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哈佛商学院领导力与管理教授埃米·埃德蒙森：如何将一群陌生人变成一个团队？

Amy Edmondson: How to turn a group of strangers into a team

埃米·埃德蒙森：如何将一群陌生人变成一个团队？

It’s August 5, 2010. A massive collapse at the San José Copper Mine in Northern Chile has left 33 men trapped half a mile — that’s two Empire State Buildings — below some of the hardest rock in the world. They will find their way to a small refuge designed for this purpose, where they will find intense heat, filth and about enough food for two men for 10 days. Aboveground, it doesn’t take long for the experts to figure out that there is no solution. No drilling technology in the industry is capable of getting through rock that hard and that deep fast enough to save their lives. It’s not exactly clear where the refuge is. It’s not even clear if the miners are alive. And it’s not even clear who’s in charge. Yet, within 70 days, all 33 of these men will be brought to the surface alive. This remarkable story is a case study in the power of teaming.

时间是2010年8月5日。智利北部的圣荷西铜矿矿坑发生重大坍崩，33个人被困在世上最坚硬的岩石下方半英哩处——那是两栋帝国大厦的高度。他们会找到一个为了这种状况所设计的庇护所，在那里，他们会找到的，是很高的温度、肮脏物，以及大约够2名男性生存10天的食物。在地面上，没有多久专家就知道没有可行的解决方案。在这个产业中，没有任何钻洞技术能够穿过这么坚硬的岩石，且要钻这么深，还要够快才能在出人命前救到人。庇护所的确切位置是未知的。矿工甚至生死未明。更不知道是谁在负责主导。然而，在70天之后，33个人都被活着带回地面。这个了不起的故事，是很好的个案研究，可以说明联手的力量。

So what’s “teaming”? Teaming is teamwork on the fly. It’s coordinating and collaborating with people across boundaries of all kinds — expertise, distance, time zone, you name it — to get work done.

「联手」是什么？联手就是快速的团队合作。它是与人协调及合作，且要跨越各种界线——专长、距离、时区，想得到的都是——来把事情搞定。

Think of your favorite sports team, because this is different. Sports teams work together: that magic, those game-saving plays. Now, sports teams win because they practice. But you can only practice if you have the same members over time. And so you can think of teaming . . . Sports teams embody the definition of a team, the formal definition. It’s a stable, bounded, reasonably small group of people who are interdependent in achieving a shared outcome. You can think of teaming as a kind of pickup game in the park, in contrast to the formal, well-practiced team. Now, which one is going to win in a playoff? The answer is obvious. So why do I study teaming? It’s because it’s the way more and more of us have to work today. With 24/7 global fast-paced operations, crazy shifting schedules and ever-narrower expertise, more and more of us have to work with different people all the time to get our work done. We don’t have the luxury of stable teams. Now, when you can have that luxury, by all means do it. But increasingly for a lot of the work we do today, we don’t have that option. One place where this is true is hospitals. This is where I’ve done a lot of my research over the years. So it turns out hospitals have to be open 24/7. And patients — well, they’re all different. They’re all different in complicated and unique ways. The average hospitalized patient is seen by 60 or so different caregivers throughout his stay. They come from different shifts, different specialties, different areas of expertise, and they may not even know each other’s name. But they have to coordinate in order for the patient to get great care. And when they don’t, the results can be tragic.

想想你最喜欢的运动队伍，因为这是不同的。运动队伍会同心协力：那魔法，那些逆转胜的关键发挥。运动队伍会赢，是因为他们有练习。但只有在你的成员不会随时间改变的情况下才有可能练习。所以，你可以把联手想象成……运动队伍是团队定义的具体呈现，正式的定义。它很稳固、有界线、人数合理的一小群人，他们互相依赖以达成一个共同的结果。你们可以把联手想象成公园里的一种临时游戏，和正式、练习良好的队伍是个对比。哪一种会赢得季后赛？答案很明显。那我为什么还要研究联手？因为那是现今我们越来越多人不得不使用的工作方式。随着全天营业、全年无休的全球快步调营运、疯狂转变的时程表，以及狭隘许多的专长，有越来越多人总是得要和不同的人合作才能把工作完成。我们没有稳定团队的奢侈优势。若你有幸能有这种奢侈优势，务必好好用它。但渐渐地，对于现今我们所做的许多工作，我们并没有那个选项。在医院，这个现象就很明显。数年来，我就是在医院中做了许多研究。结果发现，医院必须要全天营业、全年无休。而病人——嗯，他们全都不一样。他们的不同是很复杂且很独特的。平均来说，住院病人在住院期间，会被60个左右不同的照护者来照顾。他们有不同的班表、不同的专长、不同的专门知识领域，他们可能甚至不知道彼此的名字。但他们得要协调，才能让病人得到好的照护。如果他们办不到，就可能会有悲剧性的结果。

Of course, in teaming, the stakes aren’t always life and death. Consider what it takes to create an animated film, an award-winning animated film. I had the good fortune to go to Disney Animation and study over 900 scientists, artists, storytellers, computer scientists as they teamed up in constantly changing configurations to create amazing outcomes like “Frozen.” They just work together, and never the same group twice, not knowing what’s going to happen next. Now, taking care of patients in the emergency room and designing an animated film are obviously very different work. Yet underneath the differences, they have a lot in common. You have to get different expertise at different times, you don’t have fixed roles, you don’t have fixed deliverables, you’re going to be doing a lot of things that have never been done before, and you can’t do it in a stable team.

