All right, I want to see a show of hands: how many of you have unfriended someone on Facebook because they said something offensive about politics or religion, childcare, food?
好的,我想請大家舉個手表態: 有多少人曾在臉書上被你刪除好友, 因為對方談論了讓你很反感的 政治或信仰議題, 抑或兒童保育、食物等?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And how many of you know at least one person that you avoid because you just don't want to talk to them?
有多少人曾迴避過別人 因為你就是不想跟他們講話?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
You know, it used to be that in order to have a polite conversation, we just had to follow the advice of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady": Stick to the weather and your health. But these days, with climate change and anti-vaxxing, those subjects --
要知道,在過去想要有 一段禮貌性的談話, 我們只需要遵循《窈窕淑女》裡 亨利希金斯的忠告: 只要談論天氣跟你的健康就好。 但近幾年,氣候變化 以及反對疫苗運動的議題 ——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
are not safe either. So this world that we live in, this world in which every conversation has the potential to devolve into an argument, where our politicians can't speak to one another and where even the most trivial of issues have someone fighting both passionately for it and against it, it's not normal. Pew Research did a study of 10,000 American adults, and they found that at this moment, we are more polarized, we are more divided, than we ever have been in history. We're less likely to compromise, which means we're not listening to each other. And we make decisions about where to live, who to marry and even who our friends are going to be, based on what we already believe. Again, that means we're not listening to each other. A conversation requires a balance between talking and listening, and somewhere along the way, we lost that balance.
那些也不是安全沒爭議的話題。 我們生活的這個世界, 每個對話 都有可能發展成爭論, 政客們不能建立對話, 即使是微不足道的議題 都會因為有人激昂地 贊成或反對而爭吵, 這並不正常。 皮尤研究中心調查一萬名美國成人, 發現目前我們偏激的程度, 我們立場鮮明的程度, 比歷史上任何時期都要高。 我們更不容易妥協, 這代表我們沒有傾聽彼此。 而且連我們決定要住在哪裡、 要跟誰結婚,甚至要跟誰做朋友, 都只基於我們已有的信念。 我再說一遍,這表示 我們沒有傾聽彼此。 對話是建立在「說跟聽」的平衡之上, 然而不知自何時起 我們丟失了那個平衡。
Now, part of that is due to technology. The smartphones that you all either have in your hands or close enough that you could grab them really quickly. According to Pew Research, about a third of American teenagers send more than a hundred texts a day. And many of them, almost most of them, are more likely to text their friends than they are to talk to them face to face. There's this great piece in The Atlantic. It was written by a high school teacher named Paul Barnwell. And he gave his kids a communication project. He wanted to teach them how to speak on a specific subject without using notes. And he said this: “I came to realize...”
有一部分是因為科技, 比如手機,現在就在你們手裏, 或者就在旁邊,隨手就能拿到。 根據皮尤研究中心的研究, 約三分之一的美國青少年 每天傳送超過一百條訊息, 其中許多人, 甚至可說是大部分的人 更傾向於發訊息給朋友, 而不是面對面的交談。 《大西洋》雜誌上有篇很棒的文章, 作者是位高中老師 保羅.巴恩威, 他給他的孩子們出了一項溝通任務 希望教會他們如何不借助筆記, 針對某一話題發表演講。 他說:「我發現......」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"I came to realize that conversational competence might be the single most overlooked skill we fail to teach. Kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and each other through screens, but rarely do they have an opportunity to hone their interpersonal communications skills. It might sound like a funny question, but we have to ask ourselves: Is there any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain coherent, confident conversation?"
我發現到「溝通能力」 大概是我們最忽略、 沒好好教孩子的能力之一。 孩子每天在螢幕前花好幾小時 找想法及跟同儕互動, 但他們卻少有機會 磨練他們人與人之間的溝通技巧, 這問題聽起來很好笑, 但我們得問自己: 「21世紀,有什麽技能 會比維持一段連貫、 自信的談話更為重要?」
Now, I make my living talking to people: Nobel Prize winners, truck drivers, billionaires, kindergarten teachers, heads of state, plumbers. I talk to people that I like. I talk to people that I don’t like. I talk to some people that I disagree with deeply on a personal level. But I still have a great conversation with them. So I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes or so teaching you how to talk and how to listen.
