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NadjiaYousif_2018S-_为什么应该像对待同事一样对待工作中的技术_
So, imagine a company hires a new employee, best in the business, who's on a multimillion-dollar contract . 想象一下公司招了位新员工, 该领域的顶尖人才, 合同价值几百万美元。
contract:v.收缩;感染;订约;n.合同;婚约;
Now imagine that whenever this employee went to go meet with her team members, the appointments were ignored or dismissed , and in the meetings that did happen, she was yelled at or kicked out after a few minutes. 现在想象一下,每当这个员工 邀请她的团队成员一起开会时, 邀请却常常被忽略或是取消, 并且在已经开始会议上, 几分钟后就她遭到斥责 或被赶出会议室。
appointments:n.约会;预约;约定;任命;委任;职位;(appointment的复数) ignored:v.忽视;对…不予理会;佯装未见;不予理睬;(ignore的过去分词和过去式) dismissed:v.不予考虑;摒弃;去除,消除;解雇;(dismiss的过去分词和过去式)
So after a while, she just went quietly back to her desk, sat there with none of her skills being put to use , of course, being ignored by most people, and of course, still getting paid millions of dollars. 过了一会儿,她静静地回到她桌子前, 坐在那里,技能无丝毫用武之地, 当然,被大部分人忽略, 当然,仍然要被支付数百万美元的薪资。
put to use:使用;利用;
This hotshot employee who can't seem to catch a break is that company's technology . 这个似乎无法抓住机会的最出色员工 就是公司的技术。
hotshot:n.很有成就的人:运动高手: technology:n.技术;工艺;术语;
This scenario is not an exaggeration . 这种情况并不夸张。
scenario:n.方案;情节;剧本; exaggeration:n.夸张;夸大之词;夸张的手法;
In my job as a technology advisor, 作为一名技术顾问,
I've seen so many companies make the well-meaning decisions to put huge investments into technology, only to have the benefits fail to live up to the expectation . 我看到很多公司都做出了善意的决定, 在技术上投入巨资, 最后的效果却没有达到预期。
well-meaning:adj.善意的;好心的; investments:n.[经]投资,投资的财产;投资学;(investment的复数) live up to:不辜负;做到;实践; expectation:n.预料;预期;期待;希望;指望;
In fact, in one study I read, 25 percent of technology projects are canceled or deliver things that are never used. 事实上,在我读到的一个研究中, 有25%的科技项目 最终被取消,或其产出从未得到使用。
That's like billions of dollars just being wasted each year. 这就像每年有数十亿美元被浪费。
So why is this? 那么为什么会这样呢？
Well, from what I've seen, the expectation from the top management is high but not unreasonable about the benefits from the technology. 就我的观察而言, 最高层管理者对技术带来的好处 预期虽高,但并非不合理。
management:n.管理;管理人员;管理部门;操纵;经营手段; unreasonable:adj.不合理的;过度的;不切实际的;非理智的;
They expect people will use them, it will create time savings , and people will become genuinely better at their jobs. 他们期望人们会使用它们, 它会提高工作效率, 人们也会在工作中表现更好。
savings:n.节省物;节省;节约;储蓄金;存款;(saving的复数) genuinely:adv.真诚地;诚实地;
But the reality is that the people on the front line , who are supposed to be using these softwares and tools, they're skeptical or even afraid. 但现实情况是,在一线的员工, 那些应该使用这些软件和工具的人, 却对此表示怀疑,甚至感到害怕。
on the front line:在第一线;唱片名; supposed:adj.误信的;所谓的;v.认为;假设;设想;(suppose的过去分词和过去式) skeptical:adj.怀疑的;怀疑论的,不可知论的;
We postpone the online trainings , we don't bother to learn the shortcuts , and we get frustrated at the number of tools we have to remember how to log into and use. 我们推迟在线培训, 懒得学习捷径, 而且对需要记住一大堆工具才能 正常登陆和使用感到十分沮丧。
