I started teaching MBA students 17 years ago. Sometimes I run into my students years later. And when I run into them, a funny thing happens. I don't remember just their faces; I also remember where exactly in the classroom they were sitting. And I remember who they were sitting with as well. This is not because I have any special superpowers of memory. The reason I can remember them is because they are creatures of habit. They are sitting with their favorite people in their favorite seats. They find their twins, they stay with them for the whole year.
我教企業管理碩士學生 有十七年的時間。 有時,我會在幾年後巧遇我的學生。 當我巧遇他們時, 會發生一件有趣的事。 我不只記得他們的臉, 我還記得他們在教室中 是坐在哪個位置, 以及和誰坐在一起。 我能記住這些, 不是因為我有記憶超能力。 是因為他們是習慣性的生物。 他們會和最喜歡的人一起坐, 坐在他們最喜歡的座位, 找和自己極相似的人, 一整年都和這些人待在一起。
Now, the danger of this for my students is they're at risk of leaving the university with just a few people who are exactly like them. They're going to squander their chance for an international, diverse network. How could this happen to them? My students are open-minded. They come to business school precisely so that they can get great networks.
這情況對我的學生的危險之處在於 他們擔當的風險是 只和極少數與自身非常相像的人 一起離開大學, 他們將會浪費掉國際性、 多元化網路的機會。 他們怎麼會發生這種事? 我的學生是心胸開放的。 他們來到商學院為的 正是能取得很好的網路。
Now, all of us socially narrow in our lives, in our school, in work, and so I want you to think about this one. How many of you here brought a friend along for this talk? I want you to look at your friend a little bit. Are they of the same nationality as you? Are they of the same gender as you? Are they of the same race? Really look at them closely. Don't they kind of look like you as well?
我們所有人在生活上、在學校、 在工作中的社交都是狹窄的, 所以,我希望你們能想想這一點。 在座有多少人,帶了朋友 一起來聽這場演講? 我希望你們能看一下你們的朋友。 他們的國籍和你相同嗎? 他們的性別和你相同嗎? 他們的種族相同嗎? 真正去近看他們。 他們是不是看起來也和你很像?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
The muscle people are together, and the people with the same hairstyles and the checked shirts.
肌肉發達的人在一起, 還有髮型相同的人, 都穿格子上衣的人。
We all do this in life. We all do it in life, and in fact, there's nothing wrong with this. It makes us comfortable to be around people who are similar. The problem is when we're on a precipice, right? When we're in trouble, when we need new ideas, when we need new jobs, when we need new resources -- this is when we really pay a price for living in a clique.
我們在人生中都會這麼做。 我們在人生中都會這麼做, 事實上,這並沒有什麼不好。 和相似的人在一起讓我們感到舒服。 當我們在危急處境中時 才會有問題,對嗎? 當我們有麻煩時,需要新點子時, 需要新工作時,需要新資源時── 這時,身在小團體中, 就會要付出代價。
Mark Granovetter, the sociologist, had a famous paper "The Strength of Weak Ties," and what he did in this paper is he asked people how they got their jobs. And what he learned was that most people don't get their jobs through their strong ties -- their father, their mother, their significant other. They instead get jobs through weak ties, people who they just met. So if you think about what the problem is with your strong ties, think about your significant other, for example. The network is redundant. Everybody that they know, you know. Or I hope you know them. Right? Your weak ties -- people you just met today -- they are your ticket to a whole new social world.
社會學家馬克格蘭諾維特 有一篇著名的論文, 叫「弱連結的力量」, 他在這篇論文中做的是去問人們 他們如何得到他們的工作。 他發現大部分的人 不是從他們的強連結 ──父親、母親、另一半── 得到工作, 而是從弱連結 ──剛認識的人──得到工作。 所以,如果你要思考 強連結的問題在哪, 想想比如你的另一半。 這網路是多餘的。 他們認識的人,你也都認識。 我希望你認識他們,對吧? 你的弱連結──你今天才認識的人── 他們是讓你通往 全新社交世界的門票。
The thing is that we have this amazing ticket to travel our social worlds, but we don't use it very well. Sometimes we stay awfully close to home. And today, what I want to talk about is: What are those habits that keep human beings so close to home, and how can we be a little bit more intentional about traveling our social universe?
