So here's the good news about families. The last 50 years have seen a revolution in what it means to be a family. We have blended families, adopted families, we have nuclear families living in separate houses and divorced families living in the same house. But through it all, the family has grown stronger. Eight in 10 say the family they have today is as strong or stronger than the family they grew up in.
我这有一条关于家庭的好消息。 在过去的50年里,家庭的意义 有了革命性的改变 出现了离异后重新组合的家庭,收养关系组成的家庭, 出现了独立出来居住的小家庭, 也出现了住在同一座房子里的离异家庭。 但是经过这些年,家庭关系变得更加稳固了。 80%的人认为他们现在所在的家庭 和他们成长所处的家庭一样稳固,或更加稳固。
Now, here's the bad news. Nearly everyone is completely overwhelmed by the chaos of family life. Every parent I know, myself included, feels like we're constantly playing defense. Just when our kids stop teething, they start having tantrums. Just when they stop needing our help taking a bath, they need our help dealing with cyberstalking or bullying.
现在,我要说一条坏消息。 几乎所有人的家庭生活都陷入了 完全的混乱中。 我认识的每一个父母,也包括我自己, 都觉得我们在家庭中一直在扮演防御的角色。 当我们的孩子结束长牙时,他们开始会发脾气。 当他们不再需要我们帮忙洗澡的时候, 他们需要我们帮助处理网络跟踪和恃强凌弱的行为。
And here's the worst news of all. Our children sense we're out of control. Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute asked 1,000 children, "If you were granted one wish about your parents, what would it be?" The parents predicted the kids would say, spending more time with them. They were wrong. The kids' number one wish? That their parents be less tired and less stressed.
接下来是最坏的消息。 我们的孩子感觉到我们失控了。 家庭与工作研究所的埃伦·林斯基 问了1000个孩子,“如果你们可以 许一个关于你们父母的愿望,你会许什么愿望?“ 父母都预测他们的孩子会说, 和他们相处的时间长一些。 他们错了。孩子们排行第一的愿望是什么呢? 是希望他们的父母可以少累一点,少一些压力。
So how can we change this dynamic? Are there concrete things we can do to reduce stress, draw our family closer, and generally prepare our children to enter the world?
所以我们怎么才能改变这个现象呢? 有没有什么具体的方法可以让我们减轻压力, 让我们的家庭更亲密, 使我们的孩子更好的准备进入这个世界?
I spent the last few years trying to answer that question, traveling around, meeting families, talking to scholars, experts ranging from elite peace negotiators to Warren Buffett's bankers to the Green Berets. I was trying to figure out, what do happy families do right and what can I learn from them to make my family happier?
过去几年我一直在寻找这个问题的答案, 去了许多地方,探访了不同家庭,跟学者们交谈, 跟不同领域的专家,包括进行和平谈判的精英, 沃伦·巴菲特的银行家,和绿色贝雷帽 (美国陆军特种部队) 我在试着找出,幸福的家庭做对了什么, 我又能从他们那里学到什么可以让我的家庭更幸福?
I want to tell you about one family that I met, and why I think they offer clues. At 7 p.m. on a Sunday in Hidden Springs, Idaho, where the six members of the Starr family are sitting down to the highlight of their week: the family meeting. The Starrs are a regular American family with their share of regular American family problems. David is a software engineer. Eleanor takes care of their four children, ages 10 to 15. One of those kids tutors math on the far side of town. One has lacrosse on the near side of town. One has Asperger syndrome. One has ADHD.
我想告诉你们我认识的一个家庭的故事, 和我为什么觉得他们提供了线索。 星期天晚上7点,在爱达荷州的隐泉区, 斯塔尔家的6个成员坐在一起 参加他们每周的重点活动:家庭会议。 斯塔尔家是一个普通的美国家庭 有着普通美国家庭都会有的问题。 大卫是一位软件工程师。埃莉诺照顾 他们的四个孩子,10岁到15岁。 其中一个孩子在小镇较远的那边做数学家教。 一个在小镇较近的那边参加曲棍球队。 一个有阿斯伯格综合症(一种自闭症)。一个有注意力不足过动症。
"We were living in complete chaos," Eleanor said.
