登山家乔恩.克拉考尔(Jon Krakauer)在他的书《进入空气稀薄地带》(Into Thin Air)中，讲述了1996年攀登珠穆朗玛峰的惨痛经历，回忆了自己和一个临时组建的业余登山者团队乘直升机进入喜马拉雅山脉时心里的不祥之感。

　　I attributed my growing unease to the fact that I’d never climbed as a member of such a large group — a group of complete strangers, no less, he writes.

　　我把自己不断加剧的不安归结为一个事实，即我从未作为如此庞大团队的一员去登山，而整个团队里居然全是陌生人，他写道。

　　One climber’s actions can affect the welfare of the entire team.

　　一名登山者的行为可能影响整个团队的安全。

　　The consequences of a poorly tied knot, a stumble, a dislodged rock, or some other careless deed are as likely to be felt by the perpetrator’s colleagues as the perpetrator?.?.?.?I suspected that each of my team mates hoped as fervently as I that [Rob] Hall [their professional guide] had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability, and would have the means to protect each of us from one another’s shortcomings.

　　一个结没打好，一次跌倒，一块踢落的岩石，或者其他的粗心大意，对犯错者造成的后果可能和对团队中其他人造成的后果一样严重……我猜，我的每一名队友都跟我一样热切地希望，罗布.霍尔(Rob Hall)（他们的专业向导）小心地把那些能力可疑的客户剔除掉了，并有办法保护我们每个人免受其他人缺点的拖累。

　　In fact, eight climbers died in one day — including Hall — when storms closed in on the many groups, from first-timers

　　而事实上，那一天当风暴袭击众多登山队时，8名登山者在1天内丧生，霍尔也在其中。

　　and tourists to hardened professionals, who were trying to make it to the summit and back.

　　这些登山队中有新手和游客，也有经验丰富的专业人士，他们在努力登顶并返回。

　　Confusion and controversy shrouded what happened in the death zone above 8,000m in 1996, but Krakauer’s concern that the individual actions of one team member could doom the others should have been overlaid by another worry.

　　1996年发生在海拔8000米以上死亡区的事充满着困惑和争议，但克拉考尔除了担心单个团队成员的个别行动可能给其他人带来厄运，应该还心存另一种担忧。

　　Collective dedication to a goal can itself be dangerous if it covers up important individual differences, according to a new study, with fascinating implications for how lower-altitude teams are built, motivated and run.

　　一项新研究表明，如果掩盖了重要的个体差异的话，众人致力于实现同一个目标本身可能是危险的，这对于如何组建、激励和管理普通团队也具有非凡的意义。

　　Jennifer Chatman from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and her co-authors studied records of more than 60 years of expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas.

　　加州大学伯克利分校(UC Berkeley)哈斯商学院(Haas School of Business)的詹尼弗.查特曼(Jennifer Chatman)和她的合著者们研究了60多年的尼泊尔喜马拉雅山脉探险记录。

　　It is a rich bank of information — about 40,000 climbers from some 80 countries.

　　这些记录的信息量非常大，涵盖了来自约80个国家的约4万名登山者。

　　Unlike workplace teams, these groups had a clear goal: to reach their summit.

　　跟职场团队不同的是，这些登山队有一个清晰的目标：攀上顶峰。

　　They shared one objective and unambiguous measure of failure: the death of a team member.

　　他们有一个客观、明了的失败衡量标准：团队成员丧生。

　　By parsing this sometimes grim data set and combining it with teamwork experiments, the researchers found that a collective mindset helped diverse teams ignore differences, such as nationality, that were not relevant to their task.

　　研究者们解析这一有时残忍的数据集、并与团队试验相结合发现，集体思维会帮助多样化的团队忽视跟他们的任务无关的差异，比如国籍。

　　But when the collective spirit overrode vital individual differences of, say, experience, the result could be fatal.

　　但是，当集体精神碾压了重要的个体差异（比如经验差异）时，后果可能是致命的。

　　For example, teams that got into trouble at altitude and assumed that all members had the same expertise as their most knowledgeable climbers sometimes took risks that put lives in jeopardy.

