到底要不要在辦公室抑制憤怒大綱

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.

蘇格蘭皇家銀行(RBS)名譽掃地的前首席執行官弗雷德•古德溫(Fred Goodwin)因被戲稱爲“早晨打擊”的會議而聲名遠揚——他在會上對下屬極盡批評和嘲諷之能事。根據伊恩•弗雷澤(Ian Fraser)的新書《Shredded》，蘇格蘭皇家銀行的高管人員會在等待會議開始時會玩“劊子手”(Hangman)遊戲，“以便看誰可能是下一個‘被吊死的’”。雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的理查德•富爾德(Richard Fuld)以脾氣暴躁和管理風格令人生畏而聞名。已故媒體大亨羅伯特•馬克斯韋爾(Robert Maxwell)的憤怒則是史詩級別的。

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，在成功的老闆當中，受到普遍稱讚的是那些有着從不發脾氣名聲的高管。不過也有例外。

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，有報道稱，惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的梅格•惠特曼(Meg Whitman)和聯想(Lenovo)的柳傳志脾氣暴躁。但人們普遍認爲，在工作場所發火肯定對企業有害，經理人只應該培養“積極的”情緒。

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.

顯然，在工作中享有不受恐嚇的權利非常重要。富爾德、古德溫或馬克斯韋爾或多或少的欺凌行爲是不可接受的。當憤怒演變成攻擊行爲的時候，公司將不得不爲此展開調查並解決問題，如果你算上這些的話，在工作中肆意展示敵意的代價也很大。

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.

但儘管如此，我仍擔心，對工作場所情緒的“消毒”有些過頭了：消除辦公室的憤怒既不現實，也有可能適得其反。

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.

一羣學者和我一樣感到不安。他們上週在美國管理學會(Academy of Management)的年度會議上舉辦了一場名爲“捍衛憤怒”的研討會。在研討會上，教授們對職場負面情緒帶來的後果感到焦慮。但利物浦大學管理學院(University of Liverpool Management School)的德克•林德鮑姆(Dirk Lindebaum)告訴我，更有效的做法是聚焦於這些情緒是否有用，而不是爲特殊情緒（比如說高興或憤怒）貼上積極或負面的標籤。林德鮑姆是此次研討會的聯席主席。

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.

林德鮑姆還與他人合作編輯了《人類關係》(Human Relations)雜誌的特刊，包括一項顯示逾三分之二的負面情感事件實際上帶來積極結果的調查研究。另一項研究表明，身體健康但壓抑悲傷、敵意和難過情緒的員工，在工作中的表現不如那些允許“壞”情緒流露的員工。同事們有時會對解決方案一笑而過，不會進行那種可能突顯重大問題的不愉快爭吵。爲避免這種情況，汽車製造商本田(Honda)甚至在所謂的暢所欲言式會議上將爭吵制度化——在這些會議上，工人們通常會持續數週地討論流程改進問題。

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.

林德鮑姆過去曾採訪過建築行業的項目經理，後者用發火來幫助趕進度和解決困難。即便在通常氛圍融洽的英國《金融時報》，編輯也知道，偶爾在最後一刻對拖沓的記者大發雷霆可以創造奇蹟。

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.

允許員工公正而合理地發泄怒火也會推動至關重要的內部質疑。我還想知道鮑勃•戴蒙德(Bob Diamond)的“不要混蛋準則”(no-jerk rule)是否讓巴克萊的問題積重難返。這位前任首席執行官不允許發生與企業文化相沖突的行爲。但如果一些“混蛋”對操縱利率的企業文化發火，結果對巴克萊可能會更好一些——正如往來郵件顯示的那樣，操縱利率包括員工合謀進行的一些相當“積極”且彬彬有禮的交流。

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，由於潛在的副作用，我不願建議經理們在日常工作中發火。我真正對同事發火的場合不多，有一次我發了火，結果那天的大部分時間都用來平復自己的心態了。與所有管理技巧一樣，像我這樣通常心態平和的人要想收放自如地發火，或者天生暴脾氣者將憤怒控制在合理範圍內，都需要練習。

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?

蘋果公司(Apple)的聯合創始人史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)是最出名的喜歡發火的高管。喬布斯情緒容易波動，有時還是一個徹頭徹尾的暴君，他絕不是經理人的榜樣。但在承認喬布斯的壞脾氣弊大於利之後，傳記作家沃爾特•艾薩克森(Walter Isaacson)寫道，“被喬布斯罵得最厲害的幾十位同事表示，他讓他們做到了之前從未想過可以做到的事情，這最終結束了他們諸多的抱怨。下次你怒氣沖天的時候，問問自己：這種即將爆發的脾氣能帶來什麼，是糟糕的情緒和壓力，還是下一代iPhone？