從登山災難看團隊差異重要性

In his book Into Thin Air, the harrowing account of the ill-fated 1996 expeditions to Mount Everest, mountaineer Jon Krakauer recalls his sense of foreboding as he helicoptered into the Himalayas with an ad hoc team of amateurs.

登山家喬恩.克拉考爾(Jon Krakauer)在他的書《進入空氣稀薄地帶》(Into Thin Air)中，講述了1996年攀登珠穆朗瑪峯的慘痛經歷，回憶了自己和一個臨時組建的業餘登山者團隊乘直升機進入喜馬拉雅山脈時心裏的不祥之感。

I attributed my growing unease to the fact that I’d never climbed as a member of such a large group — a group of complete strangers, no less, he writes.

我把自己不斷加劇的不安歸結爲一個事實，即我從未作爲如此龐大團隊的一員去登山，而整個團隊里居然全是陌生人，他寫道。

One climber’s actions can affect the welfare of the entire team.

一名登山者的行爲可能影響整個團隊的安全。

The consequences of a poorly tied knot, a stumble, a dislodged rock, or some other careless deed are as likely to be felt by the perpetrator’s colleagues as the perpetrator . . . I suspected that each of my team mates hoped as fervently as I that [Rob] Hall [their professional guide] had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability, and would have the means to protect each of us from one another’s shortcomings.

一個結沒打好，一次跌倒，一塊踢落的岩石，或者其他的粗心大意，對犯錯者造成的後果可能和對團隊中其他人造成的後果一樣嚴重……我猜，我的每一名隊友都跟我一樣熱切地希望，羅布.霍爾(Rob Hall)（他們的專業嚮導）小心地把那些能力可疑的客戶剔除掉了，並有辦法保護我們每個人免受其他人缺點的拖累。

In fact, eight climbers died in one day — including Hall — when storms closed in on the many groups, from first-timers

而事實上，那一天當風暴襲擊衆多登山隊時，8名登山者在1天內喪生，霍爾也在其中。

and tourists to hardened professionals, who were trying to make it to the summit and back.

這些登山隊中有新手和遊客，也有經驗豐富的專業人士，他們在努力登頂並返回。

Confusion and controversy shrouded what happened in the death zone above 8,000m in 1996, but Krakauer’s concern that the individual actions of one team member could doom the others should have been overlaid by another worry.

1996年發生在海拔8000米以上死亡區的事充滿着困惑和爭議，但克拉考爾除了擔心單個團隊成員的個別行動可能給其他人帶來厄運，應該還心存另一種擔憂。

Collective dedication to a goal can itself be dangerous if it covers up important individual differences, according to a new study, with fascinating implications for how lower-altitude teams are built, motivated and run.

一項新研究表明，如果掩蓋了重要的個體差異的話，衆人致力於實現同一個目標本身可能是危險的，這對於如何組建、激勵和管理普通團隊也具有非凡的意義。

Jennifer Chatman from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and her co-authors studied records of more than 60 years of expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas.

加州大學伯克利分校(UC Berkeley)哈斯商學院(Haas School of Business)的詹尼弗.查特曼(Jennifer Chatman)和她的合著者們研究了60多年的尼泊爾喜馬拉雅山脈探險記錄。

It is a rich bank of information — about 40,000 climbers from some 80 countries.

這些記錄的信息量非常大，涵蓋了來自約80個國家的約4萬名登山者。

Unlike workplace teams, these groups had a clear goal: to reach their summit.

跟職場團隊不同的是，這些登山隊有一個清晰的目標：攀上頂峯。

They shared one objective and unambiguous measure of failure: the death of a team member.

他們有一個客觀、明瞭的失敗衡量標準：團隊成員喪生。

By parsing this sometimes grim data set and combining it with teamwork experiments, the researchers found that a collective mindset helped diverse teams ignore differences, such as nationality, that were not relevant to their task.

研究者們解析這一有時殘忍的數據集、並與團隊試驗相結合發現，集體思維會幫助多樣化的團隊忽視跟他們的任務無關的差異，比如國籍。

But when the collective spirit overrode vital individual differences of, say, experience, the result could be fatal.

