到底要不要在办公室抑制愤怒大纲

Fred Goodwin, disgraced former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was notorious for what were nicknamed “morning beatings”, where he focused rage and ridicule on his lieutenants. According to Shredded, Ian Fraser’s new book, the senior team would play Hangman while waiting for the meetings to start, “to see who might be ‘strung up’ next”. Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers was known for his short temper and intimidating style. The wrath of Robert Maxwell, the late media tycoon, was epic.

苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)名誉扫地的前首席执行官弗雷德•古德温(Fred Goodwin)因被戏称为“早晨打击”的会议而声名远扬——他在会上对下属极尽批评和嘲讽之能事。根据伊恩•弗雷泽(Ian Fraser)的新书《Shredded》，苏格兰皇家银行的高管人员会在等待会议开始时会玩“刽子手”(Hangman)游戏，“以便看谁可能是下一个‘被吊死的’”。雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的理查德•富尔德(Richard Fuld)以脾气暴躁和管理风格令人生畏而闻名。已故媒体大亨罗伯特•马克斯韦尔(Robert Maxwell)的愤怒则是史诗级别的。

Among successful bosses, however, it is fashionable for profiles to applaud those with a reputation for never losing their cool. There are exceptions.

然而，在成功的老板当中，受到普遍称赞的是那些有着从不发脾气名声的高管。不过也有例外。

Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman and Liu Chuanzhi of Lenovo are reported to have had short tempers, for instance. But the widespread presumption is that anger in the workplace must be bad for business and managers should cultivate only “positive” emotions.

例如，有报道称，惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的梅格•惠特曼(Meg Whitman)和联想(Lenovo)的柳传志脾气暴躁。但人们普遍认为，在工作场所发火肯定对企业有害，经理人只应该培养“积极的”情绪。

Clearly, the right to work without intimidation is paramount. Bullying behaviour in the Fuld, Goodwin or Maxwell vein is unacceptable. Uncurbed hostility at work is also costly, if you include the expense of investigating and resolving cases where tempers boil over into aggression.

显然，在工作中享有不受恐吓的权利非常重要。富尔德、古德温或马克斯韦尔或多或少的欺凌行为是不可接受的。当愤怒演变成攻击行为的时候，公司将不得不为此展开调查并解决问题，如果你算上这些的话，在工作中肆意展示敌意的代价也很大。

But still, I am afraid that sanitisation of workplace feelings has gone too far: expunging anger from the office is both unrealistic and potentially counter-productive.

但尽管如此，我仍担心，对工作场所情绪的“消毒”有些过头了：消除办公室的愤怒既不现实，也有可能适得其反。

My fear is shared by a group of academics who last week ran a symposium at the Academy of Management’s annual meeting entitled “In Defence of Anger”. The rest of the AOM’s agenda included professors fretting about the consequences of negative emotions at work. But Dirk Lindebaum, from the University of Liverpool’s management school, who co-chaired the symposium, told me that instead of tagging particular feelings – joy or anger, say – as positive or negative, it would be more productive to focus on whether they are useful.

一群学者和我一样感到不安。他们上周在美国管理学会(Academy of Management)的年度会议上举办了一场名为“捍卫愤怒”的研讨会。在研讨会上，教授们对职场负面情绪带来的后果感到焦虑。但利物浦大学管理学院(University of Liverpool Management School)的德克•林德鲍姆(Dirk Lindebaum)告诉我，更有效的做法是聚焦于这些情绪是否有用，而不是为特殊情绪（比如说高兴或愤怒）贴上积极或负面的标签。林德鲍姆是此次研讨会的联席主席。

He has also co-edited a special edition of the journal Human Relations, which includes a study suggesting more than two-thirds of emotionally negative events actually lead to a positive outcome. Another study showed that teams of health workers who suppressed feelings such as distress, hostility and upset performed less well than those who allowed “bad” feelings to surface. Co-workers sometimes rush smiling to a solution without having the sort of unpleasant row that can highlight important problems. To avoid this, Honda, the carmaker, has even institutionalised contrariness in so-called waigaya sessions, where workers argue, oFTen for weeks, about process improvements.