postpone:v.延期;延迟;展缓; trainings:n.培训(training的复数); bother:v.烦扰,打扰;使…不安;操心,麻烦;n.麻烦;烦恼; shortcuts:n.近路;捷径;快捷方式(图标);(shortcut的复数) frustrated:adj.失意的,挫败的;泄气的;v.挫败;阻挠;(frustrate的过去式和过去分词)
Right? 是吧？
And that frustration , that guilt -- it's racking up, the more that technology is inserting itself into our daily working lives, which is a lot. 那种挫败感,那种罪恶感——越来越强烈, 随着科技越来越多地融入 我们的日常工作中, 这种情况相当普遍。
frustration:n.挫折; racking:n.推压动作; adj.拷问的; v.折磨;
Brookings says that 70 percent of jobs today in the US require at least mid-level digital skills. 布鲁金斯学会表示, 目前美国70%的工作岗位 需要至少中等水平的数字技能。
digital:adj.数字的;手指的;n.数字;键;
So basically , to work these days, you need to be able to work with technology. 基本上可以说,在当今社会想要正常工作, 你得知道如何与科技合作。
basically:adv.主要地,基本上;
But from what I've seen, we are not approaching this with the right mindset . 但就我所看到的而言, 我们还没有能够应对 这个问题的正确心态。
approaching:v.靠近,接近;接洽;建议;要求;(approach的现在分词) mindset:n.心态;倾向;习惯;精神状态;
So here's the idea that I've been toying with: 所以这就是我一直在尝试的想法:
toying:v.玩弄;调情;随随便便地对待(toy的现在分词)
What if we treated technology like a team member? 如果我们像对待团队成员 一样对待技术呢？
What if:如果…怎么办? treated:v.以…态度对待;把…看作;(treat的过去分词和过去式)
I've been writing my own personal experiment about this. 我一直在写自己的经验。
personal:adj.个人的;身体的;亲自的;n.人事消息栏;人称代名词;
I've spoken to people from all different industries about how they can treat their core technologies like colleagues . 我跟来自不同行业的人交流 他们如何像对待自己的 同事那样对待技术。
core:n.核心;要点;果心;[计]磁心;vt.挖...的核; technologies:n.技术;科技(technology的复数); colleagues:n.同事;同行(colleague的复数);
I've met with people from the restaurant industry, medical professionals , teachers, bankers, people from many other sectors , and the first step with anybody that I would meet with was to draw out the structure of their teams in an organization chart . 我见过来自餐饮行业的人, 医疗专业人士,教师,银行家, 以及很多其他行业的人, 我跟任何人见面的第一步 是画出他们团队在组织架构图中的 关系结构。
professionals:n.[管理]专业人员(professional的复数); sectors:n.部门; v.把…划成扇形; structure:n.结构;构造;建筑物;vt.组织;构成;建造; organization chart:n.(大企业等的)组织机构图;
Now, I'm a total geek when it comes to organization charts. 谈到组织架构图,我可是个行家。
geek:n.做低级滑稽表演的人,反常的人; n.(俚)极客,即智力超群,善于钻研但不懂与人交往的怪才;
Org charts are really cool because, if they are drawn well, you can quickly get a sense of what individual roles are and also how a team works well together. 组织结构图很酷,因为如果画得好, 你可以快速理解个人的角色 以及团队如何协同工作。
individual:n.个人;有个性的人;adj.单独的;个别的;
But if you look at a typical org chart, it only includes the boxes and lines that represent people. 但如果你看传统的组织架构, 它只包括了代表人的框和线。
typical:adj.典型的;特有的;象征性的; represent:v.代表;表现;描绘;回忆;再赠送;
None of the technology team members are there. 各项技术都不包含在内。
They're all invisible . 它们都没有被画出来。
invisible:adj.看不见的;n.看不见的人或物;
So for each of the organizations that I met with for my experiment, 所以对于我在实验中遇到的每个组织,
organizations:n.组织,构造,有机体(organization的复数);组织机构;
I had to draw a new type of org chart, one that also included the technology. 我得画出一种新的组织架构图, 而技术也包括在其中。
And when I did this, people I spoke to could actually visualize their technologies as coworkers , and they could ask things like: "Is this software reporting to the right person?" 当我这样做时,与我交谈过的人们 可以看到他们的技术 以同事的身份得以呈现, 他们会这样问: “这个软件报告给正确的人了吗？”