問題是,我們有這張很棒的門票, 可以遨遊我們的社交世界, 但我們沒有好好用它。 有時,我們待在離家非常近的地方。 今天,我想要談的是這個: 是什麼習慣讓人類持續 待在離家近的地方, 以及我們要如何更刻意一點 去遊遍我們的社交宇宙?
So let's look at the first strategy. The first strategy is to use a more imperfect social search engine. What I mean by a social search engine is how you are finding and filtering your friends. And so people always tell me, "I want to get lucky through the network. I want to get a new job. I want to get a great opportunity." And I say, "Well, that's really hard, because your networks are so fundamentally predictable." Map out your habitual daily footpath, and what you'll probably discover is that you start at home, you go to your school or your workplace, you maybe go up the same staircase or elevator, you go to the bathroom -- the same bathroom -- and the same stall in that bathroom, you end up in the gym, then you come right back home. It's like stops on a train schedule. It's that predictable. It's efficient, but the problem is, you're seeing exactly the same people. Make your network slightly more inefficient. Go to a bathroom on a different floor. You encounter a whole new network of people.
讓我們先來談第一條策略。 第一條策略是要用更多 不完美的社交搜尋引擎。 我所謂的社交搜尋引擎 是你如何找到和篩選你的朋友。 人們總是告訴我: 「我想要透過網路來走運。 我想要找份新工作。 我想要有很好的機會。」 我說:「嗯,那真的很難, 因為你的網路基本上 是非常可預測的。」 畫出你習慣的日常路徑, 你很可能會發現,你從家裡開始, 你去上學或上班, 你可能會從同樣的樓梯或電梯上樓, 你去廁所,同一間廁所, 用那廁所的同一隔間, 你最後到了健身房, 然後你就回家了。 就像火車靠站時刻表一樣。 就是那麼可預測。 它很有效率,但問題是, 你遇見的人都一樣。 讓你的網路稍微不要那麼有效率。 去不同樓層的廁所。 你會遇到一個全新的人脈網路。
The other side of it is how we are actually filtering. And we do this automatically. The minute we meet someone, we are looking at them, we meet them, we are initially seeing, "You're interesting." "You're not interesting." "You're relevant." We do this automatically. We can't even help it. And what I want to encourage you to do instead is to fight your filters. I want you to take a look around this room, and I want you to identify the least interesting person that you see, and I want you to connect with them over the next coffee break. And I want you to go even further than that. What I want you to do is find the most irritating person you see as well and connect with them.
它的另一面,是我們 實際上做篩選的方式。 我們會自動篩選。 在我們見到一個人時, 我們會看他們,見到他們, 我們一開始就會看到: 「你很有趣。」 「你不有趣。」「你很重要。」 我們會自動做這件事。 我們無法控制。 我想要鼓勵各位做的是, 對抗你的篩選器。 我希望你們能環視一下這間房間, 我希望你們找出 你所看見最無趣的人, 我希望你們能在下次 休息時間去和他們做連結。 我希望你們還能做更多。 我也希望你們能去找到 你們所看見最惱人的人, 去與他們做連結。
What you are doing with this exercise is you are forcing yourself to see what you don't want to see, to connect with who you don't want to connect with, to widen your social world. To truly widen, what we have to do is, we've got to fight our sense of choice. We've got to fight our choices. And my students hate this, but you know what I do? I won't let them sit in their favorite seats. I move them around from seat to seat. I force them to work with different people so there are more accidental bumps in the network where people get a chance to connect with each other. And we studied exactly this kind of an intervention at Harvard University. At Harvard, when you look at the rooming groups, there's freshman rooming groups, people are not choosing those roommates. They're of all different races, all different ethnicities. Maybe people are initially uncomfortable with those roommates, but the amazing thing is, at the end of a year with those students, they're able to overcome that initial discomfort. They're able to find deep-level commonalities with people.
