TEDGlobal 2012
Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree
Margaret Heffernan: 去怀疑的勇气
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大多数人自然而然地回避矛盾,但是Margaret Heffernan为我们展示的,好的怀疑精神对于进步是很关键的. 她为我们证明了(有时候通过反直觉的方式)为什么最好的伙伴不是志趣相投的人,以及好的研究,团队,人际关系,以及商业如何允许人们去怀疑和争执的
Margaret Heffernan - Management thinker
The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns -- like conflict avoidance and selective blindness -- that lead organizations and managers astray. Full bio
The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns -- like conflict avoidance and selective blindness -- that lead organizations and managers astray. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
In Oxford in the 1950s,
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在20世纪50年代的牛津
00:18
there was a fantastic doctor, who was very unusual,
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有一位很优秀,不寻常的医生
00:21
named Alice Stewart.
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她叫Alice Stewart
00:23
And Alice was unusual partly because, of course,
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Alice很不寻常,因为她是个女的医生
00:27
she was a woman, which was pretty rare in the 1950s.
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这对于在20世纪50年代很罕见了
00:30
And she was brilliant, she was one of the,
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她非常厉害,是当时最年轻的
00:32
at the time, the youngest Fellow to be elected to the Royal College of Physicians.
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"皇家医师学院"最年轻的学员之一
00:37
She was unusual too because she continued to work after she got married,
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她很不寻常还因为在她结婚生子后
00:41
after she had kids,
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她还继续工作
00:43
and even after she got divorced and was a single parent,
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甚至在她离婚成为单亲妈妈之后
00:46
she continued her medical work.
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她继续着她的医学工作
00:48
And she was unusual because she was really interested in a new science,
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她很不寻常还因为她对一门新的科学感兴趣
00:52
the emerging field of epidemiology,
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当时新出现的流行病学
00:55
the study of patterns in disease.
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对于疾病规律的研究
00:58
But like every scientist, she appreciated
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但跟每个科学家一样,她知道为了让她
01:01
that to make her mark, what she needed to do
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出众,她需要寻找到难题
01:03
was find a hard problem and solve it.
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然后解决她
01:07
The hard problem that Alice chose
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Alice当时选择的难题是
01:10
was the rising incidence of childhood cancers.
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童年期癌症发生率的上升
01:13
Most disease is correlated with poverty,
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大多数疾病都是跟贫穷有关的
01:15
but in the case of childhood cancers,
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不过在童年期癌症的问题上,
01:18
the children who were dying seemed mostly to come
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这些垂死的孩子似乎大多数
01:20
from affluent families.
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都从富裕家庭中而来
01:23
So, what, she wanted to know,
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因为她想知道,怎样才能
01:25
could explain this anomaly?
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解释这样一种特殊现象呢?
01:28
Now, Alice had trouble getting funding for her research.
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当时,Alice很难为她的研究筹备到资金
01:30
In the end, she got just 1,000 pounds
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最后,她只得到了1000英镑,
01:32
from the Lady Tata Memorial prize.
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从Lady Tata纪念奖得来的
01:35
And that meant she knew she only had one shot
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这意味着她知道她对于收集数据
01:37
at collecting her data.
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只有一次机会
01:39
Now, she had no idea what to look for.
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她完全不知道应当寻找什么
01:42
This really was a needle in a haystack sort of search,
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这对于需要大量数据的研究来说是一个沉重打击
01:45
so she asked everything she could think of.
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因此她问了所有她能想到的东西
01:47
Had the children eaten boiled sweets?
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这些孩子有没有吃煮沸的甜食?
01:49
Had they consumed colored drinks?
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他们有没有喝花里胡哨的饮料?
01:51
Did they eat fish and chips?
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他们是不是吃油炸鱼和薯片了?
01:53
Did they have indoor or outdoor plumbing?
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他们是不是使用过户内或者户外的铅制品?
01:55
What time of life had they started school?
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他们什么时候开始上学的?
