So the first lesson is don’t kill motivation.
第一课是不要扼杀积极性
You know businesses are often not about just increasing it, it is by stop decreasing it.
企业通常不是增加积极性而是不要阻止积极性下降
I’ll tell you a story I gave a talk at a company in Seattle a few years ago.
我来讲个故事 几年前我给一家西雅图的公司做演讲
It’s a big software company and I was giving a talk and I was in this room with 200 really depressed engineers talking to them.
它是一家规模很大的软件公司 在那个房间听我演讲的是两百名很沮丧的工程师
It turns out they were working on whatever the next version of the they were working on something really important and big for that company
原来 他们之前正在致力研发新一代的（软件）那是个大项目 对公司非常重要

and the week before I showed up the CEO of the company came to them and canceled the project.
然而在我去的前一周公司的CEO将项目取消了
And they were incredibly devastated.
他们为此深受打击
This was a group that worked for two years on something that they felt would be the next great thing for that company and the week before he just canceled it.
那个团队致力于研究那个项目已经有两年的时间了 而且他们认为那对于公司来说将是下一个伟大的奇迹 就在一周之前他将项目取消了
And they did not show up on time. They were just devastated.
（演讲的时候）他们没有准时到场 他们只是太沮丧了
They were just morally devastated and by the way after that many of them just left the company.
而且信念受到了打击 那之后他们中的很多人选择离开公司
They were very good people. They were just so demoralized.
他们都是很优秀的人 只是受到的打击太大了
And I asked them I said okay, let’s just assume the CEO had to cancel the project.
然后我就问他们 我说好吧 让我们就当他必须取消这个项目
Let’s assume he had to cancel for whatever reason. Let’s not question that.
让我们假设他因为某些原因必须这样做 我们先不要质疑这个
What could the CEO have done not to get you to be so depressed?
那么CEO怎样做才能让你们不这么失望？
And they came up with all kinds of ideas.
然后他们提出了各种想法
They said what if he allowed them to make a few working prototypes and distribute them within the company for a few years.
他们说如果CEO允许他们去做一些雏形 然后在公司内部分配使用几年
Just kind of see what people do with them.
只是看看人们会用它们做些什么
They say what if he allowed them to take parts of this new technology that we’re developing
他么说如果CEO允许他们拿正在开发的新技术
and see which parts will be useful in other parts of the organization, right, have some kind of leftovers from the project.
去试看看新技术的哪部分在系统里的其它地方可以充分利用即项目剩下来的部分给他们测试看看
They said what if you would allow them to do a workshop for the whole company to show them the journey of the last two years.
他们说如果允许他们去做一个面向整个公司的研讨会去展示他们过去两年的历程
What they’ve accomplished, what they’ve learned, what they struggled with, what they figured out.
展示他们两年来的成就 他们学到的东西 他们克服的困难 他们发现的东西
And the thing about all of those suggestions, all of them would have needed some time, money and effort,
然而所有的这些建议 都需要时间 金钱以及努力才能完成
Right. And if the CEO thinks that those people are just like rats in a cage he said oh, I told you to go this way, you went this way.
而且如果CEO认为这些人只是像笼子里的老鼠 他说我让你走这边 你就走这边
Now I want to go somewhere else. I’ll close that gate.
现在 我想去其他的地方 我要把这边的门关上
I’ll tell you to go somewhere else. Then you don’t need to worry about motivation.
我会告诉你去其他的地方 这样你就不需要担心积极性
But if you understand that motivation is incredibly important then you say how do we get these people who have invested a lot in this and how we don’t just crush their spirits.
但是如果你知道积极性非常重要 你会问要怎样做这些人为这个项目已经投入很多 我们怎样做才能不摧毁他们的信念
But what he did was to crush their spirits.
而这个CEO干的就是摧毁人信念的事
So lesson number one is stop crushing people’s spirit.
所以第一课就是 停止摧毁人们的信念
And, you know, it might seem like a ridiculous obvious thing to do but if you look at lots of companies you’ll see lots of places
好吧 你可能会觉得 这是谁都知道的事但是 如果你看得多
where not because people intend to do harm but just because we don’t truly appreciate where meaning comes to life.
你会看到有很多时候人们并不是有意去伤害只是因为我们无法领会到那些行为的意义
We do lots of those things. We get people to start projects and we cut it in the middle.
我们做很多这样的事情 我们让人们开始一个项目 然后中途又停止
We get people to prepare presentations and they never get delivered.
我们让人去准备发布会 然后永远不给人机会发布
We do all kinds of things that eliminate motivation.
我们做各种各样的扼杀积极性的事情
Imagine we were doing this little video segment and we knew all along there’s a good chance it will never see the light of day.
想象我们正在做一个小视频 我们知道很可能它没有机会让人们看到
It will just never be posted or anything like it.
永远不会被发布或公开
A black hole where it’s being posted and nobody, nobody, nobody will see it.
