每天一篇双语精读

Bartleby

职场生活

Dullness and its discontents

枯燥乏味，抱怨连连

Unshowy competence brings drawbacks as well as benefits

能力不彰有利有弊

【1】Tharismatic corporate climber is a common target for resentment in office life. He—and research suggests men are particularly given to such narcissism—hogs the spotlight in meetings, is adept at grabbing undeserved glory, and is a pro at self-promotion. More often than not, he is the boss’s pet. But he rises on the back of another, unsung, corporate archetype: the competent, diligent but unexciting achiever.

公司中有些人野心勃勃，经常让人愤愤不平。研究表明，男性极其容易产生自恋心理：他们享受成为会议的焦点，沉浸在不属于自己的荣誉中，并且擅长自我推销。这类人往往是老板的宠儿，但他们的成功往往离不开另一类公司职员的支持：他们勤劳能干，虽然颇有成绩，但却为人乏味。

【2】Studies find that plenty of confident egomaniacs, unsuited to the subtleties of management, get a leg-up for being, well, confident egomaniacs. Companies disproportionately promote narcissists. Perhaps a fifth of chief executives fit the description, researchers have found, a far higher proportion than within the wider population. Self-absorbed CEOs can sap morale and, evidence suggests, produce poor financial results.

研究发现，许多利己主义者傲慢不逊，无法适应管理工作的精敏，但是他们的自负傲慢却能为自己赢得晋升机会。很多公司过分提拔他们。研究人员发现，可能有五分之一的首席执行官（CEO）就是这样的自恋狂。在人口数量更多的城镇,这一比例可能会更高。有证据表明，利己的CEO们会打击士气，财务业绩也不容乐观。

【3】A strong case for the dull striver was made by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychologist at University College London, in an article for the Harvard Business Reviewin 2015 entitled “The best managers are boring managers”. Understated competence does not intuitively scream leadership. Many totemic bosses of the age, from bankers to tech founders, come with big egos, showy antics and volatile tempers. Elon Musk may be accused of many things. Dullness is not one of them. Even so, Mr Chamorro-Premuzic argued, conscientious but unprepossessing characters tend to have little-noticed but precious advantages. They can be depended on to make decisions calmly, manage teams deftly and be emotionally mature. They deserve promotion ahead of co-workers with “flash and vision, and bold displays of confidence”.

伦敦大学学院的心理学家托马斯·查莫罗·普雷姆兹奇（Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic）在2015年《哈佛商业评论》杂志上的一篇题为《最好的管理者就是无趣的管理者》的文章中，提出了“无趣的奋斗者”，也在该文中给出了强有力的证据。能力有限并不能直接说明领导力不行。在这个时代，很多令人羡慕的老板，不管是银行家还是科技公司创始人，都自负不已，做事高调，举止古怪，而且还阴晴不定。埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）可能就有不少毛病。但他们都不无趣。就算是这样，查莫罗·普雷姆兹奇先生还是认为，尽管人们很少关注勤勤恳恳但不讨喜的人，不过他们身上的这种品质往往十分可贵。他们值得信赖，能够冷静决策，灵活管理团队，且情感成熟。他们有闪光点，有远见，而且大胆自信，所以理应在同事面前赢得升职机会。

【4】A seminal meta-analysis of research on leadership characteristics, published in 2002 by Timothy Judge, then at the University of Florida, and colleagues, indeed found a link between managerial effectiveness and personality traits such as being stable, agreeable and dependable. One explanation is that level-headedness makes it easier to deal coolly with the many subtle problems thrown up by human beings (who may all too easily infuriate a more volatile manager). Emotional maturity is also an indicator of trustworthiness. Studies have found that managers with dysfunctional traits such as narcissism are likelier to get up to no good. Conscientious bosses, by contrast, score highly for integrity.

2002年，佛罗里达大学的蒂莫西·贾奇（Timothy Judge）及其同事共同发表了一项关于领导特质研究的荟萃分析，这项分析有着重大影响。他们确实发现了管理效能和性格特征之间存在联系，如沉稳、随和可靠的人能更高效地进行管理。有一种解释是，冷静的头脑可以使人们更容易泰若自如地处理某些人提出的微妙问题（情绪无常的管理者很可能会被这类人激怒）。情感成熟的人更值得信赖。研究表明，具有自恋等不良特质的管理者更容易做坏事。相比之下，认真负责的老板为人更为正直。

【5】The dull but diligent could be especially valuable now. As companies claim increasingly to prize soft skills, such as being able to communicate well with all sorts of people, emotionally intelligent workers ought to be in demand. A volatile business environment in which firms face problems from recession to climate change, pandemics and war, favours the steady leader.

