職業的玩世不恭是種病 Cynicism about purpose is a disease that needs fighting

Husband-and-wife PhD students Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh have switched careers to pursue research into a rare genetic disease that killed Ms Vallabh’s mother and could kill her.

埃裏克•米尼克爾(Eric Minikel)和索尼婭•瓦拉巴(Sonia Vallabh)夫婦都是博士生，爲了研究一種罕見的遺傳疾病，他們放棄了自己原本的職業。這種病已經奪去了瓦拉巴母親的生命，而且可能還會奪去她的生命。

Insurance executive Mark Bertolini once quit his job to manage his cancer-stricken son’s care in person, learning lessons he later used to run one of the largest US health insurers. “Time is short,” says the chief executive of Aetna, who wears a black skull-shaped ring as a memento mori.

安泰保險(Aetna)的首席執行官馬克•貝托裏尼(Mark Bertolini)曾辭掉工作，專心照料自己深受癌症折磨的兒子，後來他將這段經驗運用到對這家美國大型健康保險企業的管理中。貝托裏尼說：“生命短暫。”他手上帶着一枚象徵死亡的黑骷髏戒指。

Here are two examples of people whose work is driven by meaning and purpose. A cynic might say they are extreme exceptions to the rule that most staff slouch into the office without much sense of what they give to their job, other than too many hours each day, and what they want from it, other than a prompt finish and a regular pay cheque.

在以上兩個例子中，人們的工作動力來自於意義和目的。一個玩世不恭的人可能會說這些不過是極端個例，大多數上班族通常都是沒精打采地走進辦公室，既不知道除了每天貢獻那麼多時間，自己還爲這份工作貢獻了什麼；也不知道除了按部就班地工作、按時領薪水以外，自己還能從這份工作中得到什麼。

This default cynicism is understandable, but it is too easy.

這種預設的嘲諷可以理解，但未免說得太過輕巧。

Polished and promoted by corporate marketers, declarations of purpose, values and meaning at work will always run the risk of becoming as hollow as most mission statements. When they collide with the harsher reality of key performance indicators and bonus targets, they often shatter.

在企業營銷人員的美化和宣傳下，關於工作目的、價值和意義的聲明總是有流於空洞的風險，就像大多數使命宣言那樣。當這些空話碰上關鍵績效指標和獎金目標，往往被這些嚴酷現實撞得粉碎。

At a recent conference run by Blueprint for Better Business (where I am a trustee), Nava Ashraf of London School of Economics said companies could “make things worse” by talking about purpose but behaving at odds with their proclaimed ethos. Research shows staff “can’t get their work done, [if] they’re spending all their energy” dealing with such dissonance.

Blueprint for Better Business（我是這家機構的一名受託人）最近舉行了一次會議，倫敦政治經濟學院(London School of Economics)的納瓦•阿什拉芙(Nava Ashraf)在會上表示，企業行爲如果與其宣稱的理念不一致，空談目標可能會“讓事情變得更糟”。研究表明企業員工“如果將全部精力都用於應付這類說一套做一套的風氣，就無法好好完成工作”。

The meaning that Ms Vallabh or Mr Bertolini invest in their work is so rarefied it may seem out of reach. Wider Americanised rhetoric about bringing love into the office is so absurd in some other cultures that it is easier to stand aloof and mock it. No passion, please, we’re British.

瓦拉巴和貝托裏尼賦予工作的意義實在太過崇高，看起來似乎遙不可及。在某些文化中，類似把愛帶到辦公室這種美國式的浮誇言辭又顯得過於荒唐，很容易格格不入，受人嘲笑。拜託，請不要這麼激情澎湃，我們是英國人。

Such cynicism is itself dangerous. Cynics presume any organisation that talks about purpose must be lying, or at least covering up a worse truth. It pushes companies back into the conventional, old-fashioned approach: do an unimpeachably good thing in one department, often called corporate social responsibility, while signalling to everyone in the rest of the group that they should get on with “real work”.