做這項練習的目的是要強迫你自己 去看見你不想看見的, 去和你不想連結的人連結, 去拓寬你的社交世界。 要真正拓寬,我們得要做的是, 我們得要對抗我們對選擇的感受。 我們得要對抗我們的選擇。 我的學生很討厭這樣, 但猜猜我怎麼做? 我不讓他們坐在他們最愛的位子。 我讓他們一直換位子坐。 我強迫他們去和不同的人合作, 在網路中就會有更意外的顛簸起伏, 讓人們有機會可以彼此連結。 我們在哈佛大學就是 在研究這種干預方法。 在哈佛,如果去看住宿的團體, 會有新鮮人住宿團體, 人們不選擇室友。 他們都是不同的種族、不同的人種。 許多人一開始對自己的 室友感到不舒服, 但,讓人驚奇的是, 在年末,那些學生 能夠克服一開始的不舒服。 他們能在人身上找到 更深層的共同性。
So the takeaway here is not just "take someone out to coffee." It's a little more subtle. It's "go to the coffee room." When researchers talk about social hubs, what makes a social hub so special is you can't choose; you can't predict who you're going to meet in that place. And so with these social hubs, the paradox is, interestingly enough, to get randomness, it requires, actually, some planning. In one university that I worked at, there was a mail room on every single floor. What that meant is that the only people who would bump into each other are those who are actually on that floor and who are bumping into each other anyway. At another university I worked at, there was only one mail room, so all the faculty from all over that building would run into each other in that social hub. A simple change in planning, a huge difference in the traffic of people and the accidental bumps in the network.
這裡要給各位的訊息不只是 「找人出去喝杯咖啡」。 還要更微妙一點。 是「去咖啡廳」。 當研究者談論社交中心時 , 社交中心之所以特別, 就是因為你無法選擇; 你無法預測你在那個地方會遇見誰。 關於這些社交中心, 有趣的是一個矛盾: 若要有隨機性, 需要的其實是規劃。 在我工作的其中一間大學, 在每層樓都有一間收發室。 那就意味著,會巧遇到的人都只有 在同一層樓的人, 而他們本來就會遇見彼此。 在我工作的另一間大學, 只有一間收發室, 所以整棟大樓所有的教職員 就會在那社交中心巧遇彼此。 在規劃上做個簡單的改變, 就能對人的交流及網路中的意外巧遇 造成很大的不同。
Here's my question for you: What are you doing that breaks you from your social habits? Where do you find yourself in places where you get injections of unpredictable diversity? And my students give me some wonderful examples. They tell me when they're doing pickup basketball games, or my favorite example is when they go to a dog park. They tell me it's even better than online dating when they're there.
我想要問各位的問題是: 你能做什麼,來讓你 脫離你的社交習慣? 你在什麼地方 能夠被注入無法預測的多樣性? 我的學生給了我一些很棒的例子。 他們告訴我:在比賽籃球時, 和我最愛的例子──去公園遛狗時。 他們告訴我,在那裡 甚至比線上約會還要更好。
So the real thing that I want you to think about is we've got to fight our filters. We've got to make ourselves a little more inefficient, and by doing so, we are creating a more imprecise social search engine. And you're creating that randomness, that luck that is going to cause you to widen your travels, through your social universe.
我真正希望各位去思考, 我們得要對抗我們的篩選器。 我們得要讓自己不那麼有效率, 這麼做時,我們就是在創造 一個不那麼精準的社交搜尋引擎。 你是在創造隨機性, 它就是運氣,能拓展你在社交宇宙中 所旅行的範圍。
But in fact, there's more to it than that. Sometimes we actually buy ourselves a second-class ticket to travel our social universe. We are not courageous when we reach out to people. Let me give you an example of that. A few years ago, I had a very eventful year. That year, I managed to lose a job, I managed to get a dream job overseas and accept it, I had a baby the next month, I got very sick, I was unable to take the dream job. And so in a few weeks, what ended up happening was, I lost my identity as a faculty member, and I got a very stressful new identity as a mother. What I also got was tons of advice from people. And the advice I despised more than any other advice was, "You've got to go network with everybody." When your psychological world is breaking down, the hardest thing to do is to try and reach out and build up your social world.
但,事實上,不只是如此。 有時,我們真的會買到二等艙的票, 在我們的社交宇宙中旅行。 當我們接觸別人時,我們不夠勇敢。 讓我舉個例子。 幾年前,我有一年遇到非常多事。 那一年,我失去了一個工作, 在海外得到了一個 夢想的工作,且我接受了, 再下一個月我生了孩子, 我病得非常重, 我無法去接那份夢想的工作。 所以,在僅僅幾週, 最後發生的結果是, 我失去了教職員的身份, 我得了到一個非常 有壓力的新身份:母親。 我還得到了人們給的一大堆意見。 在所有意見中,我最鄙視的一則是: 「你得要去和大家建立網路。」 當你的精神世界在崩壞時, 最困難的事就是試著向外伸出手, 建立你的社交世界。
And so we studied exactly this idea on a much larger scale. What we did was we looked at high and low socioeconomic status people, and we looked at them in two situations. We looked at them first in a baseline condition, when they were quite comfortable. And what we found was that our lower socioeconomic status people, when they were comfortable, were actually reaching out to more people. They thought of more people. They were also less constrained in how they were networking. They were thinking of more diverse people than the higher-status people. Then we asked them to think about maybe losing a job. We threatened them. And once they thought about that, the networks they generated completely differed. The lower socioeconomic status people reached inwards. They thought of fewer people. They thought of less-diverse people. The higher socioeconomic status people thought of more people, they thought of a broader network, they were positioning themselves to bounce back from that setback.