林德鲍姆还与他人合作编辑了《人类关系》(Human Relations)杂志的特刊，包括一项显示逾三分之二的负面情感事件实际上带来积极结果的调查研究。另一项研究表明，身体健康但压抑悲伤、敌意和难过情绪的员工，在工作中的表现不如那些允许“坏”情绪流露的员工。同事们有时会对解决方案一笑而过，不会进行那种可能突显重大问题的不愉快争吵。为避免这种情况，汽车制造商本田(Honda)甚至在所谓的畅所欲言式会议上将争吵制度化——在这些会议上，工人们通常会持续数周地讨论流程改进问题。

In the past, Prof Lindebaum has interviewed project managers in the construction industry, who use angry outbursts to help stay on schedule and resolve snags. Even at the generally collegial FT, editors know an occasional on-deadline rant at a tardy reporter can work wonders.

林德鲍姆过去曾采访过建筑行业的项目经理，后者用发火来帮助赶进度和解决困难。即便在通常氛围融洽的英国《金融时报》，编辑也知道，偶尔在最后一刻对拖沓的记者大发雷霆可以创造奇迹。

Allowing an outlet for righteous and justified anger also encourages vital internal challenge. I still wonder if Bob Diamond’s “no-jerk rule” helped perpetuate problems at Barclays. The former chief executive outlawed behaviour that clashed with corporate culture. But it might have been better if a few “jerks” had lost their tempers over the culture of rigging interest rates – a process which, as email exchanges show, involved some exaggeratedly “positive” and courteous exchanges between colluding colleagues.

允许员工公正而合理地发泄怒火也会推动至关重要的内部质疑。我还想知道鲍勃•戴蒙德(Bob Diamond)的“不要混蛋准则”(no-jerk rule)是否让巴克莱的问题积重难返。这位前任首席执行官不允许发生与企业文化相冲突的行为。但如果一些“混蛋”对操纵利率的企业文化发火，结果对巴克莱可能会更好一些——正如往来邮件显示的那样，操纵利率包括员工合谋进行的一些相当“积极”且彬彬有礼的交流。

I hesitate to prescribe a daily tantrum for managers, though, because of the potential side-effects. On one of the few occasions I have truly lost my temper with a colleague, it took me most of the day to recover my poise. As with any management technique, it requires practice for the normally placid, like me, to develop useful rages that can be switched on or off at will, or for the congenitally irritable to confine their anger to an appropriate situation.

然而，由于潜在的副作用，我不愿建议经理们在日常工作中发火。我真正对同事发火的场合不多，有一次我发了火，结果那天的大部分时间都用来平复自己的心态了。与所有管理技巧一样，像我这样通常心态平和的人要想收放自如地发火，或者天生暴脾气者将愤怒控制在合理范围内，都需要练习。

Steve Jobs was the best-known angry executive. Prone to mood swings, and sometimes an outright tyrant, he was no model manager. But after acknowledging that the Apple co-founder’s nastiness hindered him more than it helped, biographer Walter Isaacson wrote that “dozens of the colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible”. Next time you get hot under the collar, ask yourself: what will this brewing temper tantrum produce – ill-feeling and stress, or the next iPhone?

苹果公司(Apple)的联合创始人史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)是最出名的喜欢发火的高管。乔布斯情绪容易波动，有时还是一个彻头彻尾的暴君，他绝不是经理人的榜样。但在承认乔布斯的坏脾气弊大于利之后，传记作家沃尔特•艾萨克森(Walter Isaacson)写道，“被乔布斯骂得最厉害的几十位同事表示，他让他们做到了之前从未想过可以做到的事情，这最终结束了他们诸多的抱怨。下次你怒气冲天的时候，问问自己：这种即将爆发的脾气能带来什么，是糟糕的情绪和压力，还是下一代iPhone？