通用商务中级06:45meetings

How to Save the World (or at Least Yourself) from Bad Meetings

把自己从糟糕会议中拯救出来

戴维·格雷迪的 TED 短讲。他用「有人偷走你椅子」的比喻,道出职场普遍的「无脑接受综合征」(MAS):会议邀请一弹出就点接受,任由同事偷走我们最宝贵的时间。他开出药方「No MAS」——先点「待定」,再联系召集人问清会议目标。演讲幽默犀利,适合学习会议沟通与礼貌拒绝的地道表达。

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台词(42 句)

00:13

Picture this: It's Monday morning, you're at the office, you're settling in for the day at work, and this guy that you sort of recognize from down the hall, walks right into your cubicle and he steals your chair.

想象一下:周一早晨,你在办公室,正准备开始一天的工作,这时一个你在走廊那头见过、有点眼熟的家伙径直走进你的隔间,把你的椅子给偷走了。

00:24

Doesn't say a word — just rolls away with it. Doesn't give you any information about why he took your chair out of all the other chairs that are out there.

他一句话不说——就那么推着椅子走了。他也没告诉你,那么多椅子,他为什么偏偏拿你的。

00:31

Doesn't acknowledge the fact that you might need your chair to get some work done today. You wouldn't stand for it. You'd make a stink. You'd follow that guy back to his cubicle and you'd say, "Why my chair?"

他压根不理会你今天可能还得用这把椅子干活。你肯定不会善罢甘休。你会大闹一场,一路跟着他回到他的隔间,质问:「凭什么拿我的椅子?」

00:43

Okay, so now it's Tuesday morning and you're at the office, and a meeting invitation pops up in your calendar.

好,现在是周二早晨,你还在办公室,这时你的日历里弹出了一个会议邀请。

00:50

(Laughter) And it's from this woman who you kind of know from down the hall, and the subject line references some project that you heard a little bit about.

(笑声)邀请来自走廊那头一个你有点面熟的女同事,主题栏提到某个你略有耳闻的项目。

00:58

But there's no agenda. There's no information about why you were invited to the meeting. And yet you accept the meeting invitation, and you go.

但邮件里没有议程,也没说清为什么要请你参会。可你还是接受了邀请,乖乖去了。

01:07

And when this highly unproductive session is over, you go back to your desk, and you stand at your desk and you say, "Boy, I wish I had those two hours back, like I wish I had my chair back."

等这场毫无成效的会开完,你回到工位,站在桌边感叹:「唉,真希望能把那两个钟头要回来,就像想把我那把椅子要回来一样。」

01:18

(Laughter) Every day, we allow our coworkers, who are otherwise very, very nice people, to steal from us.

(笑声)每天,我们都在任由同事——那些本来人特别好的同事——偷走我们的东西。

01:26

And I'm talking about something far more valuable than office furniture. I'm talking about time. Your time.

而我说的,是比办公家具珍贵得多的东西。我说的是时间。你的时间。

01:33

In fact, I believe that we are in the middle of a global epidemic of a terrible new illness known as MAS: Mindless Accept Syndrome.

事实上,我认为我们正身处一场全球性的流行病之中,得的是一种可怕的新病——MAS:「无脑接受综合征」。

01:46

(Laughter) The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome is just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up in your calendar.

(笑声)「无脑接受综合征」的主要症状,就是日历里一弹出会议邀请,你就立刻点了接受。

01:54

(Laughter) It's an involuntary reflex — ding, click, bing — it's in your calendar, "Gotta go, I'm already late for a meeting." (Laughter) Meetings are important, right?

(笑声)这是一种不由自主的条件反射——叮、点一下、咚——它就进了你的日历,「得走了,我开会已经迟到了。」(笑声)会议很重要,对吧?

02:05

And collaboration is key to the success of any enterprise. And a well-run meeting can yield really positive, actionable results.

协作是任何企业成功的关键。一场组织得当的会议,确实能产出非常积极、可落地的成果。

02:11

But between globalization and pervasive information technology, the way that we work has really changed dramatically over the last few years.

但在全球化和无处不在的信息技术双重作用下,过去这几年,我们的工作方式发生了翻天覆地的变化。

02:20

And we're miserable. (Laughter) And we're miserable not because the other guy can't run a good meeting, it's because of MAS, our Mindless Accept Syndrome, which is a self-inflicted wound.

而我们苦不堪言。(笑声)我们痛苦,并不是因为别人不会开会,而是因为 MAS——我们的「无脑接受综合征」,这是一道我们自己给自己造成的伤。

02:33

Actually, I have evidence to prove that MAS is a global epidemic. Let me tell you why.

其实,我有证据能证明 MAS 是一场全球性流行病。听我道来。

02:40

A couple of years ago, I put a video on Youtube, and in the video, I acted out every terrible conference call you've ever been on.

几年前,我在 YouTube 上传了一个视频,在里面演绎了你经历过的每一场糟糕电话会议。

02:48

It goes on for about five minutes, and it has all the things that we hate about really bad meetings. There's the moderator who has no idea how to run the meeting.

视频大约五分钟,把烂会里我们最讨厌的元素都塞了进去。有那种完全不知道怎么主持的主持人。

02:56

There are the participants who have no idea why they're there. The whole thing kind of collapses into this collaborative train wreck.

有那些压根不知道自己来干嘛的与会者。整场会最后崩成了一场「协作车祸」。

03:02

And everybody leaves very angry. It's kind of funny. (Laughter) Let's take a quick look.

所有人都气冲冲地离场。其实还挺好笑的。(笑声)我们来快速看一段。

03:10

(Video) Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide if — bloop bloop — Hi, who just joined?

