Year-end is the time for a clear-out of the business books I haven’t read and those I never finished.
又到了新旧更替时节，我常常在这时清理没读过和没读完的商业类书籍。We get sent dozens of business books to review, but I have got through very few over the years. Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma has stayed with me. Confronting Mistakes: Lessons from the Aviation Industry when Dealing with Error by Jan Hagen, which I am reading at the moment, may do so too.
这些年有人给我们送来了几十本商业类书籍供我们品评，然而我只读完了其中很少一部分。但克莱顿•克里斯坦森(Clayton Christensen)的《创新者的窘境》(The Innovator’s Dilemma)一直伴随着我。而我正在阅读的扬•哈根(Jan Hagen)的《直面错误：航空业处理错误的经验教训》(Confronting Mistakes: Lessons from the Aviation Industry when Dealing with Error)也可能享受同样待遇。Many other management books are overenthusiastic, lacking in nuance or too impressed by current fads to stand the test of time.
至于许多其他管理类书籍，要么感情色彩太过强烈缺乏韵味，要么受当下流行观念影响太大，无法经受住时间的考验。
I think the best books for business are non-business books, and the best of those provide at least one important management insight. You probably have your own. These are mine:
我认为，对商业人士最有益的书籍是那些与商业无关的书籍。其中的佼佼者至少能够为管理提供一个方面的重大启迪。对此，也许你拥有自己的最佳书单，以下则是我的书单：The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers. This guide to how “to get an idea as exactly as possible out of one mind into another” will mark its 60th anniversary next year.
欧内斯特•高尔斯爵士(Sir Ernest Gowers)的《简明写作技巧大全》(The Complete Plain Words)。2014年，这本有关如何“将思想尽可能准确地从一个头脑传递到另一个头脑中”的指南将迎来出版60周年纪念日。I bought mine from a second-hand book sale in the English harbour town of Dartmouth, but it is still in print. As a guide to clear communication it has probably not been bettered. The purpose of writing, Sir Ernest said, is to affect people in the way that you wish them to be affected.
我手头这本是我在英国海港城市达特茅斯(Dartmouth)的一次二手书交易活动中购买的，不过它目前仍在发行。作为一本关于准确沟通的指南，它可能无出其右了。在这本书中，欧内斯特爵士表示，写作的目的是以你期望的方式影响人们。“It is wise,” he said, “not to begin to write until you are quite certain what you want to say. That sounds elementary, but the elementary things are often the most likely to be neglected.”
他表示：“一个明智的做法是，在还没确定想说什么之前，不要动笔开始写作。这一点听起来非常基本，然而最基本的事实往往是最容易被忽略的。”The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. This book explains how scientists develop paradigms – theories that explain the world. When anomalies appear, believers in the paradigm try to ignore them or explain them away. Eventually, if sufficient anomalies emerge, a rival paradigm attracts enough adherents to replace the previous one.
托马斯•库恩(Thomas Kuhn)的《科学革命的结构》(The Structure of Scientific Revolutions)。这本书解释了科学家建立范式（指解释世界的理论体系）的过程。当异常现象出现时，相信范式的人们要么试图忽略这些现象，要么通过解释它们来使之显得不异常。最后，如果出现了足够多的异常现象，与之前范式相竞争的范式就会吸引足够多的支持者，从而取代前者。Business does not work quite like this: if anything, people are too credulous about the latest fashion. But Kuhn helps explain the fierce attachment people develop to ways of doing things.
在商业领域则不是这样。如果说有什么类似之处的话，那就是人们对于最新的流行观点过于轻信。不过，库恩的书有助于解释人们做事方式的强烈惯性。How to talk them around can be learnt from my next choice.
至于如何说服他们，则可以从我介绍的下一本书里学到。Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela. No sooner had Mandela died than the emails arrived: would I be interested in this or that business expert’s view on the leadership lessons to be learnt from South Africa’s departed president?
纳尔逊•曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)的《漫漫自由路》(Long Walk to Freedom)。曼德拉逝世没多久，我就收到了许多电子邮件：关于从这位南非已故总统身上能学到什么领导力方面的经验教训，我对这位或那位商界专家的看法是否感兴趣？No, I would not. No manager is Mandela. Even Mandela wasn’t always Mandela. He tolerated corruption and incompetence in his ministers and was, very occasionally, silly – he proposed lowering the voting age to 14.
