Dare to disagree | Margaret Heffernan

576,454 views ・ 2012-08-06

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00:00
Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Morton Bast
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翻译人员: Yuguo Zhang 校对人员: kejun chen
00:15
In Oxford in the 1950s,
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在20世纪50年代的牛津
00:17
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
00:26
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
00:29
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
00:36
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
00:40
after she had kids,
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她还继续工作
00:42
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
00:45
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
00:54
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
01:00
that to make her mark, what she needed to do
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出众,她需要寻找到难题
01:02
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
01:09
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,
01:17
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
01:22
So, what, she wanted to know,
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因为她想知道,怎样才能
01:24
could explain this anomaly?
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解释这样一种特殊现象呢?
01:27
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
01:34
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
01:41
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
01:44
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?
01:52
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?
01:54
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,
02:01
one thing and one thing only jumped out
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只有一个明显的数据
02:04
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
02:09
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
02:11
the children who had died
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他们的母亲在怀孕的时候
02:13
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
02:24
Conventional wisdom held
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传统观念认为
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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
02:30
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
02:32
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
02:36
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
02:50
Nevertheless, Alice Stewart rushed to publish
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不过呢,Alice Stewart还是很快的将她
02:54
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
03:14
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--
03:18
British and American medical establishments
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英国和美国医学建树
03:21
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
03:27
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
03:37
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
03:42
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
03:54
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?
03:57
Well, she had a fantastic model for thinking.
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她有一个极佳的思考模型
04:01
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
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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
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and George was a recluse.
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而George是个隐居者
04:11
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
04:15
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
04:19
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
04:23
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
04:33
Different ways of looking at her models,
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以不同方式研究她的模型
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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
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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,
04:53
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
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to know that she was right.
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让她相信她是正确的
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It's a fantastic model of collaboration --
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这是完美的合作的模型
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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
05:11
or dare to have, such collaborators.
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有过,或者敢有过这样的合作者
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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
05:25
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?
05:29
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
05:35
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
05:44
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,
05:46
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
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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
06:01
And the more I've thought about this,
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我想这一点想的越多,
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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
06:08
Because you simply won't commit that kind of energy
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因为如果你不在乎的话,
06:11
and time if you don't really care.
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你不可能付出那么多能量的
06:16
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
06:23
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,
06:26
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.
06:30
"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,
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but she was really good at them."
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但是她却很擅长."
06:39
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?
07:06
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
07:10
And that isn't because they don't want to,
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这不是因为他们不想
07:13
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
07:19
are too afraid of conflict.
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对于矛盾有一种恐惧心理
07:23
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,
07:26
fully 85 percent of them acknowledged
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有百分之85都承认
07:29
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
07:36
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
07:39
afraid to get embroiled in arguments
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不想被缠绕在他们不知道怎么
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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
07:48
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
07:57
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
08:04
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
08:06
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
08:12
mostly fail to get the best out of them.
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不过大多数都失败了
08:18
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,
08:29
we have to see it as thinking,
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我们必须把它当作思考
08:31
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,
08:40
and Joe worked for a medical device company.
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Jow为一家医疗设备公司工作
08:43
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
08:46
He thought that it was too complicated
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实在太复杂了
08:49
and he thought that its complexity
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以至于这台机器可能
08:51
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,
09:02
nobody else seemed to be at all worried.
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没人似乎有这种担心
09:06
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
09:09
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,
09:11
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,
09:16
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
09:19
where he thought the only thing he could do
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他觉得唯一可以做的事情
09:21
was leave a job he loved.
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就是辞掉他热爱的工作
09:25
In the end, Joe and I found a way
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最后,Joe和我找到一个
09:29
for him to raise his concerns.
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提升他担心关注度的方法
09:31
And what happened then is what almost always
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结果呢,总是发生的事情
09:34
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
09:48
and argument, but that allowed everyone around the table
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不过这使得所有人都变得
09:52
to be creative, to solve the problem,
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有创造力,都能去解决问题
09:56
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
10:04
as a whistle-blower,
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揭发者
10:06
except that like almost all whistle-blowers,
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只不过像所有揭发者一样,
10:09
he wasn't a crank at all,
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他不是在异想天开
10:11
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
10:18
But he had been so afraid of conflict,
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不过他对于矛盾太过于惧怕
10:22
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
10:27
And when he dared to speak,
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而当他敢于说出口的时候,
10:29
he discovered much more inside himself
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他发现了更多的自己
10:32
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
10:41
They think of him as a leader.
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他们认为他是个领导者
10:46
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
10:50
and more often?
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更经常地来发起这些对话呢?
10:52
Well, the University of Delft
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嗯, Delft 大学要求
10:54
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
11:04
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
11:10
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
11:15
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
11:27
if we want to have thinking organizations
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如果我们想要能够思考的组织
11:29
and a thinking society.
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和社会
11:33
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
11:45
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
11:49
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
11:59
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
12:02
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
12:07
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
12:14
Open information is fantastic,
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公开信息是很棒的
12:17
open networks are essential.
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公开的网络很关键
12:20
But the truth won't set us free
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但是事实不会让我们自由
12:22
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,
12:26
and the moral courage to use it.
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以及道德上的勇气去利用它
12:30
Openness isn't the end.
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公开并不是一个结束
12:34
It's the beginning.
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它只是一个开始
12:37
(Applause)
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(鼓掌)
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