当然，在联手时牵涉到的利害关系不见得一定是生死。想想看，要制作出一部动画电影，得奖的动画电影，需要什么？我有幸能够到迪斯尼动画公司去研究超过900名科学家、艺术家、故事讲述者、信息科学家，他们常常就会和不同的人搭配组成团队，来创造出很了不起的作品，像是《冰雪奇缘》。他们只是一起工作，团队变来变去，不知道接下来会发生什么事。在急诊室照顾病人和设计一部动画电影很显然是非常不同的工作。但在不同的背后，它们却有很多共同之处。在不同的时候，你得要取得不同的专门知识，你扮演的角色不固定，你要交付的产品也不固定，你得要做很多以前没做过的事，且你无法在稳定的团队中做它。

Now, this way of working isn’t easy, but as I said, it’s more and more the way many of us have to work, so we have to understand it. And I would argue that it’s especially needed for work that’s complex and unpredictable and for solving big problems. Paul Polman, the Unilever CEO, put this really well when he said, “The issues we face today are so big and so challenging, it becomes quite clear we can’t do it alone, and so there is a certain humility in knowing you have to invite people in.” Issues like food or water scarcity cannot be done by individuals, even by single companies, even by single sectors. So we’re reaching out to team across big teaming, grand-scale teaming.

这种工作方式并不容易，但我刚才说过，越来越多人必须用这样的方式工作，所以我们得了解这种方式。而且，我认为，针对复杂且无法预测的工作，以及要解决大问题的情况，了解这种方式更是有必要。保罗波曼，联合利华的执行长，就有段非常棒的描述，他说：「我们现今面对的议题太大了、太有挑战性了，很显然我们无法靠自己完成，所以，知道你得要邀请别人一起合作，这也是一种谦卑。」像是食物或水资源不足这类议题，不可能由个人来解决，甚至不可能由单一公司，或单一部门来解决。所以我们要向外寻求协助，做大型的联手，大规模的联手。

Take the quest for smart cities. Maybe you’ve seen some of the rhetoric: mixed-use designs, zero net energy buildings, smart mobility, green, livable, wonderful cities. We have the vocabulary, we have the visions, not to mention the need. We have the technology. Two megatrends — urbanization, we’re fast becoming a more urban planet, and climate change — have been increasingly pointing to cities as a crucial target for innovation. And now around the world in various locations, people have been teaming up to design and try to create green, livable, smart cities. It’s a massive innovation challenge.

比如打造智慧城市的计划。也许你曾经看过一些相关言论：采用混合用途的设计、零净能建筑、智慧行动力、绿色、适合居住、美好的城市。我们有词汇，我们有远景，更不用说，我们有需求。我们有技术。两项巨大潮流——都市化，我们正在快速变成一个更都市化的星球，还有气候变迁——这两项潮流越来越多清楚显示，城市是创新的关键目标。现在，全世界各地，人们团结起来，设计并试图创造绿色、适合居住、智慧的城市。这是个很大的创新挑战。

To understand it better, I studied a start-up — a smart-city software start-up — as it teamed up with a real estate developer, some civil engineers, a mayor, an architect, some builders, some tech companies. Their goal was to build a demo smart city from scratch. OK. Five years into the project, not a whole lot had happened. Six years, still no ground broken. It seemed that teaming across industry boundaries was really, really hard. OK, so . . . We had inadvertently discovered what I call “professional culture clash” with this project. You know, software engineers and real estate developers think differently — really differently: different values, different time frames — time frames is a big one — and different jargon, different language. And so they don’t always see eye to eye. I think this is a bigger problem than most of us realize. In fact, I think professional culture clash is a major barrier to building the future that we aspire to build. And so it becomes a problem that we have to understand, a problem that we have to figure out how to crack. So how do you make sure teaming goes well, especially big teaming? This is the question I’ve been trying to solve for a number of years in many different workplaces with my research.