01:58
And when her carbon copied questionnaire started to come back,
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而当她的用碳做的调查问卷回来的时候,
02:02
one thing and one thing only jumped out
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只有一个明显的数据
02:05
with the statistical clarity of a kind that
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显示了出来,
02:07
most scientists can only dream of.
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这是大多数科学家都无法想象的
02:10
By a rate of two to one,
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三分之二的这些由于癌症而死的孩子
02:12
the children who had died
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他们的母亲在怀孕的时候
02:14
had had mothers who had been X-rayed when pregnant.
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都做过X光检查
02:20
Now that finding flew in the face of conventional wisdom.
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这个发现对于传统观念是一大冲击
02:25
Conventional wisdom held
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传统观念认为
02:27
that everything was safe up to a point, a threshold.
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任何事情在一种程度上都是安全的,像一个门槛
02:31
It flew in the face of conventional wisdom,
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这对于这一观念是很大的冲击
02:33
which was huge enthusiasm for the cool new technology
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尤其是对于当时新科技,X光机器
02:37
of that age, which was the X-ray machine.
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的巨大热情
02:40
And it flew in the face of doctors' idea of themselves,
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而且对于医生对自己的看法也是巨大的冲击
02:44
which was as people who helped patients,
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因为他们都是帮助病人的
02:48
they didn't harm them.
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而不是害他们的
02:51
Nevertheless, Alice Stewart rushed to publish
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不过呢,Alice Stewart还是很快的将她
02:55
her preliminary findings in The Lancet in 1956.
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最初的发现在1956年的The Lancet杂志中发表了
02:58
People got very excited, there was talk of the Nobel Prize,
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人们都很兴奋,有人还提到诺贝尔奖的可能
03:02
and Alice really was in a big hurry
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Alice也很着急
03:04
to try to study all the cases of childhood cancer she could find
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她想去学习她能找到所有的儿童癌症的资料
03:08
before they disappeared.
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在他们消失之前
03:10
In fact, she need not have hurried.
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事实上,她并不需要那么急
03:15
It was fully 25 years before the British and medical --
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过了25年之后,英国的医学建树--
03:19
British and American medical establishments
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英国和美国医学建树
03:22
abandoned the practice of X-raying pregnant women.
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也禁止了给怀孕女人的X光测验
03:28
The data was out there, it was open, it was freely available,
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数据都是开放的,很容易获得
03:33
but nobody wanted to know.
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但是没人想知道这一点
03:38
A child a week was dying,
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每周都有一个小孩在垂死挣扎
03:40
but nothing changed.
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但就跟啥都没发生一样
03:43
Openness alone can't drive change.
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开放性无法带来改变
03:49
So for 25 years Alice Stewart had a very big fight on her hands.
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25年来Alice Stewart在做很大的斗争
03:55
So, how did she know that she was right?
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所以说,她怎么知道她当时是对的?
03:58
Well, she had a fantastic model for thinking.
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她有一个极佳的思考模型
04:02
She worked with a statistician named George Kneale,
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她当时与一位名叫George Kneale的统计学家合作
04:04
and George was pretty much everything that Alice wasn't.
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而George刚好与Alice正互补
04:06
So, Alice was very outgoing and sociable,
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Alice非常外向和社交化
04:09
and George was a recluse.
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而George是个隐居者
04:12
Alice was very warm, very empathetic with her patients.
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Alice很热情,与她的病人有很多互动
04:16
George frankly preferred numbers to people.
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而George相比之下更喜欢数字,而不是人们
04:20
But he said this fantastic thing about their working relationship.
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不过他提到过他们工作关系的极大好处
04:24
He said, "My job is to prove Dr. Stewart wrong."
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他说:"我的工作就是证明Stewart博士是错的."
04:30
He actively sought disconfirmation.
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他积极地寻找错误的证明
04:34
Different ways of looking at her models,
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以不同方式研究她的模型
04:36
at her statistics, different ways of crunching the data
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她的数据,以及不同方式去利用数据
04:39
in order to disprove her.