　　例如，有些在高海拔处遇到麻烦的登山队想当然地认为，所有成员都拥有跟他们当中知识最渊博的登山者相同的技能，这些团队有时会冒一些危及团队成员生命的风险。

　　Lessons from extreme situations may seem irrelevant to staffers discussing projects in air-conditioned corporate conference rooms.

　　对于在公司空调会议室里讨论项目的职场人士而言，极端情形下的教训看起来或许无关紧要。

　　But Prof Chatman says the research suggests perhaps the whole team-building fad has overshot the mark, by placing too much emphasis on cohesion.

　　但查特曼教授表示，研究表明，由于太过强调凝聚力，团队建设的整个风潮可能过度了。

　　Lives may not be on the line, but teams that do not value and recognise their differences could be less effective.

　　生命倒是可能无虞，但不重视、不承认成员差异的团队，可能效率更低。

　　There are few more pressing management challenges than how to run diverse teams.

　　很少有比管理多元化团队更艰巨的管理挑战。

　　Big companies are experimenting with ways to go beyond traditional recruitment in order to widen the pool of staff in which they fish.

　　大公司正在进行超越传统招聘的实验，以便扩大备选人才池。

　　Deutsche Bank, for instance, is exploring behavioural profiling and testing in its hiring.

　　例如，德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)正在探索在招聘中使用行为分析与测验。

　　In her book What Works — shortlisted for this year’s FT Business Book of the Year — Iris Bohnet focuses on the difficulties of achieving, then reaping the advantages of, gender balance in the workplace.

　　艾里斯.博内特(Iris Bohnet)的《什么管用？》(What Works)一书主要研究了实现职场中性别平衡并利用这种平衡的优势的种种困难。

　　Getting it right is not easy, she writes of the task of designing appropriately balanced, creative and productive teams.

　　她在写到如何设计适当平衡、创造性强和效率高的团队时称，做好并不容易。

　　In the first place, managers need to assess diversity correctly.

　　首先，管理人员需要对多样性做出正确评估。

　　They then need to set out a clear, collective mission.

　　接着，他们需要设定一个明确的共同使命。

　　But they must also identify which of the differences between the team members — nationality, gender, race — have little bearing on the task in hand, and which, such as specific skills and experience, are highly relevant.

　　但是，他们也必须确认，在团队成员的差异（国籍、性别和种族）中，哪些是对手头任务基本没有影响的，以及哪些是高度相关的，比如具体技能和经验。

　　Cohesion and co-operation may look like virtues, but they could be symptoms of groupthink.

　　凝聚力与合作或许看似美德，但它们可能是集体思维的征兆。

　　The greater the collective will of the team — and the higher the stakes — the less likely people are to dissent, because, in Prof Chatman’s words, speaking up about risks is like saying you have no confidence in the group.

　　集体意志越强大，并且事情越是事关重大，人们表达不同意见的可能性就越小，因为，用查特曼教授的话讲，大声谈论风险就好像是说，你对团队没有信心。

　　In the workplace, these findings place even more burden on the team leader, for whom dissent and friction are unlikely signals of success.

　　这些发现给职场中的团队领袖增添了更大压力，对他们而言，异议和摩擦不大可能是成功的标志。

　　But as Prof Chatman says: Maybe we need to live with a little more discomfort and difference to get these valuable outcomes.

　　但如查特曼所说：或许我们需要对不舒服和差异忍受更多一点儿，才能得到有益的结果。

　　Emphasising the ways in which team members are not the same could increase tension within the team.

　　对团队成员在哪些方面存在差异加以强调，可能加剧团队内部的紧张情绪。

　　It could mean the group takes longer to reach its goal.

　　这可能意味着，团队需要更长时间来达成目标。

　　But those would be small prices to pay to improve the overall performance — and avoid disaster.

　　但对于提高整体业绩、避免灾难而言，这些将是小小的代价。