職場上好人沒前途？

When the novelist Claire Messud was asked if she would want to be friends with Nora, the rage-filled protagonist of her novel The Woman Upstairs, she let rip. “For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with . . . Hamlet? Krapp? or Oedipus?

當小說家克萊爾•梅蘇德(Claire Messud)被問及她是否愿意與自己小說《樓上的女人》(The Woman Upstairs)中憤怒的主人公諾拉做朋友時，她脫口說道：“我的天，這算什么問題?你想跟亨伯特•亨伯特做朋友?你想跟……哈姆雷特、克拉普、或俄狄浦斯做朋友?”

“If you are reading to find friends, you are in deep trouble. We read to explore life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question is not ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?’”

“如果你閱讀是為了找朋友，那你麻煩可就大了。我們閱讀是為了探索生命，探索其所有可能性。有意義的問題不是‘這個人物能成為我的朋友嗎?’而是‘這個角色是否鮮活?’”

Messud pointed out that the same question would not have been asked of a male protagonist. Her fellow novelist, Meg Wolitzer, the author of, among other things, The Interestings, identified a trend for “slumber party fiction — as though the characters are stand-ins for your best friends”.

梅蘇德指出，同樣的問題就不會問到男主人公身上。另一位女小說家梅格•沃利茲(Meg Wolitzer)——寫過《樂在其中》(The Interestings)等小說——指出一種趨勢，如今流行“睡衣派對小說——好像書中人物都是你好朋友的化身”。

In fiction, female likeability is vexatious, as it is in the office.

在小說中，女性的魅力是個令人苦惱的問題，就像在辦公室一樣。

This came to mind when reading Ellen Pao’s new book, Reset. It recounts her working life at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the events leading up to the lawsuit in which she alleged gender discrimination. In the trial and press she was painted as icy and unlikeable. In the book she can appear cool and occasionally detached, but nonetheless she sustains interest.

讀鮑康如(Ellen Pao)的新書《復位》(Reset)讓我產(chǎn)生了這種想法。這本書講述了她在硅谷風投公司凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)的工作經(jīng)歷，以及導致她指控凱鵬華盈存在性別歧視的種種事件。在庭審過程中及新聞媒體上，她被描繪成一個冷冰冰、不招人待見的女人。在這本書中，她顯得冷漠，偶爾還很超然，盡管如此，她仍對世事保持著濃厚興趣。

The issue of likeability is one that bothered Pao herself; it seemed to wrap her in confusion. Many of her male peers, she said, appeared to get ahead without worrying about being liked. Women are frequently held to different standards: when too warm they are a pushover, too business-like and they are judged cold and remote.

有關魅力的問題也困擾著鮑康如本人;這個問題似乎令她困惑不已。她說她的許多男同事在獲得成功的同時好像并不在意自己被不被別人喜歡。人們常常拿不同的標準來看待女性：太熱情會被認為耳根子軟，太公事公辦又會讓人覺得冷漠清高。

Women are often told that if they want to get ahead, they need to stop contorting themselves into pleasing people. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, has observed that as women get more powerful they are indeed perceived as less likeable: “I see women holding themselves back because of this.”

女性常常被告知，如果想取得成功，就別再委屈自己去取悅別人。Facebook的首席運營官謝里爾•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)曾說，隨著女性變得更強大，她們確實會被認為不那么討人喜歡了：“我看到很多女性因此而退縮。”

Yet it is not just women that worry about striking the right balance between being respected and liked. Only last week, I heard it said of a male co-worker that he is too nice, as if it was a barrier to career progression.

然而，為如何在被人尊重和被人喜歡之間取得良好平衡而煩惱的不僅僅是女性。就在前不久，我聽人說起一位男同事，說他就是為人太好了，仿佛這種性格阻礙了他事業(yè)的發(fā)展。

After all, nice guys, according to business lore, are meant to finish last. Tension is the handmaid to creativity, and so on.

畢竟，商業(yè)界有個說法，好人總要吃虧。鋒芒畢露是創(chuàng)造力的使女，凡此種種。

There is a mythology around the badly-behaved creative genius. A Quartz article, entitled “Silicon Valley has idolised Steve Jobs for decades — and it’s finally paying the price”, attacks Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs for creating a “manual for any bosses seeking a hall pass for their temper tantrums”. The article blamed this mythology for creating a stream of wannabe leaders who are utterly charmless. Most are devoid of genius, too.

圍繞行跡惡劣的創(chuàng)造天才有一個神話。Quartz上一篇題為《幾十年來硅谷將史蒂夫•喬布斯奉為偶像——并最終為此付出了代價》(Silicon Valley has idolised Steve Jobs for decades — and it’s finally paying the price)的文章，抨擊了沃爾特•艾薩克森(Walter Isaacson)寫的喬布斯傳記，說這是一本獻給那些為自己的壞脾氣尋找通行證的老板們的手冊。這篇文章譴責這一神話造就了一幫領袖人物的拙劣模仿者，這些人毫無魅力。其中大多數(shù)也缺乏天賦。

No one wants to work for someone who prioritises friendship over competence. They can be prone to evading tough decisions or giving difficult but constructive feedback. This can lead to a fuzzy malaise.

沒人愿為重視友情甚于才干、任人唯親的家伙工作。這種人可能會逃避做出艱難的決定或不愿給出逆耳但有建設性的反饋。這會導致一種莫名的不安。

A bit of strategic likeability nonetheless has its virtues. As Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, told me, there is lots of evidence from experiments that it is often more important than competence. Research by James Westphal of the University of Michigan and Ithai Stern of Northwestern University, found that when it comes to boards, being likeable gets you more seats. They summed up the effect on a hypothetical director named Fred: “All it takes is a little buttering up of Fred over the course of year — a couple of compliments above the norm, an extra personal favour, one less disagreement on strategy; add them up, and the chance of a board appointment where Fred is CEO or on the nominating committee goes up more than 70 per cent.”

然而，略施手腕博取他人好感確實有可取之處?！墩摐喨恕?The No Asshole Rule)一書的作者羅伯特•薩頓(Robert Sutton)曾告訴我，大量實驗證據(jù)顯示，這往往比能力更重要。密歇根大學(University of Michigan)的詹姆斯•韋斯特法爾(James Westphal)與西北大學(Northwestern University)的伊塔•施特恩(Ithai Stern)經(jīng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在公司的董事會中，討人喜歡會讓你獲得更多人的支持。他們總結了這對于一位名叫弗雷德的虛構董事的影響：“一年中弗雷德只要付出一點點巴結——說幾句恭維話，再加點小恩小惠，在戰(zhàn)略問題上少提點不同意見;把這些加起來，讓董事會任命弗雷德做CEO或讓提名委員會提名他的幾率就會上升70%以上。”

This week I went to a funeral of a family friend whose working life had been a rollercoaster — it was packed with friends from home and work.

不久前我參加了一位世交的葬禮，此人的職業(yè)生涯就像過山車一樣大起大落——葬禮上滿是他家庭和工作上的朋友。

It is a cliché that on one’s death bed no one regrets going to too few meetings, as if that is all that working life amounts to. As I looked around the wake, it was a reminder of what counts more than money and getting ahead. Work may also be a place where great and lasting friendships are formed.

俗話說，沒人在臨終前會后悔參加的會議太少，仿佛開會就是工作生涯的全部意義所在。我環(huán)顧四周，眼前的情景提醒了我，比金錢和成功更重要的是什么。職場或許也能成就偉大而長久的友誼。

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