In Oxford in the 1950s, there was a fantastic doctor, who was very unusual, named Alice Stewart. And Alice was unusual partly because, of course, she was a woman, which was pretty rare in the 1950s. And she was brilliant, she was one of the, at the time, the youngest Fellow to be elected to the Royal College of Physicians. She was unusual too because she continued to work after she got married, after she had kids, and even after she got divorced and was a single parent, she continued her medical work.
在1950年代的牛津 有一位很優秀,不尋常的醫生, 她叫Alice Stewart。 她的特別之處在於 她是個女醫生,這在1950年代很罕見。 而且她非常厲害,她是當時被選為 "皇家醫師學院"最年輕的學員之一。 還有特別在於她在結婚生子後 還繼續工作, 甚至當她離婚成為單親媽媽之後, 她持續做她的醫學工作。
And she was unusual because she was really interested in a new science, the emerging field of epidemiology, the study of patterns in disease. But like every scientist, she appreciated that to make her mark, what she needed to do was find a hard problem and solve it. The hard problem that Alice chose was the rising incidence of childhood cancers. Most disease is correlated with poverty, but in the case of childhood cancers, the children who were dying seemed mostly to come from affluent families. So, what, she wanted to know, could explain this anomaly?
還因為她對一門新科學十分感興趣, 也就是新興的流行病學, 專門研究疾病的型態。 但跟每個科學家一樣,她了解 若要出名,她需要 找到難題然後解決它。 Alice當時選擇的難題是 增加的兒童癌症發生率。 大多數疾病都跟貧窮有關, 不過在兒童癌症的例子來說, 這些垂死的孩子似乎大多數 來自富裕家庭。 所以她想知道 怎麼解釋這個異常現象?
Now, Alice had trouble getting funding for her research. In the end, she got just 1,000 pounds from the Lady Tata Memorial prize. And that meant she knew she only had one shot at collecting her data. Now, she had no idea what to look for. This really was a needle in a haystack sort of search, so she asked everything she could think of. Had the children eaten boiled sweets? Had they consumed colored drinks? Did they eat fish and chips? Did they have indoor or outdoor plumbing? What time of life had they started school?
當時,Alice很難幫她的研究籌備到資金。 最後,她只從Lady Tata紀念獎 得到1000英鎊。 她知道她只有一次機會 可以蒐集資料。 但她完全不知道該尋找什麼。 這研究就像大老撈針一樣, 因此她問了所有她能想到的問題。 這些孩子有沒有吃煮沸的甜食? 他們有沒有喝有顏色飲料? 他們是不是吃了炸魚和薯條了? 他們生活環境中是否有戶內或者戶外的管線裝置? 他們什麼時候開始上學的?
And when her carbon copied questionnaire started to come back, one thing and one thing only jumped out with the statistical clarity of a kind that most scientists can only dream of. By a rate of two to one, the children who had died had had mothers who had been X-rayed when pregnant. Now that finding flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom held that everything was safe up to a point, a threshold. It flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which was huge enthusiasm for the cool new technology of that age, which was the X-ray machine. And it flew in the face of doctors' idea of themselves, which was as people who helped patients, they didn't harm them.
而當她開始收回用碳粉印製成的問卷時, 一個,只有一個明確的統計數據 顯現出來, 這是大多數科學家只能幻想的。 這些死亡的孩子中, 他們的母親在懷孕的時候 做過X光檢查的人數是沒做過的兩倍。 這個發現挑戰了傳統看法。 傳統看法是 任何事情在一種程度上都是安全的,有一個門檻。 這對於傳統看法是很大的衝擊, 你要知道當代的酷炫新科技,也就是X光機, 可是非常熱門的。 而這也挑戰醫生對自己的想法, 因為他們是要幫助病人, 而不是傷害他們。
Nevertheless, Alice Stewart rushed to publish her preliminary findings in The Lancet in 1956. People got very excited, there was talk of the Nobel Prize, and Alice really was in a big hurry to try to study all the cases of childhood cancer she could find before they disappeared. In fact, she need not have hurried. It was fully 25 years before the British and medical -- British and American medical establishments abandoned the practice of X-raying pregnant women. The data was out there, it was open, it was freely available, but nobody wanted to know. A child a week was dying, but nothing changed. Openness alone can't drive change.
儘管如此,Alice Stewart急切地 在1956年的刺胳針雜誌(The Lancet)雜誌中發表了她的初步發現。 人們都很興奮,還有提到得諾貝爾獎的可能性。 Alice也很著急 試著在案例消失之前, 研究所有她能找到的兒童癌症病例。 事實上,她不需要著急。 過了整整25年之後, 英國和美國的醫療機構 禁止讓懷孕女人照X光。 數據都存在,開放且唾手可得, 但是沒人想知道。 每週都有一個小孩快死掉, 但什麼都沒發生。 單究開放性是無法帶來改變的。
So for 25 years Alice Stewart had a very big fight on her hands. So, how did she know that she was right? Well, she had a fantastic model for thinking. She worked with a statistician named George Kneale, and George was pretty much everything that Alice wasn't. So, Alice was very outgoing and sociable, and George was a recluse. Alice was very warm, very empathetic with her patients. George frankly preferred numbers to people. But he said this fantastic thing about their working relationship. He said, "My job is to prove Dr. Stewart wrong." He actively sought disconfirmation. Different ways of looking at her models, at her statistics, different ways of crunching the data in order to disprove her. He saw his job as creating conflict around her theories. Because it was only by not being able to prove that she was wrong, that George could give Alice the confidence she needed to know that she was right.
