Dialogue 对话
A. The things we build and do are becoming more complex, our networks more
connected and dense. And that means more than ever we work in teams.
Researchers say that with that evolution comes a new need for collective
intelligence and a new culture of collaboration. They say a great team isn’t
about how smart its members are. It’s about how its members work together.
我们做的事、创造的东西日益复杂；我们生活中的各种网络联系日益密切。这就意
味着我们比以往更需要团队合作。研究者说这个变革需要我们有新的群体智慧和合
作文化。他们说一个伟大的团队不在于成员多聪明，而在于成员如何合作。
B. I mean the bottom line that Anita I took from your thesis on the (New York)
Times is that Ok you’ve got a team, Ok, I took away sort of 2 things: let
everybody talk and load it with women. Am I wrong?
我是说Anita我从你（纽约）时报的论点里得出的是...嗯，你有一个团队，好，里
面有两个重点：让每个人都有发言权；团队里塞满女人。我说得对吗？
A. Um, that’s not incorrect. I’d say it’s not about letting everybody talk, but also
making sure that there’s relatively equal contribution among the members of
the team.
嗯，不能算不对。我觉得不只是每个人都要有发言权，更要确保团队中每个人都能
得到平衡的发言权。
B. So I think commonly in organizations we do see that hierarchy gets in the
way of hearing from all of the members equally and what our research suggests
is that those teams are less smart than they could be.
我觉得我们常在企业里见到，等级制度会阻碍我们倾听所有人的想法。我们的研究
也表明这种团队难以发挥应有的能力。
A. And then there’s this whole issue of social sensitivity, mind reading, you call
it.
然后就是这些关于社会敏感度或者用你的话说叫读心术的问题。
B. Right. You can call it social perceptiveness or I’d actually like to call it social
intelligence because I think it’s a more general skill. But what we found is that
as you implied it already, we did find that groups with more women tended to
score higher on our measure of collective intelligence. But that was mostly
explained statistically by the fact that women on average have a higher score on
this measure of social perceptiveness.
对。你可以管他叫社交敏锐力，或者我更喜欢叫它社交智商，因为我觉得这是一种
更广泛的能力。但我们发现，如你刚才暗示的，我们确实发现如果一个团队有更多
的女性成员，那么团队在集体智慧上的表现会更好。这是因为从统计学上讲，女性
在社交敏锐力上的平均表现更好。
A. But they put a very high emphasis on social perceptiveness. You said the
team is there to confront each other not support each other. Supportive teams
are BS. They get nothing done. What do you mean?
他们（两位商学院教授)非常重视社交敏锐力。你说过团队是要互相挑战而不是互
相支持。互相支持的团队毫无意义。他们什么都做不成。你是什么意思？
B. Right, right. All that happens when you get the traditional supportive stuff is
that people help each other stand an aisle about what’s going on. And
consensus is just a road to mediocrity. What you want is buy-in. Buy-in means
that I don’t have to agree with everything you want to do as a team but it
doesn’t sufficiently offend my values that I can’t do it. And if it does sufficiently
offend your values time and time again, you’re in the wrong company and you
need to move on.
对，对。通常一个传统的相互支持的团队无非就是大家其乐融融，不做贡献。这种
一致性就意味着平庸、二流。我们真正需要的是支持。支持是我不一定同意你觉得
团队想做的事情，但你的做法不抵触我的道德以至于我不能去做。如果确实三番两
次触犯你的道德，那你就呆错地方了，你应该换个公司。
关键词汇
collaboration kəˌlæbəˈreɪʃən 合作
perceptiveness ,pə:sep'tiviti 洞察力、敏锐度
confront kənˈfrʌnt 挑战、刺激
mediocrity ˌmi diˈɒk rɪ ti 平庸、二流
dense dens 密集
load it with ˈloʊd it with 充斥、填满
gets in the way ɡɛt ɪn ði we 阻碍
hierarchy 'haɪərɑːrki 等级制度
sensitivity sɛnsɪˈtɪvɪti 敏感
implied ɪmˈplaɪ 提及、暗示
collective kəˈlɛk tɪv 集体、群体
consensus kənˈsensəs 一致同意、共识
补充词汇
cue kyu 暗示
subtle ˈsʌt l 细微
consultant kənˈsəltənt 顾问
Expansion
collaboration (collaboration)
His latest project is a collaboration with a famous Japanese artist.
他最新的项目是与一位知名日本艺术家合作的。
The two departments have been working in close collaboration with each other.