visualize:vt.形象,形象化;想像,设想;vi.显现; coworkers:n.同事;合作人;(coworker的复数形式)
'"Does this man and machine team work well together?" “这个团队中的人和机器合作得好吗？”
'"Is that technology actually the team member that everybody's awkwardly avoiding?" “团队成员真的在尴尬地 回避这种技术吗？”
awkwardly:adv.笨拙地;无技巧地;
So I will walk you through an example of a small catering company to bring this experiment to life. 我给大家举一个 小型餐饮公司把这实验 变成现实的例子。
catering:n.饮食服务,酒席承办;v.提供饮食,承办酒席;(cater的现在分词)
This is the top layer of people who work at Bovingdons Catering Company. 这是bovingdons餐饮公司的最高层人员。
layer:n.层,层次; vt.把…分层堆放; vi.形成或分成层次;
There's a sales director, who manages all of the customer interactions , and there's an operations director, who manages all the internal activities. 有一个销售总监, 负责管理所有的客户互动, 还有一个运营总监, 负责管理所有的内部活动。
interactions:n.[计]交互,相互作用;相互交流;干扰;(interaction复数) internal:n.内脏;本质;adj.内部的;里面的;体内的;(机构)内部的;
And here's the people who report to the sales and operations directors. 这些是汇报给销售和运营总监的人。
And finally , here's the view where we've overlaid the software and the hardware that's used by the Bovingdons staff. 最后,在这里, 我们还添加了bovingdons员工使用的 软件和硬件。
finally:adv.终于;最终;(用于列举)最后;彻底地; overlaid:v.覆盖(overlay的过去分词); hardware:n.计算机硬件;五金器具;
Using this amazing org chart, we can now explore how the human team members and the technology team members are interacting . 使用这个一目了然的组织架构图, 我们现在可以探索 人类团队成员和技术团队成员 如何交互。
explore:v.探索:探测:探险: interacting:v.交流;沟通;合作;相互影响;(interact的现在分词)
So the first thing that I'm going to look for is where there's a human and machine relationship that's extra critical . 所以我最先要找出的就是 在所有人类和机器之间存在的 重要的关系。
extra:adj.额外的:n.额外的事物:adv.额外:另外: critical:adj.鉴定的;[核]临界的;批评的,爱挑剔的;危险的;决定性的;评论的;
Usually, it's somebody using a technology on a day-to-day basis to do his or her job. 通常,这是人们每天 在工作中使用的技术。
day-to-day:adj.日常的;逐日的;
At Bovingdons, the finance director with the accounting platform would be one. 在bovingdons, 会计平台的财务总监就是其中之一。
finance:n.财政,财政学;金融;v.负担经费,供给…经费; platform:n.平台; v.把…放在台上[放在高处;
Next, I would check on the status of their collaboration . 接下来,我将检查他们的合作状态。
status:n.地位;状态;情形;重要身份; collaboration:n.合作;勾结;通敌;
Are they working well together? 他们合作得好吗？
Getting along? 能够和谐相处吗？
In this case, it turned out to be a tenuous relationship. 在这个案例中,这种关系十分脆弱。
tenuous:adj.纤细的;稀薄的;贫乏的;
So, what to do? 那么,要怎么改善的呢？
Well, if the accounting platform were actually a person, the finance director would feel responsible for managing it and taking care of it. 假如会计平台是个人, 财务总监就会觉得有责任管理它, 照看它。
responsible:adj.负责的,可靠的;有责任的;
Well, in the same way, my first suggestion was to think about a team-building activity, maybe getting together on a specialist course. 同样, 我的首个建议是考虑团建活动, 也许一起上个专业课程。
team-building:团队建设;
My second suggestion was to think about scheduling regular performance reviews for the accounting platform, where the finance director would literally give feedback to the company who sold it. 我的第二个建议是考虑对会计平台做 定期的绩效考核, 这样财务总监就可以 对售卖该软件的公司 提供反馈意见。
