CREATING BASEBALL CARDS

制作棒球卡

Even after we werearmed with the Myers-Briggs data and other tests we’d taken, I found that wewere still having a hard time connecting the dots between the outcomes that wewere seeing and what we knew about the people producing them. Over and overagain, the same people would walk into the same meetings, do things the sameways, and get the same results without seeking to understand why. (Recently Icame across a study that revealed a cognitive bias in which people consistentlyoverlook the evidence of one person being better than another at something andassume that both are equally good at a task. This was exactly what we wereseeing.) For example, people who were known not to be creative were beingassigned tasks that required creativity; people who didn’t pay attention todetails were being assigned to detail-oriented jobs, and so on. We needed a wayto make the data that showed what people were like even clearer and moreexplicit, so I began making “Baseball Cards” for employees that listed their“stats.” The idea was that they could be passed around and referred to whenassigning responsibilities. Just as you wouldn’t have a great fielder with a.160 batting average bat third, you wouldn’t assign a big-picture person a taskrequiring attention to details.

At first, this ideamet a lot of resistance. People were concerned that the Baseball Cards wouldn’tbe accurate, that producing them would be too time-consuming, and that theywould only succeed in pigeonholing people unfairly. But over time, everyone’sattitudes toward this approach of openly exploring what people are like shifted180 degrees. Most people found that having this information out in the open foreveryone to see was more liberating than constraining because when it becamethe norm, people gained the sort of comfort that comes with just beingthemselves at work that family members have with each other at home.

Because this way of

operating was so unusual, a number of behavioral psychologists came to

Bridgewater to evaluate it. I urge you to read their assessments, which were

overwhelmingly favorable.7The Harvardpsychologist Bob Kegan called Bridgewater “a form of proof that the quest forbusiness excellence and the search for personal realization need not bemutually exclusive—and can, in fact, be essential to each other.”

I should also explainthat my personal circumstances at the time also drew me to psychology andneurology. While for the most part I am keeping my family members’ lives out ofthis book to protect their privacy, I will tell you this one story about my sonPaul as it is relevant and he is open about it.

After graduating fromNYU’s Tisch film school, Paul headed out to Los Angeles to take a job. One dayhe went to the front desk of the hotel where he was staying while he looked foran apartment and smashed their computer. He was arrested and thrown in jail,where he was beaten up by guards. Ultimately, he was diagnosed with bipolardisorder, released into my custody, and admitted to the psychiatric ward of ahospital.

That was the beginningof a three-year roller-coaster ride that took Paul, Barbara, and me to thepeaks of his manias and the depths of his depressions, through the twists andturns of the health care system, and into discussions with some of the mostbrilliant and caring psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists at worktoday. There is nothing to prompt learning like pain and necessity, and thisgave me plenty of both. At times I felt as though I was holding Paul by thehand as he was dangling over a cliff—from one day to the next, I never knewwhether I could hold on or if he would slip from my grip. I worked intenselywith his caregivers to understand what was going on and what to do about it.Thanks both to the help he received and his own great character, Paul workedthrough this and is now better off than if he hadn’t fallen into his abyss,because he developed strengths he didn’t have but needed. Paul was oncewild—staying out till all hours, disorganized, smoking marijuana anddrinking—but he now faithfully takes his meds, meditates, goes to bed early,and avoids drugs and alcohol. He had loads of creativity but lacked discipline.Now he has plenty of both. As a result, he is more creative now than he wasbefore and is happily married, the father of two boys, an accomplishedfilmmaker, and a crusader helping those who struggle with bipolar disorder.

His radical transparencyabout being bipolar and his commitment to helping others with it inspires me.His first feature film,Touched with Fire, whichreceived lots of acclaim, gave many people who might have lost their lives tobipolar disorder both the hope and the path forward they needed. I rememberwatching him shoot one scene based on a real conversation between us in whichhe was manic and I was struggling to reason with him. I could simultaneouslysee the actor playing Paul at his worst while the real Paul was at his best,directing the scene. As I watched, my mind flashed over his whole journey—fromthe depths of his abyss, through his metamorphosis into the strong herostanding in front of me, someone on a mission to help others going through whathe had gone through.

That journey throughhell gave me a much deeper understanding of how and why we see thingsdifferently. I learned that much of how we think is physiological and can bechanged. For example, Paul’s wild swings were due to the inconsistentsecretions of dopamine and other chemicals in his brain, so he could change bycontrolling those chemicals and the activities and stimuli affecting them. Ilearned that creative genius and insanity can be quite close to each other,that the same chemistry that creates insights can cause distortions, and thatbeing stuck in one’s own head is terribly dangerous. When Paul was “crazy,” healways believed his own illogical arguments, no matter how strange they soundedto others. While more extreme in the case of someone with bipolar disorder,this is something I’ve seen most everyone do. I also learned how people cancontrol how their brains work to produce dramatically better effects. Theseinsights helped me to deal with people more effectively, as I will explain in detailin Chapter Four, Understand That People Are Wired Very Differently.