这两个部门一直紧密合作。
Many musicians are collaborators in work and in life.
很多音乐人在工作和生活中都是伴侣。
perceptiveness (perceptiveness)
Social perceptiveness means you can pick up on subtle cues from the people around youand translate them into meaningful actions.
社交敏锐力是指你能从周围人细小的动作中看出究竟，并转化为有意义的举动。
People's perception of same-sex relationships have changed dramatically in the pastdecade.
人们对于同性关系的认知在过去十年发生了重大变化。
He is one of the most insightful and perceptive business leaders I've met in years.
他是我这些年来见过最有洞察力和感知力的商业领导之一。
confront (confront)
Our job as journalists is to confront bias and prejudice.
我们做记者的责任就是要挑战偏见和傲慢。
This administration has been confronted with fiscal problems.
这届政府一直面临财政问题。
He has an extremely confrontational leadership style.
他的领导风格非常具有挑衅性。
mediocrity (mediocrity)
Design by committee is a guarantee of mediocrity.
委员会设计（人人参与）的结果注定是二流。
Although everyone raved about the restaurant, I thought the food was mediocre.
尽管每个人都夸这个饭店，我觉得食物一般般。
We will not accept mediocre work as we expect the highest quality of work from ouragencies.
我不会接受平庸的质量，因为我们对供货商有最高的要求。
Grammar
Double negative
A lot of our users often ask us about the double negative. As we saw in today's lesson, "there's nothing you can't do if you get the habits right."
The author could have said "you can do anything," but by phrasing it in this way, he emphasizes his point.
很多用户问我们双重否定怎么用。今天的课程中我们就看到了，"there's nothing you can't do if you get the habits right." 作者也可以说"you can do anything"，意义上别无二致，但是用双重否定会更加强调你的观点。
Speaking of emphasizing, another very common usage is when you are emphasizing what you should or must do, you can use a "can't not" pattern. For example, "we can't not go to Grandma's for Christmas" means "we must go to Grandma's for Christmas," but it is much more forceful.
说到强调，还有一个很常见的用法就是用“can't not”这个形式。比如说"we can't not go to Grandma's for Christmas"的意思就是“我们必须得去奶奶家里过圣诞节”，但是前者的语气更强烈。
Another common way that double negatives are used is to make back-handed compliments. The phrase "Mr. Jones was not incompetent." will seldom mean "Mr. Jones was very competent" since the speaker would have found a more flattering way to say so. Instead, some kind of problem is implied, though Mr. Jones possesses basic competence at his tasks.
还有一种常见的双重否定用法是看似赞美，实质批评。比如说，“Mr. Jones was not incompetent.（Mr.Jones 不是没有能力）”这句话不是说Mr.Jones非常有能力，而是说他只有基本能力，但有更大的问题。
Sample sentences:
Disneyland is half-price this weekend. We can't not go!
迪士尼这周门票半价。我们不能不去啊！
He's not uncooperative. But he definitely could have done more.
他不是不合作。不过他大可以做得更多。
I don't disagree with you. I'm just not sure this is the best time to discuss that with the boss.
我不是不同意你的看法，我只是不确定现在是否是跟老板谈话的最佳时机。
I don't think I am being unreasonable. I'm simply asking you to reconsider my offer.
我不觉得我在无理取闹。我只是让你考虑我的建议。
Exercises
Culture
The focus of today's lesson is on building smarter teams who not only perform well on regular tasks, but also on a wide range of different tasks. The research which kicked off today's discussion was conducted by professors Anita Wolley at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellonand Thomas Malone at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management . A summary of their studies could be foundhere. In their own words, 'online and off, some teams consistently worked smarter than others. More surprisingly, the most important ingredients for a smart team remained constant regardless of its mode of interaction: members who communicated a lot, participated equally and possessed good emotion-reading skills.'
今天这课的重点是建立一个出色的团队不仅能出色完成常规任务，而且能在其它不同的任务上表现出色。今天开篇讨论的研究是由麻省理工Sloan管理学院的Thomas Malone教授和卡耐基梅龙大学Tepper商学院的Anita Wolley教授领导的。他们研究的概要在这里。 用他们的话说:“不管是面对面一起工作还是异地虚拟工作，有些团队的工作一直比别的出色。令人惊讶的是，不管团队合作的模式如何，最重要的成功元素始终如一：善于交流的成员、平等参与和良好的情绪解读能力。
Practice