“我们生活在完全的混乱中,”埃莉诺说。
What the Starrs did next, though, was surprising. Instead of turning to friends or relatives, they looked to David's workplace. They turned to a cutting-edge program called agile development that was just spreading from manufacturers in Japan to startups in Silicon Valley. In agile, workers are organized into small groups and do things in very short spans of time. So instead of having executives issue grand proclamations, the team in effect manages itself. You have constant feedback. You have daily update sessions. You have weekly reviews. You're constantly changing. David said when they brought this system into their home, the family meetings in particular increased communication, decreased stress, and made everybody happier to be part of the family team. When my wife and I adopted these family meetings and other techniques into the lives of our then-five-year-old twin daughters, it was the biggest single change we made since our daughters were born. And these meetings had this effect while taking under 20 minutes.
而斯塔尔家接下来发生的事情就显得与众不同了。 他们没有向朋友或亲戚诉苦, 而是从大卫的工作中寻找解决方法。 他们采用了一种称为“敏捷开发”的管理方式 这种管理方式当时刚刚从日本的制造业 流传到硅谷的初创公司。 在敏捷开发中,工作人员被分成一些小组, 做时间跨度很短的工作。 不再需要高层领导不断的发号施令,这些小团队能够 高效率的进行自我管理。 你不断的得到反馈,每天都更新自己的进程, 你每周都进行回顾,持续不断的改变。 大卫说在他们把这套管理方式引入家庭之后, 家庭会议上的交流变多了, 压力变少了,这让每个人 作为家庭成员都更加开心。 当我和妻子将这种家庭会议和其他一些技术 引入到我们当时只有五岁的双胞胎女儿的生活中时, 这是我们在女儿出生后做过的最大的改变。 这些会议确实管用 并且会议时间不超过20分钟。
So what is Agile, and why can it help with something that seems so different, like families? In 1983, Jeff Sutherland was a technologist at a financial firm in New England. He was very frustrated with how software got designed. Companies followed the waterfall method, right, in which executives issued orders that slowly trickled down to programmers below, and no one had ever consulted the programmers. Eighty-three percent of projects failed. They were too bloated or too out of date by the time they were done. Sutherland wanted to create a system where ideas didn't just percolate down but could percolate up from the bottom and be adjusted in real time. He read 30 years of Harvard Business Review before stumbling upon an article in 1986 called "The New New Product Development Game." It said that the pace of business was quickening -- and by the way, this was in 1986 -- and the most successful companies were flexible. It highlighted Toyota and Canon and likened their adaptable, tight-knit teams to rugby scrums. As Sutherland told me, we got to that article, and said, "That's it." In Sutherland's system, companies don't use large, massive projects that take two years. They do things in small chunks. Nothing takes longer than two weeks. So instead of saying, "You guys go off into that bunker and come back with a cell phone or a social network," you say, "You go off and come up with one element, then bring it back. Let's talk about it. Let's adapt." You succeed or fail quickly. Today, agile is used in a hundred countries, and it's sweeping into management suites. Inevitably, people began taking some of these techniques and applying it to their families. You had blogs pop up, and some manuals were written. Even the Sutherlands told me that they had an Agile Thanksgiving, where you had one group of people working on the food, one setting the table, and one greeting visitors at the door. Sutherland said it was the best Thanksgiving ever.