performance:n.性能;表现;业绩;表演; reviews:n.综述; v.回顾; literally:adv.按字面:字面上:确实地: feedback:n.反馈;反馈意见;回授;[电子]反馈;
Now, there will be several of these really important human and machine teams in every organization. 每个组织都会有几个非常重要的 人类和机器团队。
So if you're in one, it's worth taking the time to think about ways to make those relationships truly collaborative . 因此,如果你身处其中, 花点时间思考如何让 这些关系更加和谐是值得的。
collaborative:adj.合作的,协作的;
Next, I'll look on the chart for any human role which might be overloaded by technology, let's say, interacting with four or more types of applications. 接下来,我会看看图上有没有人类角色 使用了过多的技术, 比如说,跟四个或更多的 应用软件打交道。
overloaded:adj.超载的;超负荷的;超重的;v.使超载;使负担过重(overload的过去分词);
At Bovingdons, the operations director was interacting with five technologies. 在bovingdons,运营总监 要跟5个技术打交道。
Now, he told me that he'd always felt overwhelmed by his job, but it wasn't until our conversation that he thought it might be because of the technologies he was overseeing . 他告诉我,他总是觉得工作过于繁重, 但直到与我交谈, 他才意识到这可能是 因为他所监管的技术。
overwhelmed:v.受打击,压倒;淹没;(overwhelm的过去分词和过去式) overseeing:监督;审查;俯瞰;偷看到,无意中看到;
And we were talking that, if the operations director had actually had a lot of people reporting to him, he probably would have done something about it, because it was stretching him too thin, like, move some of them to report to somebody else. 我们讨论到, 如果运营总监有很多人向他汇报, 他很可能会做点什么, 因为他已经不堪重负了, 比如,让某些人改向其他人汇报。
stretching:v.拉长;撑大;有弹性;拉紧;拉直;(stretch的现在分词)
So in the same way, we talked about moving some of the technologies to report to someone else, like the food inventory to go to the chef. 同样地,我们谈到将一些技术转移到 其他人那里, 比如把食品清单交给厨师。
inventory:n.存货,存货清单;详细目录;财产清册;
The last thing that I'll look for is any technology that seems to be on the org chart without a real home. 最后我要看的是有没有技术 在组织架构上没有真正的归属。
Sometimes they're floating around without an owner. 有时候,它们只能在不同人之间游走。
Sometimes they're reporting to so many different areas that you can't tell who's actually using it. 有时候它们汇报给如此多不同的领域, 导致你都不知道谁在使用它。
Now, at Bovingdons, nobody appeared to be looking after the marketing software. 在bovingdons, 似乎没人负责管理营销软件。
It was like someone had hired it and then didn't give it a desk or any instructions on what to do. 有点像有人雇佣了它, 却没有给它安排工位, 或任何工作指示。
So clearly, it needed a job description , maybe someone to manage it. 所以很明显,它需要一份职位指南, 也许需要有人管理它。
job description:n.工作职责说明;岗位责任说明;
But in other companies, you might find that a technology has been sidelined for a reason, like it's time for it to leave or be retired. 但在其他公司, 你可能会发现一项技术 因为某种原因被边缘化, 比如它是时候该离开或退休了。
sidelined:v.使退出比赛,使下场;使靠边;(sideline的过去式和过去分词)
Now, retiring applications is something that all companies do. 如今,淘汰应用软件是 所有公司都会做的事情。
But maybe taking the mindset that those applications are actually coworkers could help them to decide when and how to retire those applications in the way that would be least destructive to the rest of the team. 但是,也许采用把这些 应用软件当作同事的心态 可以帮助他们以对团队 其他成员破坏性最小的方式 决定何时,以及如何 停用这些应用程序。
