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Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Genre bending
类型扭曲
The chief executive’s alternative summer reading list.
给CEO的另一种夏季书单。
“He inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect…He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going—that’s all.”
“他既没有唤起别人的爱，也没有激起别人的恐惧，甚至也没有得到别人的尊重……他不曾创造什么东西，他能维持现状，仅此而已。”
As a description of your typical middle manager, it is hard to surpass Marlow’s view of the boss at a river port in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.
对典型的中层管理者的描述很难超越约瑟夫·康拉德的《黑暗的心》中马洛对一位河港老板的看法。
The novella is a critique of colonialism in Africa, and an exploration of power and morality.
这部中篇小说是对非洲殖民主义的批判，也是对权力和道德的探讨。
It is also a guide to dealing with corporate bureaucracy.
这也是一本应对企业官僚主义的指南。
Marlow’s steamboat is in tatters and the manager is useless—Marlow must solve the problem himself.
马洛的汽船破烂不堪，经理也毫无用处——马洛必须自己解决问题。
It sounds like an ordinary day at a Fortune500 company.
这听起来像是财富500强公司的普通一天。
Bookshops are stuffed with management tomes on how to be a good leader, inspire others, survive office politics, navigate cultural differences and win negotiations.
书店里摆满了关于如何成为优秀领导者、如何激励他人、在办公室政治中生存、驾驭文化差异和赢得谈判的管理学书籍。
But executives would do well to ignore the corporate self-help shelves and head instead for the classics section.
但是高管们最好忽略那些企业自助类书籍，而是去经典文学区寻找答案。
Great works of literature, with their piercing examination of the human condition, have much to teach the aspiring chief executive about business—values of honesty, empathy and commercial acumen, as well as insights into vanity, pettiness, greed and ruthless ambition, all of which punctuate the journey from cubicle to corner office.
伟大的文学作品通过对人类境况的深刻审视，能教给有抱负的CEO很多关于商业的道理——诚信、同理心和商业精明才干的价值，以及对虚荣、偏狭、贪婪和狼子野心的洞察，所有这些都散布在从格子间到角落办公室的旅程途中。（注：角落办公室指有好视野的高管的办公室。）
Ditching corporate prose for fabulous stories is itself the subject of at least one business book.
摒弃公司行话而去阅读精彩的故事本身就是一本商业书籍的主题。
In “Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature”, Joseph Badaracco, a professor of business ethics at Harvard Business School, considers eight works that provide lessons on what good leadership is—and isn’t.
在《领导者性格：通过文学阐释领导力的核心》一书中，哈佛商学院商业伦理学教授约瑟夫·巴达拉科研究了八部文学作品，这些作品提供了关于什么是好的领导力以及什么不是好的领导力的道理。
If Mr Badaracco had to recommend one book executives should read this summer, it would be “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe.
如果巴达拉科必须推荐一本高管们今年夏天应该读的书，那就是钦努阿·阿契贝的《瓦解》。
“Serious literature tends to be tragic literature,” he says.
“严肃文学往往是悲剧文学，”他说，
“The struggles of the main character, Okonkwo, reveal the profound challenges leaders confront when they face evolving social norms, novel economic challenges, shifting power dynamics and the challenge of communicating across cultural divides.”
“主人公奥孔库沃的挣扎揭示了领导者在面对不断变化的社会规范、新的经济挑战、不断变化的权力动态以及跨文化交流的挑战时所面临的深刻挑战。”
Your guest Bartleby has other literary recommendations, on a range of management topics.
笔者有其他文学书推荐，涉及一系列管理主题。
Great leaders need good mentors.
伟大的领导者需要优秀的导师。
Is there any better than Virgil in Dante’s “Inferno”?
还有比但丁的《地狱篇》中的维吉尔更好的人选吗？
He guides the main character through Hell and Purgatory, pointing out dangers, giving advice, rebuking on occasion and finally withdrawing when his charge is ready to ascend to the innermost circles of the immortal world.
