I have been working at McKinsey for two years and my performance has been rated average. Many of my peers get far better grades, which led to higher bonuses and early promotions. I act on feedback, but keep getting average performance reviews and it hurts. Managers tell me I will have a successful career, but I don’t really believe it. Should I stay, and be mediocre, or go to a less prestigious firm where

我已经在麦肯锡(McKinsey)工作两年了，表现一直被评为“一般”。我的许多同龄人得到了远高于我的评分，这使他们获得了更高的奖金并更早得到升迁。我根据反馈采取了相应行动，但还是持续得到表现一般的评价，这让我很受伤。经理们告诉我，我会在事业上有所成就，但我并不这么认为。我应该留下来，继续当一个平庸的人，还是去一个名气没那么大、但我可以比同龄人做得更好的公司？

I could do better than my peers? Consultant, male, 20s

咨询师，男，20多岁

Performance reviews don’t mean a thing. They are more telling about the person doing the appraisal than the one being appraised and they end up demotivating almost everyone.

业绩评估没什么意义。它们更能反映进行评估的人，而不是被评估的人，最终只会打消几乎所有人的士气。

Possibly McKinsey decides which of its consultants is average in an above-average manner; one hopes so, given how seriously it takes the process. I hardly need remind you that “The Firm” is built on regular purgings of those who aren’t deemed to be doing sufficiently well, and if you are one of those, they will get rid of you before long anyway.

可能麦肯锡是以超出平均水平的标准来划分哪些咨询师属于一般；考虑到麦肯锡对待考核十分认真，希望是这样吧。不需要我来提醒你这家“公司”就是建立在定期把被认为做得不够好的人扫地出门这一基础之上。如果你是其中之一，无论如何他们很快就会让你走人了。

You raise an important question about small fish in big ponds and big fish in small ones. I think there are two sorts of people — the hypercompetitive who insist on winning whatever the cost, and the rest of us. For the first sort it makes sense to work at McKinsey or in the most ruthlessly successful place available. For the rest of us, it makes sense to avoid such places and seek out the small ponds instead.

你提出了一个重要的问题：做大池塘里的小鱼，还是小池塘里的大鱼？我认为世界上有两种人——不惜一切代价也要赢的超级竞争狂和我们这些剩下的人。可以理解，第一种人会选择在麦肯锡或者那些最冷酷无情也最成功的地方工作。而对于我们这些剩下的人而言，避开这样的地方，转而寻求小池塘才合情合理。

It is human nature to compare, and we naturally compare ourselves to those closest to us. So if you are surrounded by thrusting clever dicks at McKinsey who are doing better than you are, then you inevitably end up feeling a failure.

比较是人的天性，我们会自然而然地和身边的人比较。因此，如果你在麦肯锡被争强好胜又聪明的家伙们包围了，他们做的比你好，你难免会感觉自己很失败。

The fact that you have to be pretty good to get there in the first place is not much of a consolation. Neither is the fact that on average, almost everyone is, by definition, average.

即便你必须得非常优秀才能进入这家公司，这一事实也没法给你太多安慰。同样，绝大多数人都是一般水平这个事实也无法提供太多慰藉。

Not only is it wretched to feel a failure, but feeling one does us the additional disservice of making us be one. Equally, feeling successful is not only jolly pleasant in itself, but it helps us become successful. You see this in schools all the time: kids who are made to feel dim in academic schools progressively underperform until sensible parents swoop in and send them to less academic ones. Once they start feeling intelligent again, they start to do better, ending up with better results than if they had stayed put.

觉得自己很失败不只感觉糟透了，还会进一步使我们真的变成失败者。同样，觉得自己成功不仅会让我们非常愉快，还会助我们走向成功。我们总能在学校里看到这样的情况：那些在偏学术的学校中觉得郁闷无望的学生会慢慢地越学越差，直到明智的家长们介入，把他们送到不那么学术的学校中。一旦他们又觉得自己聪明了，他们的表现就会开始变好，最终结果要比他们留在原来的学校好。

So leave McKinsey soon and by choice. You will find it easy to find another job as employers are pathetically impressed by the ex-McKinsey badge. You could always go to Deloitte or Accenture, where they have recently announced that the appraisal machinery has been torn down. Or, better still, find a smaller firm, where they are interested in what you are doing not in what box to put you in.

所以，赶快主动离开麦肯锡吧。你会发现找到另一份工作并不难，因为雇主们很可悲地会被在麦肯锡工作过的光辉经历打动。不管怎样，你可以选择去德勤(Deloitte)或埃森哲(Accenture)，这两家机构最近宣布取消了考核机制。或者，更好的选择是找一家更小的公司，那里的人看重的是你做了什么，而不是给你分门别类。