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来证明她是错的
04:42
He saw his job as creating conflict around her theories.
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他把他自己的工作当作为Alice的理论创造矛盾
04:48
Because it was only by not being able to prove
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因为只有他无法证明Alice是错的
04:51
that she was wrong,
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时候,
04:54
that George could give Alice the confidence she needed
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George就可以带来Alice所需要的自信
04:57
to know that she was right.
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让她相信她是正确的
05:00
It's a fantastic model of collaboration --
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这是完美的合作的模型
05:04
thinking partners who aren't echo chambers.
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由伙伴之前相互补充
05:09
I wonder how many of us have,
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我想知道有多少人
05:12
or dare to have, such collaborators.
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有过,或者敢有过这样的合作者
05:19
Alice and George were very good at conflict.
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Alice和George对于矛盾很擅长
05:22
They saw it as thinking.
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他们认为这就是思考
05:26
So what does that kind of constructive conflict require?
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那么这种建设性的矛盾要求什么呢?
05:30
Well, first of all, it requires that we find people
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首先呢,它需要我们去找到
05:33
who are very different from ourselves.
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十分不同的人们
05:36
That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive,
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这意味着我们必须抗拒精神上的推动
05:40
which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves,
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那就是我们更喜欢像我们的人们
05:45
and it means we have to seek out people
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这意味着我们必须寻找有不同背景,
05:47
with different backgrounds, different disciplines,
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不同训练,不同方法去思考以及不同经验
05:49
different ways of thinking and different experience,
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的人们,
05:53
and find ways to engage with them.
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而且还要去想办法与他们交流
05:57
That requires a lot of patience and a lot of energy.
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这需要很多热情和能量
06:02
And the more I've thought about this,
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我想这一点想的越多,
06:04
the more I think, really, that that's a kind of love.
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真的,我觉得这是一种爱
06:09
Because you simply won't commit that kind of energy
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因为如果你不在乎的话,
06:12
and time if you don't really care.
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你不可能付出那么多能量的
06:17
And it also means that we have to be prepared to change our minds.
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这还意味着我们必须准备好去改变我们的想法
06:21
Alice's daughter told me
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Alice的女儿告诉我
06:24
that every time Alice went head-to-head with a fellow scientist,
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每次Alice去和一个同事科学家会面,
06:27
they made her think and think and think again.
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他们都让她一遍一遍的思考.
06:31
"My mother," she said, "My mother didn't enjoy a fight,
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"我的母亲",她说,"我的母亲不喜欢争吵,
06:35
but she was really good at them."
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但是她却很擅长."
06:40
So it's one thing to do that in a one-to-one relationship.
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因此这在一对一的关系中是一个方面
06:44
But it strikes me that the biggest problems we face,
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但这使我想到那些我们面对过的最大难题
06:47
many of the biggest disasters that we've experienced,
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经历过的最严重的灾难,
06:50
mostly haven't come from individuals,
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大多都不是由个人引起的
06:52
they've come from organizations,
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而是从组织而来的
06:54
some of them bigger than countries,
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有些比国家还大
06:56
many of them capable of affecting hundreds,
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大多数都有影响上百人的能力
06:58
thousands, even millions of lives.
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甚至上千人,上百万人
07:02
So how do organizations think?
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那么这些组织是怎么想的呢?
07:07
Well, for the most part, they don't.
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其实大多数情况下,他们是不思考的
07:11
And that isn't because they don't want to,
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这不是因为他们不想
07:14
it's really because they can't.
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而是因为他们无法
07:16
And they can't because the people inside of them
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因为在组织里面的人
07:20
are too afraid of conflict.
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对于矛盾有一种恐惧心理
07:24
In surveys of European and American executives,
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在对欧洲和美国行政人员的调查中，
07:27
fully 85 percent of them acknowledged
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有百分之85都承认
07:30
that they had issues or concerns at work
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他们有一些他们自己不敢说出
07:33
that they were afraid to raise.