所以,我們更大規模地 探究了這個想法。 我們的做法是,我們去看 社會經濟地位高與低的人, 我們在兩種情況下去看他們。 我們先在基線條件下去看他們, 也就是他們很舒適的時候。 我們發現,社會經濟地位較低的人 在舒適的時候,其實比較 會向外接觸更多的人。 他們會去想更多的人。 他們在建立網路上比較沒有受限制。 比起高社會經濟地位的人, 他們會去想更多樣化的人。 接著,我們要他們去想像 可能失去工作的情況。 我們威脅他們。 一旦他們有那樣的想法, 他們產生出的網路就全然不同了。 社會經濟地位較低的人 會向內接觸人。 他們會去想的人比較少。 他們會去想的人比較不多樣化。 社會經濟地位較高的人 會去想比較多的人, 他們會去想比較廣的網路, 他們會把自己放在受挫 之後重整旗鼓的位置。
Let's consider what this actually means. Imagine that you were being spontaneously unfriended by everyone in your network other than your mom, your dad and your dog.
讓我們來想想這到底是什麼意思。 想像一下,你被你網路中的所有人都 自發性地解除朋友關係, 只剩下你的媽媽、爸爸,和你的狗。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
This is essentially what we are doing at these moments when we need our networks the most. Imagine -- this is what we're doing. We're doing it to ourselves. We are mentally compressing our networks when we are being harassed, when we are being bullied, when we are threatened about losing a job, when we feel down and weak. We are closing ourselves off, isolating ourselves, creating a blind spot where we actually don't see our resources. We don't see our allies, we don't see our opportunities.
基本上,這就是我們在 最需要網路的時刻所做的事。 想像一下──這就是我們在做的, 我們對自己做的事。 我們在心理上壓縮我們的網路, 當我們被騷擾時,當我們被霸凌時, 當我們被威脅會失去工作時, 當我們感到消沉且 軟弱時,就會發生。 我們把自己封閉,把自己孤立, 創造出一個盲點, 讓我們看不見我們的資源。 看不見我們的盟友, 看不見我們的機會。
How can we overcome this? Two simple strategies. One strategy is simply to look at your list of Facebook friends and LinkedIn friends just so you remind yourself of people who are there beyond those that automatically come to mind. And in our own research, one of the things we did was, we considered Claude Steele's research on self-affirmation: simply thinking about your own values, networking from a place of strength. What Leigh Thompson, Hoon-Seok Choi and I were able to do is, we found that people who had affirmed themselves first were able to take advice from people who would otherwise be threatening to them.
我們要如何克服這狀況? 有兩項簡單的策略。 其一很簡單,就是去看 你的臉書朋友名單, 還有 LinkedIn, 讓你能夠提醒自己,除了自動出現在 你腦海中的人之外,還有別人在。 在我們自己的研究中, 我們做的其中一件事是 我們從自我肯定的角度 來思考克勞德斯蒂爾的研究: 只要想想你自己的價值, 從一個有力量的地方建立網路。 邁克湯普森、崔勳石, 和我一起做的是, 我們發現,先肯定自己的人, 能夠接受別人的意見, 其他情況下,給意見者 會被視為威脅。
Here's a last exercise. I want you to look in your email in-box, and I want you to look at the last time you asked somebody for a favor. And I want you to look at the language that you used. Did you say things like, "Oh, you're a great resource," or "I owe you one," "I'm obligated to you." All of this language represents a metaphor. It's a metaphor of economics, of a balance sheet, of accounting, of transactions. And when we think about human relations in a transactional way, it is fundamentally uncomfortable to us as human beings. We must think about human relations and reaching out to people in more humane ways.