不，不感兴趣。任何经理人都不是曼德拉本人。就算曼德拉也并不总是曼德拉。他也得忍受部长们的腐败和无能。在极少数情形中，他也曾作出过愚蠢的举动——比如他曾提议将选举年龄降至14岁。The Mandela lesson managers can learn is that the way to get people to follow you is to tell them, in detail and in good faith, what they have told you. If people feel you have listened and taken their opinions seriously, they are more likely to agree to do something different.
从曼德拉身上，经理人能学到的是，要让人们听从你，办法就是把他们对你说过的话详尽而诚恳地告诉他们。如果人们感觉你始终在倾听他们，并且在认真对待他们的观点，他们更有可能同意做些不同的事。And if two parties do the same to each other, they have a good chance of reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement. When he was taken from prison to meet FW de Klerk, Mandela congratulated him on becoming president. “From the first, I noticed that Mr de Klerk listened to what I had to say. This was a novel experience,” Mandela wrote.
而如果两个党派间也相互采取同样的策略，他们就有极大的可能性达成双方都满意的协议。当曼德拉出狱会见弗雷德里克•威廉•德克勒克(FW de Klerk)时，他祝贺后者当选南非总统。曼德拉写道：“从一开始，我就注意到德克勒克乐于倾听我要说的话。这是一种全新的体验。”Blind Watchers of the Sky by Rocky Kolb. This is not just a marvellous history of how we developed our understanding of the universe. It also shows how peculiar some of astronomy’s pioneers were. There was Tycho Brahe, who lost his nose in a duel with a cousin over which, legend had it, was the better mathematician; and Johannes Kepler, who described himself as someone who “barks at wrongdoers” and “has a doglike horror of baths”.
洛基•科尔布(Rocky Kolb)的《天空的盲目观察者》(Blind Watchers of the Sky)。这不仅仅是一本有关我们如何建立对宇宙理解的精彩至极的历史书。它还展示出部分天文学方面的先锋人物有多么古怪。比如第谷•布拉赫(Tycho Brahe)在与一位表弟的决斗中失去了他的鼻子，决斗的原因据说是他们在争谁是更好的数学家。而约翰尼斯•开普勒(Johannes Kepler)则称自己会“冲着有不良行为的人们咆哮”，而且“像狗一样害怕洗澡”。As a manager, you need to put up with the occasional eccentric and protect them from the human resources department. They may be annoying but, every now and then, they may tell the truth no one else dares to utter.
作为经理人，你需要忍受偶尔出现的怪人，并保护他们不受人力资源部门的伤害。他们也许会很烦人，但是他们会时不时说出其他人不敢说出的真理。Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Everyone I have recommended this wise book to has raved about it and bought copies for their friends and family.
维克多•弗兰克尔(Viktor Frankl)的《活出生命的意义》(Man's Search for Meaning)。对于这本充满了智慧的书，所有我推荐过的人都予以盛赞，并且也为他们的家人和朋友购买了此书。A Viennese psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor, Frankl taught that one could find meaning in the most unpromising places.
弗兰克尔是一名维也纳临床心理学家，他还是一名奥斯维辛集中营(Auschwitz)的幸存者。他在这本书里告诉我们，人即使在最无望的境地下也能找到生存意义。You should be able to find meaning in your work, and your central role, as a manager, is to help the people who work for you find meaning in theirs. That meaning might come from making the world better, or it might mean earning enough to provide for others. Frankl said that everyone had to find their own meaning. But if work doesn’t provide it, he was clear that you should, if you can, go and do something else.
你应该具有从工作中找到意义的能力。而作为经理人，你的核心角色是帮助为你工作的人们找到他们工作的意义。这种意义可以是让世界更美好，也可以是赚足够多的钱以便扶助他人。弗兰克尔表示，每个人都必须找到自己的人生意义。然而，如果工作不能带来意义，他的意思很明显——你就该在可能的情况下转身离开，做做其他的事。