什么是敏捷开发,为什么它可以帮助 看起来很不一样的系统,像是家庭? 在1983年,杰夫·萨瑟兰是一名技术专家, 在新英格兰地区的一家金融公司, 他对当时的软件设计方法感到沮丧。 公司遵循这个瀑布开发模型,对吧, 这里高层管理人员宣布命令,然后慢慢渗透 到下面的程序员那里。 但是从没有人咨询过这些程序员。 83%的项目都失败了。 当这些项目终于被完成时, 往往延期很久,或预算严重超支。 萨瑟兰想要创造一个系统 让灵感不仅可以自上而下的传播,而且可以自下而上的聚集, 并且能够及时的调整。 他翻阅了30年的《哈佛商业评论》杂志 发现了在1986年发表的一篇文章 叫做“新新产品开发游戏”。 里面说商业的脚步正在加快- 注意,这是1986- 最成功的公司都很灵活。 里面点出了丰田和佳能 说他们紧密的团队就像英式橄榄球争球. 根据萨瑟兰告诉我的,我们找到了这篇文章, 说,“就是这个了,” 在萨瑟兰的系统中,公司不做 很大的,要拖两年之久的项目。 他们把事情分成小部分。 任何事情都在两个星期内完成。 他们不会说,“你们躲到一个仓库里好好研究 等做出来个电话或者社交网络再回来,” 你会说,“你们先做出来一个元件, 然后把它带回来。我们讨论一下,看看是否需要调整。” 你很快就知道是否行得通。 现在,敏捷开发在上百个国家得到运用, 而且快速的融入了管理阶层。 必然的,人们开始将其中一些技术 引入到自己的家庭中。 你能找到一些相关的博客文章,里面总结了一些运用守则。 就连萨瑟兰都告诉我他们有过 一个敏捷式的感恩节, 一组人准备食物, 一组人在布置桌子,还有人在门口迎接来客。 萨瑟兰说这是他们有过的最好的感恩节。
So let's take one problem that families face, crazy mornings, and talk about how agile can help. A key plank is accountability, so teams use information radiators, these large boards in which everybody is accountable. So the Starrs, in adapting this to their home, created a morning checklist in which each child is expected to tick off chores. So on the morning I visited, Eleanor came downstairs, poured herself a cup of coffee, sat in a reclining chair, and she sat there, kind of amiably talking to each of her children as one after the other they came downstairs, checked the list, made themselves breakfast, checked the list again, put the dishes in the dishwasher, rechecked the list, fed the pets or whatever chores they had, checked the list once more, gathered their belongings, and made their way to the bus. It was one of the most astonishing family dynamics I have ever seen.
现在我们从家庭面临的问题中挑出一个, “匆忙的早晨”,讨论下敏捷管理如何帮助改进。 要点是明确责任, 在团队中使用“信息辐射体”, 就是那些大白板来明确每个人的责任。 斯塔尔家也采用了这种方法, 他们制作了一个早晨工作的清单 里面包含了每个孩子需要完成的家务。 我去拜访的那天早晨,埃莉诺从楼上下来, 给她自己倒了一杯咖啡,坐在了摇椅上, 她就坐在那里, 和蔼的和她每一个孩子说话 看着他们一个接一个的下楼, 检查他们的清单,给他们自己做早餐, 再检查他们的清单,把盘子放在洗碗机内, 然后又检查清单,喂宠物或者其他他们需要负责的家务, 最后一次检查他们的清单,整理好他们的东西, 然后出门去坐校车了。 这是我所看过的最惊人的家庭运作方式。
And when I strenuously objected this would never work in our house,
当我极力表示这绝对不会在我家实现的,
our kids needed way too much monitoring,
我们的孩子需要太多监督了,
Eleanor looked at me.
埃莉诺看着我。
"That's what I thought," she said. "I told David, 'keep your work out of my kitchen.' But I was wrong."
“我原来也这么想,”她说。 “我告诉大卫,‘不要把你的工作带到我的厨房。’ 但是我错了。”
So I turned to David: "So why does it work?"
所以我问大卫,“这个为什么会管用?”
