Students, six to a table, pore over financials and craft investor presentations. The click-clacks of their laptops fill the ornate conference rooms of Boston's mahogany-paneled 19thcentury Omni Parker House. The space is old, but the class is brand new.
学生们每六人一组，认真学习财务知识，起草投资者报告。在波士顿的欧米帕克豪斯酒店（Omni Parker House），华丽的会议室中回荡着学生们敲击键盘的声音。这家铺有桃心木地板的酒店源自19世纪。虽然地方是老的，但这里的学习班模式却是全新的。
The students are all in the Fullbridge Program, a new kind of business school, akin to an MBA -- a baby brother, perhaps, but with a speed addiction. Fullbridge's founders, husband and wife Peter and Candice Carpenter Olson (he a former CEO at Random House; she a founder at iVillage) have even developed a new certificate for graduates of their program: the XBA.
这些学生全都是赋桥集训营（Fullbridge Program）的学员。这是一种全新模式的商学院，与MBA类似，但更加注重速度。赋桥创始人彼得与坎蒂斯??卡朋特??奥尔森夫妇【丈夫曾担任兰登书屋（Random House）CEO；妻子是女性社交网站ivillage.com的创始人】，甚至为集训营的毕业生们设计了一种全新的认证：XBA。
The XBA mixes drills with a bit of theory. Participants learn to read balance sheets, income, and cash flow statements in small groups for eight hours a day. They evaluate global companies' strategies and performance based on those numbers, and then present their findings in teams at the end of a 20-day, four-week boot camp -- typically over winter or summer break. Fullbridge recruits students and early-career professionals in their late teens to late twenties. Its appeal is that not only will the program help students be more valuable at their jobs, but it will also help them find fulfillment in their careers.
XBA将理论与实践相结合。学员们分成若干小组，每天用八个小时学习如何阅读资产负债表、损益表和现金流量表。他们会根据这些报表中的数据评估全球各大公司的策略与绩效，并在集训营结束时分组陈述评估结果。集训时间约为四周，通常安排在寒、暑假。赋桥招收的大多是二十岁左右的学生和职场新人。集训营的吸引力不仅在于它可以帮助学生们提升在职场中的个人价值，而且能帮助学生们在事业上获得成就感。
The Olsons founded Fullbridge in 2010 to address a problem they saw their seven children's friends struggle with: Academia gave them critical thinking skills, but left these young people unprepared for real-life work. When Peter, 62, first graduated from college, he recalls that employers either had "extensive training programs or almost unlimited amounts of patience." That's no longer the case and graduates are entering high-expectation jobs with little experience, proving problematic for both parties.
奥尔森夫妇于2010年创立了赋桥，当时的目的是为了帮助解决七个孩子的朋友们遇到的难题：学术教育让他们掌握了批判性思维的技能，但却并没有让他们做好面对现实生活的准备。62岁的彼得回忆起自己刚从大学毕业时的情景时表示，那时候，雇主“有大量培训计划，而且耐心十足。”如今，情况发生了变化，许多毕业生没有任何经验就开始承担期望值很高的工作，结果给学生和雇主都造成了困扰。
The Olsons say they have little desire to replace the traditional undergraduate or MBA experience. They see the XBA as a new category of education -- the finishing touch on the 21st century liberal arts degree. They enlisted their network of successful business friends -- from Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers partner Randy Komisar to Communispace founder and CEO Diane Hessan -- and put together bite-size presentations that address topics like being smart versus being effective at work and how to make good use of Excel. The lessons also dive into companies like Apple (AAPL) and Starbucks (SBUX), talking about how these brands have thrived in competitive environments. And Peter gives an abbreviated step-by-step of how he examined cash flow statements and the like while he was CEO of Random House. After running a successful pilot with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &Flom first-year associates, the duo fine-tuned Fullbridge's curriculum for undergraduates.