为了更了解它，我研究了一间新创公司——一间智慧城市的新创软件公司——它组队的对象包括一间不动产开发业者、一些土木工程师、一位市长、一位建筑师、一些建造商、一些科技公司。他们的目标是要从无到有，建立一个示范智慧城市。好。项目已经开始五年了，没有发生很多事。六年了，仍然没有破土动工。跨产业界线的联手似乎是非常非常困难的。好，所以……我们不经意地发现，这个项目中有着我所谓的「专业文化碰撞」。你们知道的，软件工程师和不动产开发商思考方式不同——非常不同：不同的价值观、不同的时间表——时间表是个大问题——还有不同的行话、不同的语言。所以他们不见得总是能有一致看法。我想，这个问题比我们大部分人所意识到的还要严重些。事实上，我认为，职业文化碰撞是个重大的阻碍，让我们无法建立我们向往的未来。所以，它变成了我们需要去了解的问题，我们得要针对这个问题想出解决办法。所以，你要如何确保联手能够顺利？特别是大型的联手？数年来我一直试图在不同的工作场所解决这个问题，应用我的研究。

Now, to begin to get just a glimpse of the answer to this question, let’s go back to Chile. In Chile, we witnessed 10 weeks of teaming by hundreds of individuals from different professions, different companies, different sectors, even different nations. And as this process unfolded, they had lots of ideas, they tried many things, they experimented, they failed, they experienced devastating daily failure, but they picked up, persevered, and went on forward. And really, what we witnessed there was they were able to be humble in the face of the very real challenge ahead, curious — all of these diverse individuals, diverse expertise especially, nationality as well, were quite curious about what each other brings. And they were willing to take risks to learn fast what might work. And ultimately, 17 days into this remarkable story, ideas came from everywhere. They came from André Sougarret, who is a brilliant mining engineer who was appointed by the government to lead the rescue. They came from NASA. They came from Chilean Special Forces. They came from volunteers around the world. And while many of us, including myself, watched from afar, these folks made slow, painful progress through the rock.

现在，为了要让大家能一瞥这个问题的答案，咱们先回到智利。在智利，我们目睹了数百人联手合作十周，他们有不同的职业，来自不同的公司，不同的部门，甚至不同的国家。随着这个过程进展下去，他们有许多的点子，他们做了许多尝试，他们试验，他们失败，他们每天都要经历让人身心交瘁的失败，但他们振作起来，不屈不挠，继续向前走。其实，我们在那里所看见的，是他们能够做到谦逊地面对眼前的挑战，好奇——所有这些多元化的人，在专门知识与国籍上特别多样化，他们相当好奇彼此能够带来什么。他们愿意冒险做快速的学习，以了解什么行得通。最终，这个了不起的故事进行到第17天时，点子开始从各方涌现。点子来自安德烈苏格瑞特，他是个出色的采矿工程师，他被政府指定来领导救援任务。点子来自美国太空总署，点子来自智利的特种部队，点子来自全世界的志工。当我们许多人，包括我自己，从远处看着这些人很缓慢、艰苦地试图穿过岩石。

On the 17th day, they broke through to the refuge. It’s just a remarkable moment. And with just a very small incision, they were able to find it through a bunch of experimental techniques. And then for the next 53 days, that narrow lifeline would be the path where food and medicine and communication would travel, while aboveground, for 53 more days, they continued the teaming to find a way to create a much larger hole and also to design a capsule. This is the capsule. And then on the 69th day, over 22 painstaking hours, they managed to pull the miners out one by one.

在第17天，他们突破到了庇护所。那是个了不起的时刻。靠着一个非常小的切口，他们得以透过许多实验性的技术来找到庇护所。在接下来的53天，这狭窄的生命线，就成了食物、药品，和沟通的通路，在地面上，他们持续联手合作了53天，来想出方法，创造出一个更大的洞，同时设计一个胶囊。这就是那个胶囊。接着，在第69天，辛苦了22个小时，他们成功把矿工一个一个救出来。

So how did they overcome professional culture clash? I would say in a word, it’s leadership, but let me be more specific. When teaming works, you can be sure that some leaders, leaders at all levels, have been crystal clear that they don’t have the answers. Let’s call this “situational humility.” It’s appropriate humility. We don’t know how to do it. You can be sure, as I said before, people were very curious, and this situational humility combined with curiosity creates a sense of psychological safety that allows you take risks with strangers, because let’s face it: it’s hard to speak up, right? It’s hard to ask for help. It’s hard to offer an idea that might be a stupid idea if you don’t know people very well. You need psychological safety to do that. They overcame what I like to call the basic human challenge: it’s hard to learn if you already know. And unfortunately, we’re hardwired to think we know. And so we’ve got to remind ourselves — and we can do it — to be curious; to be curious about what others bring. And that curiosity can also spawn a kind of generosity of interpretation.

