雙語閱讀：大部分職場衝突與性格無關

摘要:衝突隨處可見，職場也不例外。當衝突發生時，人們通常歸咎於性格原因。但更多時候，職場衝突的真正深層原因在於處境本身，而不是相關人。

Conflict happens everywhere, including in the workplace. When it does, it’s tempting to blame it on personalities. But more often than not, the real underlying cause of workplace strife is the situation itself, rather than the people involved. So, why do we automatically blame our coworkers? Chalk it up to psychology and organizational politics, which cause us to oversimplify and to draw incorrect or incomplete conclusions.

There’s a good reason why we’re inclined to jump to conclusions based on limited information. Most of us are, by nature, “cognitive misers,” a term coined by social psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor to describe how people have a tendency to preserve cognitive resources and allocate them only to high-priority matters. And the limited supply of cognitive resources we all have is spread ever-thinner as demands on our time and attention increase.

衝突隨處可見，職場也不例外。當衝突發生時，人們通常歸咎於性格原因。但更多時候，職場衝突的真正深層原因在於處境本身，而不是相關人。既然如此，爲什麼我們會無意識地責怪我們的同事呢?這歸因於心理原因和組織管理，導致我們過分單純化而得出錯誤的或不完整的結論。

大部分職場衝突與性格無關

有足夠的理由來解釋爲什麼我們傾向於在有限信息基礎上得出結論。天性使然，我們大部分人是“認知的吝嗇鬼”，這一術語由社會心理學家Susan Fiske和Shelley Taylor創造，來描述人們如何傾向於保存認知資源並僅僅分配於高優先級的事情。隨着我們時間和注意力的增加，我們擁有的認知性資源的有限供給逐漸攤薄。

As human beings evolved, our survival depended on being able to quickly identify and differentiate friend from foe, which meant making rapid judgments about the character and intentions of other people or tribes. Focusing on people rather than situations is faster and simpler, and focusing on a few attributes of people, rather than on their complicated entirety, is an additional temptation.

隨着人類的進化，我們的生存依賴於能夠快速地區分朋友和敵人，或者說對別人或種族的性格和意圖能夠迅速作出判斷。聚焦於人而不是環境，更快更簡單一些，聚焦於人們的某些特徵而不是整體，是一種額外的誘惑。

Stereotypes are shortcuts that preserve cognitive resources and enable faster interpretations, albeit ones that may be inaccurate, unfair, and harmful. While few people would feel comfortable openly describing one another based on racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes, most people have no reservations about explaining others’ behavior with a personality typology like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (“She’s such an ‘INTJ’”), Enneagram, or Color Code (“He’s such an 8: Challenger”).

陳規舊習是保存認知性資源並快速解讀的捷徑，即使這種資源可能是不準確，不公平且有害的。基於人種，種族或者性別來公開描述別人，很少有人能接受，大部分人用個性類型學解釋別人的行爲時是毫無保留的。

Personality or style typologies like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, the DISC Assessment, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and others have been criticized by academic psychologists for their unproven or debatable reliability and validity. Yet, according to the Association of Test Publishers, the Society for Human Resources, and the publisher of the Myers-Briggs, these assessments are still administered millions of times per year for personnel selection, executive coaching, team building and conflict resolution. As Annie Murphy Paul argues in her insightful book, The Cult Of Personality Testing, these horoscope-like personality classifications at best capture only a small amount of variance in behavior, and in combination only explain tangential aspects of adversarial dynamics in the workplace. Yet, they’re frequently relied upon for the purposes of conflict resolution. An ENTP and an ISTJ might have a hard time working together. Then again, so might a Capricorn and a Sagittarius. So might any of us.

學術心理學家批判了諸如梅里斯布里格斯，九型人格，DISC評價，赫爾曼大腦優勢工具，托馬斯克爾曼衝突模式工具等，說他們的可靠性和有效性未被證實或具有爭議。然而根據測試出版協會、人力資源社團、梅里斯布里格斯的出版商，這些評估工具每年用於人力資源篩選，管理培訓，團隊建設和解決衝突達百萬次。正如Annie Murphy Paul在她有深刻見解的書中所說，對於個性測試的狂熱，類似於占星術的性格分類，至多捕捉了行爲差異中的一小部分，組合起來僅僅能解釋職場中對手動態的間接相關方面。然而，人們經常依賴於這些工具來解決衝突。具有ENTP人格和ISTJ人格的人很難共同工作，繼而摩羯座和射手座也如此，擴展到我們大家也可能如此。

The real reasons for conflict are a lot harder to raise — and resolve — because they are likely to be complex, nuanced, and politically sensitive. For example, people’s interests may truly be opposed; roles and levels of authority may not be correctly defined or delineated; there may be real incentives to compete rather than to collaborate; and there may be little to no accountability or transparency about what people do or say.

衝突的真正原因很難發現，分解——因爲他們可能複雜，差別細微，並具有政治敏感性。例如，人們的興趣可能完全相反;可能不能正確定義或描述權力地位和級別;存在着真正競爭的動機而不是協作;對於人們所做所說可能缺乏說明性或透明度。

When two coworkers create a safe and imaginary set of explanations for their conflict (“My coworker is a micromanager,” or “My coworker doesn’t care whether errors are corrected”), neither of them has to challenge or incur the wrath of others in the organization. It’s much easier for them to imagine that they’ll work better together if they simply understand each other’s personality (or personality type) than it is to realize that they would have to come together to, for example, request that their boss stop pitting them against one another, or to request that HR match rhetoric about collaboration with real incentives to work together. Or, perhaps the conflict is due to someone on the team simply not doing his or her job, in which case talking about personality as being the cause of conflict is a dangerous distraction from the real issue. Personality typologies may even provide rationalizations, for example, if someone says “I am a spontaneous type and that’s why I have a tough time with deadlines.” Spontaneous or not, they still have to do their work well and on time if they want to minimize conflict with their colleagues or customers.