我的職業就是跟別人談話。 諾貝爾獎得主、卡車司機、 億萬富翁、幼稚園老師、 州長、水電工。 我跟我喜歡的人交談, 跟我不喜歡的人交談。 跟我個人意見極度相左的人交談。 但我還是能跟他們開心地聊上一段。 所以接下來十分鐘, 我要教各位怎麼說話, 還有怎麼傾聽。
Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this, things like look the person in the eye, think of interesting topics to discuss in advance, look, nod and smile to show that you're paying attention, repeat back what you just heard or summarize it. So I want you to forget all of that. It is crap.
在場許多人都聽過這一類的建議, 比如,看著對方的眼睛, 提前想好可以討論的有趣話題, 注視、點頭,並且微笑表示你有在聽, 重覆你剛才聽到的,或者做總結。 我希望你們全忘掉這些, 因為全是屁話。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
There is no reason to learn how to show you're paying attention if you are in fact paying attention.
根本沒必要去學習 如何表現你很專心, 如果你真的很專心的話。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Now, I actually use the exact same skills as a professional interviewer that I do in regular life. So, I'm going to teach you how to interview people, and that's actually going to help you learn how to be better conversationalists. Learn to have a conversation without wasting your time, without getting bored, and, please God, without offending anybody.
我其實只是把職業面試者 一模一樣的技巧 用在日常生活中。 所以,我要教各位怎麼面試人, 這會幫助各位成為 更棒的談話者。 學習對談, 但不浪費時間,也不覺得無聊, 還有拜託不要激怒任何人。
We've all had really great conversations. We've had them before. We know what it's like. The kind of conversation where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired, or where you feel like you've made a real connection or you've been perfectly understood. There is no reason why most of your interactions can't be like that.
我們都有過很棒的談話經驗。 大家都有經驗, 知道很棒的對話是什麼樣子。 那種交談結束之後, 令你感到享受,很受鼓舞, 或令你覺得別人建立了真實的連接, 或讓你完全被他人所理解。 沒有理由 各位大部分的人際互動不那樣。
So I have 10 basic rules. I'm going to walk you through all of them, but honestly, if you just choose one of them and master it, you'll already enjoy better conversations.
我有十條基本規則, 我會一條條向各位解釋, 但說實在的,如果你從中選一條 練到爐火純青, 你就已經可以享受 更愉快的對話了。
Number one: Don't multitask. And I don't mean just set down your cell phone or your tablet or your car keys or whatever is in your hand. I mean, be present. Be in that moment. Don't think about your argument you had with your boss. Don't think about what you're going to have for dinner. If you want to get out of the conversation, get out of the conversation, but don't be half in it and half out of it.
第一條:不要一心多用 我不是說單純放下你的手機、 平板電腦、車鑰匙, 或者隨便什麽握在手裏的東西。 我的意思是,處在當下。 進入到那個情境中去。 不要想著你之前和老板的爭吵。 不要想著你晚飯吃什麽。 如果你想退出交談, 就退出交談。 但不要心不在焉。
Number two: Don't pontificate. If you want to state your opinion without any opportunity for response or argument or pushback or growth, write a blog.
第二條:不要自以為是。 如果你想要表達自己的看法, 又不想讓別人有機會可以 回應、爭論、反駁或成長, 那你寫部落格就好了啊......
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Now, there's a really good reason why I don't allow pundits on my show: Because they're really boring. If they're conservative, they're going to hate Obama and food stamps and abortion. If they're liberal, they're going to hate big banks and oil corporations and Dick Cheney. Totally predictable. And you don't want to be like that. You need to enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn. The famed therapist M. Scott Peck said that true listening requires a setting aside of oneself. And sometimes that means setting aside your personal opinion. He said that sensing this acceptance, the speaker will become less and less vulnerable and more and more likely to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. Again, assume that you have something to learn.
我不讓權威專家上我節目 是有理由的: 因為他們真的很無聊。 如果他們是保守派, 就會討厭歐巴馬、食物券跟墮胎; 如果他們是自由派,就會討厭 大銀行、石油公司還有迪克錢尼。 (小布希政府時期的副總統) 完全猜得到。 但大家不會希望是那樣。 你需要在進入每一次談話時, 先假定自己可以學習到一些東西。 知名的治療師史考特派克說過, 「真正的傾聽需要放下自己」。 有時候可能指的是放下自己的意見。 他說:「如果說話的人感受到了你的接納, 他會變得比較不那麼敏感, 更有可能會向你吐露自己的心聲。」 再次強調,請想著你會學到東西。
Bill Nye: "Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't." I put it this way: Everybody is an expert in something.
