2023年经济学人 低头做事有好处也有坏处

（单词翻译）

低头做事有好处也有坏处

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Dullness and its discontents

沉闷者及其不满

Unshowy competence¹ brings benefits as well as drawbacks

低头做事既有好处也有坏处

The charismatic corporate² climber is a common target for resentment³ in office life.

在办公室里，魅力四射且拼命往上爬的人常常招来怨恨。

He—and research suggests men are particularly given to such narcissism⁴—hogs the spotlight⁵ in meetings, is adept⁶ at grabbing undeserved glory, and is a pro⁷ at self-promotion⁸.

他——研究表明，男性尤其容易自恋——在开会时喜欢博取关注，擅长抢夺本不属于自己的荣誉，还是自我推销的行家。

More often than not, he is the boss’s pet.

很多时候，他是老板的宠儿。

But he rises on the back of another, unsung, corporate archetype: the competent, diligent⁹ but unexciting achiever.

但他是靠着另一类默默无闻的公司员工努力工作才得以晋升的：这类人能干、勤奋，但平淡无奇。

Studies find that plenty of confident egomaniacs, unsuited to the subtleties¹⁰ of management, get a leg-up for being, well, confident egomaniacs.

研究发现，虽然许多自信的自大狂因心思不够细腻而不适合做管理工作，但他们恰恰会因为自信自大而被往上拉一把。

Companies disproportionately promote narcissists.

公司会提拔相当多的自恋者。

Perhaps a fifth of chief executives fit the description, researchers have found, a far higher proportion than within the wider population.

研究人员发现，首席执行官之中，符合自恋描述的人占五分之一，这一比例远远高于广大人群中自恋者所占的比例。

Self-absorbed CEOs can sap morale¹¹ and, evidence suggests, produce poor financial results.

以自我为中心的首席执行官可能会挫伤士气，而且有证据表明，他们也会造成财务业绩不佳。

A strong case for the dull striver was made by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychologist at University College London, in an article for the Harvard Business Review in 2015 entitled “The best managers are boring managers”.

伦敦大学学院的心理学家托马斯·查莫罗-普雷穆季奇在2015年为《哈佛商业评论》撰写了一篇文章，题为《最好的经理人是无趣的经理人》，文章为支持沉闷但努力的人进行了有力论证。

Understated competence does not intuitively scream leadership.

低调的才干不会直观地表现为领导力。

Many totemic bosses of the age, from bankers to tech founders¹², come with big egos¹³, showy antics and volatile¹⁴ tempers.

现今时代的许多图腾式老板，从银行家到科技公司创始人，都极其自负，爱哗众取宠，且脾气反复无常。

Elon Musk¹⁵ may be accused of many things.

埃隆·马斯克可能会受到许多批评。

Dullness is not one of them.

但沉闷并非其中之一。

Even so, Mr Chamorro-Premuzic argued, conscientious¹⁶ but unprepossessing characters tend to have little-noticed but precious advantages.

即便如此，查莫罗-普雷穆季奇认为，勤勉认真但平平无奇的人往往具有不易被察觉，但非常宝贵的优势。

They can be depended on to make decisions calmly, manage teams deftly¹⁷ and be emotionally mature.

人们可以信任他们会冷静地做出决定，巧妙地管理团队，并保持情感成熟。

They deserve promotion ahead of co-workers with “flash and vision, and bold displays of confidence”.

他们比那些“闪闪发光、有远见、大胆展示自信”的同事值得更早地得到晋升。

A seminal¹⁸ meta-analysis of research on leadership characteristics, published in 2002 by Timothy Judge, then at the University of Florida, and colleagues, indeed found a link between managerial effectiveness and personality traits such as being stable, agreeable and dependable.

2002年，当时在佛罗里达大学工作的蒂莫西·贾奇及其同事发表了一项关于领导力特征研究的影响重大的元分析。该分析确实发现，管理效率与稳定、随和、可靠等人格特质之间存在联系。

One explanation is that level-headedness makes it easier to deal coolly with the many subtle problems thrown up by human beings (who may all too easily infuriate a more volatile manager).

一种解释是，冷静的头脑更容易冷静地处理人类引发的许多微妙问题(人类要激怒一个更反复无常的经理可太容易了)。

Emotional maturity¹⁹ is also an indicator²⁰ of trustworthiness.