现如今，枯燥但勤奋的人可能才最有价值。各大公司越来越重视软技能，比如具备与各种人良好沟通的能力，因此情商高的员工应该很受欢迎。在商业环境动荡不安，企业面临着包括经济萧条、全球变暖、疫情肆虐和战争不断在内的各种问题的情况下更需要沉稳的领导者。

【6】Chief executives face tricky decisions about how much risk to take in pursuit of growth, as shareholders look on nervously. Startup bosses who proudly moved fast and broke things are now falling over themselves to look demure. “We are a very boring company,” Oliver Merkel, head of Flink, a grocery-delivery startup, bragged to the Financial Timesrecently. The trend is visible in politics, too. Joe Biden in America and Rishi Sunak in Britain rose to their countries’ top jobs partly because their boring dependability promised relief from their predecessors’ noisy incompetence. Testing times call for cool heads.

首席执行官们面临的决策十分棘手，他们要考虑在追求经济增长的同时，需要承担多大的风险；而股东们虽然紧张焦虑，但却静观其变。曾经雷厉风行、别辟蹊径的初创公司老板不再信心满满，现在他们正尽力地让自己看起来端庄体面。食品杂货零售配送初创公司Flink的负责人奥利弗·默克尔（Oliver Merkel）最近向《金融时报》吹嘘自己，他表示：“我们的公司相当无趣。”在政治方面，这一趋势也是显而易见的。美国总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）和英国里希·苏纳克（Rishi Sunak）之所以能登上各自国家的最高职位，部分原因在于尽管他们枯燥乏味，但却十分可靠，这样能有望缓解他们前任国家领导人因能力不足却又高调行事而造成的局面。想要经得起时间的考验，就要有一颗冷静的头脑。

【7】For all that, quietly competent types hoping for greater appreciation (and remuneration) should not sit still. To rise up the ranks, the boring would do well to raise their profiles, whether by speaking up in meetings or talking up their accomplishments. If they bag bigger jobs they will anyway need to master show-offy things like glad-handing clients, chairing meetings and holding forth on strategy. Though Mr Judge’s analysis revealed emotional stability and general diligence were crucial to managerial effectiveness, extrovert qualities such as sociability were also telling factors.

尽管如此，如果想得到更多的赏识（和报酬），那些寡言少语但有能力的人就不应坐视不理。若想要获得晋升，他们最好尝试提升自己的形象，无论是在会议上侃侃而谈也好，还是大力宣扬自身的成就也好。不管怎样，假设他们晋升到了更高的职位，就需要学会自我展示，比如取悦客户、主持会议和讨论战略。尽管贾奇先生的分析显示，对管理效率而言，个体要情绪稳定，总的来说又要勤勤恳恳，这两点至关重要，但社交能力等外向品质也同样关键。

【8】Companies’ penchant for promoting the wrong people is deeply ingrained, despite management theorists’ admonitions. By default, many of those dishing out promotions are themselves narcissists who advanced by wowing their superiors. And showy sorts’ shameless self-aggrandisement fulfils a convenient function for bosses, giving them a shortcut—no matter how misleading—to finding candidates for elevation. Many managers are too busy to patiently unearth genuine talent. After all, they have other important things on their plates—like impressing their own bosses.

好多公司顾不上管理学理论家们的警告，仍想提拔一些不合适的人选，这种倾向已经根深蒂固。在默认情况下，许多提供晋升机会的人本身就是自恋者，他们通过取悦上司来提升自己，而这种浮夸、厚脸皮的自我膨胀型员工也为老板省去了麻烦，并帮他们快速找到了晋升的候选人（尽管可能极具误导性）。许多经理太忙，缺乏耐心挖掘出真正的人才。毕竟，他们手头上还有其他重要的事情要处理，比如给自己上司留下好印象。

1）原文：Studies find that plenty of confident egomaniacs, unsuited to the subtleties of management, get a leg-up for being, well, confident egomaniacs.

词典：plenty of 很多的，大量的;

例句： There were plenty of servants to wait on her.

有很多仆人服侍她。

2）原文： They can be depended on to make decisions calmly, manage teams deftly and be emotionally mature.

词典：depended on依赖于

例句：I depended on his companionship and on his judgment.

我信赖他的友情，也相信他的判断。

3）原文： As companies claim increasingly to prize soft skills, such as being able to communicate well with all sorts of people, emotionally intelligent workers ought to be in demand.

词典：ought to应该；应当;

例句： I think you ought to give football a rest for a time.

我认为你应该暂时停止踢足球。

长难句解析：

【para 2】Studies find that plenty of confident egomaniacs, unsuited to the subtleties of management, get a leg-up for being, well, confident egomaniacs.

上段提到#在企业中，既有善于表现自己、奉承领导的员工，也有能干勤奋但平庸的员工#，本段承接上段，接着谈论自我感觉良好这种特质与企业管理的关系。本句的主干为【Studies find that...】。

蓝色部分为【that】引导的宾语从句，解释说明【find】的具体内容是什么。

橙色部分为动词的过去分词作后置定语，修饰前面的【egomaniacs】，补充说明其特征。

短语【get a leg-up】意为#得到帮助#，【give sb a leg-up】意为#帮助某人#。

句子大意：研究发现，许多自我感觉良好的人其实不适合企业管理职位，却往往会因为他们的自信而得到提拔。