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的话题和意见
07:37
Afraid of the conflict that that would provoke,
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对可能产生的矛盾有恐惧心理
07:40
afraid to get embroiled in arguments
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不想被缠绕在他们不知道怎么
07:42
that they did not know how to manage,
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处理的争论中
07:44
and felt that they were bound to lose.
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而且感到他们肯定会输
07:49
Eighty-five percent is a really big number.
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百分之85可是很大的数字
07:55
It means that organizations mostly can't do
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这意味着大多数组织没法做
07:58
what George and Alice so triumphantly did.
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George和Alice成功做到的事情
08:00
They can't think together.
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他们不能心往一处想
08:05
And it means that people like many of us,
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而这意味着跟我们一样的许多
08:07
who have run organizations,
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带领组织的人
08:09
and gone out of our way to try to find the very best people we can,
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都在尽可能找到他们能找到最好的人
08:13
mostly fail to get the best out of them.
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不过大多数都失败了
08:19
So how do we develop the skills that we need?
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那么我们怎样培养我们需要的技巧呢?
08:22
Because it does take skill and practice, too.
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因为这的确需要一些技巧和练习
08:26
If we aren't going to be afraid of conflict,
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如果我们不惧怕矛盾的话,
08:30
we have to see it as thinking,
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我们必须把它当作思考
08:32
and then we have to get really good at it.
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然后我们必须变得很擅长
08:36
So, recently, I worked with an executive named Joe,
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因此,最近,我在和一个叫Joe的行政人员工作,
08:41
and Joe worked for a medical device company.
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Jow为一家医疗设备公司工作
08:44
And Joe was very worried about the device that he was working on.
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他很担心他正在工作的这台医疗设备
08:47
He thought that it was too complicated
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实在太复杂了
08:50
and he thought that its complexity
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以至于这台机器可能
08:52
created margins of error that could really hurt people.
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会产生一些错误去伤害人们
08:56
He was afraid of doing damage to the patients he was trying to help.
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他很害怕去伤害那些他想帮助的人们
09:00
But when he looked around his organization,
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不过他看了看周围的人,
09:03
nobody else seemed to be at all worried.
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没人似乎有这种担心
09:07
So, he didn't really want to say anything.
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因此,他不想把自己的想法说出来
09:10
After all, maybe they knew something he didn't.
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毕竟,其他人可能知道他有不知道的东西,
09:12
Maybe he'd look stupid.
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这样他会看起来很愚蠢
09:14
But he kept worrying about it,
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但是他始终非常担心,
09:17
and he worried about it so much that he got to the point
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以至于他到达一种程度
09:20
where he thought the only thing he could do
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他觉得唯一可以做的事情
09:22
was leave a job he loved.
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就是辞掉他热爱的工作
09:26
In the end, Joe and I found a way
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最后,Joe和我找到一个
09:30
for him to raise his concerns.
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提升他担心关注度的方法
09:32
And what happened then is what almost always
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结果呢,总是发生的事情
09:35
happens in this situation.
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果然再一次发生了.
09:36
It turned out everybody had exactly the same
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所有人其实都有着
09:39
questions and doubts.
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同样的问题和怀疑
09:41
So now Joe had allies. They could think together.
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所以现在Joe和他的伙伴.他们可以往一处去思考
09:45
And yes, there was a lot of conflict and debate
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当然,这其中有很多的矛盾和辩论
09:49
and argument, but that allowed everyone around the table
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不过这使得所有人都变得
09:53
to be creative, to solve the problem,
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有创造力,都能去解决问题
09:57
and to change the device.
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去改变这台设备
10:01
Joe was what a lot of people might think of
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Joe有点像是大多数认为的
10:05
as a whistle-blower,
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揭发者
10:07
except that like almost all whistle-blowers,
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只不过像所有揭发者一样,
10:10
he wasn't a crank at all,
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他不是在异想天开
10:12
he was passionately devoted to the organization
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他有激情地为组织付出
10:15
and the higher purposes that that organization served.