它像是被放在一个黑洞 永远 永远 永远没人能看见
How exciting would that be. You know lots of people are working in an environment like that.
这难道会令人激动 你知道很多人都是在这样的环境下工作
Now Now the more important question is how do we get people to be, you know, get more motivation,
现在更重要的问题是 我们怎样做才能 你知道的 使人有更多的积极性
not just stop decreasing motivation but increasing the sense of meaning.
不只是停止降低积极性 还有要增加工作的意义
Lots of ways to do it and maybe the best example is to think about the open source community.
有很多方式可以做到 可能最好的例子就是像开源社区一样思考
One of the things that happened in the open source community is that
在开源社区 有一个前提规定
there was a legal advance where they basically agreed that everybody who writes a piece of code their name would always be connected to it.
社员们基本上认同 即每当一个人写一段代码他的名字就与这段代码关联起来
Now you can say who cares. People care.
现在你可能说 谁会关心 创作者会关心
If your name is connected to a piece of code you’re going to maintain that piece of code forever.
如果你的名字和一段代码联系在一起 你就会去维护它直到永远
There was a period in time where people were worried about getting open source software.
有一段时间 人们不敢使用开源软件
They said who’s going to maintain it?
他们担心没人维护它
If your name is connected to it you’re going to maintain it.
可是如果你的名字与代码关联 你就会去维护它
And indeed people maintain all kinds of software in all kinds of unlikely events.
而且人们也确实在各种看似不可能的情况下 维护着各种软件
And people invest in it and knowing that if I create something and
人们在上面投入时间精力金钱 知道如果我创造一些东西 其他人会在此基础上继续建造
other people build on it, it would always have my name and my connection and my sense of contribution is incredibly motivating.
它将一直带着我的名字 和我相关 是我奉献的意义所在这就是最不可思议的动力
So just think about that simple idea of where do we put people’s names.
所以只要解决一个简单的小问题 我们要怎么把人的名字
On every piece of software.
放到每一个软件上
Like why on the hood of the car all the people who are involved could sign their name in a very small print.
像所有相关的人都可以在汽车引擎盖上签下自己的名字用非常小的字迹
And then of course there’s other things, right.
当然 还有其它需要注意的
It’s not just about name association.
那并不只是一个名字大集合
It’s about the feeling of contribution and the feeling that you have a say, autonomy right.
它事关人们的奉献感 以及 你可以说是 自主感是吧
That you’re not just told what you’re going to do, it’s that you are doing it.
不再是你被告知要做什么 而是你自己选择去做
There’s a very cute experiment in which they take kids.
他们用孩子做了一个非常有趣的实验
They come with their mother to a lab and they go into a separate room with the research assistants.
他们跟他们的妈妈一起走进实验室 然后孩子们跟助理一起走进和妈妈不同的房间
And they do a drawing together and one time the research assistant does the drawing and the kid tells them what to do.
孩子和助理一起合作画画 第一次是助理画画 孩子告诉助理怎么画画
So the kids give the instructions and the research assistant does the mechanical work.
所以孩子给出指示 研究助理只是机械地画画
Another condition the research assistant gives the instruction and the kids, the kid does the mechanical work.
另一种情况是助理给出指示 孩子机械地画画
And then as they finish it the research assistant takes the drawing in their hand,
当他们完成后 助手把画拿在手里
go out of the room first before the kid, shows it to the mother and says look what I did.
在孩子之前走了出去 并且把画展示给母亲们看 说“看 这是我做的”
And the question is when will the kid be more upset, right.
问题是哪种条件下 孩子们会更加不安
So the research assistant takes credit for the kid’s job.
助理把孩子占据了孩子的作品然后得到了赞扬
When will the kid be more upset?
哪种情况下孩子们会更沮丧
When the kid did the drawing but the idea was somebody else’s or when the idea was the kid’s and somebody else did the mechanical thing?
当孩子执笔但想法来自其他人的时候 还是想法是孩子的别人只是照着画的时候
And the kids get more upset when it was their idea, which was their idea.
当作品是出自孩子的想法时孩子更沮丧
Think about how much we don’t give credit in this world to other people’s ideas.
想一下我们多少时刻没有给人们的想法给予赞扬
How many people feel that their ideas were taken, somebody else is using it and they don’t get credit.
多少人感觉他们的想法被别人拿去使用 而他们自己却得不到赞扬
Credit is free, right. Credit is great. Give everybody credit, right.
赞扬是免费的 是吧 赞扬是无价的 赞美每个人 对吧
There’s a team of a 100 people, give everybody credit. Why not?
团队有100个人 给每一个人赞扬 为什么不呢？
Why are we so stingy with giving people credit.
为什么我们都那么不喜欢给予别人赞扬
Anyway, so there’s lots of other examples like this
无论如何有很多像这样的例子
where you could just say let’s look at all the things
所以让我们着眼于所有可以给予人们意义的事情
that give people a sense of meaning and let’s just try to give more of it on an every day basis.
让我们努力将每一天都过得更有意义