比爾奈說過:「你遇到的每個人 都知道一些你不知道的事。」 我換句話說: 每個人都是某方面的專家。
Number three: Use open-ended questions. In this case, take a cue from journalists. Start your questions with who, what, when, where, why or how. If you put in a complicated question, you're going to get a simple answer out. If I ask you, "Were you terrified?" you're going to respond to the most powerful word in that sentence, which is "terrified," and the answer is "Yes, I was" or "No, I wasn't." "Were you angry?" "Yes, I was very angry." Let them describe it. They're the ones that know. Try asking them things like, "What was that like?" "How did that feel?" Because then they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and you're going to get a much more interesting response.
第三項:使用開放式問題, 關於這點,可以參考 記者採訪的提問方式。 從人、事、時、地、 原因、方式開始問。 詢問複雜的問題 將會得到簡單的回答。 如果我問:「你害怕嗎?」 你只會針對這句子中 最有力的字——「害怕」來做回答, 回應「是」或「不是」。 「你生氣嗎?」「是,我很生氣。」 讓對方描述嘛, 對方才是了解事情的人。 好比問他們:「那是什麽情境?」 「你感覺怎麼樣?」 因為這樣他們可能就會想一下, 你也會得到更有趣的回答。
Number four: Go with the flow. That means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind. We've heard interviews often in which a guest is talking for several minutes and then the host comes back in and asks a question which seems like it comes out of nowhere, or it's already been answered. That means the host probably stopped listening two minutes ago because he thought of this really clever question, and he was just bound and determined to say that. And we do the exact same thing. We're sitting there having a conversation with someone, and then we remember that time that we met Hugh Jackman in a coffee shop.
第四條:順其自然。 也就是說,想法會 自然流入你的頭腦, 你只要把它們表達出來。 我們常會聽到訪談, 來賓說了好幾分鐘, 然後主持人回過來問問題, 問題卻扯不上關係 或是來賓已經回答過了。 這表示主持人可能 兩分鐘前就沒在聽了, 因為他一想到 這個非常機智的問題, 就會一心一意地 想著這個問題。 我們也會這樣。 我們跟某人坐著聊天, 突然想起那次 和休傑克曼在咖啡店的偶遇。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And we stop listening. Stories and ideas are going to come to you. You need to let them come and let them go.
然後我們就沒在聽對方說話了。 故事跟想法會在心中浮現, 你得學會記住,也得學會順其自然。
Number five: If you don't know, say that you don't know. Now, people on the radio, especially on NPR, are much more aware that they're going on the record, and so they're more careful about what they claim to be an expert in and what they claim to know for sure. Do that. Err on the side of caution. Talk should not be cheap.
第五條:如果你不懂,就說你不懂。 廣播節目裏的人,尤其在 全國公共廣播電台(NPR)中, 非常明白他們的談話紀錄會被保存, 所以他們對自己聲稱的專業 以及宣稱的確有其事 會更加謹慎。 請這樣做:謹言慎行。 談話不應該隨便。
Number six: Don't equate your experience with theirs. If they're talking about having lost a family member, don't start talking about the time you lost a family member. If they're talking about the trouble they're having at work, don't tell them about how much you hate your job. It's not the same. It is never the same. All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you. You don't need to take that moment to prove how amazing you are or how much you've suffered. Somebody asked Stephen Hawking once what his IQ was, and he said, "I have no idea. People who brag about their IQs are losers."
第六條:別拿自己的經驗 跟別人的相提並論。 如果他們談到親人離世, 別開始說自己的親人離世; 如果他們談論到工作上的瓶頸, 別開始說你有多討厭你的工作。 不一樣。永遠不可能一樣。 任何經歷都是個人的。 而且,更重要的是, 這不是在談論你的事。 你不用在這個時候 證明你有多厲害, 或是你有多煎熬。 有人問過史蒂芬霍金他的智商多少。 他說:「我不知道。 但會吹噓自己智商的人通常是魯蛇」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Conversations are not a promotional opportunity.
交談不是在推銷自己。
Number seven: Try not to repeat yourself. It's condescending, and it's really boring, and we tend to do it a lot. Especially in work conversations or in conversations with our kids, we have a point to make, so we just keep rephrasing it over and over. Don't do that.