這類冷嘲熱諷本身非常危險。憤世嫉俗者假定所有大談目的的組織肯定都是在撒謊，或至少隱瞞了糟糕的真相。這會令企業退回到舊式的傳統做法：在一個部門做一件無可挑剔的好事——通常稱之爲企業的社會責任——藉此暗示公司其他部門所有人，他們應該幹好“真正的工作”。

The wife of one blue-chip chairman once berated me at a dinner because her husband could not declare progress in his quest to meet strict social responsibility goals, for fear journalists would hunt down an ethical breach.

在一次晚宴上，一家藍籌公司的董事長的妻子曾斥責我，她的丈夫一直致力於實現嚴格的社會責任目標，卻不能公佈自己取得的進展，就是因爲擔心記者會窮追不捨，試圖找出一件違背道德倫理的事情。

I don’t buy that argument. Some scepticism is needed to stop companies themselves behaving cynically. If they set high goals and fall short — building “clean” cars and then cheating the system that measures how clean they are, for example — they make it harder to trust those who are just setting out on a more purposeful path.

我並不接受這樣的指責。企業需要一些懷疑，以阻止它們做出見利忘義的行爲。如果它們制定了遠大的目標，卻做不到——比如立志打造“清潔”汽車，卻欺騙用來測量這些汽車有多清潔的系統——會令那些制定了明確目標的企業更難取信於人。

Outright cynicism can, though, deter companies from taking the first steps towards aligning profit and purpose. As Sacha Romanovitch, chief executive of Grant Thornton UK, told the Blueprint conference, leaders need permission to talk about what is not going well “without being knocked down for it”.

不過，全然的不信任會妨礙企業採取使利潤與宗旨相一致的初步舉措。正如Grant Thornton UK的首席執行官薩沙•羅曼諾維奇(Sacha Romanovitc)在Blueprint會議上所講，應允許企業領導人談論進展不順利的地方，“而不會因此被擊垮”。

Individuals have a role in advancing purpose. “We’re optimistic and hopeful that we’re moving the ball forward. We can put energy there instead of spinning wheels for things I can’t affect,” Ms Vallabh told the Harvard Gazette. Fear of suffering drives her and her husband’s search for a treatment for the brain disease whose traces she carries in her DNA.

個人力量在推動工作目的性方面發揮了一定作用。瓦拉巴對《哈佛公報》(Harvard Gazette)表示：“我們很樂觀，而且充滿希望，我們相信自己正在推動世界前進。我們可以將精力投入到這裏，而不用去推動那些我不喜歡的事情。”母親所罹患的大腦疾病就隱藏在她的DNA裏，對病痛的恐懼驅使着她和丈夫去尋找這種疾病的治療方法。

But not everybody needs such a dramatic spur to action. It is not necessary for most people to plough everything they stand for into their work. It may not even be desirable. Feeding yourself completely into your job can mean starving family or friends. The assumption that work has no meaning, though, is a prescription for drift, disillusion and, at worst, self-deception. People who could not care less about their work may behave differently — and even in the opposite way — from how they behave at home.

但並不是每個人都需要這樣激烈的鞭策去採取行動。對於大多數人來說沒必要懷着自己的全部理想投入到工作中去。這甚至並不可取。全情投入到工作中可能意味着虧欠家人朋友。但認定自己的工作毫無意義，則是喪失理想、渾噩度日、自欺欺人（這一點是最可怕的）的安慰劑。那些對工作毫不在意的人，可能在家的表現會有所不同，甚至是截然相反。

Just a tiny pipetteful of the purpose that drives Ms Vallabh or Mr Bertolini could make a job more fulfilling, a workplace more productive and, yes — idealistic though it may sound — business and society happier, more humane, and more prosperous.

只要在工作中加入一點兒目的性，那種驅動瓦拉巴和貝托裏尼去工作的目的，就可以讓工作更充實，上班效率更高，而且——聽起來可能有些理想主義——還會讓企業和整個社會變得更快樂、更人性化、更繁榮。

Cynicism about the idea that the best work should have meaning, or the best companies should have purpose, is itself like a disease, gnawing away at trust in business until it collapses entirely. It needs to be fought, because Mr Bertolini is right. Time is short.

對最好的工作應該有意義、或最好的企業應該有目的這樣的想法冷嘲熱諷，本身就像一種疾病，會蛀空對企業的信任，直到其徹底垮掉。人們應該與玩世不恭作鬥爭，因爲貝托裏尼說得對，生命短暫。