他引导主角穿越地狱和炼狱，指出危险，提供建议，偶尔斥责，最后在受他指导的主角准备好升入不朽世界的最内圈时功成身退。
Just as mentors motivate their wards, so must managers.
正如导师激励他们的学生一样，管理者也必须如此。
Few books are better on motivation than Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer”.
很少有书比马克·吐温的《汤姆·索亚历险记》更会写激励。
Forced to paint a fence white rather than play with his friends, the titular ragamuffin comes up with a way to make it seem so appealing that the local kids want to do it—and end up paying Tom for the privilege.
穷小孩汤姆·索亚必须将篱笆漆成白色，因而不能和朋友们一起玩，于是他想出了一种办法，把给篱笆刷漆描述得极其吸引人，以至于当地的孩子们都想刷漆——最后还为了得到刷漆的特权而付钱给汤姆。
Business-school professors call it “psychic rewards”.
商学院教授称之为“精神奖励”。
For navigating HR or the finance department, pick up Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” or Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” (the characters’ bureaucratic travails will make yours seem trivial).
对于处理人力资源或财务部门，可以选择约瑟夫·海勒的《第二十二条军规》或弗兰兹·卡夫卡的《审判》（书中人物面临的官僚主义困境会让你觉得自己的问题微不足道）。
For holding meetings, crack open William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” (arguments descend into savagery).
对于开会，不妨翻开威廉·戈尔丁的《蝇王》（争论退步成野蛮行为）。
As for IT support, enjoy Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (pure nothingness).
对于IT支持，请享受塞缪尔·贝克特的《等待戈多》（纯粹的虚无）。
For lessons on digital transformation, dump Clay Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and read Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”.
对于数字化转型的经验教训，扔掉克莱顿·克里斯坦森的《创新者的窘境》，而要去阅读玛丽·雪莱的《弗兰肯斯坦》。
The frenzy of business, when it is not a comedy, is a tragedy.
商业的狂热若不是喜剧，便是悲剧。
That makes Shakespeare a font of wisdom—if mainly on what to avoid.
这使莎士比亚成为智慧的源泉——如果主要想了解要避免什么的话。
Richard III and Macbeth are terrible leaders: the former hubristic, the latter overly ambitious.
理查三世和麦克白都是可怕的领袖：前者傲慢自大，后者野心勃勃。
King Lear stresses the importance of succession planning.
李尔王强调了规划好接班人的重要性。
Othello reminds executives to choose their personal assistants carefully.
奥赛罗提醒高管们要仔细挑选他们的私人助理。
(Though Lady Macbeth is a case study in how to work the system as a non-executive director and Iago, Othello’s duplicitous aide, is instructive on how to deceive and get rid of the boss.)
（虽然麦克白夫人是关于如何作为没有实权的非执行董事而左右局势的案例研究，奥赛罗的两面派助手伊阿古却是关于如何欺骗和干掉老板的指导。）
The worst CEO in literature, believes John McCallum, a retired professor at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business who used novels in his teaching, has to be Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”.
曼尼托巴大学阿斯珀商学院的退休教授约翰·麦卡勒姆认为，文学作品中最糟糕的CEO非赫尔曼·梅尔维尔《白鲸记》中的亚哈船长莫属，麦卡勒姆在教学中曾经使用小说。
“Selfish, reckless, arrogant, ignorant—he hits every marker of the bad boss,” Mr McCallum says.
“自私、鲁莽、傲慢、无知——他具备糟糕老板的所有特征。”麦卡勒姆说。
The best has to be Fezziwig from Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”: caring and generous, but also a good businessman.
最好的老板当属查尔斯·狄更斯《圣诞颂歌》中的费茨威格：他富有同情心、慷慨大方，同时也是一位出色的商人。
Beware, though, for generosity has its limits.
不过要小心，因为慷慨也是有限度的。
In Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, this column’s namesake, a surly employee, preferred not to work.
在梅尔维尔的短篇小说《抄写员巴托比》中，坏脾气的雇员巴托比（与本专栏同名）不愿意工作。
The lenient boss kept him around.
宽容的老板把他留了下来。
Productivity fell.
结果效率下降了。
The horror.
这是管理者的噩梦。