He said, "You can't underestimate the power of doing this." And he made a checkmark. He said, "In the workplace, adults love it. With kids, it's heaven."
他说,“你不能低估这个动作的威力。” 他画了一个对号。(钩形符号“✔”,表示已核对无误。) 他说,“在工作场合,成人都很爱它。 对于孩子们,这跟天堂一样。”
The week we introduced a morning checklist into our house, it cut parental screaming in half. (Laughter) But the real change didn't come until we had these family meetings. So following the agile model, we ask three questions: What worked well in our family this week, what didn't work well, and what will we agree to work on in the week ahead? Everyone throws out suggestions and then we pick two to focus on. And suddenly the most amazing things started coming out of our daughters' mouths. What worked well this week? Getting over our fear of riding bikes. Making our beds. What didn't work well? Our math sheets, or greeting visitors at the door. Like a lot of parents, our kids are something like Bermuda Triangles. Like, thoughts and ideas go in, but none ever comes out, I mean at least not that are revealing. This gave us access suddenly to their innermost thoughts. But the most surprising part was when we turned to, what are we going to work on in the week ahead? You know, the key idea of agile is that teams essentially manage themselves, and it works in software and it turns out that it works with kids. Our kids love this process. So they would come up with all these ideas. You know, greet five visitors at the door this week, get an extra 10 minutes of reading before bed. Kick someone, lose desserts for a month. It turns out, by the way, our girls are little Stalins. We constantly have to kind of dial them back. Now look, naturally there's a gap between their kind of conduct in these meetings and their behavior the rest of the week, but the truth is it didn't really bother us. It felt like we were kind of laying these underground cables that wouldn't light up their world for many years to come.
我们把这个清晨清单带入我们家的那个星期, 父母吼叫的次数减半了。(笑声) 但是真正的改变直到我们开始了家庭会议才出现。 我们遵循了敏捷方式,问自己三个问题: 这个星期家里什么运作良好, 什么不好,还有我们下个星期希望做哪些改变? 每个人都会给出建议 然后我们挑选两个来关注。 突然之间,最了不起的话开始从我们女儿们的嘴里说出来。 这个星期什么运行的好? 我们不再怕骑车了,我们会整理自己的床。 什么做的不好?我们的数学作业, 以及在门口迎接客人(这件事情)。 跟很多父母一样,(我们觉得)我们的孩子就像百慕大三角。 跟他们说什么道理和要求都没有效果, 我的意思是,最起码没表现出来。 (家庭会议)突然让我们能够了解他们最深层的想法了。 但是最令人吃惊的是当我们讨论 下一周我们需要做哪些工作的时候。 你知道,敏捷方式的核心理论是 团队实质上在管理他们自己, 这个理念在软件上管用,在孩子们身上也有作用。 我们的孩子很爱这个过程。 他们会想出各种各样的主意。 像这个星期在门口迎接五个客人, 就可以另外得到10分钟的睡前读书时间。 踢别人,就一个月不能吃甜点。 我们发现了,顺便说一下, 我们的女儿们跟小斯大林一样。 我们需要不断的提醒他们不要太严厉。 现在来看,她们在家庭会议上的计划 不会百分百的在下个星期得到落实, 但是我们实际上并不在意。 感觉上就像我们在建设地下电缆 在许多年后才会照亮他们的世界。
Three years later -- our girls are almost eight now -- We're still holding these meetings. My wife counts them among her most treasured moments as a mom.
三年之后-我们的女孩们现在快八岁了- 我们仍然在进行这些会议。 我妻子认为这个她作为妈妈最宝贵的时刻之一。
So what did we learn? The word "agile" entered the lexicon in 2001 when Jeff Sutherland and a group of designers met in Utah and wrote a 12-point Agile Manifesto. I think the time is right for an Agile Family Manifesto. I've taken some ideas from the Starrs and from many other families I met. I'm proposing three planks.