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以及为组织的目标所努力
10:19
But he had been so afraid of conflict,
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不过他对于矛盾太过于惧怕
10:23
until finally he became more afraid of the silence.
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直到最后沉默对他来说更为可怕
10:28
And when he dared to speak,
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而当他敢于说出口的时候,
10:30
he discovered much more inside himself
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他发现了更多的自己
10:33
and much more give in the system than he had ever imagined.
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以及他从未想象过的对于系统的贡献
10:38
And his colleagues don't think of him as a crank.
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而且他的同事没觉得他的想法是天方夜谭
10:42
They think of him as a leader.
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他们认为他是个领导者
10:47
So, how do we have these conversations more easily
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所以说,我们怎么样才能更简单
10:51
and more often?
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更经常地来发起这些对话呢?
10:53
Well, the University of Delft
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嗯, Delft 大学要求
10:55
requires that its PhD students
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它所有的博士学生
10:57
have to submit five statements that they're prepared to defend.
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必须提交他们已经准备好可以进行辩护的5个陈述
11:01
It doesn't really matter what the statements are about,
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这些陈述是什么都无所谓
11:05
what matters is that the candidates are willing and able
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重要的是这些选手们愿意而且有能力
11:08
to stand up to authority.
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对权威提出挑战
11:11
I think it's a fantastic system,
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我认为这是一个极棒的系统
11:13
but I think leaving it to PhD candidates
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不过我觉得把这些留给博士生
11:16
is far too few people, and way too late in life.
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太少了,而且太晚了
11:20
I think we need to be teaching these skills
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我认为我们应该向所以小孩和大人
11:23
to kids and adults at every stage of their development,
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都来教授这些技巧
11:28
if we want to have thinking organizations
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如果我们想要能够思考的组织
11:30
and a thinking society.
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和社会
11:34
The fact is that most of the biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed
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事实上,那些我们曾经见证过的最大的灾难,
11:39
rarely come from information that is secret or hidden.
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很少是由于一些隐藏的或者秘密的信息而产生
11:46
It comes from information that is freely available and out there,
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都是由那些公开的信息而造成的
11:50
but that we are willfully blind to,
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不过我们只不是完全忽略了而已
11:52
because we can't handle, don't want to handle,
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因为我们不想去处理引起
11:55
the conflict that it provokes.
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的各种麻烦和矛盾
12:00
But when we dare to break that silence,
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但是当我们愿意去打破这种沉默
12:03
or when we dare to see,
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或者我们敢于看到
12:05
and we create conflict,
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并且制造矛盾
12:08
we enable ourselves and the people around us
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我们使得我们以及周围的人
12:10
to do our very best thinking.
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进行最有效的思考
12:15
Open information is fantastic,
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公开信息是很棒的
12:18
open networks are essential.
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公开的网络很关键
12:21
But the truth won't set us free
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但是事实不会让我们自由
12:23
until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent
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除非我们拥有技能,习惯,天赋,
12:27
and the moral courage to use it.
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以及道德上的勇气去利用它
12:31
Openness isn't the end.
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公开并不是一个结束
12:35
It's the beginning.
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它只是一个开始
12:37
(Applause)
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(鼓掌)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Margaret Heffernan - Management thinkerThe former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns -- like conflict avoidance and selective blindness -- that lead organizations and managers astray.
Why you should listen
How do organizations think? In her book Willful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan examines why businesses and the people who run them often ignore the obvious -- with consequences as dire as the global financial crisis and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Heffernan began her career in television production, building a track record at the BBC before going on to run the film and television producer trade association IPPA. In the US, Heffernan became a serial entrepreneur and CEO in the wild early days of web business. She now blogs for the Huffington Post and BNET.com. Her latest book, Beyond Measure, a TED Books original, explores the small steps companies can make that lead to big changes in their culture.
Margaret Heffernan | Speaker | TED.com