他们是如何克服职业文化碰撞的？我可以用一个词说明，就是「领导力」，但让我说清楚些。在成功的联手合作中，你可以很确定，一些领导人，各层级的领导人，一直都很清楚知道他们并没有答案。咱们就称之为「情境式谦逊」。它是种适当的谦逊。我们不知道要怎么做。我之前提到的，可以肯定大家很好奇，这种情境式谦逊和好奇心结合，就会创造出一种心理安全感，让你能和陌生人一起冒险，因为，咱们面对现实吧，要说出来挺难的，对吧？要向人求助很困难。要提出一个可能很蠢的点子也很困难，如果你跟其他人不熟的话。所以你需要心理的安全感才能做到。他们克服了我所谓的基本人类挑战：如果你已经知道了，就很难学习。不幸的是，我们天生就觉得我们知道。所以我们得要提醒自己——且我们能做到——要有好奇心；好奇其他人能带来什么。那种好奇心也能够产生一种在诠释上的宽宏大量。

But there’s another barrier, and you all know it. You wouldn’t be in this room if you didn’t know it. And to explain it, I’m going to quote from the movie “The Paper Chase.” This, by the way, is what Hollywood thinks a Harvard professor is supposed to look like. You be the judge. The professor in this famous scene, he’s welcoming the new 1L class, and he says, “Look to your left. Look to your right. one of you won’t be here next year.” What message did they hear? “It’s me or you.” For me to succeed, you must fail. Now, I don’t think too many organizations welcome newcomers that way anymore, but still, many times people arrive with that message of scarcity anyway. It’s me or you. It’s awfully hard to team if you inadvertently see others as competitors.

但还有另一个阻碍，是你们都知道的。如果你不知道，你就不会在这间房间里。为了解释它，我要引述《寒窗恋》这部电影。顺道一提，这是好莱坞认为哈佛教授应该就是这个样子。你们自己判断。在这段知名的桥段中，这位教授在欢迎一个1L的班级，他说：「看看你的左边，看看你的右边。你们其中一个人明年不会在这里。」他们听到了什么讯息？「不是你，就是我。」若我要成功，你就得失败。我不认为还有很多组织会用那种方式来欢迎新人，但人们常常还会带着这种一山不容二虎的讯息到来。不是我，就是你。如果你在不经意中就把其他人视为竞争者，要联手就会很困难。

So we have to overcome that one as well, and when we do, the results can be awesome. Abraham Lincoln said once, “I don’t like that man very much. I must get to know him better.” Think about that — I don’t like him, that means I don’t know him well enough. It’s extraordinary. This is the mindset, I have to say, this is the mindset you need for effective teaming. In our silos, we can get things done. But when we step back and reach out and reach across, miracles can happen. Miners can be rescued, patients can be saved, beautiful films can be created.

所以我们也得要克服那一点，当我们克服了，结果就会很棒。林肯有一次这么说：「我不太喜欢那个人，我得要再多了解他一点。」想想看——我不喜欢他，那就表示我不够了解他。那很不简单。我得要说，就是这种心态，要有这种心态，才能有效地联手合作。在我们的谷仓中（指谷仓效应），我们能把事情搞定。但当我们退一步，向外求助，跨出界线，奇迹就有可能会发生。矿工可能会被救出来，病人可能会得救，美丽的电影也可能会被创作出来。

To get there, I think there’s no better advice than this: look to your left, look to your right. How quickly can you find the unique talents, skills and hopes of your neighbor, and how quickly, in turn, can you convey what you bring? Because for us to team up to build the future we know we can create that none of us can do alone, that’s the mindset we need.

要做到这些，我想，最好的忠告就是：看看你的左边，看看你的右边。你能多快地在你的邻居身上找到独特的才华、技能，和希望，还有，你能多快地传达出你能带给他们什么？因为，对我们来说，若要联手建立一个我们知道可行的，但不能只靠一己之力来创造的未来，我们就需要那种心态。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）

I started teaching MBA students 17 years ago. Sometimes I run into my students years later. And when I run into them, a funny thing happens. I don’t remember just their faces; I also remember where exactly in the classroom they were sitting. And I remember who they were sitting with as well. This is not because I have any special superpowers of memory. The reason I can remember them is because they are creatures of habit. They are sitting with their favorite people in their favorite seats. They find their twins, they stay with them for the whole year.

我17年前开始教授 MBA课程。有时，我会在几年后巧遇我的学生。当我巧遇他们时，有个很有趣的现象。我不仅记得他们的脸，也记得他们坐在教室的哪个位置，和谁坐在一起。我能记住这些，不是因为我记忆超群，而是因为他们是跟着习惯走的人。他们总会与最喜欢的人坐在一起，坐他们最喜欢的座位，找和自己极相似的人，然一整年都和这些人待在一起。

Now, the danger of this for my students is they’re at risk of leaving the university with just a few people who are exactly like them. They’re going to squander their chance for an international, diverse network. How could this happen to them? My students are open-minded. They come to business school precisely so that they can get great networks.

这种情况对我的学生的危险之处在于，当学生们离开大学步入社会，他们很可能只认识很少的人，并且认识的这些人还与他们很像。他们会浪费掉接触国际化，多样化关系网的机会。怎么会在他们身上发生这种事呢？我的学生思想开放。他们来到商学院为的正是扩大社交圈子。

Now, all of us socially narrow in our lives, in our school, in work, and so I want you to think about this one. How many of you here brought a friend along for this talk? I want you to look at your friend a little bit. Are they of the same nationality as you? Are they of the same gender as you? Are they of the same race? Really look at them closely. Don’t they kind of look like you as well?

