如何緩解職場(chǎng)尷尬癥？

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There is a psychologist at Harvard Business School who is dutifully working away at solving one of the biggest problems facing knowledge workers today; I am speaking, of course, of the pervasive problem of awkwardness. Over the past several years, Francesca Gino has published academic papers and popular press articles dissecting the particular social discomfort associated with the workplace. Often, her work has focused on networking, or the gentle art of forming relationships with others who work in your field. She’s found, for example, that people associate networking with actual disgust; she’s also found that the activity becomes markedly more palatable if you focus less on yourself.

哈佛商學(xué)院一位心理學(xué)家?guī)啄陙?lái)鍥而不舍對(duì)知識(shí)型工人今天面臨的最大問(wèn)題進(jìn)行研究;沒錯(cuò)，說(shuō)的就是「尷尬癥」。過(guò)去幾年里，F(xiàn)rancesca Gino發(fā)表了許多學(xué)術(shù)論文和通俗文章，解剖和討論這種癥狀。她主要研究如何團(tuán)隊(duì)合作及同事關(guān)系。她發(fā)現(xiàn)，實(shí)際上人們很厭惡團(tuán)隊(duì)合作;當(dāng)然，她也發(fā)現(xiàn)如果人們不過(guò)度自我關(guān)注，團(tuán)隊(duì)合作會(huì)變得更加愉快。

Her latest piece, published last week in Harvard Business Review, provides a third tip that is just as useful as the first two: Meeting someone new in a work context will go much more smoothly if only you would stop trying to guess what it is they want from you. In two experiments — one involving students in a laboratory setting and the other involving actual entrepreneurs — Gino and her colleagues find that “catering to another person’s interests and expectations, as opposed to behaving authentically, harms performance.” For the study on entrepreneurs, for example, the researchers examined real pitches to potential investors, and found that when entrepreneurs tried to shape their pitches around what they believed their investors wanted, they were less likely to receive funding than those who simply stuck to a truthful depiction of themselves and their ideas.

Gino在《哈佛商業(yè)評(píng)論》上的最新文章提出了一則有用的小貼士：在職場(chǎng)上，不去猜測(cè)別人想要什么，與之建立關(guān)系會(huì)變得更加容易。Gino和她的同事進(jìn)行了兩個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)，一個(gè)在實(shí)驗(yàn)室環(huán)境下進(jìn)行，對(duì)象是學(xué)生，另一個(gè)的對(duì)象是真正的企業(yè)家。她們發(fā)現(xiàn)，“迎合別人的利益和期望，不表現(xiàn)真實(shí)的自己，反而會(huì)表現(xiàn)不好”。在對(duì)企業(yè)家的實(shí)驗(yàn)中，研究者發(fā)現(xiàn)，當(dāng)企業(yè)家在宣傳中試著迎合潛在投資者的需要，比起真實(shí)宣傳的企業(yè)家，他們募到的資金反而更少。

Likewise, in the lab study, the researchers held a mock job interview, and either told the participating students to try to mold themselves to what it seemed like their interviewer wanted (they called that the “catering” condition) or to behave normally, by presenting their strengths honestly and accurately (this they called the “authenticity” condition). The “interviewer” in this case was a study volunteer, too, who wasn’t aware of the purpose of the research. More often than not, the students cast in the role of interviewer told researchers that they’d be less likely to offer the job to the students in the “catering” condition.

同樣地，在對(duì)學(xué)生的實(shí)驗(yàn)中，研究者舉行了一次模擬求職面試，隨機(jī)地讓一部分學(xué)生試著迎合面試官(她們稱這些學(xué)生為“迎合”組)，讓另外的學(xué)生表現(xiàn)真實(shí)的自己(這些學(xué)生為“真實(shí)”組)。“面試官”是志愿者，并不了解實(shí)驗(yàn)的真正目的。從“面試官”的反饋來(lái)看，他們大多不太愿意錄用“迎合”組的學(xué)生。

One explanation for this: People are generally pretty bad at guessing at what’s going on in someone else’s head. Research has suggested, for example, that your understanding of what others think of you is more informed by your own opinions of yourself than the feedback that others provide. (Perhaps this can help explain the depressing study out this summer, which announced that “Half Your Friends Probably Don’t Think of You As a Friend.”)

對(duì)此種現(xiàn)象的一個(gè)解釋是：人們實(shí)在很不擅長(zhǎng)推測(cè)別人的想法。舉栗：研究表明，人們通常都是按照自己的想法，而非別人的真實(shí)反饋，來(lái)衡量別人如何看待自己。

Beyond that, in the fake job-interview experiment, the interviewees were also asked how nervous they felt, and those in the catering condition reported more anxiety than those in the authenticity condition. So: Trying to guess what a job interviewer or potential investor wants out of you will probably make you nervous, and, chances are, you’ll guess wrong, anyway. As so often is the case, the best advice is the simplest — just be you. Or, at least, a slightly-more-pulled-together and generally-on-top-of-things version of you.

另外，在模擬求職面試的實(shí)驗(yàn)中，“求職者”們需要告訴研究者自己有多緊張。結(jié)果顯示，“迎合”組比“真實(shí)”組焦慮感更高。也就是說(shuō)(敲黑板)：猜測(cè)面試官或潛在投資者的想法會(huì)引起焦慮，而猜錯(cuò)的比例永遠(yuǎn)大過(guò)猜對(duì)的比例。因此最好最簡(jiǎn)單的選擇就是——做自己。至少也得是相對(duì)真實(shí)的版本。