in the way:妨碍;挡道; destructive:adj.破坏的;毁灭性的;有害的,消极的;
I did this experiment with 15 different professionals, and each time it sparked an idea. 我与15个不同的 专业人员做了这个实验, 每次它都激发了一个想法。
sparked:v.点燃,发动(spark的过去式,过去分词);鼓舞;
Sometimes, a bit more. 有时候,还更多。
You remember that hotshot employee I was telling you about, that everybody was ignoring ? 还记得我跟你们说过的那个 被每个人忽略的技术高手吗？
ignoring:v.忽略,忽视;(ignore的现在分词);
That was a real story told to me by Christopher, a very energetic human resources manager at a big consumer goods company. 那是克里斯托弗告诉我的 一个真实的故事, 他是一家大型消费品 公司的人力资源经理。
energetic:adj.精力充沛的;充满活力的;需要能量的;积极的; human resources:n.人力资源;(公司的)人事部; consumer goods:n.消费品;
Technology was a new HR platform, and it had been installed for 14 months at great expense , but nobody was using it. 技术是新的HR平台, 有人花了大价钱安装它,但过了14个月, 却一直没人使用它。
installed:v.安装;设置;使就职(install的过去分词和过去式) expense:n.费用;开支;花费;开销;
So we were talking about how, if this had really been such a hotshot employee with amazing credentials , you would go out of your way to get to know it, maybe invite them for coffee, get to know their background. 所以我们在讨论, 如果这位员工真的是一个拥有 令人惊叹的资质的优秀员工, 你会不厌其烦去了解它, 也许邀请他们喝杯咖啡, 去了解他们的背景。
credentials:n.[管理]证书; v.得到信用;
So in the spirit of experimentation , 所以本着实验的精神,
experimentation:n.实验;试验;
Christopher set up one-hour appointments, coffee optional , for his team members to have no agenda but to get to know their HR system. 克里斯托弗安排了一个小时的会议, 可能还会提供咖啡, 让他的团队成员去了解 他们的人力资源系统。
optional:adj.可选择的,随意的;n.选修科目; agenda:n.议事日程;
Some people, they clicked around menu item by menu item. 一些人,他们一项项地点击菜单。
item:n.条款,项目;一则;一件商品(或物品);adj.又,同上;
Other people, they searched online for things that they weren't clear about. 另一些人则在网上 查找他们不清楚的地方。
A couple of them got together, gossiped about the new software in town. 其中一些人聚在一起, 对新安装的软件说三道四。
gossiped:v.说三道四;传播流言飞语;(gossip的过去式)
And a few weeks later, Christopher called to tell me that people were using the system in new ways, and he thought it was going to save them weeks of effort in the future. 几周后,克里斯托弗打电话告诉我 人们正在用新的方式使用这个系统, 并且他认为,这将在未来 为他们节省几周时间的努力。
And they also reported feeling less intimidated by the software. 他们还表示,自己不再觉得 这个软件有什么可怕的了。
intimidated:adj.害怕的;受到恐吓的;v.威胁,恐吓;(intimidate的过去式和过去分词)
I found that pretty amazing, that taking this mindset helped Christopher's team and others that I spoke to these past few months actually feel happier about working with technology. 我觉得这很让人欣喜, 这种心态帮助了克里斯托弗的团队 和我在过去几个月里采访的其他人, 实际上对与技术合作感到更快乐。
And I later found out this is backed up by research. 我后来发现这是有研究支持的。
Studies have shown that people who work in organizations that encourage them to talk about and learn about the technologies in the workplace have 20 percent lower stress levels than those in organizations that don't. 研究发现在鼓励员工 谈论和学习工作场所 所用技术的公司里 工作的人, 要比在没有这样做的公司里面工作的人 压力水平要低20%。
workplace:n.工作场所;车间;
I also found it really cool that when I started to do this experiment, 在开始这些实验时,
