哈佛商业评论  翻译天堂  2016-09-26

9 Habits That Lead to Terrible Decisions

Several years ago we came up with a great idea for a new leadership-development offering we thought would be valuable to everyone. We had research demonstratingthat when people embarked on a self-development program, their success increased dramatically when they received follow-up encouragement.  We developed a software application to offer that sort of encouragement. People could enter their development goals, and the software would send them reminders every week or month asking how they were doing, to motivate them to keep on going. We invested a lot of time and money in this product. 几年前我们就新的领导力想出来一个绝妙的点子—发展提供，我们认为对于每个人它都是很珍贵的。我们有数据证明当人们着手于自发项目的时候，他们成功的几率随着之后的鼓舞的增加而增加。我们发明了一个类似于那样鼓舞的应用软件。人们可以输入他们发展的目标，该软件会每周或每月发送提醒询问他们做的情况如何，来鼓舞他们继续努力。我们在该产品上投入许多时间和金钱。

But it turned out that people did not like receiving the e-mails and found them more annoying than motivating. Some of our users came up with a name for this type of software. They called it “nagware.” Needless to say, this product never reached the potential we had envisioned.  Thinking about the decisions we had made to create this disappointing result led us to ask the question, “What causes well-meaning peopleto make poor decisions?” 但是结果是人们不喜欢收这样的邮件并且比起受到鼓舞反而令他们感到心烦。有些我们的使用者给我们的软件起了名字。他们叫它“唠叨软件”，更不用说，这个软件根本没有达到我们的预期。思考了造成这样令人失望结果的决定不由得让我们反思这样的问题：“什么造成用心良苦的人做了糟糕的决定？”

Some possibilities came immediately to mind – people make poor decisions when under severe time pressure or when they don’t have access to all the important information (unless they are explaining the decision to their boss, and then it is often someone else’s fault). 我们马上想到了一些可能性：当人们出于高压或者没能够获取重要信息的情况下会做出糟糕的决定(除非他们正向他们的老板解释问题或者经常是别人的错误)。

But we wanted a more objective answer. In an effort to understand the root cause of poor decision making, we looked at 360-feedback data from more than 50,000 leaders and compared the behavior of those who were perceived to be making poordecisions with that of the people perceived to be making very good decisions. We did a factor analysis of the behaviors that made the most statistical difference between the best and worst decision makers. Nine factors emerged as the most common paths to poor decision making. Here they are in order from most to least significant. 但是我们仍想要更加客观的答案。我们查看了来自5万名领导的360度反馈数据并且拿那些被假定会做糟糕决定的行为和那些被假定会做绝妙决定的行为进行比较来试图了解会做糟糕决定的根源是什么。我们做了行为的要素分析来提供糟糕决策者和绝妙决策者之间最具有数据说服力的差别。从而得到了九个做出糟糕决定的因素。以下由最重要至最次要排列：

Laziness. This showed up as a failure to check facts, to take the initiative, toconfirm assumptions, or to gather additional input. Basically, such people were perceived to be sloppy in their work and unwilling to put themselves out. They relied on past experience and expected results simply to be an extrapolation of the past.懒惰。这成为了不能够核实事实、采取主动、确认假设、或者集聚额外投入的原因。基本上，这类人对于工作很草率并且不愿意作出努力。他们依赖过去的经验并且期待结果只是过去的推断。

Not anticipatingunexpected events. It is discouraging to consistently consider the possibility of negative events in our lives, and so most people assume the worst will not happen. Unfortunately, bad things happen fairly often. People die, get divorced, and have accidents. Markets crash, house prices go down, and friends are unreliable. There is excellent research demonstrating that if people just take the time to consider what might go wrong, they are actually very good at anticipating problems. But many people just get so excited about a decision they are making that they never take the time to do that simple due-diligence. 认为不会有意外。持续在我们的生活中考虑消极的事情是令人沮丧的，所以大多数的人认为最糟的事情不会发生。不幸的是，坏事经常发生。有人死了、离婚了、或者出事了。股市奔溃、房价跌落、朋友不可信。有力证据说明如果人们花时间考虑事情可能出差错，他们便能擅长准备处理意外。但是人们大多沉浸于做出决断的当下而从不花时间尽职调查。

Indecisiveness. At the other end of the scale, when faced with a complex decision that will be based on constantly changing data, it’s easy to continue tostudy the data, ask for one more report, or perform yet one more analysis before a decision gets made. When the reports and the analysis take much longer than expected, poor decision makers delay, and the opportunity is missed. It takes courage to look at the data, consider the consequences responsibly, and then move forward. Oftentimes indecision is worse than making the wrong decision. Those most paralyzed by fear are the ones who believe that one mistake will ruin their careers and so avoid any risk at all.犹豫不决。另一方面，当我们面临复杂的决策时，总是建立在时时改变的数据之上，在做出最后决定的时候继续调查数据、再多要一份报告并且多做一次分析。当报告和数据需要的时间比想象要久，不擅长决策者拖延而机会也就这样溜走了。需要勇于直面数据、负责考虑结果并且持续向前。许多时候不做决定比做错决定更糟糕。这些瘫软在恐惧面前的决策者害怕一个错误会毁了他们的职业生涯，所以才避免任何的风险。

