It was my third day on the job at a hot Silicon Valley start-up in early 2013. I was twice the age of the dozen engineers in the room. I'd been brought in to the company because I was a seasoned expert in my field, but in this particular room, I felt like a newbie amongst the tech geniuses. I was listening to them talk and thinking that the best thing I could do was be invisible. And then suddenly, the 25-year-old wizard leading the meeting stared at me and asked, "If you shipped a feature and no one used it, did it really ship?"
那是我在矽谷一間 熱門新興公司工作的第三天, 時間是 2013 年初。 辦公室中,十多位工程師 年齡都只有我的一半。 公司找我來,是因為我在 我的領域經驗豐富又專業, 但在這間辦公室中, 我感覺自己好像科技天才中的新手。 我在聽他們說話, 心裡想著,我能做的 最好選擇就是當隱形人。 突然,主導會議的 二十五歲奇才瞪著我看, 他問:「如果你運送(推出)了 一項功能,卻沒人用它, 它真的運送(推出)了嗎?」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"Ship a feature"? In that moment, Chip knew he was in deep ship.
「運送出一項功能」? 當下,奇普就知道他深陷 麻煩(音近:運送)了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I had no idea what he was talking about. I just sat there awkwardly, and mercifully, he moved on to someone else. I slid down in my chair, and I couldn't wait for that meeting to end.
我完全不懂他在說什麼。 我只能很尷尬地坐在那裡, 他很有慈悲心地轉向其他人。 我從我的椅子滑下去, 我等不及會議結束了。
That was my introduction to Airbnb. I was asked and invited by the three millennial cofounders to join their company to help them take their fast-growing tech start-up and turn it into a global hospitality brand, as well as to be the in-house mentor for CEO Brian Chesky. Now, I'd spent from age 26 to 52 being a boutique hotel entrepreneur, and so I guess I'd learned a few things along the way and accumulated some hospitality knowledge. But after my first week, I realized that the brave new home-sharing world didn't need much of my old-school bricks-and-mortar hotel insights. A stark reality rocked me: What do I have to offer? I'd never been in a tech company before. Five and a half years ago, I had never heard of the "sharing economy," nor did I have an Uber or Lyft app on my phone. This was not my natural habitat.
我在 Airbnb 的日子是這樣開始的。 三位千禧世代的共同創辦人 邀請我加入他們的公司, 協助他們把他們這間 快速成長的科技新興公司 轉變成一個全球餐旅品牌, 同時也要擔任執行長 布萊恩切斯基的內部導師。 我從 26 歲到 52 歲這段時間, 都是精品飯店的企業家, 所以我想這一路上 我多少學了點東西, 也累積了一些餐旅方面的知識。 但在我的第一週之後, 我就發現住房共享的美好新世界, 不太需要我的老派實體飯店洞見。 赤裸裸的現實撼動了我: 我能提供什麼? 我以前從來沒有待過科技公司。 五年半前,我還沒有 聽過「共享經濟」, 我的手機上也沒有 Uber 或 Lyft 的應用程式。 這不是我天然的棲息地。
So, I decided at that moment that I could either run for the hills, or cast judgment on these young geniuses, or instead, turn the judgment into curiosity and actually see if I could match my wise eyes with their fresh eyes. I fancied myself a modern Margaret Mead amongst the millennials, and I quickly learned that I had as much to offer them as they did to me.
所以當下我就決定, 我可以選擇躲到山上去, 或是對這些年輕天才做出評斷, 或是,換個方式, 把評斷轉為好奇, 真正去了解,我很廣的見識 是否能搭配他們很新的見識。 我想像我自己是千禧世代中的 現代瑪格麗特米德 (研究現代人類形成過程的學者), 我很快就發現, 我能給他們的很多, 不少於他們能給我的。
The more I've seen and learned about our respective generations, the more I realize that we often don't trust each other enough to actually share our respective wisdom. We may share a border, but we don't necessarily trust each other enough to share that respective wisdom. I believe, looking at the modern workplace, that the trade agreement of our time is opening up these intergenerational pipelines of wisdom so that we can all learn from each other.