所以我们从中学到了什么? Agile这个词在2001年被纳入了词典 那一年杰夫·萨瑟兰和一些设计师 在犹他州碰面,并写下了12点《敏捷宣言》。 我认为是时候做一个《敏捷家庭宣言》了。 我从斯塔尔家和我拜访过的许多其他家庭中得到了一些主意。 我提出三个重点。
Plank number one: Adapt all the time.
重点一:随时调整适应。
When I became a parent, I figured, you know what? We'll set a few rules and we'll stick to them. That assumes, as parents, we can anticipate every problem that's going to arise. We can't. What's great about the agile system is you build in a system of change so that you can react to what's happening to you in real time. It's like they say in the Internet world: if you're doing the same thing today you were doing six months ago, you're doing the wrong thing. Parents can learn a lot from that. But to me, "adapt all the time" means something deeper, too. We have to break parents out of this straitjacket that the only ideas we can try at home are ones that come from shrinks or self-help gurus or other family experts. The truth is, their ideas are stale, whereas in all these other worlds there are these new ideas to make groups and teams work effectively.
当我成为一名父亲的时候,我就想,这样吧 我们就定下几条规定,然后就按照规定做。 这里的假设是我们作为父母可以预料到所有可能出现的问题。 我们不能。敏捷系统很棒的一点 是你在一个变化的系统中建立的 这使你可以随时对发生的状况做出反应。 互联网业界流传着一句话: 如果你今天做着和六个月前一样的事情, 你一定做错了。 父母可以从中学到很多。 对我来说,“随时调整适应” 有着更深层的含义。 我们父母必须从以前的教条中解放出来, 家庭管理并不是只能听从 心理医生,自助专家,或者家庭专家 提供的建议。 事实上,他们的建议过时了, 而世界上所有其他领域都有新的技术 让小组和团队更加高效率的工作。
Let's just take a few examples. Let's take the biggest issue of all: family dinner. Everybody knows that having family dinner with your children is good for the kids. But for so many of us, it doesn't work in our lives. I met a celebrity chef in New Orleans who said, "No problem, I'll just time-shift family dinner. I'm not home, can't make family dinner? We'll have family breakfast. We'll meet for a bedtime snack. We'll make Sunday meals more important." And the truth is, recent research backs him up. It turns out there's only 10 minutes of productive time in any family meal. The rest of it's taken up with "take your elbows off the table" and "pass the ketchup." You can take that 10 minutes and move it to any part of the day and have the same benefit. So time-shift family dinner. That's adaptability.
就让我们来看几个例子。 来看一下最大的问题:家庭晚餐。 所有人都知道家庭晚餐 和孩子们一起对他们有好处。 但是对于我们大多数人来说,无法在生活中实现。 我在新奥尔良认识的一位明星厨师说过, “没问题,我把家庭晚餐时间改了就好了。 我不在家,不能弄家庭晚餐? 那我们就来家庭早餐。在睡前点心时间见面也可以。 我们把周日的聚餐弄得更重要一些。” 事实就是,最近的研究同意他的观点。 研究发现在任何家庭聚餐中只有 十分钟的有效时间。 剩下的时间说的都是“把你的臂肘放下去”和“把番茄酱递给我。” 你可以把这十分钟挪到 一天里的任何时段,效果是一样的。 所有挪开家庭晚餐的时间。这就是适应性。
An environmental psychologist told me, "If you're sitting in a hard chair on a rigid surface, you'll be more rigid. If you're sitting on a cushioned chair, you'll be more open." She told me, "When you're discipling your children, sit in an upright chair with a cushioned surface. The conversation will go better." My wife and I actually moved where we sit for difficult conversations because I was sitting above in the power position. So move where you sit. That's adaptability.