I started with what was happening between a person and an individual technology, but then it ultimately led to ideas about how to manage tech across entire companies. 我从个人与单个技术的 关系开始, 不过最终却引发了如何在整个公司中 管理技术的想法,这让我觉得很酷。
ultimately:adv.最终;最后;归根结底;终究;
Like, when I did this for my own job and extended it, 比如当我以同样的方式 对待自己的工作并扩展它的时候,
extended:adj.延长了的;扩展了的;v.使伸长;扩大;扩展;(extend的过去式和过去分词)
I thought about how our data analysis tools should go on the equivalent of a job rotation program, where different parts of the company could get to know it. 我会思考我们的数据分析工具 应该参与相当于工作轮岗的程序, 这样公司的不同部门就都可以了解它。
analysis:n.分析;分解;验定; equivalent:adj.等价的,相等的;同意义的;n.等价物,相等物; rotation:n.旋转;循环,轮流;
And I also thought about suggesting to our recruiting team that some of the technologies we work with every day should come with us on our big recruiting events. 我还想过建议我们的招聘团队, 应该让我们常用的技术 出现在我们的大型招聘活动中。
recruiting:v.吸收(新成员);征募(新兵);动员;(recruit的现在分词)
If you were a university student, how cool would it be to not only get to know the people you might be working with, but also the technologies? 如果你是个大学生, 除了知道你将与哪些人工作,还知道 会用到哪些技术, 是不是很酷呢？
Now, all of this begs the question: 以上这些又引出了这样一个问题:
What have we been missing by keeping the technologies that we work with day to day invisible, and what, beyond those billions of dollars in value, might we be leaving on the table? 忽视我们每天都在 使用的技术,我们错过了什么, 除了这数十亿美元的价值, 我们还留下了什么？
The good news is, you don't need to be an org chart geek like me to take this experiment forward. 好消息是, 要推进这个实验,你并不需要 像我这样擅长做组织架构图。
It will take a matter of minutes for most people to draw out a structure of who they work with, a little bit longer to add in the technologies to get a view of the entire team, and then you can have fun asking questions like, "Which are the technologies that I'll be taking out for coffee?" 对大多数人而言,只需要几分钟 就可以画出他们工作环境的关系结构, 再花点时间添加技术在里面, 来获得整个团队的视图, 然后你就可以问诸如这样有趣的问题: “我将会带哪些技术出去喝咖啡？”
Now, I didn't do this experiment for kicks or for the coffee. 我做这个实验不是为了好玩, 或者为了喝咖啡。
I did it because the critical skill in the 21st-century workplace is going to be to collaborate with the technologies that are becoming such a big and costly part of our daily working lives. 我之所以这样做,是因为与技术协作 是21世纪工作场所的关键技能, 技术已经成为我们日常工作生活中 庞大且昂贵的部分。
collaborate:vi.合作;勾结,通敌; costly:adj.昂贵的;代价高的;
And from what I was seeing, we are struggling to cope with that. 而且就我所看到的而言, 我们仍在艰难应对这个问题。
cope:v.处理;n.大圆衣;
So it might sound counterintuitive , but by embracing the idea that these machines are actually valuable colleagues, we as people will perform better and be happier. 这听起来可能违反直觉, 但通过接受这些技术其实 是有价值的同事的想法, 我们作为人类可以表现得更好, 也更快乐。
counterintuitive:adj.违反直觉的; embracing:n.拥抱;v.拥抱,包含;(embrace的现在分词) valuable:adj.有价值的;贵重的;可估价的;n.贵重物品;
So let's all share a bit of humanity towards the technologies and the softwares and the algorithms and the robots who we work with, because we will all be the better for it. 所以,让我们对工作中会使用到的 技术,软件和算法,以及机器人 表现出一些人性关怀吧, 因为我们都会因此变得更好。
humanity:n.人类;人道;仁慈;人文学科;
Thank you. 谢谢。
(Applause) （鼓掌）