CHAPTER 4 第四章
MY “INTRACTABLE”
PEOPLE PROBLEM
我的个人顽疾
One winter day in1993, Bob, Giselle, and Dan proposed taking me out to dinner with the statedpurpose of “giving Ray feedback about how he affects people and companymorale.” They sent me a memo first, the gist of which was that my way ofoperating was having a negative effect on everyone in the company. Here’s howthey put it:
What does
Ray do well?
He is verybright and innovative. He understands markets and money management. He isintense and energetic. He has very high standards and passes these to othersaround him. He has good intentions about teamwork, building group ownership,providing flexible work conditions to employees, and compensating people well.
What Ray
doesn’t do as well:
Raysometimes says or does things to employees which makes them feel incompetent,unnecessary, humiliated, overwhelmed, belittled, oppressed, or otherwise bad.The odds of this happening rise when Ray is under stress. At these times, hiswords and actions toward others create animosity toward him and leave a lastingimpression. The impact of this is that people are demotivated rather thanmotivated. This reduces productivity and the quality of the environment. Theeffect reaches far beyond the single employee. The smallness of the company andthe openness of communication means that everyone is affected when one personis demotivated, treated badly, not given due respect. The future success of thecompany is highly dependent on Ray’s ability to manage people as well as money.If he doesn’t manage people well, growth will be stunted and we will all beaffected.
Ugh. That hurt andsurprised me. I never imagined that I was having that sort of effect. Thesepeople were my extended family. I didn’t want them to feel “incompetent,unnecessary, humiliated, overwhelmed, belittled, oppressed, or otherwise bad.”Why didn’t they tell me directly? What was I doing wrong? Were my standards toohigh? For Bridgewater to continue to be a one-in-ten-thousand–type company wehad to have exceptional people and hold them to extremely high standards. Was Idemanding too much?
This looked to me likeanother one of those fork-in-the-road cases in which I had to choose betweenone of two seemingly essential but mutually exclusive options: 1) beingradically truthful with each other including probing to bring our problems andweaknesses to the surface so we could deal with them forthrightly and 2) havinghappy and satisfied employees. And it reminded me that when faced with thechoice between two things you need that are seemingly at odds, go slowly tofigure out how you can have as much of both as possible. There is almost alwaysa good path that you just haven’t figured out yet, so look for it until youfind it rather than settle for the choice that is then apparent to you.
My first step was tomake sure I knew exactly what the problems were and how to handle them. So Iasked Bob, Giselle, and Dan what they thought was going on. I learned that theypersonally, and many others who knew me well, weren’t as demoralized by me assome others because they understood my heart was in a good place. If theyhadn’t known that they would have quit, because, as they put it, “I wasn’tpaying them enough money to put up with my crap.”
They knew that Iwanted the best for them and Bridgewater, and to get that I needed to beradically truthful with them and I needed them to be radically truthful withme. This wasn’t only because it produced better results, but also because beingtruthful with each other was fundamental to how I believed we should be witheach other. We agreed that being this way was essential, but since it wasmaking some people feel bad, something had to change.
While those people Ihad contact with understood me, liked me, and in some cases even loved me,those who had less contact with me were offended by my directness. It was clearthat I needed to be better understood and to understand others better. Irealized then how essential it is that people in relationships must be crystalclear about their principles for dealing with each other.
That began ourdecades-long process of putting our principles into writing, which evolved intothe Work Principles. Those principles were both agreements for how we would bewith each other and my reflections on how we should handle every situation thatcame up. Since most types of situations arose repeatedly with slightvariations, these principles were continually refined. As for our agreementswith each other, the most important one was our need to do three things:
1.Putour honest thoughts out on the table,
2.Havethoughtful disagreements in which people are willing to shift their opinions asthey learn, and
3.Haveagreed-upon ways of deciding (e.g., voting, having clear authorities) ifdisagreements remain so that we can move beyond them without resentments.
I believe that for anyorganization or for any relationship to be great, these things are required. Ialso believe that for a group decision-making system to be effective, thepeople using it have to believe that it’s fair.
Having our workprinciples written out and getting in sync about them in the same way we hadwith our investment principles were essential for our understanding each other,especially since our unique way of operating—this radical truth and radicaltransparency—that led to our unique results is counterintuitive and emotionallychallenging for some.
Trying to understandhow we could get our meaningful work and meaningful relationships through thisstraightforwardness led me to speak with neuroscientists, psychologists, andeducators over the decades that followed. I learned a lot, which I cansummarize as follows. There are two parts of each person’s brain: theupper-level logical part and the lower-level emotional part. I call these the“two yous.” They fight for control of each person. How that conflict is managedis the most important driver of our behaviors. That fighting was the biggestreason for the problems Bob, Giselle, and Dan raised. While the logical part ofpeople’s brains could easily understand that knowing one’s weaknesses is a goodthing (because it’s the first step toward getting around them), the emotionalpart typically hates it.
