感覺，他們在研究上的成功某種程度上使他們免除了這種職責（至少在本科教學方面），這並不罕見。一些人對自己的教學能力失去信心；還有些人忘記了教學工作的巨大價值。你跟學生距離越遠，你就越可能被視爲老古董。
Perhaps above all, though, business schools would do well to remember the power of radical innovation. I have long believed this, even when I was confined to weighing in with supposedly wise words from the safety of the sidelines, and half a decade on a loftier perch has only reinforced my opinion. I have been able to see much more clearly how business schools serve their students and their stakeholders. I can only conclude that the vast potential afforded by radical innovation remains greatly unexplored and underexploited.
不過，或許商學院最好牢記根本性創新的力量。長期以來，我一直相信這一點，即便在我還限於只能作爲旁觀者、安全地提出理應明智的建議時就是如此，而5年來身居高位反而強化了我的觀點。我可以更透徹地理解商學院如何服務於其學生及其股東。我只能得出一個結論：根本性創新帶來的巨大潛能，在很大程度上尚未被髮掘和充分利用。
The fact is that the university sector as a whole is stuck in a rut of incrementalism. Multidisciplinary collaborations – not the neatly aligned alliances that proliferate today but imaginative unions that might substantially add to our epistemic base and reshape our overall approach – represent a route out of that rut. Business schools too easily overlook how strongly placed they are to take a lead in championing the radical over the risk-averse.
事實上，整個大學仍然陷於老一套的漸進主義之中。多學科合作可以帶領我們跳出窠臼——並非如今大量出現的那種整齊劃一的合作，而是可能從實質上擴充我們的知識基礎、並重塑我們整體方法的那種具有想象力的聯合。商學院太容易忽視它們有多麼好的條件去帶頭支持冒險（而非規避風險）了。
Of course, most of us will still become dinosaurs eventually. Such a fate is to some degree inescapable in a world of ceaseless change, irrespective of age, experience and attitude. But accepting the near-inevitable bestowing of personal Jurassic status is one thing; openly inviting mass extinction is quite another.
當然，我們多數人最終仍將成爲老古董。在不斷改變的世界裏，無論你的年齡幾何、閱歷多少和態度怎樣，在一定程度上都難逃這樣的命運。但是，接受幾乎不可避免的老古董封號是一回事，公然地靜待被整體淘汰則完全是另一回事。