關於我們各自的世代, 當我看得越多且學得越多, 我就越發現我們通常 沒有給彼此足夠的信任, 無法真正分享我們各自的智慧。 在我們可能可以 分享一個共同邊界, 但我們對彼此的信任不見得有高到 可以分享各自的智慧。 就現代工作場所來說,我相信, 我們時代的貿易協定 開啟了世代間的智慧流通管道, 讓我們都能向彼此學習。
Almost 40 percent of us in the United States have a boss that's younger than us, and that number is growing quickly. Power is cascading to the young like never before because of our increasing reliance on DQ: digital intelligence. We're seeing young founders of companies in their early 20s scale them up to global giants by the time they get to 30, and yet, we expect these young digital leaders to somehow miraculously embody the relationship wisdoms we older workers have had decades to learn.
在美國,幾乎 40% 的人 為比自己年輕的老闆工作, 那個數字還在快速成長。 權力開始移交到年輕人手上, 這是前所未有的, 因為我們越來越仰賴 DQ, 即數位智慧。 我們會看到二十初頭的 年輕人創立公司, 在三十歲時把公司發展成全球巨人, 但是,我們卻期待 這些年輕的數位領導人 很神奇地以某種方式 去體現關係智慧, 這在我們年長工作者 要花數十年才學習的到。
It's hard to microwave your emotional intelligence. There's ample evidence that gender- and ethnically diverse companies are more effective. But what about age? This is a very important question, because for the first time ever, we have five generations in the workplace at the same time, unintentionally. Maybe it's time we got a little more intentional about how we work collectively. There have been a number of European studies that have shown that age-diverse teams are more effective and successful. So why is that only eight percent of the companies that have a diversity and inclusion program have actually expanded that strategy to include age as just as important of a demographic as gender or race? Maybe they didn't get the memo: the world is getting older!
你的情緒智慧很難速成。 有很大量的證據顯示, 性別和人種多樣性高的公司, 效益會比較高。 但年齡呢? 這是個很重要的問題, 因為這是史上頭一遭, 我們在工作場所中 同時有五個世代, 且不是刻意造成的。 也許,該是我們稍微刻意一點 想辦法合作的時候了。 有不少歐洲研究指出, 年齡多樣性高的團隊 比較有效益也比較成功。 所以,為什麼本身就有多元共容 計畫的公司當中,只有 8% 會真的將那項策略再擴展, 將年齡納入, 成為和性別及種族同等重要的 人口統計變數? 也許他們沒有收到備忘錄: 世界正在變老!
One of the paradoxes of our time is that baby boomers are more vibrant and healthy longer into life, we're actually working later into life, and yet we're feeling less and less relevant. Some of us feel like a carton of milk -- an old carton of milk -- with an expiration date stamped on our wrinkled foreheads. For many of us in midlife, this isn't just a feeling, it is a harsh reality, when we suddenly lose our job and the phone stops ringing. For many of us, justifiably, we worry that people see our experience as a liability, not an asset. You've heard of the old phrase -- or maybe the relatively new phrase -- "Sixty is the new forty, physically." Right? When it comes to power in the workplace today, 30 is the new 50. All right, well, this is all pretty exciting, right?
我們這個時代的矛盾之一, 就是嬰兒潮世代比較充滿生氣 且在人生中健康的時期較長, 我們在人生中的工作時期也比較長, 但我們卻覺得自己越來越不重要。 我們有些人覺得自己像是 紙盒牛奶——老式紙盒牛奶—— 我們滿是皺紋的前額上 印著有效期限。 對許多我們中年人來說, 這不只是一種感覺, 當我們突然丟了飯碗, 不再有人打電話來時, 它就是個嚴酷的現實。 對我們許多人來說, 我們情有可原,當然會擔心 別人把我們的經驗 視為是負債,而不是資產。 你們應該聽過一句老的諺語—— 或者也許相對算是新的諺語—— 「六十歲就是新的四十歲, 身體上來說。」 對吧? 就現今工作場所中的權力來說, 三十歲就是新的五十歲。 好,這些都很讓人興奮,對吧?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Truthfully, power is moving 10 years younger. We're all going to live 10 years longer. Do the math. Society has created a new 20-year irrelevancy gap. Midlife used to be 45 to 65, but I would suggest it now stretches into a midlife marathon 40 years long, from 35 to 75. But wait -- there is a bright spot. Why is it that we actually get smarter and wiser about our humanity as we age? Our physical peak may be our 20s, our financial and salary peak may be age 50, but our emotional peak is in midlife and beyond, because we have developed pattern recognition about ourselves and others.
