很遺憾告訴你 你不是真正的快樂

At Wells Fargo, managers have dreamt up a newratio to track alongside such banking stalwarts asprovision coverage and capital adequacy. It iscalled the happy:grumpy ratio, and measures howmany cheery staff the bank employs for everycurmudgeon.

富國銀行(Wells Fargo)的管理者想出了一個新的比率，用來與撥備覆蓋率和資本充足率等銀行業(yè)使用的可靠比率一起追蹤銀行的狀況。它被稱作快樂暴躁率，衡量的是銀行中快樂員工與暴躁員工人數(shù)之比。

The point of this exercise, executives told the WallStreet Journal last week, was that happy employees are more likely to do the right thing thanunhappy ones. Financial regulators, who have recently been exercising themselves about thenasty culture of banks, will no doubt be impressed. And they will be even more so when theysee how this ratio is moving at the San Francisco bank. Only five years ago happy bankers(measured by their own assessment) outnumbered the grumpy ones by 3.8 to 1; by lastyear there were eight times as many Pollyannas at Wells Fargo as there were miserable sods.

富國銀行的高管近日告訴《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)說，這項實踐的出發(fā)點是，快樂的員工比不快樂的員工更有可能做正確的事。這無疑會給近期一直對銀行的惡劣文化感到頭疼的金融監(jiān)管者留下深刻印象。而且，當(dāng)看到該比率在這家總部位于舊金山的銀行的走勢變化時，他們的印象會更加深刻。五年前，快樂銀行家(快樂與否是基于他們的自我評估)與暴躁銀行家的人數(shù)之比還是3.8:1;而到了去年，富國銀行內(nèi)快樂員工的人數(shù)已是不快樂員工的8倍。

When I first read about the happy: grumpy ratio, I thought it sounded so good it shouldbecome compulsory in the industry. Making banks produce such a number would force them tobecome less cut-throat places to work. And compared to most banking statistics, which are socomplicated that even clever people can’t fathom them, this one is simple enough that anyidiot can grasp it in a second.

當(dāng)我最初聽說這一快樂暴躁率時，我覺得它聽起來妙極了，完全應(yīng)該成為銀行業(yè)的必備比率。讓銀行統(tǒng)計這一比率將推動它們成為不那么劍拔弩張的工作場所。而且，與大多數(shù)銀行業(yè)統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)(這些數(shù)據(jù)太過復(fù)雜，就連比較聰明的人都無法搞懂)相比，這一比率簡單到連傻瓜都能馬上搞懂。

Yet the longer I think about the ratio, the less I find I understand it — and the less I like it.

然而，我對這一比率琢磨的時間越長，就越發(fā)現(xiàn)它難以理解，同時也越不喜歡它。

Even its premise is dubious. Are workers who claim to be happy really less likely to do badthings? There are no numbers to prove it; neither is there any obvious reason it should be so.If what makes bankers happy is taking risks and making money, they will be even happier whenthey are up to no good — provided it results in lots of money falling into their laps.Furthermore, if you are the sort of person who thinks it fine to diddle your bank out of billionsof dollars, you are not going to worry about giving misleading answers on a staff satisfactionsurvey.

就連它的前提假定都是有問題的。那些聲稱自己快樂的員工做壞事的可能性真的更小嗎?沒有數(shù)據(jù)證明這一點;也沒有任何顯而易見的理由支持應(yīng)該如此。如果讓銀行家快樂的是冒險和賺錢，那當(dāng)他們做壞事時甚至?xí)鞓?mdash;—假設(shè)做壞事可以讓他們賺得盆滿缽滿。此外，如果你是那種不在意從你所在的銀行騙走數(shù)十億美元的人，你就不會擔(dān)心在員工滿意度調(diào)查中給出有誤導(dǎo)性的答案。

As for the numbers themselves, they look too good to be true. I don’t believe for a momentthat the happy outnumber the grumpy by eight to one among Wells Fargo’s 260,000 people,nor is it likely that a ratio could double in such a short time.

至于數(shù)字本身，它們看起來完美得令人難以置信。我一點也不相信富國銀行的26萬員工中，快樂員工與暴躁員工人數(shù)之比可以達(dá)到8:1，而且一個比率也不太可能在那么短的時間內(nèi)翻一番。

According to a Gallup survey of 25m workers there are twice as many unhappy as happy onesin the world. I am lucky to work in one of the happiest places in Britain: FT journalists aregenerally treated well, management is light and (reasonably) benign and people are mostlydoing something that they love. But the ratio of happy to grumpy? Looking around at mycolleagues I’d put it at 4:1 at best.

