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Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
The science of conversation
交谈的科学
Stop thinking about your next point and listen to the one being made.
停止思考你的下一个观点，听听对方正在提出的观点。
Successful workplaces are usually characterised by good communication.
高效成功的工作场所通常以良好的沟通为特征。
Bosses provide a clear sense of where they want the firm to go; employees feel able to voice disagreements; colleagues share information rather than hoarding it.
老板们清楚地表明他们希望公司走向何方，员工们感觉自己能够表达不同意见，同事们分享信息而不是把信息隐藏起来。
But being a good communicator is too often conflated with one particular skill: speaking persuasively.
但是，成为优秀的沟通者往往与一种特殊技能混为一谈：说服力。
In a paper published in 2015, Kyle Brink of Western Michigan University and Robert Costigan of St John Fisher College found that 76% of undergraduate business degrees in America had a learning goal for presentation skills, but only 11% had a goal related to listening.
在2015年发表的一篇论文中，西密歇根大学的凯尔·布林克和圣约翰·费舍尔学院的罗伯特·科斯蒂根发现，美国76%的商科本科学位的学习目标是演讲技能，但只有11%的商科本科学位有与倾听相关的目标。
Business students were being schooled to give TED talks rather than have conversations.
商科学生接受的教育是做TED演讲，而不是进行交谈。
That may have costs.
这种教育可能是有代价的。
Another study, conducted by Dotan Castro of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his co-authors, found that when people felt listened to by those in supervisory roles their creativity and sense of psychological safety improved.
耶路撒冷希伯来大学的多坦·卡斯特罗及其合著者进行的研究发现，当人们感觉上级在倾听他们说的话时，他们的创造力和心理安全感都会提高。
A focus on talking is understandable.
专注于说是可以理解的。
The set-piece moments of careers, like job interviews and big presentations, are about transmitting information.
职业生涯中的固定时刻，比如求职面试和大型演示，都是关于传递信息。
The boss gets to be at the podium, the minions get to be in the audience.
老板是站在讲台上的，小兵们是坐在观众席里的。
Videos of someone giving a speech are much more shareable than someone silently nodding.
一个人在演讲的视频比一个人在默默点头的视频更值得分享。
But interest in what makes everyday communication tick has also risen, as the importance of teams grows and as conceptions of leadership increasingly emphasise softer skills.
但是，随着团队的重要性提高，以及关于领导力的概念越来越强调软技能，人们对于什么让日常沟通起作用也越来越感兴趣。
Recent research by Beau Sievers of Stanford University and his co-authors asked groups of MBA students to discuss the meaning of ambiguous film clips.
在斯坦福大学的博·西弗斯及其合著者最近的一项研究中，他们让几组MBA学生讨论一些意义模糊的视频片段有何含义。
The presence of people perceived to be of high status seemed to impede consensus: these folk spoke more and were readier to reject the explanations of others.
被认为地位较高的人的存在似乎阻碍了组员达成共识：这些人发言更多，更愿意驳斥其他人的解释。
Groups that reached consensus were more likely to have a different character in them: people who were well-connected but not dominant, who asked lots of questions and who encouraged interaction.
达成共识的小组更有可能有一个性格不同的组员：这种人与组员联系紧密，但不占主导地位，会提出很多问题，鼓励组员进行互动。
They made everything align—even the neural activity of their groups.
他们让一切保持一致，甚至包括组员的神经活动。
Mr Sievers’s research features in “Supercommunicators”, a new book by Charles Duhigg, a journalist at the New Yorker.
西弗斯的这项研究出现在《纽约客》记者查尔斯·杜希格的新书《超级沟通者》中。
Mr Duhigg looks at how some people forge stronger connections with others and at the techniques for having better conversations.
杜希格研究了一些人如何与他人建立更牢固的联系，以及如何进行更好的对话的技巧。
His canvas ranges more widely than the workplace but some of its lessons are applicable there.
杜希格的研究范围超越了工作场所，但一些经验也适用于工作。
One chapter tells the story of the Fast Friends Procedure, a set of 36 increasingly intimate questions that are particularly effective at turning strangers into friends.
其中一章讲述了“快速交友程序”的故事，“快速交友程序”是36个私密程度逐渐上升的问题，在将陌生人变成朋友方面特别有效。
The questions were first put together in the 1990s by Elaine and Arthur Aron, two psychologists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
这些问题最初是由纽约州立大学石溪分校的两位心理学家伊莱恩·阿伦和亚瑟·阿伦在20世纪90年代创立的。
Their survey was designed for the lab, not the workplace.
他们的调查是为实验室而不是工作场所设计的。
You should not suddenly start asking new colleagues what their most terrible memory is or how they feel about their mother.
你不应该突然开始问新同事，他们最糟糕的记忆是什么，或者他们对母亲的感觉如何。
But if it is important to build team connections fast, then—Britain, look away now—reciprocal moments of vulnerability do seem to help.
但是，如果快速建立团队关系很重要，那么--英国人，你们可以去看看别的--互相分享脆弱的时刻确实有帮助。
Another chapter looks at ways to bring together people with diametrically opposed views, in this case Americans on either side of the debate over gun control.
书中的另一章探讨了如何将观点截然相反的人聚集在一起，这里举的案例是对枪支管制立场不同的美国人。
The difficulty here was in persuading people that they were genuinely being listened to, not dismissed as gun-toting loons or lily-livered liberals.
这种情况下的困难在于让人们相信，别人真的在倾听他们的观点，而不是把他们视为提着枪的蠢货或胆小懦弱的自由派。
Mr Duhigg describes an approach called “looping for understanding”, in which people ask questions and then repeatedly distil their understanding of what they have heard back to their interlocutor.
杜希格描述了一种名为“理解循环”的方法，即人们提出问题，然后反复将自己对所听到的话的理解提炼出来，反馈给对话者。
Polarised beliefs of this sort are rare inside firms.
像这种观点如此两极分化的情况在公司内部很少见。
But looping techniques still have their place: when there are long-running conflicts between individual employees, say, or in negotiations and mediation processes.
但循环技巧仍然有用武之地：比如，当个别员工之间存在长期冲突时，或者在谈判和调解过程中。
Mr Duhigg’s advice can seem obvious at times.
杜希格的建议有时似乎不言而喻。
And his examples do not always translate to the workplace.
而且他的例子并不总是适用于工作场所。
Sometimes it is more important to make a decision than to excavate everyone’s point of view.
有时候，做出决定比挖掘每个人的观点更重要。
Reaching consensus is vital on a jury but less necessary in a corporate hierarchy.
达成共识在陪审团中至关重要，但在公司等级制度中就不那么必要了。
There really is a limit to how much vulnerability you want from a leader.
你想从领导身上看到多少脆弱性也确实是有限的。
But his book is a useful reminder that demonstrable curiosity about other people’s experiences and ideas can benefit everyone.
但杜希格的书是一个有用的提醒：对其他人的经历和想法表现出好奇心可以让每个人受益。
Asking questions, not cutting people off, pausing to digest what someone has said rather than pouncing on breaks in a discussion to make your own point: these are not enough to qualify someone as a supercommunicator.
问问题而不是打断别人，停下来消化别人说的话，而不是抓住讨论间隙提出自己的观点：这些都不足以让一个人有资格成为超级沟通者。
But in plenty of organisations they would still represent good progress.
但在许多组织中，这些行为仍代表着良好的进步。