當兩位同事對他們的衝突編造一組安全且有想象力的解釋時，(我同事是個微觀管理者，或者我同事不介意是否改正)，他們誰也不願去挑戰或激起組織內其他人的憤怒。想象一下，如果他們簡單地理解對方的個性，就能很好地一起工作，這比意識到他們不得不到一起工作容易得多，比如要求領導阻止他們彼此相鬥，或要求HR通過真正的激勵進行合作匹配測試。或者，也許衝突起因於團隊裏某人沒有盡職，這種情況下將個性歸結爲衝突的原因，這種背離真相的解釋很危險。個性類型學甚至可能提供合理化解釋，比如，如果某人說“我是自覺性個性，因此我受不了最後期限。”不管自覺與否，如果想把與同事或顧客的衝突最小化，他們還得按時做好本職工作。

Focusing too much on either hypothetical or irrelevant causes of conflict may be easy and fun in the short term, but it creates the risk over the long term that the underlying causes of conflict will never be addressed or fixed.

對衝突的假設或無關原因關注太多，可能在短期內容易些，但長期來看存在着衝突的原因將永遠處理不了的風險。

So what’s the right approach to resolving conflicts at work?

那麼處理職場衝突的正確方法是什麼呢?

First, look at the situational dynamics that are causing or worsening conflict, which are likely to be complex and multifaceted. Consider how conflict resolution might necessitate the involvement, support, and commitment of other individuals or teams in the organization. For example, if roles are poorly defined, a boss might need to clarify who is responsible for what. If incentives reward individual rather than team performance, Human Resources can be called in to help better align incentives with organizational goals.

首先，觀察引起或惡化衝突的環境動態，很可能複雜且多面化。思考如何解決衝突可能使組織或團隊其他人介入，支持和承諾成爲必要。比如，如果角色沒有明確定位，老闆就需要辨別每個人負責什麼。如果激勵機制是面向個人而不是團隊業績，有必要請求人力資源幫忙面向組織目標更好地梳理激勵機制。

Then, think about how both parties might have to take risks to change the status quo: systems, roles, processes, incentives or levels of authority. To do this, ask and discuss the question: “If it weren’t the two of us in these roles, what conflict might be expected of any two people in these roles?” For example, if I’m a trader and you’re in risk management, there is a fundamental difference in our perspectives and priorities. Let’s talk about how to optimize the competing goals of profits versus safety, and risk versus return, instead of first talking about your conservative, data-driven approach to decision making and contrasting it to my more risk-seeking intuitive style.

然後，考慮雙方如何冒險去改變現狀：制度，角色，流程，激勵或權力級別。爲了達到目標，討論以下問題：“如果這兩個角色不是我們兩個扮演，衝突會是什麼樣子呢?”比如，如果我是商人，你負責風險管理，我們的觀點和優先級有着本質的區別。讓我們討論如何優化利潤和安全，風險和回報的競爭性目標，而不是首先討論你的保守觀點，數據驅動的決策方法並與我更具有風險性的直覺風格比較。

Finally, if you or others feel you must use personality testing as part of conflict resolution, consider using non-categorical, well-validated personality assessments such as the Hogan Personality Inventory or the IPIP-NEO Assessment of the “Big Five” Personality dimensions (which can be taken for free here). These tests, which have ample peer-reviewed, psychometric evidence to support their reliability and validity, better explain variance in behavior than do categorical assessments like the Myers-Briggs, and therefore can better explain why conflicts may have unfolded the way they have. And unlike the Myers-Briggs which provides an “I’m OK, you’re OK”-type report, the Hogan Personality Inventory and the NEO are likely to identify some hard-hitting development themes for almost anyone brave enough to take them, for example telling you that you are set in your ways, likely to anger easily, and take criticism too personally. While often hard to take, this is precisely the kind of feedback that can help build self-awareness and mutual awareness among two or more people engaged in a conflict.

最後，如果你或別人認爲必須使用人格測試作爲解決衝突的一部分，考慮使用非分類的，效果明顯的人格測試方法，比如霍根人格清單或IPIP-NEO 五大人格特點評估方法。這些測試具有經過同行評議，心理測量的豐富的證據來支持他們的有效性和可靠性，更好地解釋了行爲差異，因此能更好地解釋爲什麼衝突以他自有的方式展開。不像梅里斯布里格斯只提供“我好，你也好”形式的報告，霍根個性清單和NEO更傾向於辨別一些更有力的發展主題，使幾乎所有人足夠勇敢去嘗試，比如告訴你你以自己的方式設定，很容易生氣，批評更個人化。通常很難達到，這類反饋有助於在衝突中建立自我意識和共同意識。

As a colleague of mine likes to say, “treatment without diagnosis is malpractice.” Treatment with superficial or inaccurate diagnostic categories can be just as bad. To solve conflict, you need to find, diagnose and address the real causes and effects — not imaginary ones.

正如我同事所說，“未加判斷的處理就是玩忽職守。”根據膚淺的或錯誤的判斷處理衝突同樣糟糕。要解決衝突，你需要發現，診斷並列出真正的前因後果——而不是去想象。