译文：

即便我们有了梅耶比格斯的数据帮助，还有其他我们采取的测试，我依旧发现我们依旧很难在我们看到的和我们都熟知那些人输出的结果之间发现联系。这些情况一再重复，相同的人遭遇相同的情况，用相似的方式做事，得到相似的结果而没有试图明白为什么。（最近我开始尝试一项研究关于揭秘一项关于认识的成见—人们总是经常忽视一个人优于他人的证据，并假设他们一样优秀。这就是我们看到的真相）举例，大家都知道某人不擅长有创造力的工作，结果被安排了需要创造力的活儿；一个不注意细节的人被安排了细节决定成败的工作，诸如此类，我们需要一套方法得到关于人们倾向和明确的、显然易见的数据，所以我开始为我的雇员制作“棒球卡”列举他们的状态值。想法就是这些卡片能在分配工作时传递和参考。你不会给一个大线条的人分配一项需要注意细节的任务。

起初，这个主意遇到了很多抵制。大家都认为棒球卡不准确，并且造成了大量的时间损耗，认为他们只能通过不公正的分类来取得成功。但是过了段时间，每个公开探求这项措施的人的态度都发生了180读的翻转。大多数人发现拥有这些公开信息能让人更开放而不是约束因为当卡片开始变得正常化，人们获得了一种舒适的感觉-感觉来源于他们在工作中做自己就像家庭成员在家里彼此之间的那种舒适和放松的感觉。

因为这种操作是如此的不同寻常，一些行为心理学家来到桥水开始评估这种方法。我强烈建议你阅读他们的评估报告，都是一面倒的赞成。哈佛心理学家鲍勃科干管桥水叫“一种证明-商业杰出和探索和个人成就的搜索不必彼此孤立，而是能，实际上能成就彼此。”。

我应当也解释下那时候我周围的情况也将我拉向心理学和神经病学。当然大多数章节我都会极力将我的家人排出本书也是为了保护他们的隐私，我会告诉你这个关于我的儿子保罗的故事因为这个故事很重要并且保罗愿意公开它。

自从纽约大学电影学院毕业后，保罗就奔向洛杉矶找了份工作。一天他在停留期间的酒店前台寻找一套公寓结果砸了他们的电脑。他被捕并投入监狱，在哪里他被狱警痛扁，最终他被诊断为两级失调，被释放由我来监护，并公开承认受到了一所医院的精神病监护。

这是三年过山车式的骑行的开始，带着保罗、芭芭拉、我领略了保罗的狂躁和深深的消沉，这三年交织在健康护理系统和与那些著名的护理心理学家、精神病专家、神经科学家的讨论中。对于病痛和必须的护理没有任何值得鼓励的事情。而这给我带来双重的感受。那时候我感觉尽管我我抓着保罗却总感觉保罗就像在悬崖边晃荡会随时脱离我的掌控—每天，我永远也不明白我是该抓住他还是他会溜走。我和他的看护者紧密工作以便于明白怎样才能不坠入深渊，因为他已经贡献了他不曾拥有的但却需要的的力量。保罗曾经有段时间整天在外晃荡，混乱无序，抽大麻喝酒—但他现在已经完全恢复正常，每天很早睡觉，不再吸毒和烂醉。他有着创意的天赋却缺乏纪律性。现在他两者都拥有。结果他现在更加的富有创新能力，很幸运也结婚了，并成为了两个孩子的父亲，一个成功的电影制作人和双重失调症患者的救助运动参与者。

保罗对于双重失调症的坦白和他对于其他患者的坦诚一直在激励我。他的第一个正片，触火，收到了大量的肯定，给了那些因双重失调症而失去性命的患者希望和指引道路。我记得他录制了基于真实访谈-我们，他作为患者而我努力探寻原因。我能同时看到保罗饰演的角色在他低谷的时候和他最好的时候一个真正的保罗，现场导演，就像我看到的，我的脑海里闪过他整个旅程—从他深深的低谷，到他的变态再到站在我面前的强力英雄-一些人会帮助其他人通过他们已经走过的路。

地狱之旅给了我很深的理解—我们应该怎样看待和为什么我们看待事物的差异性。我了解到我们怎样思考是心理学问题并且是能改变的。举例，保罗的疯狂的行为 都可以归因于多巴胺分泌的不一致性和其他一些他脑中的化学反应，所以他能改变通过控制那些化学反应和活动，刺激影响他们。我了解到创新性天赋和疯狂两者非常接近，同样的化学变化比如顿悟也可能导致畸变，并挤压在人的大脑中造成可怕的威胁。当保罗处于疯狂他总是相信他的不合逻辑的论点，而不论他们听起来是多么奇怪的。处于两级失调的人更容易陷入这种极端，我在大多数人身上都看到过。我也知道认识怎么样控制他们大脑的工作方式以产生戏剧性的效果。这些远见帮助我更加高效的处理这些人，我将在第四章详细解释，理解那些人是非常不同的。

读后感：这种办法好，每个人都有一张工作卡，标记清楚个性、特长、擅长、缺点等，这样在分配工作时就不会有大的出入，工作和人的匹配度高，任务完成的风险不会很大，起码在资源充分的情况下，不会出现风险。

作者突然转到保罗的病史这个情节，我很不理解，但估计是为后面服务的，应该还是围绕前面的棒球卡章节服务的。也许从保罗的病例分析雷开始关注员工的心理、精神等指标数据了。这就比单纯的能力值能更好的反映一个人的综合能力，比如抗压性和持久性，这些不好用准确数字衡量的指标，但这些指标恰恰很重要。

也许吧，这些是我猜的。