情绪成熟也是值得信赖的一个标志。

Studies have found that managers with dysfunctional traits such as narcissism are likelier to get up to no good.

研究发现，具有自恋等功能障碍特征的管理者更有可能做出不好的事情。

Conscientious bosses, by contrast, score highly for integrity.

相比之下，勤勉认真的老板在为人正直方面得分很高。

The dull but diligent could be especially valuable now.

那些沉闷但勤奋的人现在可能格外有价值。

As companies claim increasingly to prize soft skills, such as being able to communicate well with all sorts of people, emotionally intelligent workers ought to be in demand.

随着公司越来越看重软技能，比如能够与各种人很好地沟通，情商高的员工应该会受到欢迎。

A volatile business environment in which firms face problems from recession to climate change, pandemics and war, favours the steady leader.

在动荡的商业环境中，公司面临着从衰退到气候变化、流行病、战争等各种问题，在这种情况下稳重的领导者会受到青睐。

Chief executives face tricky²¹ decisions about how much risk to take in pursuit of growth, as shareholders²² look on nervously²³.

在股东们紧张的目光注视下，首席执行官们面临棘手的决定，即为了追求增长要承担多大风险。

Startup bosses who proudly moved fast and broke things are now falling over themselves to look demure²⁴.

那些以行动迅速、摧枯拉朽为傲的初创公司老板们，现在正前赴后继地让自己看起来严肃庄重。

“We are a very boring company,” Oliver Merkel, head of Flink, a grocery-delivery startup, bragged²⁵ to the Financial Times recently.

“我们是一家非常无趣的公司。”食品杂货快递初创公司Flink的老板奥利弗·默克尔最近这样向《金融时报》吹嘘。

The trend is visible in politics, too.

这一趋势在政坛也很明显。

Joe Biden in America and Rishi Sunak in Britain rose to their countries’ top jobs partly because their boring dependability promised relief from their predecessors’ noisy incompetence²⁶.

美国的约瑟夫·拜登和英国的里希·苏纳克成为各自国家的最高领导人，部分原因是他们无趣但可靠的个性很有可能会把人民从喧嚣但无能的前任中解救出来。

Testing times call for cool heads.

充满考验的时代需要冷静的头脑。

For all that, quietly competent types hoping for greater appreciation²⁷ (and remuneration) should not sit still.

尽管如此，希望得到更多赏识(和薪酬)的沉默能干的人不应安坐等待。

To rise up the ranks, the boring would do well to raise their profiles, whether by speaking up in meetings or talking up their accomplishments²⁸.

要提升自己的地位，沉闷无趣的人最好提高自己的存在感，可以在开会时大胆发言，也可以夸一夸自己的成就。

If they bag bigger jobs they will anyway need to master show-offy things like glad-handing clients, chairing meetings and holding forth²⁹ on strategy.

如果他们坐到更高的位置，他们无论如何都需要学会一些装腔作势的事，比如对客户笑脸相迎、主持会议和提出战略。

Though Mr Judge’s analysis revealed emotional stability and general diligence were crucial to managerial effectiveness, extrovert³⁰ qualities such as sociability³¹ were also telling factors.

虽然贾奇的分析显示，情绪稳定和勤奋对管理效率至关重要，但善于社交等外向品质也是重要因素。

Companies’ penchant³² for promoting the wrong people is deeply ingrained, despite management theorists’ admonitions.

尽管管理学理论家经常发出告诫，但公司喜欢提拔不合适的人的现象依然根深蒂固。

By default, many of those dishing out promotions³³ are themselves narcissists who advanced by wowing their superiors.

一般情况下，许多提拔员工的人本身就是自恋者，他们就是通过在上级面前表现自己来获得晋升的。

And showy sorts’ shameless self-aggrandisement fulfils a convenient function for bosses, giving them a shortcut—no matter how misleading—to finding candidates for elevation³⁴.

而且，爱表现的人毫不脸红地自吹自擂，这为老板们提供了一种便利，为他们提供了一条寻找升职候选人的捷径——无论这种捷径有多大的误导性。

Many managers are too busy to patiently unearth³⁵ genuine talent.

许多经理太忙了，没耐心挖掘真正的人才。

After all, they have other important things on their plates—like impressing their own bosses.

毕竟，他们手头还有其他重要的事情要做——比如给自己的老板留下好印象。