(视频)我们今天的目标,是就一份非常重要的提案达成一致。作为一个团队,我们需要决定是否——嘟、嘟——嗨,刚才是谁进来了?

03:22

Hi, it's Joe. I'm working from home today. (Laughter) Hi, Joe. Thanks for joining us today, great.

嗨,我是乔。我今天在家办公。(笑声)嗨,乔。谢谢你今天加入我们,很好。

03:30

I was just saying, we have a lot of people on the call we'd like to get through, so let's skip the roll call and I'm gonna dive right in.

我刚才在说,这次电话会人挺多,我们想尽快过完议程,所以就跳过点名,我直接开始了。

03:37

Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide if — bloop bloop — (Laughter) Hi, who just joined?

我们今天的目标,是就一份非常重要的提案达成一致。作为一个团队,我们需要决定是否——嘟、嘟——(笑声)嗨,刚才是谁进来了?

03:49

No? I thought I heard a beep. (Laughter) Sound familiar?

没人?我还以为听到「嘀」的一声。(笑声)是不是很耳熟?

03:55

Yeah, it sounds familiar to me, too. A couple of weeks after I put that online, 500,000 people in dozens of countries, I mean dozens of countries, watched this video.

是啊,我也觉得耳熟。视频上线才几周,来自几十个国家——我是说几十个国家——共五十万人看了它。

04:05

And three years later, it's still getting thousands of views every month. It's close to about a million right now. And in fact, some of the biggest companies in the world, companies that you've heard of but I won't name, have asked for my permission to use this video in their new-hire training

三年过去,它每个月依然有成千上万的播放量,如今已接近一百万。事实上,一些全球最大的公司——你们都听过名字,但我就不点名了——还来征求我同意,想把这个视频用在新员工培训里,

04:18

to teach their new employees how not to run a meeting at their company. And if the numbers — there are a million views and it's being used by all these companies — aren't enough proof that we have a global problem with meetings,

好教新人在公司里「别这样开会」。如果这些数字——上百万的播放量、被这么多公司采用——还不足以证明我们在会议上存在一个全球性问题,

04:30

there are the many, many thousands of comments posted online after the video went up. Thousands of people wrote things like, "OMG, that was my day today!"

那还有视频发布后网上留下的成千上万条评论。成千上万的人写道:「天哪,这就是我今天的一天!」

04:39

"That was my day every day!" "This is my life." One guy wrote, "It's funny because it's true. Eerily, sadly, depressingly true.

「我天天都这样!」「这就是我的人生。」有个人写道:「好笑就好笑在它是真的。真得让人发毛、伤感又压抑。

04:46

It made me laugh until I cried. And cried. And I cried some more." (Laughter) This poor guy said, "My daily life until retirement or death, sigh."

它把我笑到哭。哭了又哭。然后继续哭。」(笑声)还有个可怜的家伙说:「这就是我直到退休或去世的日常,唉。」

04:59

These are real quotes and it's real sad. A common theme running through all of these comments online is this fundamental belief that we are powerless to do anything other than go to meetings and suffer through these poorly run meetings and live to meet another day.

这些都是真实的留言,真的很心酸。所有这些网上评论都有一个共同的主题:大家从心底认定,除了去开会、在这些糟糕的会议里煎熬、然后活下来继续开下一场,我们别无他法。

05:14

But the truth is, we're not powerless at all. In fact, the cure for MAS is right here in our hands.

但事实是,我们根本不是无能为力。恰恰相反,治好 MAS 的药方就在我们自己手里。

05:20

It's right at our fingertips, literally. It's something that I call ¡No MAS! (Laughter) Which, if I remember my high school Spanish, means something like, "Enough already, make it stop!"

真的,就在我们指尖。我把它叫作「¡No MAS!」(笑声)如果我高中西班牙语没记错,大概就是「够了,快停下!」的意思。

05:33

Here's how No MAS works. It's very simple. First of all, the next time you get a meeting invitation that doesn't have a lot of information in it at all, click the tentative button!

「No MAS」是这么用的,非常简单。首先,下次你收到一个信息严重不全的会议邀请时,点「待定」按钮!

05:44

It's okay, you're allowed, that's why it's there. It's right next to the accept button. Or the maybe button, or whatever button is there for you not to accept immediately.

没关系,你有权这么做,那按钮就是为此而设的。它就在「接受」旁边。或者点「也许」,或者随便哪个能让你别急着接受的按钮。

05:51

Then, get in touch with the person who asked you to the meeting. Tell them you're very excited to support their work, ask them what the goal of the meeting is, and tell them you're interested in learning how you can help them achieve their goal.

然后,联系那个约你开会的人。告诉他你很乐意支持他的工作,问问这场会的目标是什么,再表明你很想了解自己能如何帮他达成目标。

06:03

And if we do this often enough, and we do it respectfully, people might start to be a little bit more thoughtful about the way they put together meeting invitations.

如果我们经常这么做,而且做得有礼有节,大家或许就会在拟会议邀请时更用心一些。

06:11

And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it. People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine!

你也能更审慎地决定要不要接受。人们说不定真会开始附上议程。想象一下!

06:17

Or they might not have a conference call with 12 people to talk about a status when they could just do a quick email and get it done with.

又或者,当一封简短邮件就能搞定进度汇报时,他们就不会再拉上十二个人开电话会了。

06:24

People just might start to change their behavior because you changed yours. And they just might bring your chair back, too. (Laughter) No MAS!

只因为你改变了自己,别人也许就会跟着改变。说不定,他们还会把你那把椅子还回来呢。(笑声)No MAS!

06:34

Thank you. (Applause).

谢谢大家。(掌声)