我们所有人在生活上、在学校、，在工作中的社交都是狭窄的，所以，我希望你们能想想这一点。在座有多少人，带了朋友，一起来听这场演讲？我希望你们能看一下你们的朋友。他们的国籍和你相同吗？他们的性别和你相同吗？他们的种族相同吗？真正去近看他们。他们是不是看起来也和你很像？

(Laughter)

（笑声）

The muscle people are together, and the people with the same hairstyles and the checked shirts.

肌肉发达的人与肌肉发达的人在一起；发型相同的人与发型相同的人在一起；穿格子上衣的人与穿格子上衣的人在一起。

We all do this in life. We all do it in life, and in fact, there’s nothing wrong with this. It makes us comfortable to be around people who are similar. The problem is when we’re on a precipice, right? When we’re in trouble, when we need new ideas, when we need new jobs, when we need new resources — this is when we really pay a price for living in a clique.

我们在生活中都会这么做。我们所有人在人生中都会这么做，事实上，这并没有什么不好。和相似的人在一起让我们感到舒服。当我们在危急处境中时，才会有问题，对吗？当我们有麻烦时，需要新点子时，需要新工作时，需要新资源时──，这时，身在小团体中，就会要付出代价。

Mark Granovetter, the sociologist, had a famous paper “The Strength of Weak Ties,” and what he did in this paper is he asked people how they got their jobs. And what he learned was that most people don’t get their jobs through their strong ties — their father, their mother, their significant other. They instead get jobs through weak ties, people who they just met. So if you think about what the problem is with your strong ties, think about your significant other, for example. The network is redundant. Everybody that they know, you know. Or I hope you know them. Right? Your weak ties — people you just met today — they are your ticket to a whole new social world.

社会学家马克格兰诺维特，有一篇著名的论文，叫「弱连结的力量」，他在这篇论文中做的是去问人们，他们如何得到他们的工作。他发现大部分的人，不是从他们的强连结，──父亲、母亲、另一半──，得到工作，而是从弱连结，──刚认识的人──得到工作。所以，如果你要思考，强连结的问题在哪，想想比如你的另一半。这个圈子是多余的。他们认识的人，你也都认识。我希望你认识他们，对吧？，你的弱连结──你今天才认识的人──，他们是让你通往全新社交世界的门票。

The thing is that we have this amazing ticket to travel our social worlds, but we don’t use it very well. Sometimes we stay awfully close to home. And today, what I want to talk about is: What are those habits that keep human beings so close to home, and how can we be a little bit more intentional about traveling our social universe?

问题是，我们有这张很棒的门票，可以遨游我们的社交世界，但我们没有好好用它。有时，我们待在离家非常近的地方。今天，我想要谈的是这个：是什么习惯让人类持续待在离家近的地方，以及我们要如何更刻意一点，去游遍我们的社交宇宙？

So let’s look at the first strategy. The first strategy is to use a more imperfect social search engine. What I mean by a social search engine is how you are finding and filtering your friends. And so people always tell me, “I want to get lucky through the network. I want to get a new job. I want to get a great opportunity.” And I say, “Well, that’s really hard, because your networks are so fundamentally predictable.” Map out your habitual daily footpath, and what you’ll probably discover is that you start at home, you go to your school or your workplace, you maybe go up the same staircase or elevator, you go to the bathroom — the same bathroom — and the same stall in that bathroom, you end up in the gym, then you come right back home. It’s like stops on a train schedule. It’s that predictable. It’s efficient, but the problem is, you’re seeing exactly the same people. Make your network slightly more inefficient. Go to a bathroom on a different floor. You encounter a whole new network of people.

我们先来谈第一条策略。第一条策略是要用更多不完美的社交搜寻引擎。我所谓的社交搜寻引擎，是你如何找到和筛选你的朋友。人们总是告诉我：「我想要透过关系网来走运。我想要找份新工作。我想要有很好的机会」。我说：「嗯，那真的很难，因为你的关系网基本上是非常容易预测的。」画出你习惯的日常路径，你可能会发现，你从家里开始，你去上学或上班，你可能会从同样的楼梯或电梯上楼，你去厕所是去同一间厕所，且用的是那个厕所的同一隔间，你最后到了健身房，然后你就回家了。就像火车靠站时刻表一样。就是那么可预测。它很有效率，但问题是，你遇见的人都一样。让你的关系网稍微不要那么有效率。去不同楼层的厕所。你会遇到一个全新的人脉网络。

The other side of it is how we are actually filtering. And we do this automatically. The minute we meet someone, we are looking at them, we meet them, we are initially seeing, “You’re interesting.” “You’re not interesting.” “You’re relevant.” We do this automatically. We can’t even help it. And what I want to encourage you to do instead is to fight your filters. I want you to take a look around this room, and I want you to identify the least interesting person that you see, and I want you to connect with them over the next coffee break. And I want you to go even further than that. What I want you to do is find the most irritating person you see as well and connect with them.