但是，當集體精神碾壓了重要的個體差異（比如經驗差異）時，後果可能是致命的。

For example, teams that got into trouble at altitude and assumed that all members had the same expertise as their most knowledgeable climbers sometimes took risks that put lives in jeopardy.

例如，有些在高海拔處遇到麻煩的登山隊想當然地認爲，所有成員都擁有跟他們當中知識最淵博的登山者相同的技能，這些團隊有時會冒一些危及團隊成員生命的風險。

Lessons from extreme situations may seem irrelevant to staffers discussing projects in air-conditioned corporate conference rooms.

對於在公司空調會議室裏討論項目的職場人士而言，極端情形下的教訓看起來或許無關緊要。

But Prof Chatman says the research suggests perhaps the whole team-building fad has overshot the mark, by placing too much emphasis on cohesion.

但查特曼教授表示，研究表明，由於太過強調凝聚力，團隊建設的整個風潮可能過度了。

Lives may not be on the line, but teams that do not value and recognise their differences could be less effective.

生命倒是可能無虞，但不重視、不承認成員差異的團隊，可能效率更低。

There are few more pressing management challenges than how to run diverse teams.

很少有比管理多元化團隊更艱鉅的管理挑戰。

Big companies are experimenting with ways to go beyond traditional recruitment in order to widen the pool of staff in which they fish.

大公司正在進行超越傳統招聘的實驗，以便擴大備選人才池。

Deutsche Bank, for instance, is exploring behavioural profiling and testing in its hiring.

例如，德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)正在探索在招聘中使用行爲分析與測驗。

In her book What Works — shortlisted for this year’s FT Business Book of the Year — Iris Bohnet focuses on the difficulties of achieving, then reaping the advantages of, gender balance in the workplace.

艾里斯.博內特(Iris Bohnet)的《什麼管用？》(What Works)一書主要研究了實現職場中性別平衡並利用這種平衡的優勢的種種困難。

Getting it right is not easy, she writes of the task of designing appropriately balanced, creative and productive teams.

她在寫到如何設計適當平衡、創造性強和效率高的團隊時稱，做好並不容易。

In the first place, managers need to assess diversity correctly.

首先，管理人員需要對多樣性做出正確評估。

They then need to set out a clear, collective mission.

接着，他們需要設定一個明確的共同使命。

But they must also identify which of the differences between the team members — nationality, gender, race — have little bearing on the task in hand, and which, such as specific skills and experience, are highly relevant.

但是，他們也必須確認，在團隊成員的差異（國籍、性別和種族）中，哪些是對手頭任務基本沒有影響的，以及哪些是高度相關的，比如具體技能和經驗。

Cohesion and co-operation may look like virtues, but they could be symptoms of groupthink.

凝聚力與合作或許看似美德，但它們可能是集體思維的徵兆。

The greater the collective will of the team — and the higher the stakes — the less likely people are to dissent, because, in Prof Chatman’s words, speaking up about risks is like saying you have no confidence in the group.

集體意志越強大，並且事情越是事關重大，人們表達不同意見的可能性就越小，因爲，用查特曼教授的話講，大聲談論風險就好像是說，你對團隊沒有信心。

In the workplace, these findings place even more burden on the team leader, for whom dissent and friction are unlikely signals of success.

這些發現給職場中的團隊領袖增添了更大壓力，對他們而言，異議和摩擦不大可能是成功的標誌。

But as Prof Chatman says: Maybe we need to live with a little more discomfort and difference to get these valuable outcomes.

但如查特曼所說：或許我們需要對不舒服和差異忍受更多一點兒，才能得到有益的結果。

Emphasising the ways in which team members are not the same could increase tension within the team.

對團隊成員在哪些方面存在差異加以強調，可能加劇團隊內部的緊張情緒。

It could mean the group takes longer to reach its goal.

這可能意味着，團隊需要更長時間來達成目標。

But those would be small prices to pay to improve the overall performance — and avoid disaster.

但對於提高整體業績、避免災難而言，這些將是小小的代價。