以下是最後一個練習。 我希望各位去看看 自己的電子郵件收件匣, 找出最近一次你請 別人幫忙是什麼時候。 請看看你所使用的表意方式。 你是否有說這類的話: 「你是很棒的資源。」 或「我欠你一個人情。」 「我對你有義務。」 所有這些表意方式 背後都有一個象徵。 那象徵就是經濟、 資產負債表、會計、 交易。 如果你用交易的方式 來看待人際關係, 對我們人類而言, 從根本上就會覺得不舒服。 我們應該要用更人性的 方式,來看待人際關係 及向外去接觸人。
Here's an idea as to how to do so. Look at words like "please," "thank you," "you're welcome" in other languages. Look at the literal translation of these words. Each of these words is a word that helps us impose upon other people in our social networks. And so, the word "thank you," if you look at it in Spanish, Italian, French, "gracias," "grazie," "merci" in French. Each of them are "grace" and "mercy." They are godly words. There's nothing economic or transactional about those words. The word "you're welcome" is interesting. The great persuasion theorist Robert Cialdini says we've got to get our favors back. So we need to emphasize the transaction a little bit more. He says, "Let's not say 'You're welcome.' Instead say, 'I know you'd do the same for me.'" But sometimes it may be helpful to not think in transactional ways, to eliminate the transaction, to make it a little bit more invisible. And in fact, if you look in Chinese, the word "bú kè qì" in Chinese, "You're welcome," means, "Don't be formal; we're family. We don't need to go through those formalities." And "kembali" in Indonesian is "Come back to me." When you say "You're welcome" next time, think about how you can maybe eliminate the transaction and instead strengthen that social tie. Maybe "It's great to collaborate," or "That's what friends are for."
至於要怎麼做,這裡有個想法。 看看像「請」、「謝謝你」、「不 客氣」這些詞在其他語言怎麼說。 看看這些詞的字面翻譯。 這每一個詞,都是在協助我們利用 社交網路中的其他人。 所以,針對「謝謝你」這個詞, 它們在西班牙文、 義大利文、法文分別是 「gracias」、「grazie」, 以及「merci」。 意思都是「優雅」和「慈悲」。 它們是虔誠的詞。 這些詞沒有任何經濟或交易的元素。 「不客氣」這個詞很有趣。 偉大的說服理論學家 羅伯特喬爾第尼說: 我們得把人情要回來。 所以我們得要多強調一點交易。 他說:「讓我們別說『不客氣』」。 改成「我知道換成你 也會為我這麼做。」 但,有時,不用交易的方式 來思考,可能會比較有幫助, 把交易元素除去,讓它更不顯眼。 事實上,如果看中文怎麼說, 「不客氣」在中文的意思是 「別這麼拘泥禮節,我們是一家人, 不需要這些禮節形式。」 在印尼語中「kembali」的 意思是「回來我這裡」。 下次當你要說「不客氣」時, 想想看你可以如何 除去一些交易元素, 改成加強社交連結。 也許說「能一起合作很棒」, 或「朋友不就該如此嗎」。
I want you to think about how you think about this ticket that you have to travel your social universe. Here's one metaphor. It's a common metaphor: "Life is a journey." Right? It's a train ride, and you're a passenger on the train, and there are certain people with you. Certain people get on this train, and some stay with you, some leave at different stops, new ones may enter. I love this metaphor, it's a beautiful one. But I want you to consider a different metaphor. This one is passive, being a passenger on that train, and it's quite linear. You're off to some particular destination. Why not instead think of yourself as an atom, bumping up against other atoms, maybe transferring energy with them, bonding with them a little and maybe creating something new on your travels through the social universe.
我希望各位能思考一下 要怎麼用你手上的這張票, 在你的社交宇宙中旅行。 以下是一個比喻。 它是常見的比喻: 「人生是一趟旅程。」對吧? 它是趟火車旅程, 你是火車上的一名乘客, 有些人和你在一起。 有些人會搭上這台火車, 有些人會留下, 有些人會在不同的站下車, 可能有新乘客上車。 我喜歡這個比喻,它很美麗。 但我希望各位能想想另一個比喻。 身為火車乘客的這個比喻很被動, 且它是很線性的。 你要前往特定的目的地。 為什麼不改個方式,把你自己想成 一個原子, 和其他原子碰撞, 也許和它們一起傳送能量, 和它們結合一下, 也許在你的社交宇宙中 旅行時,創造出新東西來。
Thank you so much. And I hope we bump into each other again.
非常謝謝。 我希望我們有機會再次碰撞。
(Applause)
(掌聲)