25年來,Alice Stewart一直在奮鬥。 所以她怎麼知道她當時是對的? 她有一個極佳的思考模式。 她當時與一位名叫George Kneale的統計學家合作, 而George剛好與Alice互補。 Alice非常和善且擅交際, 而George是個隱居者。 Alice很熱情,用同理心和她的病人互動。 而George則喜歡數字甚於人類。 不過他提到件他們工作關係最棒的事。 他說:「我的工作就是證明Stewart博士是錯的。」 他積極地尋找錯誤的證明。 以不同方式研究她的模型, 她的數據,以及不同方式分析數據, 來證明她是錯的。 他把他自己的工作當作為Alice的理論創造矛盾。 因為只有當他無法證明 Alice是錯的時候, George就可以給Alice所需要的自信 讓她知道她是正確的。
It's a fantastic model of collaboration -- thinking partners who aren't echo chambers. I wonder how many of us have, or dare to have, such collaborators. Alice and George were very good at conflict. They saw it as thinking.
這是完美的合作的模式 -- 思考夥伴不當你的回聲蟲。 我想知道有多少人有過, 或者敢有這樣的合作夥伴。 Alice和George擅長處理矛盾。 他們認為這就是思考。
So what does that kind of constructive conflict require? Well, first of all, it requires that we find people who are very different from ourselves. That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive, which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves, and it means we have to seek out people with different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking and different experience, and find ways to engage with them. That requires a lot of patience and a lot of energy.
那麼這種建設性的矛盾需要什麼呢? 首先,它需要我們去找到 與我們大不相同的人們。 這意味著我們必須抗拒神經生物學的驅力, 也就是我們喜歡像我們的人們, 而我們必須尋找 有不同背景,不同教養, 不同思考方法和不同經驗的人們, 而且去想辦法與他們交流。 這需要很多耐心和精力。
And the more I've thought about this, the more I think, really, that that's a kind of love. Because you simply won't commit that kind of energy and time if you don't really care. And it also means that we have to be prepared to change our minds. Alice's daughter told me that every time Alice went head-to-head with a fellow scientist, they made her think and think and think again. "My mother," she said, "My mother didn't enjoy a fight, but she was really good at them."
當我更深層思考, 我更認為這真的是一種愛。 因為如果你不在乎的話, 你不可能付出這般的能量。 這也意味著我們必須準備去改變我們的想法。 Alice的女兒告訴我 每次Alice和一個同事科學家正面交鋒時, 他們讓她一次又一次的思考。 「我的母親,」她說,「我的母親不喜歡爭吵, 但是她很擅長。」
So it's one thing to do that in a one-to-one relationship. But it strikes me that the biggest problems we face, many of the biggest disasters that we've experienced, mostly haven't come from individuals, they've come from organizations, some of them bigger than countries, many of them capable of affecting hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives. So how do organizations think? Well, for the most part, they don't. And that isn't because they don't want to, it's really because they can't. And they can't because the people inside of them are too afraid of conflict.
所以這是在一對一的關係中要做的事。 但這使我想到那些我們面對的最大難題, 很多我們經歷過的最嚴重災難, 大多都不是由個人引起的, 而是從組織中來的, 當中有些還比國家還大, 大多數都有影響上百人, 上千人,甚至上百萬人生命的能力。 那麼這些組織是怎麼想的呢? 大多數情況下,他們不思考。 這不是因為他們不要, 而是因為他們不能。 他們不能是因為在組織裡的人 太害怕衝突。
In surveys of European and American executives, fully 85 percent of them acknowledged that they had issues or concerns at work that they were afraid to raise. Afraid of the conflict that that would provoke, afraid to get embroiled in arguments that they did not know how to manage, and felt that they were bound to lose. Eighty-five percent is a really big number. It means that organizations mostly can't do what George and Alice so triumphantly did. They can't think together. And it means that people like many of us, who have run organizations, and gone out of our way to try to find the very best people we can, mostly fail to get the best out of them.