第七條: 盡量別重覆自己的話。 這樣很傲慢,也很無聊, 但我們卻常這樣做。 特別是在聊工作,或是跟孩子說話, 或是想聲明一個觀點時, 會不停地換方式嘮叨。 別這樣做。
Number eight: Stay out of the weeds. Frankly, people don't care about the years, the names, the dates, all those details that you're struggling to come up with in your mind. They don't care. What they care about is you. They care about what you're like, what you have in common. So forget the details. Leave them out.
第八條:不要細數無關緊要的事。 坦白說,沒有人會在乎 年份、名字、 日期等細節, 你努力試圖在腦中 回想那些細節, 但對方其實不在乎。 他們在乎的是你。 他們在乎你是什麼樣的人, 你們之間有什麼共通處。 所以忘掉細節吧,別管那些。
Number nine: This is not the last one, but it is the most important one. Listen. I cannot tell you how many really important people have said that listening is perhaps the most, the number one most important skill that you could develop. Buddha said, and I'm paraphrasing, "If your mouth is open, you're not learning." And Calvin Coolidge said, "No man ever listened his way out of a job."
第九條: 這不是最後一條, 但卻是最重要的一條: 「傾聽」。 我說不出有多少重要人士說過, 傾聽大概是你可以努力學習 最重要的技巧。 佛曰——我轉述一下, 「你一開口說話,就學不到東西。」 卡爾文.柯立芝說過: 「沒有人因為聽太多而被開除」。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Why do we not listen to each other? Number one, we'd rather talk. When I'm talking, I'm in control. I don't have to hear anything I'm not interested in. I'm the center of attention. I can bolster my own identity. But there's another reason: We get distracted. The average person talks at about 225 word per minute, but we can listen at up to 500 words per minute. So our minds are filling in those other 275 words. And look, I know, it takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you can't do that, you're not in a conversation. You're just two people shouting out barely related sentences in the same place.
為什麼我們不傾聽彼此? 第一點是因為大家很愛講。 我說話的時候,我就有主控權。 我不想聽到我不感興趣的事, 我是注意力的焦點, 我可以強化自己的認同感。 但還有一個原因: 我們會分心。 人平均每分鐘約說 225 個字, 但每分鐘可以聽進多達 500 個字。 所以我們腦袋就會自己 補上那 275 個字。 我知道真正地專心聽別人講話 很耗費精力, 但不這麽做,就不是在交談。 就只是兩個人在同一個地方 彼此大吼著不相干的句子。 (笑聲)
(Laughter)
You have to listen to one another. Stephen Covey said it very beautifully. He said, "Most of us don't listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply."
你們得互相傾聽。 史蒂芬.柯维說得很棒, 他說:「多數人不為了理解而傾聽, 只為了想要回答而聽。」
One more rule, number 10, and it’s this one: Be brief. Be interested in other people.
最後一條,第十條:簡明扼要。 對他人產生興趣。
You know, I grew up with a very famous grandfather, and there was kind of a ritual in my home. People would come over to talk to my grandparents, and after they would leave, my mother would come over to us, and she’d say, “Do you know who that was? She was the runner-up to Miss America. He was the mayor of Sacramento. She won a Pulitzer Prize. He's a Russian ballet dancer." And I kind of grew up assuming everyone has some hidden, amazing thing about them. And honestly, I think it's what makes me a better host. I keep my mouth shut as often as I possibly can. I keep my mind open. And I’m always prepared to be amazed, and I'm never disappointed.
我在一個名人爺爺的身邊長大, 我家裏賓客絡繹不絕, 大家會來找爺爺奶奶聊天。 客人離開後,我母親會過來問我們, 她說:「你知道那是誰嗎? 她是美國小姐亞軍。 他是沙加緬度市長。 她得過普立茲獎。 他是俄羅斯芭蕾舞者。」 我從小就會覺得 每個人都有不為人知的精彩。 老實說,我覺得這點 讓我成為更棒的主持人。 我盡量少說話, 抱持著開放心胸, 永遠準備好大開眼界, 而且我未曾失望過。
You do the same thing. Go out, talk to people, listen to people, and, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed.
各位也可以這樣。 走出去,跟別人交談, 聽別人說, 以及最重要的,準備好大開眼界。
Thanks.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)