20240927|管理者在工作中应该多友善?

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Cool to be kind

待人友善是可以的

How nice should managers be at work?

管理者在工作中应该多友善？

Kindness is in the air.

随处可以感受到友善的气息。

Publishers produce business books with titles like "The Power of Nice" or, simply, "Kind".

出版商出版了一些标题为《友善的力量》，或者标题更简单的《善良》之类的商业书籍。

LinkedIn, which is ostensibly a networking site for career-minded professionals, is overrun with sickly videos showing people being improbably generous to the homeless.

领英在表面上是一个面向追求职业发展的职场人士的社交网站，却充斥着虚情假意的视频，展示人们对流浪汉难以置信地慷慨大方。

Firms publicly embrace the values of compassion: one manufacturer of safety-gear talks of "offering grace internally", which sounds terribly intrusive.

各大公司公开拥抱重视同情的价值观：一家安全装备制造商谈到“在公司内部提供恩惠”，这听起来非常让人不舒服。

The fashion for niceness is both trite and revealing.

这种追求友善的风尚既是老生常谈，也能说明一些问题。

Trite, because it is really not surprising that people respond well to decent behaviour from colleagues and bosses.

老生常谈，因为人们对同事和老板的得体行为有良好的反应，这确实不令人惊讶。

It would take a brave author to write a book called "Stand Up for Psychopathy" or "Three Cheers for the Dark Triad".

而要写一本名为《为精神变态者辩护》或《为黑暗天地会欢呼》的书则需要作者有很大的勇气。（注：天地会是清朝的秘密犯罪组织。）

Revealing, because it shows how the leadership pendulum has swung.

能说明一些问题，因为这种风尚展示了领导层的态度是如何转变的。

A recent meta-analysis of research into niceness and effective leadership, by Andrew Blake of Texas Tech University and his co-authors, concludes that the two do often go together.

最近，得克萨斯理工大学的安德鲁·布莱克及其合著者对友善性格和有效领导的研究进行了元分析，得出的结论是，这两者确实经常同时出现。

Studies into bosses' agreeableness, one of the "Big Five" personality traits (along with openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism), have found that it is tied to ethical behaviour, workplace trust and psychological safety, among other beneficial things.

对老板宜人性的研究发现，宜人性与道德行为、职场信任和心理安全等其他有益因素有关。宜人性是大五人格特质之一（另外四个是对体验的开放性、尽责性、外向性和神经质）。

That, in turn, can improve aspects of a firm's performance.

这继而又可以改善公司业绩的各个方面。

A recent paper by Charles O'Reilly of Stanford University and his co-authors looked at the relationship between chief executives' personalities and reviews of their organisations' culture on Glassdoor, an employee-ratings website.

斯坦福大学的查尔斯·奥赖利及其合著者最近发表的一篇论文研究了CEO的性格与员工评价网站“玻璃门”上员工对其组织文化的评价之间的关系。

Agreeable bosses were associated with cultures that were more collaborative and innovative.

随和的老板与更具合作性和创新性的文化有相关性。

Niceness seems to matter more than it once did.

友善似乎比以往任何时候都更重要。

A meta-analysis of research ending in the late 1990s did not find evidence of a strong connection between agreeableness and effective leadership.

一项在20世纪90年代末结束的元分析没有发现宜人性与有效领导之间存在紧密联系的证据。

Some of this shift doubtless reflects the way organisations have evolved: teams matter more, along with the social skills that ease co-operation.

这种转变无疑在一定程度上反映了组织的演变：团队变得更加重要，同时有助于促进合作的社交技能也变得更加重要。

Some of it may also reflect more volatility in the outside world.

其中一些转变也可能反映出外部世界变得更具有波动性。

A study by Soo Ling Lim of University College London and her co-authors looked at the performance of MBA students at London Business School across ten academic years, and found that agreeableness improves outcomes when levels of uncertainty about a task-and presumably, the need to work together harmoniously-are higher.

伦敦大学学院的苏玲丽（音译）及其合著者的一项研究考察了伦敦商学院MBA学生在十个学年中的表现，发现当任务的不确定性较高时——据此可推测，也更需要融洽合作时——宜人性会带来更好的结果。

It is progress to get away from the era of "nice guys finish last", not least for those people who aren't guys: women have long suffered more from perceptions of lower competence if they display warmth.

摆脱“好人没本事”的时代是一种进步，尤其对于那些不是男性的人来说：表现出温暖会被视为能力不够强，一直以来女性受这种观念的影响更深。

But you can have too much of anything, even kindness.

但是任何东西都过犹不及，包括友善。

Agreeableness is not the only trait that matters for a boss: a delightful but highly neurotic person may struggle in stressful situations.

宜人性并不是老板唯一重要的特质：一个令人愉快但高度神经质的人可能会在压力情况下万分挣扎。（注：神经质在大五人格中指情绪稳定性和情绪反应程度。）

Employees vary too: some people care less about empathy and more about money.

员工也各不相同：有些人不太关心同理心，更关心钱。

There are moments-when employees have suffered a personal trauma, for example-when warmth is the most important test of a company's character.

有一些时刻，例如当员工遭受个人创伤时，此时温暖是对公司性格的最重要考验。

But in other circumstances, different traits matter.

但在其他情况下，其他不同的特征很重要。

People who score less well on agreeableness are liable to be less trusting, more competitive and more confrontational.

在宜人性方面得分较低的人可能不太信任他人、更具竞争性，也更具对抗性。

That may not recommend them as friends but could well be an advantage in certain contexts.

这或许不能使他们成为朋友，但在某些情况下这种性格可能是优势。

Mr O'Reilly's paper finds, for example, that different industries attract leaders with varying personality types: bosses in the financial-services industry are comparatively less agreeable, for example, than those who work in health care.

例如，奥赖利的论文发现，不同的行业吸引不同性格类型的领导者：例如，金融服务业的老板相对而言不如医疗保健行业的老板随和。

Kindness may also count for less in negotiation-heavy roles like sales.

对于像销售这种需要大量谈判的角色，友善可能也不那么重要。

A recent paper by Daniel Keum and Nandil Bhatia of Columbia Business School looks at how changing economic conditions can affect the types of bosses who lead firms.

哥伦比亚商学院的丹尼尔·基姆和南迪尔·巴蒂亚最近发表的一篇论文研究了不断变化的经济状况如何影响领导公司的老板类型。

The researchers gauge chief executives' "prosociality" (their concern for the welfare of others) by looking at things like their charitable activities and their language on earnings calls.

研究者通过观察CEO们的慈善活动和财报电话会议上的措辞用语等方面，来衡量他们的“亲社会性”（即他们对他人福祉的关心程度）。

Prosocial bosses can be slower to restructure firms in bad times, and the authors find that during periods of intensifying competition they were more likely to be replaced by less caring types.

亲社会的老板在困难时期可能会更慢地重组公司，作者还发现，在竞争加剧的时期，他们更有可能被不那么关心员工的老板所取代。

When layoffs are necessary, boards don't want Samaritans in charge.

当裁员不可避免时，董事会不希望由乐善好施的人当领导。（注：Samaritan指《圣经》中善良的撒马利亚人。）

What there is no excuse for is unkindness.

但不友善没有任何可辩解的借口。

There is a basic level of decency, civility and courtesy to which everyone is entitled and from which all organisations benefit.

每个人都有权得到基本的体面、文明和礼貌对待，所有组织也都能从中受益。

Kindness is not a management doctrine.

友善不是一种管理教条。

But its absence is a management failure.

但是友善缺失是一种管理上的失败。