雅思课外读物--Do we really need smarts?

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今天，易伯华雅思君要和大家分享的这篇文章叫“The problem with smart people”聪明人的问题。做公司不需要聪明的经理?这是个反知觉的(counter-intuitive)观点。本文用大量例子来证明这个观点，然后推广开去，认为商业中最需要的是客户关怀。与客户打交道，快不是好，多也不是妙。最聪明的经理?理论上对，实际上难说!

The problem with smart people

When hiring,promoting, even just putting together your team, you should look

for the smartest people in the room, right? Not so fast.

Intelligence isone of those characteristics where there is a minimum level

needed to be in the game(游戏中有些东西需要有一个最低水平，智力就是这样的东西). Once past that, too much

intelligence can be a draw back or worse.

The Enron management team, for example, were known as “the smartest guys in

the room.” Consider how well that turnedout. The former US energy trading company

tapped its top talent to run some ofits most-profitable divisions, almost

without supervision. The managers,despite their smarts, were an arrogant(傲慢的),

insecure bunch(一帮人) who took wild chances and lost billions of dollars.The

company dissolved in 2001.

Certainly, the jobfor which you’re hiring makes a difference. I do want

big-time(一流的)intelligencefor researchers, analysts, and coders, but you can lock

those folks in a roomand let them do their thing because they work on their own.

If they lack emotional intelligence or interpersonal skills, any damage they do

is limited because of their independent work.

But do I reallyneed to find the smartest managers?

The problem with smart people

The problem withreally smart people is that they often think they know more

than everyone else.Maybe they do. But that doesn’t help them when they’re trying

to get others tobuy into whatever they’re selling. For example, I was coaching

one seniorexecutive who always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else on

her team.At least, that’s what she thought. One of the biggest challenges she

faced wasrecognising that other managers didn’t necessarily view the world the

same way.That meant she needed to invest the time to bring them along if she

wanted toget traction on her preferred projects.

When you know theright answer, you often can’t believe that everyone else

doesn’t just see thesame thing, and fall into line(看齐;同意).

Unfortunately,organisations don’t work that way. Especially when working with

peers when youdon’t have direct authority over them, the only way to get

momentum(活力;动力) toward your preferred outcome is to sellthem on the idea.

Imposing your “superior” solution just doesn’t work.

The irony is thatsometimes the most talented person can make for(走向;成为)one of

themost ineffective managers. You can see this in sports, for example,

whereretired superstars often find it difficult to coach or manage

successfullybecause they are now supervising lesser mortals(凡人) that

weren’tblessed with the same degree of innate(天生的) talent.

Wayne Gretzky, theCanadian hockey legend who retired with more personal

scoring records thananyone in the history of professional hockey, was remarkably

ineffective as ahead coach. The same may be said about Michael Jordan, perhaps

the greatestbasketball player ever, who has never been able to lead a successful

basketballorganisation whether as general manager, president or owner.

It could be justas bad when we let the A-level crowd go to market with what

they see as thebest product. I remember talking to managers at Singapore-based

CreativeTechnology, Inc after the iPod had just been introduced by Apple.

Creative hada technologically superior MP3 player, but customers preferred the

iPod, to the utter dismay of the Creative managers(让Creative公司的经理们感到无比郁闷).

Theyjust couldn’t understand how customers were so irrational!

But it turns outthat the best technology doesn’t always win, just like the

smartest peopledon’t always succeed.

It’s not justbrainpower where more may also not be better. For example, is it

good to keepreducing the time it takes for technicians to help customers

requestingassistance via call-in centres? What about the quality of the advice,

how thecustomer perceives the value of the advice or even whether it’s such a

greatidea in the first place to try to optimise(优化)on speed?

Zappos, theUS-based online shoe store, actually rewards employees for

spending more timewith customers who call in with questions about products they

are thinking ofbuying. For Zappos, customer experience on a call

trumps(击败;胜过)any simple metric that, in its view, canactually detract from

profitability.

When employeesare motivated to cycle through customers as fast as possible,

platitudes(老生常谈) that the customer comes first are justthat — empty, cynical

slogans that mean nothing to sales

staff(如果员工被鼓励尽量快速地应付完顾客，那么老挂在嘴上的“顾客至上”就变成空洞而讽刺的口号，对销售员来说没有丝毫意义).

And let’s notforget the side effect (副作用)thataccompanies this culture. People

who really care about service look elsewherefor work. That leaves demotivated

employees who actually do a good job ofhitting their time targets. In the end,

you get what you want, but you losebecause of un-nuanced(粗狂的)thinking that more

is better than less.

Call itbrilliantly fulfilling the wrong vision.

The quest for moremay well be the defining ethos(社会思潮，社会精神)of ourtime, but

the downside that comes with this single-minded fixation warrants(值得) greater

attention. Relying on the smartestand the most talented to lead and manage

people and teams may be one of thosethings that sounds a lot better in theory

than in practice.

Vocabulary

Arrogant 傲慢的

Big-timeintelligence 一流的智力

Fall into line 看齐;同意

Momentum 动力

Make for 走向;变成

Mortal 凡人

Innate 天生的

Optimize 优化

Trump 击败，胜过

Platitude 老生常谈的话

Side effect 副作用

Ethos 时代精神

Warrant 值得;确保

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