另一面，是我们实际做筛选的方式。我们会自动筛选。在我们见到一个人时，我们会看他们，见到他们，我们一开始就会看到：「你很有趣。」，「你不有趣。」「你很重要。」，我们会自动做这件事。我们无法控制。我想要鼓励各位做的是，对抗你的筛选器。我希望你们能环视一下这间房间，我希望你们找出，你所看见最无趣的人，我希望你们能在下次休息时间去与他们联系。我希望你们还能做更多。我也希望你们能去找到你们所看见最恼人的人，去与他们联系。

What you are doing with this exercise is you are forcing yourself to see what you don’t want to see, to connect with who you don’t want to connect with, to widen your social world. To truly widen, what we have to do is, we’ve got to fight our sense of choice. We’ve got to fight our choices. And my students hate this, but you know what I do? I won’t let them sit in their favorite seats. I move them around from seat to seat. I force them to work with different people so there are more accidental bumps in the network where people get a chance to connect with each other. And we studied exactly this kind of an intervention at Harvard University. At Harvard, when you look at the rooming groups, there’s freshman rooming groups, people are not choosing those roommates. They’re of all different races, all different ethnicities. Maybe people are initially uncomfortable with those roommates, but the amazing thing is, at the end of a year with those students, they’re able to overcome that initial discomfort. They’re able to find deep-level commonalities with people.

做这项练习的目的是要强迫你自己，去看见你不想看见的，去和你不想连结的人连结，去拓宽你的社交世界。要真正拓宽，我们必须要做的是，我们得要对抗我们对选择的感受。我们得要对抗我们的选择。我的学生很讨厌这样，但猜猜我怎么做？我不让他们坐在他们最爱的位子。我让他们一直换位子坐。我强迫他们去和不同的人合作，在人脉网络中就会有更意外的起伏，让人们有机会可以彼此连结。我们在哈佛大学就是在研究这种干预方法。在哈佛，如果去看宿舍群体，会有新鲜人宿舍群体，大家不选择室友。他们都是不同的种族、不同的人种。许多人一开始对自己的室友感到不舒服，但让人惊奇的是，在年末，那些学生，能够克服一开始的不舒服。他们能在人身上找到更深层的共同性。

So the takeaway here is not just “take someone out to coffee.” It’s a little more subtle. It’s “go to the coffee room.” When researchers talk about social hubs, what makes a social hub so special is you can’t choose; you can’t predict who you’re going to meet in that place. And so with these social hubs, the paradox is, interestingly enough, to get randomness, it requires, actually, some planning. In one university that I worked at, there was a mail room on every single floor. What that meant is that the only people who would bump into each other are those who are actually on that floor and who are bumping into each other anyway. At another university I worked at, there was only one mail room, so all the faculty from all over that building would run into each other in that social hub. A simple change in planning, a huge difference in the traffic of people and the accidental bumps in the network.

这里要给各位的讯息不只是，「找人出去喝杯咖啡」。还要更微妙一点是「去咖啡厅」。当研究者谈论社交中心时，社交中心之所以特别，就是因为你无法选择，你无法预测你在那个地方会遇见谁。关于这些社交中心，有趣的是一个悖论：若要有随机性，需要的其实是规划。在我工作的其中一所大学，每层楼都有一间收发室。那就意味着，会巧遇到的人就只有在同一层楼的人，而他们本来就会遇见彼此。在我工作的另一所大学，只有一间收发室，所以整栋大楼所有的教职员，就会在那社交中心巧遇彼此。在规划上做个简单的改变，就能对人脉关系中所巧遇的人群造成很大的不同。

Here’s my question for you: What are you doing that breaks you from your social habits? Where do you find yourself in places where you get injections of unpredictable diversity? And my students give me some wonderful examples. They tell me when they’re doing pickup basketball games, or my favorite example is when they go to a dog park. They tell me it’s even better than online dating when they’re there.

我想要问各位的问题是：你能做什么，来让你脱离你的社交习惯？你在什么地方，能够被注入无法预测的多样性？我的学生给了我一些很棒的例子。他们告诉我：在比赛篮球时。和我最爱的例子──去公园遛狗时。他们告诉我，在那里，甚至比在线约会还要更好。

So the real thing that I want you to think about is we’ve got to fight our filters. We’ve got to make ourselves a little more inefficient, and by doing so, we are creating a more imprecise social search engine. And you’re creating that randomness, that luck that is going to cause you to widen your travels, through your social universe.