奥尔森夫妇认为，他们并不想取代传统的本科教育或MBA教育。他们认为，XBA是一种全新的教育类型——21世纪人文科学教育的点睛之笔。他们利用自己在商界的人脉，邀请成功的朋友前来授课，比如凯鹏华盈（Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers ）合伙人兰迪??科米萨和市场调研公司Communispace的创始人兼CEO戴安??赫森等。课程通过简明易懂的讲解来解决学生的问题，诸如工作中如何平衡聪明和高效的关系，抑或是如何充分利用Excel等。此外，课堂中还会研究苹果（Apple）和星巴克（Starbucks ）等公司，讨论这些品牌如何在竞争环境中生存下来。而且，彼得还提供了自己担任兰登书屋CEO时阅读现金流量表等财务报表的简便方法。第一年的试点合作成功之后，赋桥与世达律所（Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &Flom）针对本科生对课程进行了微调。
Though Peter still teaches business administration at Harvard Business School, the pair say that the new program has forced them to reevaluate traditional teaching methods. Candice, 60, has focused on how Fullbridge's learning materials are designed. To create a visually appealing environment for Fullbridge participants, she hired firms like Tank Design and Mechanica to create eye-catching content for the students. "We could be called an education-slash-tech company, but the two biggest checks we've written have been to design firms, " she laughs. Short video lessons and team activities serve as the program's foundation.
虽然彼得仍然在哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）教授工商管理课程，但夫妻两人均表示，赋桥集训营迫使他们不得不重新思考传统的教学方法。60岁的坎蒂斯非常重视赋桥学习材料的设计。为了设计出视觉上更具吸引力的环境，她聘用了Tank Design与Mechanica等设计公司，设计能够吸引学生眼球的内容。坎蒂斯笑言：“我们可能被叫做教育/科技公司，但我们最大的两笔开支却是支付给了设计公司。”集训营以简短易懂的视频教学和团队活动为主。
Students pay between $5, 000-6, 000 to attend Fullbridge, depending on date and location. Students can also access housing at an additional cost of $1250-$1450. Since the program's 2010 launch, 584 students have participated.
根据学生上课的日期和地点，赋桥的学费在5,000至6,000美元之间。学生额外支付1,250至1450美元还可以获得集训营提供的住宿。集训营自2010年成立以来已有584名学生报名参加。
The power of a good coach
优秀导师的力量
At the Omni Parker House, Luke Owings' 6'6" frame towers over five Fullbridge coaches. Owings, 28, played basketball at Princeton. It's a day after the program's most intense lesson, "Cintas y Lazos," where students review the financials of a new company (it makes ribbons, of all things), and are then tasked with presenting investors with a plan to reach profitability, taking into account brand, salaries, manufacturing costs, and other factors. There's one message in the coaches' room: "Whatever you do for this opener, bring the energy." Owings bounces as he advises the coaches: "We're really trying to get them into that culture of feedback, feedback, feedback."
在欧米帕克豪斯酒店，卢克??奥文斯6.6英尺的体格远远超过了五位赋桥导师。28岁的奥文斯曾经是普林斯顿大学（Princeton）的篮球队员。集训营最紧张的一节课是“Cintas y Lazos”。课上，学生们将评估一家新公司（生产绶带等）的财务状况，并根据品牌、工资、生产成本和其他因素，向投资者提交一份报告，制定实现盈利的计划。导师房间里贴着一则启示：“不论你的开场白是什么，一定要有活力。”在给导师们提意见时，奥文斯总是满怀激情：“我们真的在努力让导师们养成反馈的习惯，反馈，还是反馈。”
In the same way that a terrible boss can create a hellish workplace, an ineffective Fullbridge coach can ruin the XBA program. Fullbridge assigns one coach to every 16 students. Owings plays coach to the coaches.
一个糟糕的老板会让一个公司变得如同地狱一般，同样，一位不得力的导师会毁掉XBA集训营。赋桥为每16名学生委派一名导师。而奥文斯则为导师提供指导。
Peter recruited the former McKinsey analyst in 2011, just after he graduated from Harvard Business School. Owings looks for approachable professionals with credibility when he searches for coaches. Many Fullbridge coaches are current MBA students with several years of work experience. He argues that coaches get just as much out of the program as the students: they gain leadership skills and awaken otherwise latent teaching talent.