蓋洛普(Gallup)針對2500萬名員工的調(diào)查顯示，全世界不快樂員工的人數(shù)是快樂員工的兩倍。我很幸運能在英國最快樂的地方之一工作：在英國《金融時報》，記者普遍待遇不錯，管理寬松且(相當(dāng))溫和，員工大都做著自己喜歡做的事。但這里的快樂暴躁率是多少呢?環(huán)顧我的同事們，我最多給出4:1的比率。

More fundamentally, there is little point in asking employees whether they are happy or not. Theanswer surely depends on who is asking, on what mood the subject is in, on their temperamentand on what they consider “happy” to mean. To aggregate 260,000 unreliable answers andthen treat the result as data on a par with tier one capital, is really quite frightening.

更為根本的是，詢問員工是否快樂幾乎毫無意義。答案當(dāng)然取決于誰在問，取決于受訪者的心情，取決于他們的脾氣秉性以及他們認(rèn)為“快樂”是什么。匯集26萬份不可靠的答案，并認(rèn)為其結(jié)果可與一級資本充足率相提并論，真是相當(dāng)?shù)目膳隆?/p>

Underlying it all is something even more basic. Should employers even aim to make their staffhappy? I’m with Freud on this one. He said it wasn’t possible to make people happy; the bestthat could be hoped for was normal unhappiness.

在這一切之下還有更為根本的東西。雇主的目標(biāo)應(yīng)該設(shè)定在使他們的員工快樂嗎?在這一點上，我贊同弗洛伊德(Freud)的意見。弗洛伊德說，讓人快樂是不可能的;人們所能期待的最好結(jié)果是正常的不快樂。

This should be the goal at work too. Banks, and all other employers, should try to becomeplaces where employees are not abnormally unhappy.

這也應(yīng)當(dāng)成為職場的目標(biāo)。銀行及其他所有雇主都應(yīng)盡力不要變成讓員工異常不快樂的地方。

To see how well they are doing in this task, there are two statistics they should monitor, bothof which are objective and impossible to game.

要了解它們在這項任務(wù)中做得如何，應(yīng)該追蹤兩項統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)，這兩項數(shù)據(jù)都是客觀的、而且不可能作假。

The first is staff turnover. If people are more than normally unhappy, they tend to leave. So ifyour staff turnover is greater than that of your competitors, you know at once you have aproblem.

首先是員工流失率。如果員工感到異常不快樂，他們往往會離開。所以，如果你的員工流失率高于你的競爭對手，你立刻就知道出問題了。

The second measure is the ratio of what the bank’s hotshots get paid to what the securityguard gets. We know that perceived unfairness and inequality both make people unhappy;so when this gap gets wider the culture worsens.

第二個的指標(biāo)是，銀行內(nèi)明星員工與保安的報酬之比。我們知道，人們感受到的不公平和不平等都會讓人不快樂;所以，當(dāng)這個差距擴大時，公司文化在惡化。

There is a third measure that is less objective and harder to measure, but may be even moreimportant than the other two. It is to monitor how many friends people have at work. All thegeneral happiness data show a powerful correlation between the number of close friends andhappiness; the same surely holds in the office — at least, it holds in mine. The main reason I amnever abnormally unhappy at work is because I have three true friends among my colleagues.

還有第三個指標(biāo)，雖然它不那么客觀、也更難以衡量，但可能比前兩個還要重要。那就是追蹤員工在工作中有多少朋友。所有關(guān)于總體快樂的數(shù)據(jù)都顯示出，好友的數(shù)量與快樂之間有著很強的相關(guān)性;在辦公室內(nèi)無疑也是如此——至少對于我是成立的。我在工作中從未有過異常不快樂，主要原因就是我在同事中交了三個真正的朋友。

If Wells Fargo produced such a statistic, I doubt if it would tell the regulator whether a scandalwas round the corner. But it would tell us something profound about its bankers’ happiness orlack of it, and it would give prospective employees an excellent idea as to whether they wouldlike to work there, or not.

如果富國銀行進行這樣的統(tǒng)計，我不確定它是否能告訴監(jiān)管者很快就要發(fā)生丑聞。但它能讓我們深刻了解該行員工快樂與否，而且它能給拿不準(zhǔn)是否想在該行工作的潛在員工一個極好的建議。