在對歐洲和美國經理人所作的調查中, 當中有百分之85承認 他們害怕提出一些 工作上的話題和擔憂。 對可能挑起的衝突有恐懼, 害怕被捲入 他們不知道該怎麼處理的爭論中, 而且感到他們肯定會輸。 百分之85可是很大的數字。 這意味著大多數組織沒法做 George和Alice成功做到的事情。 他們不能一起思考。 而這代表著許多跟我們一樣 帶領組織的人, 都盡我們能力找尋最好的人, 但大多數無法帶出他們最好的一面。
So how do we develop the skills that we need? Because it does take skill and practice, too. If we aren't going to be afraid of conflict, we have to see it as thinking, and then we have to get really good at it. So, recently, I worked with an executive named Joe, and Joe worked for a medical device company. And Joe was very worried about the device that he was working on. He thought that it was too complicated and he thought that its complexity created margins of error that could really hurt people. He was afraid of doing damage to the patients he was trying to help. But when he looked around his organization, nobody else seemed to be at all worried. So, he didn't really want to say anything. After all, maybe they knew something he didn't. Maybe he'd look stupid. But he kept worrying about it, and he worried about it so much that he got to the point where he thought the only thing he could do was leave a job he loved.
那麼我們要如何培養所需要的技巧呢? 因為這的確需要技巧和練習。 如果我們要不懼怕衝突的話, 我們必須把它是為思考, 然後我們必須上手。 因此,最近我在和一個叫Joe的管理者工作, Joe在一家醫療設備公司工作。 Joe非常擔心他正在作的這台設備。 他覺得這機器實在太複雜了, 以至於它可能 會產生一些錯誤去傷害人們。 他很害怕去傷害那些他想幫助的病人。 但當他看了組織周遭的人, 似乎沒有人會擔心。 所以他不想把自己的想法說出來。 畢竟其他人可能知道他不知道的東西。 或許他會看起來很愚蠢。 但是他一直在擔心, 擔心到達一種程度 他覺得唯一可以做的事情 就是辭掉他熱愛的工作。
In the end, Joe and I found a way for him to raise his concerns. And what happened then is what almost always happens in this situation. It turned out everybody had exactly the same questions and doubts. So now Joe had allies. They could think together. And yes, there was a lot of conflict and debate and argument, but that allowed everyone around the table to be creative, to solve the problem, and to change the device.
最後Joe和我找到一個 提出他擔憂的方法。 接著發生的是這種情況中 總是在發生的事。 結果是所有人都有著相同的 問題和懷疑。 所以現在Joe和他的夥伴,他們可以一起思考。 是的,這其中有很多的衝突,辯論 和爭執,不過這使得所有相關的人 有創造力,能解決問題, 和改變這台設備。
Joe was what a lot of people might think of as a whistle-blower, except that like almost all whistle-blowers, he wasn't a crank at all, he was passionately devoted to the organization and the higher purposes that that organization served. But he had been so afraid of conflict, until finally he became more afraid of the silence. And when he dared to speak, he discovered much more inside himself and much more give in the system than he had ever imagined. And his colleagues don't think of him as a crank. They think of him as a leader.
Joe有點像是大多數人認為的 告密者, 但不像大多數的告密者, 他不是在異想天開, 他激情地為組織付出, 以及為組織的目標所努力。 不過他太過於懼怕衝突, 直到最後沉默對他來說更為可怕。 當他敢說出口的時候, 他發現更深層的自己 以及他付出比想象中更多的貢獻到系統中。 而且他的同事不認為他的想法是天方夜譚。 他們視他為領導者。
So, how do we have these conversations more easily and more often? Well, the University of Delft requires that its PhD students have to submit five statements that they're prepared to defend. It doesn't really matter what the statements are about, what matters is that the candidates are willing and able to stand up to authority. I think it's a fantastic system, but I think leaving it to PhD candidates is far too few people, and way too late in life. I think we need to be teaching these skills to kids and adults at every stage of their development, if we want to have thinking organizations and a thinking society.
所以我們要如何簡單且經常地 進行這些對話呢? Delft 大學 要求所有的博士班學生 提交他們已經準備好可以辯護的五個陳述。 這些陳述的內容是什麼無所謂, 重要的是這些候選人願意而且有能力 挑戰權威。 我認為這是一個絕佳的系統, 不過我覺得留給博士候選人來做 實在太少人,而且時機太晚了。 我認為我們應該在小孩和大人 發展的每個階段都教授這些技巧。 如果我們想要能夠思考的組織 和能思考的社會。
The fact is that most of the biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to, because we can't handle, don't want to handle, the conflict that it provokes. But when we dare to break that silence, or when we dare to see, and we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking.
事實是多數我們曾經見證過的最大的災難, 很少是從一些祕密或者隱藏的信息中產生。 都是從那些公開可取得的信息中而來的, 不過我們蓄意忽略了, 因為我們不能也不想去處理 會挑起的各種衝突。 但是當我們敢打破沉默, 或者我們敢於看見, 並且製造衝突, 我們讓自己和周圍的人 進行最有效的思考。
Open information is fantastic, open networks are essential. But the truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it. Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning.
公開信息是很棒的, 公開的網絡很關鍵。 但是直到我們發揮技能,習慣,天賦 以及道德上的勇氣去利用它 事實才會讓我們自由。 公開並不是結束 它只是開始。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)