2011年，曾在麦肯锡（McKinsey ）担任分析师的奥文斯刚刚从哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）毕业，就被彼得招至麾下。奥文斯在聘用导师时会寻找那些平易近人、具有良好信誉的专业人员。赋桥的许多导师都是拥有多年工作经验的MBA在读学生。他认为，导师从训练营学到的东西并不比学生少：他们会获得领导技能，甚至能够唤醒一直被埋没的教学天赋。
Coaches complete 50-60 hours of training before meeting students, provide each student with around 100 performance reviews over the course of 20 days, and spend two days with each student to brainstorm about their dream careers and offer a path to achieve those goals.
导师们在正式为学生授课之前，必须完成50至60个小时的培训。他们在20天内必须为每一位学生提供约100次绩效评估，并且，必须拿出两天时间与所有学生集体讨论他们梦想的职业，并为他们提供实现职业目标的途径。
Ben Monnin, a 2010 Columbia graduate, participated in the Fullbridge program last winter while working at startup DormAid. Owings, who was his coach, often spoke to him about the Minto Pyramid Principle (situation, complication, question, and answer), which he picked up at McKinsey. Monin says that kind of thinking taught him how to simplify arguments and use tools like PowerPoint and Excel for effect, rather than show. He now works in the U.S. and overseas as a portfolio manager at Saudi Arabia-based Makshaff Services.
2010年从哥伦比亚大学（Columbia）毕业的本??莫宁在去年冬天参加了赋桥集训营，当时他供职于初创公司DormAid。他的导师便是奥文斯。奥文斯会经常向他介绍自己在麦肯锡学到的金字塔原理（即情境、复杂、问题、答案）。莫宁表示，这种思考让他学会了如何简化论证，以及如何将PowerPoint与Excel等工具用于获得实效，而不是为了炫耀。目前，他是沙特阿拉伯公司Makshaff Services的一名投资组合经理，主要在美国和海外工作。
Moving into new territory
开拓新领域
Fullbridge has wasted no time waiting to expand. The company hosts programs in various cities, and it launched its veteran program in partnership with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America this January. James Wang, who works in the military's IT department, says there's little innovation in his department at the Pentagon; he credits the program with sparking his interest in entrepreneurship.
赋桥没有浪费时间去等待扩张的机会。公司在多个城市开设了集训营，并在今年一月与美国驻伊拉克和阿富汗老兵组织（Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America）合作推出了老兵集训营。曾在美军信息部门工作过的詹姆斯??王表示，在五角大楼，他所工作的部门缺乏创新；而集训营则激发了他对于创业的兴趣。
Fullbridge also works with universities like Bowdoin and Washington University in St. Louis to offer complementary courses for students. (Some offer it free to scholarship students, others send students to the open enrollment programs.) "Universities move slowly; they're a conservator of values," Candice explains. Working with a program like Fullbridge helps these schools fill this knowledge gap faster, Candace argues. "There isn't much overlap between what we do and what they do."
赋桥还与多所大学合作，为学生提供补充课程，例如鲍登学院（Bowdoin）和圣路易斯的华盛顿大学（Washington University）等。（有些学校免费向奖学金获得者提供，有些学校则以公开课形式向学生提供。）坎蒂斯解释称：“大学的行动很慢，他们是既有价值的守护者。”坎蒂斯认为，与赋桥集训营合作，大学可以更快填补知识缺口。“我们所做的事情与大学没有太多重叠的部分。”
Fullbridge is also going global: In 2011, it launched a program in South Korea and last month, it ended its Phase 1 program in partnership with Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fourteen men and 22 women enrolled, and were separated by gender. Since the coaches weren't sure what to expect, they overcompensated by assign one coach for every six students. "For many participants, it was their first experience in a professional setting," says Owings. "There was a sense of urgency among the women, whereas the men knew there would be jobs waiting for them upon graduation." Just after the Fullbridge program ended, the students began 7-month co-op assignments at PriceWaterhouseCooper, Microsoft (MSFT), the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce, and at area preschools. This summer, Fullbridge will run a program in Shanghai.