一位环境心理学家告诉过我, “如果你坐在硬椅子或硬平台上, 你会比较死板。 如果你坐在软垫的椅子上,你会比较开放。” 她还说,“当你在惩罚你的孩子时, 坐在一个直立的带软垫的椅子上。 谈话会比较顺利。” 我跟我妻子真的改变了进行严肃谈话时坐的位置, 因为我以前坐得比较高,显得强势。 所以改变你的座位。这就是适应性。
The point is there are all these new ideas out there. We've got to hook them up with parents. So plank number one: Adapt all the time. Be flexible, be open-minded, let the best ideas win.
我要说的就是到处都有这种新的想法。 父母们需要将这些结合起来。 这就是重点一:随时调整适应。 要灵活,要开放,让最好的主意胜出。
Plank number two: Empower your children. Our instinct as parents is to order our kids around. It's easier, and frankly, we're usually right. There's a reason that few systems have been more waterfall over time than the family. But the single biggest lesson we learned is to reverse the waterfall as much as possible. Enlist the children in their own upbringing. Just yesterday, we were having our family meeting, and we had voted to work on overreacting. So we said, "Okay, give us a reward and give us a punishment. Okay?" So one of my daughters threw out, you get five minutes of overreacting time all week. So we kind of liked that. But then her sister started working the system. She said, "Do I get one five-minute overreaction or can I get 10 30-second overreactions?" I loved that. Spend the time however you want. Now give us a punishment. Okay. If we get 15 minutes of overreaction time, that's the limit. Every minute above that, we have to do one pushup. So you see, this is working. Now look, this system isn't lax. There's plenty of parental authority going on. But we're giving them practice becoming independent, which of course is our ultimate goal. Just as I was leaving to come here tonight, one of my daughters started screaming. The other one said, "Overreaction! Overreaction!" and started counting, and within 10 seconds it had ended. To me that is a certified agile miracle. (Laughter) (Applause) And by the way, research backs this up too. Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules, evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex and take more control over their lives. The point is, we have to let our children succeed on their own terms, and yes, on occasion, fail on their own terms. I was talking to Warren Buffett's banker, and he was chiding me for not letting my children make mistakes with their allowance. And I said, "But what if they drive into a ditch?" He said, "It's much better to drive into a ditch with a $6 allowance than a $60,000-a-year salary or a $6 million inheritance." So the bottom line is, empower your children.
重点二:给你的孩子权利。 我们作为父母的潜意识是命令我们的孩子做事情。 这比较简单,坦率地说,我们一般都是对的。 这是家庭比其它系统更加倾向于 瀑布管理模型的原因之一。 但是我们学到的最重要的一堂课就是 尽最大可能逆转这种管理模式。 让孩子们在成长中掌控自己。 就在昨天,我们开家庭会议, 我们在讨论如何改善“反应过度”的行为。 我们说,“好的,我们规定一个奖励和一个惩罚,好吗?” 我们一个女儿提出,每人每星期有5分钟的反应过度时间。 我们都觉得这个还不错。 但是她妹妹开始改进这个系统。 她说。“我会得到一个5分钟的反应过度时间 还是十个三十秒钟的反应过度时间?” 我很爱这点。你可以自由分配这个时间。 现在给我们一个惩罚。好的 如果我们有十五分钟的反应过度时间,这是极限。 超出范围的每一分钟,我们必须做一个俯卧撑。 所以你可以看到,系统在运转。现在可以看到,这个系统是玩真的。 我们保留了很多父母的权威。 但是我们让孩子们练习独立, 这也是我们的最终目的。 就当我今晚要离开家来这的时候, 我们的一个女儿开始尖叫。 另一个就开始说,“反应过度!反应过度!” 而且开始了数数,十秒钟之内尖叫就停止了。 对我来说,这是一个见证敏捷奇迹的时刻。 (笑声)(掌声) 顺便说一下,也有研究支持这一点。 孩子们计划他们自己的目标,设定每周计划, 评估他们自己的工作会增强他们的额叶皮层 也会更好的控制他们的生活。 我要说的点是,我们必须要让孩子们在他们自己努力下成功, 当然还有,有时候,在他们自己的努力下失败。 我曾和一位沃伦·巴菲特的银行家谈话, 他指责我不允许我的孩子 在他们的限度内犯错误。 我说,“如果他们惹麻烦怎么办?” 他说,“他们现在用6块钱零花钱惹麻烦 要比到年薪六万年薪或者继承了六百万美元遗产的时候 惹麻烦好得多。” 所以底线就是,给你的孩子权利。