我真正希望各位去思考，我们得要对抗我们的筛选器。我们得要让自己不那么有效率，这么做时，我们就是在创造一个不那么精准的社交搜寻引擎。你是在创造随机性，它就是运气，能拓展你在社交宇宙中所旅行的范围。

But in fact, there’s more to it than that. Sometimes we actually buy ourselves a second-class ticket to travel our social universe. We are not courageous when we reach out to people. Let me give you an example of that. A few years ago, I had a very eventful year. That year, I managed to lose a job, I managed to get a dream job overseas and accept it, I had a baby the next month, I got very sick, I was unable to take the dream job. And so in a few weeks, what ended up happening was, I lost my identity as a faculty member, and I got a very stressful new identity as a mother. What I also got was tons of advice from people. And the advice I despised more than any other advice was, “You’ve got to go network with everybody.” When your psychological world is breaking down, the hardest thing to do is to try and reach out and build up your social world.

但，事实上，不只是如此。有时，我们真的会买到二等舱的票，在我们的社交宇宙中旅行。当我们接触别人时，我们不够勇敢。让我举个例子：几年前，我有一年遇到非常多事。那一年，我失去了一个工作，在海外得到了一个梦想的工作，且我接受了，而再下一个月我生了孩子，我病得非常重，我无法去接那份梦想的工作。所以，在仅仅几周，最后发生的结果是，我失去了教职员的身份，我得了到一个非常有压力的新身份：母亲。我还得到了人们给的一大堆意见。在所有意见中，我最鄙视的一则是：「你得要去和每个人建立联系。」当你的精神世界在崩坏时，最困难的事就是试着向外伸出手，建立你的社交世界。

And so we studied exactly this idea on a much larger scale. What we did was we looked at high and low socioeconomic status people, and we looked at them in two situations. We looked at them first in a baseline condition, when they were quite comfortable. And what we found was that our lower socioeconomic status people, when they were comfortable, were actually reaching out to more people. They thought of more people. They were also less constrained in how they were networking. They were thinking of more diverse people than the higher-status people. Then we asked them to think about maybe losing a job. We threatened them. And once they thought about that, the networks they generated completely differed. The lower socioeconomic status people reached inwards. They thought of fewer people. They thought of less-diverse people. The higher socioeconomic status people thought of more people, they thought of a broader network, they were positioning themselves to bounce back from that setback.

所以，我们更大规模地探究了这个想法。我们的做法是，我们去看社会经济地位高与低的人，我们在两种情况下去看他们。我们先在基线条件下去看他们，也就是他们很舒适的时候。我们发现，社会经济地位较低的人，在舒适的时候，其实比较会向外接触更多的人。他们会去想更多的人。他们在建立联系上比较没有受限制。比起高社会经济地位的人，他们会去想更多样化的人。接着，我们要他们去想象，可能失去工作的情况。我们威胁他们。一旦他们有那样的想法，他们产生出的关系网络就全然不同了。社会经济地位较低的人，会向内接触人。他们会去想的人比较少。他们会去想的人比较不多样化。社会经济地位较高的人，会去想比较多的人，他们会去想比较广的人际网络，他们会把自己放在受挫，之后重整旗鼓的位置。

Let’s consider what this actually means. Imagine that you were being spontaneously unfriended by everyone in your network other than your mom, your dad and your dog.

让我们来想想这到底是什么意思。想象一下，你被你人际网络中的所有人都自发性地解除朋友关系，只剩下你的妈妈、爸爸，和你的狗。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

This is essentially what we are doing at these moments when we need our networks the most. Imagine — this is what we’re doing. We’re doing it to ourselves. We are mentally compressing our networks when we are being harassed, when we are being bullied, when we are threatened about losing a job, when we feel down and weak. We are closing ourselves off, isolating ourselves, creating a blind spot where we actually don’t see our resources. We don’t see our allies, we don’t see our opportunities.

基本上，这就是我们在最需要网络的时刻所做的事。想象一下──这就是我们在做的，我们对自己做的事。我们在心理上压缩我们的网络，当我们被骚扰时，当我们被霸凌时，当我们被威胁会失去工作时，当我们感到消沉且，软弱时，就会发生。我们把自己封闭起来，把自己孤立起来，创造出一个盲点，让我们看不见我们的资源。看不见我们的盟友，看不见我们的机会。

How can we overcome this? Two simple strategies. One strategy is simply to look at your list of Facebook friends and LinkedIn friends just so you remind yourself of people who are there beyond those that automatically come to mind. And in our own research, one of the things we did was, we considered Claude Steele’s research on self-affirmation: simply thinking about your own values, networking from a place of strength. What Leigh Thompson, Hoon-Seok Choi and I were able to do is, we found that people who had affirmed themselves first were able to take advice from people who would otherwise be threatening to them.

我们要如何克服这状况？，有两项简单的策略。其一很简单，就是去看，你的脸书朋友名单，还有，LinkedIn，让你能够提醒自己，除了自动出现在你脑海中的人之外，还有别人在。在我们自己的研究中，我们做的其中一件事是，我们从自我肯定的角度，来思考克劳德斯蒂尔的研究：只要想想你自己的价值，从一个有力量的地方建立网络。迈克汤普森、崔勋石，和我一起做的是，我们发现，先肯定自己的人能够接受别人的意见，其他情况下，给意见者会被视为威胁。

Here’s a last exercise. I want you to look in your email in-box, and I want you to look at the last time you asked somebody for a favor. And I want you to look at the language that you used. Did you say things like, “Oh, you’re a great resource,” or “I owe you one,” “I’m obligated to you.” All of this language represents a metaphor. It’s a metaphor of economics, of a balance sheet, of accounting, of transactions. And when we think about human relations in a transactional way, it is fundamentally uncomfortable to us as human beings. We must think about human relations and reaching out to people in more humane ways.