此外，赋桥也在向全球扩张：2011年，赋桥在韩国开设了集训营；上个月，赋桥与沙特阿拉伯利雅得的苏丹王子大学（Prince Sultan University）合作推出的第一期集训营圆满结束。共有14名男性和22名女性报名，并按性别进行了分批集训。由于导师们并不确定集训营能取得什么样的成果，因此，他们为每六位学生安排了一名导师。“许多学员都是第一次接受职业培训，”奥文斯说。“从女性学员身上能明显感觉到一种紧迫感，而男性学员都知道在毕业之后，自己肯定能找到一份工作。”赋桥集训营结束后，学员们开始在普华永道（PriceWaterhouseCooper）、微软（Microsoft）、利雅得商会（the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce）和当地幼儿园进行带薪实习。今年夏天，赋桥集训营将来到中国上海。
The company's obsession with feedback doesn't end with the students; on-the-ground successes and failures are reported to Owings, who helps program manager Matt Rubins mold the different course tracks -- business immersion, entrepreneurship, and legal -- to cater to Fullbridge's professionally and geographically diverse audiences.
公司对于反馈的坚持不会止步于学生；在当地的成功与失败将被报告给奥文斯，他将帮助项目经理马特??鲁宾斯设计不同的课程方式——商业体验、企业家精神与法律等，以满足来自不同专业和不同地区的学员们对赋桥的需求。
Over the next two years, Fullbridge plans to launch JobX, a database of 1,000 interviews with employees from varying industries, asking what they love and what they hate about their jobs and coded based on students' career assessment indexes. (Fullbridge uses HBS senior fellow Tim Butler's CareerLeader program.) It also acquired CollegePortfolio.com, hoping to use its platform to create peer-mentoring groups over the next year, and will be rolling out follow up 5-10 day programs that dive deeper into subjects like marketing, technology, design, and finance for Fullbridge graduates.
未来两年，赋桥计划推出数据库JobX，其中包括对来自不同行业的1,000名员工进行的采访，问题将涉及员工们对于本职工作喜欢和讨厌的地方，并按照学生的职业测评指标进行编码。（赋桥使用了哈佛商学院高级研究员蒂姆??巴特勒的CareerLeader程序。）此外，公司还收购了CollegePortfolio.com，希望利用这个网站的平台在未来几年建立平级指导小组，并将为赋桥毕业生们提供5至10天的跟进课程，深入学习市场营销、技术、设计、金融等课题。
In 2014, Fullbridge is launching a World Tour: for American students, it's a seven-week program with stops in cities like Mumbai, Prague, and Shanghai; international students will visit London, New York City, and Silicon Valley. These new initiatives focus on opening students' eyes to all career possibilities.
2014年，赋桥将推出全球之旅：美国学生将到孟买、布拉格和上海等城市进行为期七周的集训，而国际学生将访问伦敦、纽约和硅谷。新活动专注于拓宽学生的眼界，让他们了解所有的职业可能性。
As Fullbridge grows, it faces the challenge of hiring more coaches without sacrificing talent quality. The coaches make the program worthwhile, giving participants a taste of what professional relationships are like, while instilling confidence in the dough-eyed twenty-somethings Its unlikely Fullbridge graduates needed the program to find success, but it does give students a chance to find careers that match their personalities -- and avoid the astronomical cost of business school.
随着赋桥的发展，如何在不牺牲人才素质的情况下招聘更多导师，如今成为公司不得不面临的挑战。毕竟，是导师让集训营更有价值，让学员们能够了解什么是职业关系，并为这些20岁左右的物质青年们重塑自信。从赋桥毕业的学生不见得要靠集训营来获得成功，但集训营可以为学生们提供一个机会，找到与自己的个性相匹配的工作，而不是在商学院白白浪费高额学费。