Remaining locked in the past. Some people make poor decisions because they’re using the same old data or processes they always have. Such people get used to approaches that worked in the past and tend not to look for approachesthat will work better. Better the devil they know. But, too often, when a decision is destined to go wrong, it’s because the old process is based on assumptions thatare no longer true. Poor decision makers fail to keep those base assumptions in mind when applying the tried and true.囚禁于过去。一些人做出糟糕的决定是因为他们使用过去的数据和已经拥有的数据这些人习惯用过去的方法并且不尝试使用可能更好的办法。他们认为眼前的办法鬼才知道它有多好，而经常是，注定结果会变糟糕。因为老的方法建立在不复存在的假设之上。在应用尝试和真相的时候，不擅长做决策的人无法记住这些基本假设。

Having no strategic alignment. Bad decisions sometimes stem from a failureto connect the problem to the overall strategy. In the absence of a clear strategythat provides context, many solutions appear to make sense. When tightly linkedto a clear strategy, the better solutions quickly begin to rise to the top.没有策略标准。错误的决定有时候和总体策略中的一个导致失败的问题相连接。没有一个清晰的策略提供上下文，许多方法看上去很重要。当紧紧联系一个清晰策略的时候，较棒的方法浮出水面。

Over-dependence. Some decisions are never made because one person is waiting for another, who in turn is waiting for someone else’s decision or input. Effective decision makers find a way to act independently when necessary.过度依赖。许多决定无法做出是因为一个人在等另外一个人，而这个人相应也在等另外一个人决定和投入。有效的决策者通常在需要的时候独立做出决策。

Isolation. Some of those leaders are waiting for input because they’ve not taken steps to get it in a timely manner or have not established the relationships thatwould enable them to draw on other people’s expertise when they need to. All our research (and many others’) on effective decision making recognizes thatinvolving others with the relevant knowledge, experience, and expertise improves the quality of the decision. This is not news. So the question is why. Sometimes people lack the necessary networking skills to access the right information. Other times, we’ve found, people do not involve others because they want the credit for a decision. Unfortunately they get to take the blame for the bad decisions, as well.孤立。一些领导处于待命状态因为他们没能够及时采取行动或者他们没有建立在需要利用其他一些专业人事时候的人际关系群。所有我们（或者他人）得出的研究表示有效的决策需要相关知识、经验和专业度的人涉入来提高决定的质量。这不新奇。只是为什么。有时人们缺乏进入正确的信息网的技能。其他一些时候，我们发现，人们不寻求帮助是想要独享决定带来的信誉。不幸的是，他们也要承担糟糕决定带来的指责。

Lack of technical depth. Organizations today are very complex, and even the best leaders do not have enough technical depth to fully understand multifaceted issues. But when decision makers rely on others’ knowledge and expertise without any perspective of their own, they have a difficult time integrating thatinformation to make effective decisions. And when they lack even basic knowledge and expertise, they have no way to tell if a decision is brilliant orterrible. We continue to find that the best executives have deep expertise. And when they still don’t have the technical depth to understand the implications of the decisions they face, they make it their business to find the talent they need tohelp them.缺乏技术深度。当今的组织很复杂，即使是最好的领导者也缺乏了解多面问题的技术深度。但是当决策者单单仰赖于他人的知识和专业度而没有自我见解的时候，他们很难融合那些知识来做出有效决定。当他们没有基础知识和专业度的时候，他们不可能分辨决定的好坏。我们还发现最棒的执行总裁有很深的专业度。当他们仍然不具备理解他们面临决定意义的技术深度，他们会找到相应人才帮助他们。

Failure to communicate the what, where, when, and how associated with their decisions. Some good decisions become bad decisions because people don’t understand – or even know about — them. Communicating a decision, its rational and implications, is critical to the successful implementation of a decision.不能够传达什么、哪里、什么时候和怎样做出决定的相关联系。一些好决策变成坏的是因为人们无法理解甚至根本不了解它们。传达一个决定的理性和意义是做出成功决定的关键。

Waiting too long for others’ input. Failing to get the right input at the right time. Failing to understand that input through insufficient skills. Failing to understand when something that worked in the past will not work now. Failing to know when tomake a decision without all the right information and when to wait for more advice. It’s no wonder good people make bad decisions. The path to good decision making is narrow, and it’s far from straight. But keeping in mind the pitfalls can make any leader a more effective decision maker. 干等别人的投入。没能抓准时机投入。因为技能不足误解了投入。误认为过去行得通的方法现在也行得通。不知道在没有所有正确信息的情况或者等更多意见的时候做决定。这样，聪明的人做出糟糕决定也可想而之。通往绝妙决定的道路很窄并且蜿蜒。但记住所有磨难陷阱都是将任何一个领导磨练成为更有效的决策者。