以下是最后一个练习。我希望各位去看看，自己的电子邮件收件匣，找出最近一次你请别人帮忙是什么时候。请看看你所使用的表意方式。你是否有说这类的话：「你是很棒的资源。」，或「我欠你一个人情。」，「我对你有义务。」，所有这些表意方式，背后都有一个象征。那象征就是经济，资产负债表、会计、交易。如果你用交易的方式，来看待人际关系，对我们人类而言，从根本上就会觉得不舒服。我们应该要用更人性的方式，来看待人际关系，及向外去接触人。

Here’s an idea as to how to do so. Look at words like “please,” “thank you,” “you’re welcome” in other languages. Look at the literal translation of these words. Each of these words is a word that helps us impose upon other people in our social networks. And so, the word “thank you,” if you look at it in Spanish, Italian, French, “gracias,” “grazie,” “merci” in French. Each of them are “grace” and “mercy.” They are godly words. There’s nothing economic or transactional about those words. The word “you’re welcome” is interesting. The great persuasion theorist Robert Cialdini says we’ve got to get our favors back. So we need to emphasize the transaction a little bit more. He says, “Let’s not say ‘You’re welcome.’ Instead say, ‘I know you’d do the same for me.'” But sometimes it may be helpful to not think in transactional ways, to eliminate the transaction, to make it a little bit more invisible. And in fact, if you look in Chinese, the word “bú kè qì” in Chinese, “You’re welcome,” means, “Don’t be formal; we’re family. We don’t need to go through those formalities.” And “kembali” in Indonesian is “Come back to me.” When you say “You’re welcome” next time, think about how you can maybe eliminate the transaction and instead strengthen that social tie. Maybe “It’s great to collaborate,” or “That’s what friends are for.”

至于要怎么做，这里有个想法。看看像「请」、「谢谢你」、「不，客气」这些词在其他语言怎么说。看看这些词的字面翻译。这每一个词，都是在协助我们利用社交网络中的其他人。所以，针对「谢谢你」这个词，它们在西班牙文、，意大利文、法文分别是，「gracias」、「grazie」，以及「merci」。意思都是「优雅」和「慈悲」。它们是虔诚的词。这些词没有任何经济或交易的元素。「不客气」这个词很有趣。伟大的说服理论学家罗伯特乔尔第尼说：我们得把人情要回来，所以我们得要多强调一点交易。他说：「让我们别说『不客气』」。改成「我知道换成你，也会为我这么做。」，但，有时，不用交易的方式，来思考，可能会比较有帮助，把交易元素除去，让它更不显眼。事实上，如果看中文怎么说，「不客气」在中文的意思是，「别这么拘泥礼节，我们是一家人，不需要这些礼节形式。」，在印尼语中「kembali」的，意思是「回来我这里」。下次当你要说「不客气」时，想想看你可以如何，除去一些交易元素，改成加强社交连结。也许说「能一起合作很棒」，或「朋友不就该如此吗」。

I want you to think about how you think about this ticket that you have to travel your social universe. Here’s one metaphor. It’s a common metaphor: “Life is a journey.” Right? It’s a train ride, and you’re a passenger on the train, and there are certain people with you. Certain people get on this train, and some stay with you, some leave at different stops, new ones may enter. I love this metaphor, it’s a beautiful one. But I want you to consider a different metaphor. This one is passive, being a passenger on that train, and it’s quite linear. You’re off to some particular destination. Why not instead think of yourself as an atom, bumping up against other atoms, maybe transferring energy with them, bonding with them a little and maybe creating something new on your travels through the social universe.

我希望各位能思考一下，要怎么用你手上的这张票，在你的社交宇宙中旅行。以下是一个比喻。它是常见的比喻：「人生是一趟旅程。」对吧？，它是趟火车旅程，你是火车上的一名乘客，有些人和你在一起。有些人会搭上这台火车，有些人会留下，有些人会在不同的站下车，可能有新乘客上车。我喜欢这个比喻，它很美丽。但我希望各位能想想另一个比喻。身为火车乘客的这个比喻很被动，且它是很线性的。你要前往特定的目的地。为什么不改个方式，把你自己想成，一个原子，和其他原子碰撞，也许和它们一起传送能量，和它们结合一下，也许在你的社交宇宙中，旅行时，创造出新东西来。

Thank you so much. And I hope we bump into each other again.

非常谢谢。我希望我们有机会再次偶遇。

(Applause)

（掌声）