译文：
1993年的一个冬日，鲍勃，吉赛尔和丹提议带我外出晚餐--“给雷的反馈-他是如何影响客户和公司士气的”。他们先给了我一份备忘录，一份关于我是如何开展正面激励公司员工的要点。他们是这样列的：
那些是雷做得好的？
他非常聪明和具有革命性。他明白市场和金钱管理。他热情，且充满活力。他高标准严要求，并对其他人也一视同仁。他非常善于团队合作，建立团队领导力，为雇员提供高灵活性的工作环境，提供良好薪酬。
雷做的不好的地方：
雷有时对雇员说的话和做的事会让雇员感觉自己很无用，没有必要存在于公司，感到羞愧，贬低自己、或者被压迫的很厉害，或其他不好的感觉。而这种事情发生的可能性在雷处于压力之下更高。这些时候，他的语言和行为就会使雇员对他产生敌意并持续很长时间。造成的后果是雇员很消极而不是积极。这样减低了生产效率和环境质量。并影响到大多数雇员。小公司，开放交流的环境意味着任何人都能受到影响当一个人处于消极状态，或被严肃对待，没有得到应有的尊重等。公司成功的未来高度依赖于雷的管理人和钱的能力。如果他不能再继续管好人，增长就会停滞而我们大家都会受到影响。
所以，我受到了伤害，我很好奇，我从未想过我能有那样的效果。这些人都是我的衍生家人。我不他们感觉“没有能力，没必要，无力的，自卑的，受压迫的，或其他坏点”为什么他们不直接告诉我？我做错了什么吗？我的标准是否太高了？桥水如果想继续成为万里挑一的公司，我们就不得不拥有出类拔萃的雇员并制定高标准。我要求的多吗？
1）这样看起来我好像是面临岔路口的人，必须在其中做出选择，而两周都是基本却互斥的观点：
2）彼此坦诚，把所有问题和缺点摆到桌面上以便于我们能直接处理。
拥有开心和感到满意的雇员。它仍然在提醒我当面对两件事物的选择时，你需要的是看起来游戏王的，慢慢勾勒出你怎样进可能的保全两者，在你还没有找出之前总有好的办法，所以继续找吧好过暂时搁置，而这种难题会很快在见面的。
我的第一步是确认我理解问题所在，以及怎么处理它。所以我咨询了鲍勃，吉赛尔和丹他们的想法。我从他们那里了解了个人和其他一些人，我也很熟悉的，并没有同其他人那样心情低落，糟糕，因为他们了解我。如果他们不明白，那么他们可能就会退出了，因此当他们决定了，他们就能理解我“恨铁不成钢”的感觉了。
他们都知道我想为他们和桥水带来最好的，为此我需要彼此坦诚，不仅是因为这样能产生更好的结果，也因为彼此坦诚是我们这个集体的基础。哦们都同意这样做是基础，丹既然这样做会使一些人感觉不舒服，那么有些事就必须改变了。
那些理解我，喜欢我，甚至某些情况下爱我的，那些很少联系我，比较反感我的直接。很明显我需要更好的弄清楚，更好的弄清楚其他人的意图。我意识到社交中彼此清晰对方的原则并按此处理是多么的重要。
就这样开始一段长达几十年的将我们的原则书面化的进程--里面混合了工作原则。那些原则都在我们应该如何彼此合作和我们处理每项接踵而来的情况下我的反应达成统一。既然大多数情况下都是重复的仅存在轻微变动，这些原则就能继续得到优化。既然我们彼此达成一致，其中最重要的一项是我们需要做以下三件事：
1、坦诚相告，把想法拿到台面上
2、深思熟虑 ，资源共享
3、有共同认可的决定方法（比如投票，具备明显的权威性）如果没有达成一致，我们也能快速的向前而且没有不满情绪。
我相信任何组织或关系想要伟大，这些东西是必须的。我也相信对于一个指望决策制定系统起作用的团队，人们使用它就必须相信他是公平的。
将我们的工作准则写出来并与我们的投资原则同步是我们彼此理解的基础，尤其我们独特的操作方式--这种根本的事实和简单透明-那直接导致我们的独特结论仿佛是违反直觉的，对于某些人而言是理解起来有困难的。
为了试着搞明白我们是怎么通过直接坦率的方式达成我们的有意义的工作和关系，过去的几十年间我不停的和神经科学家、心理学家、教育学家学习和交流。我学到了很多，我可以总结如下：人类的大脑可以分成两个部分：上层逻辑部分和下层情绪部分。我管这叫“两个你”他们反复斗争试图掌控对方。冲突的根源在于成为我们行为的支配者。那也是鲍勃、吉赛尔、丹提出问题的最大原因。当逻辑部分能轻易明白某人的缺点是一件好事（以为这是促使双发和解的第一步），而情绪部分通常很痛恨这一点。
我是007李小军，以上是我自己的翻译，也许不会太准确，我能保证也不会偏离作者的意思太远，不至于误导各位，谢谢观看。
007-4478李小军
2018-7-11
觉得好，就点赞，就转发， 谢了！