說真的,權力正在 轉移給年輕十歲的人。 我們的壽命都會再多十年。 自己算算看。 社會創造出了一個新的 「不合時宜的二十年差距」。 以前,45 歲到 65 歲算是中年, 但我認為,現在它已經延長成了 為期四十年的中年馬拉松, 從 35 歲到 75 歲。 但,等等——有個值得高興之處。 為什麼隨著年齡增長,在人文方面 我們會變得更聰明更有智慧? 我們的身體也許 在二十多歲達到高峰, 我們的財務和薪水 也許在五十歲達到高峰, 但我們的情緒高峰, 會出現在中年和中年之後, 因為我們已經發展出了 對於自己以及他人的模式辨識。
So how can we get companies to tap into that wisdom of the midlife folks, just as they nurture their digital young geniuses as well? The most successful companies today and in the future will actually learn how to create a powerful alchemy of the two.
所以,我們要如何讓公司去發掘 中年人的那種智慧, 同時也繼續培育 他們的數位年輕天才? 現今以及未來最成功的公司, 會學習如何創造出一種 兩者兼具的強大煉金術。
Here's how the alchemy worked for me at Airbnb: I was assigned a young, smart partner, who helped me develop a hospitality department. Early on, Laura Hughes could see that I was a little lost in this habitat, so she often sat right next to me in meetings so she could be my tech translator, and I could write her notes and she could tell me, "That's what that means." Laura was 27 years old, she'd worked for Google for four years and then for a year and a half at Airbnb when I met her. Like many of her millennial cohorts, she had actually grown into a managerial role before she'd gotten any formal leadership training. I don't care if you're in the B-to-B world, the B-to-C world, the C-to-C world or the A-to-Z world, business is fundamentally H-to-H: human to human. And yet, Laura's approach to leadership was really formed in the technocratic world, and it was purely metric driven. One of the things she said to me in the first few months was, "I love the fact that your approach to leadership is to create a compelling vision that becomes a North Star for us."
以下是在 Airbnb 中, 這種煉金術如何套用在我身上: 有一個聰明的年輕人 被指派做我的搭擋, 她協助我開發一個餐旅部門。 先前,蘿拉休斯看得出來 我在這個棲息地有一點迷失, 於是在開會時, 她通常會坐在我旁邊, 扮演我的技術翻譯員, 我可以寫紙條給她,她就能 告訴我:「那個意思是這個。」 蘿拉 27 歲, 她在 Google 工作了四年, 接著到 Airbnb 工作, 我認識她時她已做了一年半。 她和她的許多千禧世代同伴一樣, 在還沒有受過任何 正式領導力訓練之前, 就漸漸扮起了管理角色。 我不在乎你是在 B2B 的世界、 B2C 的世界、C2C 的世界, 或 A2Z 的世界, 基本上,商業就是 H2H 的: 也就是:人對人。 然而,蘿拉的領導方式 真的是在科技世界中形成的, 它完全是指標驅動。 在前幾個月,她跟我說: 「我很喜歡你的一點, 就是你的領導方式 是要創造出一個令人信服的遠景, 成為我們的北極星。」
Now, my fact knowledge, as in, how many rooms a maid cleans in an eight-hour shift, might not be all that important in a home-sharing world. My process knowledge of "How do you get things done?" based upon understanding the underlying motivations of everybody in the room, was incredibly valuable, in a company where most people didn't have a lot of organizational experience. As I spent more time at Airbnb, I realized it's possible a new kind of elder was emerging in the workplace. Not the elder of the past, who actually was regarded with reverence. No, what is striking about the modern elder is their relevance, their ability to use timeless wisdom and apply it to modern-day problems.
我的事實知識就是 女佣在八小時的班當中 要打掃多少間房間, 這種知識在住房共享的世界裡 可能沒什麼重要性。 我的流程知識則是 「你要如何把事情完成」, 它的依據是要了解房間中 每個人背後的動機, 這種知識就很珍貴, 因為在這種公司裡, 大部分的人都沒有很多組織經驗。 隨著我在 Airbnb 待得越久, 我了解到,在工作場所是有可能 會有一種新的長者出現的。 並不是過去的那種 被視為尊敬對象的長者。 不是,現代長者的特色 是他們的相關性, 他們有能力可以 應用不受時代影響的智慧, 來解決現代的問題。
Maybe it's time we actually valued wisdom as much as we do disruption. And maybe it's time -- not just maybe, it is time -- for us to definitely reclaim the word "elder" and give it a modern twist. The modern elder is as much an intern as they are a mentor, because they realize, in a world that is changing so quickly, their beginners' mind and their catalytic curiosity is a life-affirming elixir, not just for themselves but for everyone around them. Intergenerational improv has been known in music and the arts: think Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga or Wynton Marsalis and the Young Stars of Jazz. This kind of riffing in the business world is often called "mutual mentorship": millennial DQ for Gen X and boomer EQ.