Plank number three: Tell your story. Adaptability is fine, but we also need bedrock. Jim Collins, the author of "Good To Great," told me that successful human organizations of any kind have two things in common: they preserve the core, they stimulate progress. So agile is great for stimulating progress, but I kept hearing time and again, you need to preserve the core. So how do you do that? Collins coached us on doing something that businesses do, which is define your mission and identify your core values. So he led us through the process of creating a family mission statement. We did the family equivalent of a corporate retreat. We had a pajama party. I made popcorn. Actually, I burned one, so I made two. My wife bought a flip chart. And we had this great conversation, like, what's important to us? What values do we most uphold? And we ended up with 10 statements. We are travelers, not tourists. We don't like dilemmas. We like solutions. Again, research shows that parents should spend less time worrying about what they do wrong and more time focusing on what they do right, worry less about the bad times and build up the good times. This family mission statement is a great way to identify what it is that you do right.
重点三:讲述你的故事。 适应性很好,但是我们还需要基石。 吉姆·柯林斯, “从优秀到卓越”的作者, 告诉过我任何形势的人类组织 都有两个共同点: 他们维持核心价值,并激励发展。 敏捷系统能很好的刺激发展, 但是我一直不断的听到,你需要维持核心价值。 所以你改怎么做呢? 柯林斯教我们做 企业做的事,就是定义你的使命 和确定你的核心价值。 他带领我们创立一个家庭使命. 我们做了一个家庭版的企业活动。 我们办了一个睡衣派对。 我做了爆米花。实际上,我烧焦了一个,所以我做了两个。 我妻子买了一个挂图。 然后我们进行了很棒的谈话,比如,什么对我们来说重要? 我们最坚持什么价值? 我们最后得出了十条定论。 我们是旅客,不是游客。 我们不喜欢困境。我们喜欢解决。 再说一次,研究表示父母需要更少的 担心孩子们办了什么错事 更多的关注他们做的对的地方, 少担心不好的时候,建立更多的好时光。 这个家庭使命可以很好的坚定 你做的哪些是对的。
A few weeks later, we got a call from the school. One of our daughters had gotten into a spat. And suddenly we were worried, like, do we have a mean girl on our hands? And we didn't really know what to do, so we called her into my office. The family mission statement was on the wall, and my wife said, "So, anything up there seem to apply?" And she kind of looked down the list, and she said, "Bring people together?" Suddenly we had a way into the conversation.
几个星期后,我们接到学校打来的电话。 我们的一个女儿与人发生了争执。 我们突然开始担心,如果我们有个坏女孩该怎么办? 我们但是并不知道要怎么办, 所以我们把她叫到了我的办公室。 家庭使命挂在墙上, 我的妻子说,“那上面有哪个内容合适吗?” 她看了一下列表,说, “团结大家?” 我们一下子就有了开始的话题。
Another great way to tell your story is to tell your children where they came from. Researchers at Emory gave children a simple "what do you know" test. Do you know where your grandparents were born? Do you know where your parents went to high school? Do you know anybody in your family who had a difficult situation, an illness, and they overcame it? The children who scored highest on this "do you know" scale had the highest self-esteem and a greater sense they could control their lives. The "do you know" test was the single biggest predictor of emotional health and happiness. As the author of the study told me, children who have a sense of -- they're part of a larger narrative have greater self-confidence. So my final plank is, tell your story. Spend time retelling the story of your family's positive moments and how you overcame the negative ones. If you give children this happy narrative, you give them the tools to make themselves happier.
讲述你的故事的另一个很好的方式 是告诉你的孩子他们从哪里来。 艾默理大学的研究员给了孩子们一个简单的 “你知道什么”测试。 你知道你的祖父祖母在哪里出生吗? 你知道你父母在哪里上的高中吗? 你知道你家里有没有任何人 有过困难时期,生病了又战胜了病魔? 那些在“知道”榜上得到最高分的孩子们 有最强的自信和更能感觉到他们有能控制自己的生活的能力。 这个“知道”测试是最可以测试 心理健康和幸福的。 这个研究的作者告诉我, 这些感觉到他们是更大的故事里的一部分的孩子们 有更强的自信。 所以我最后一个重点是,讲述你的故事。 花一些时间多讲几次你的家庭愉快的故事 和怎样克服困难时期的故事。 如果你给你的孩子开心的讲述, 你就给了他们让自己更开心的工具。
I was a teenager when I first read "Anna Karenina" and its famous opening sentence, "All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." When I first read that, I thought, "That sentence is inane. Of course all happy families aren't alike." But as I began working on this project, I began changing my mind. Recent scholarship has allowed us, for the first time, to identify the building blocks that successful families have. I've mentioned just three here today: Adapt all the time, empower the children, tell your story. Is it possible, all these years later, to say Tolstoy was right? The answer, I believe, is yes. When Leo Tolstoy was five years old, his brother Nikolay came to him and said he had engraved the secret to universal happiness on a little green stick, which he had hidden in a ravine on the family's estate in Russia. If the stick were ever found, all humankind would be happy. Tolstoy became consumed with that stick, but he never found it. In fact, he asked to be buried in that ravine where he thought it was hidden. He still lies there today, covered in a layer of green grass. That story perfectly captures for me the final lesson that I learned: Happiness is not something we find, it's something we make. Almost anybody who's looked at well-run organizations has come to pretty much the same conclusion. Greatness is not a matter of circumstance. It's a matter of choice. You don't need some grand plan. You don't need a waterfall. You just need to take small steps, accumulate small wins, keep reaching for that green stick. In the end, this may be the greatest lesson of all. What's the secret to a happy family? Try.
我十几岁的时候第一次读“安妮·卡列尼娜” 和它非常有名的开篇第一句, “幸福的家庭都是相似的。 不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。” 当我第一次读它的时候,我想,“这是句疯话。 幸福的家庭当然不都是一样的。” 但当我开始做这个项目时, 我开始改变我的想法了。 近期的学术研究让我们第一次, 能够辨别出成功家庭 普遍具备的要素。 我今天只谈到了三点: 随时调整适应,给你的孩子权利,讲述你的故事。 这么多年后,可不可能说托尔斯泰是对的? 答案,我相信,是可以。 当列夫·托尔斯泰五岁大的时候, 他的哥哥尼古拉来到他面前 说他把万能幸福的秘密刻在了 一个小绿棒上面,藏在了他们家族 位于俄罗斯的庄园的山沟里。 如果那个木棒被找到,全人类都会得到幸福。 托尔斯泰便一直在寻找这个木棒,但始终没有找到。 甚至,他要求被葬在那个他认为是埋藏地的山沟里。 他至今仍在那里,被一层又一层的绿草覆盖着。 这个故事很完美的对我讲述了 我学到的最后一课: 幸福不是我们找到的, 而是我们创造的。 基本上所有观察运行的好的企业的人 都会得到差不多一样的结论。 伟大并不取决于环境。 而取决于选择。 你不需要什么大型的计划。你不需要瀑布。 你只需要迈出小步, 积累小胜利, 坚持接近那个绿木棒。 最后,这可能是最伟大的一堂课。 幸福家庭的秘密是什么?是尝试。
(Applause)
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