我們花了很多心力 在打破傳統商業模式, 也許該是我們用同等心力 來珍視智慧的時候了。 也許該是—— 不只是也許,該是—— 該是我們明確改造「長者」這個詞, 把它扭轉成現代的定義。 現代長者既是實習生,又是導師, 因為他們知道, 在改變這麼快速的世界裡, 他們的初心以及他們帶有 催化作用的好奇心, 正是使人上進的萬靈丹, 不只是他們自己, 他們周圍的人也能受益。 在音樂和藝術領域一直都有 為人所知的兩世代即興演出: 比如,東尼班奈特和女神卡卡, 或是溫頓馬沙利斯, 和爵士的年輕新星。 在商業中,這種快速流動 通常就叫做「互為導師關係」: 千禧世代的數位智慧 與 X 世代和嬰兒潮世代的 情緒智慧交流。
I got to experience that kind of intergenerational reciprocity with Laura and our stellar data science team when we were actually remaking and evolving the Airbnb peer-to-peer review system, using Laura's analytical mind and my human-centered intuition. With that perfect alchemy of algorithm and people wisdom, we were able to create and instantaneous feedback loop that helped our hosts better understand the needs of our guests. High tech meets high touch. At Airbnb, I also learned as a modern elder that my role was to intern publicly and mentor privately. Search engines are brilliant at giving you an answer, but a wise, sage guide can offer you just the right question. Google does not understand, at least not yet, nuance like a finely attuned human heart and mind. Over time, to my surprise, dozens and dozens of young employees at Airbnb sought me out for private mentoring sessions. But in reality, we were often just mentoring each other.
我有緣體驗到和蘿拉 及我們的明星資料科學團隊 進行兩世代的互惠, 那時我們真的是在重建和改進 Airbnb 的對點對檢審系統, 用的是蘿拉的分析頭腦, 和我的以人為中心的直覺。 那種煉金術結合了 演算法和人的智慧,靠著它, 我們得以創造出一個 即時的回饋意見迴圈, 協助我們的屋主更了解 我們的客戶需要什麼。 高科技遇見高接觸。 在 Airbnb,我這個現代長者也學到了 我的角色是要當公開的實習生 和私下的導師。 搜尋引擎很擅長給你答案, 但有智慧、賢明的引導者 能提供你對的問題。 Google 無法,至少目前還無法, 像非常有理解力的人心及人腦 那樣了解細微的差別。 隨著時間, 出乎我的意料, Airbnb 數十位年輕員工來找我, 希望我私下開課教導他們。 但在現實中,我們通常 都在當彼此的導師。
In sum, CEO Brian Chesky brought me in for my industry knowledge, but what I really offered was my well-earned wisdom. Maybe it's time we retire the term "knowledge worker" and replaced it with "wisdom worker." We have five generations in the workplace today, and we can operate like separate isolationist countries, or we can actually start to find a way to bridge these generational borders. And it's time for us to actually look at how to change up the physics of wisdom so it actually flows in both directions, from old to young and from young to old.
總結一下,執行長布萊恩切斯基 是因為我的產業知識 而把我納入旗下, 但我真正貢獻的卻是 我靠努力得來的智慧。 也許該是把「知識工作者」 這個詞丟掉的時候了, 把它改成「智慧工作者」。 現今,在工作場所, 同時有五個世代的人, 我們可以像是分別的 孤立主義國家那樣運作, 或者,我們可以開始想辦法 建立橋樑,跨越世代的界線。 該是我們思考如何改變 智慧物理的時候了, 讓智慧能夠雙向流動, 從老人到年輕人, 從年輕人到老人。
How can you apply this in your own life? Personally, who can you reach out to to create a mutual mentorship relationship? And organizationally, how can you create the conditions to foster an intergenerational flow of wisdom? This is the new sharing economy.
你要如何把它用到 你自己的人生中? 就個人來說,你能找到誰 來建立一段「互為導師的關係」? 就組織來說,你要如何創造條件, 來促進世代間的智慧交流? 這就是新的共享經濟。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)