如何假装成功人士

    “我认为商业新闻不应该是一本正经的。”最近一个午后，我和斯坦利•宾在旧金山一家别致的餐饮会所一起喝酒时，他这样对我说。这位老兄或许是我认识的最没正形的商业记者了。

    斯坦利•宾拥有多重身份，他既是《财富》(Fortune)专栏作者，又是一位幽默作家。而在现实生活中，他其实是一家公司的高管，斯坦利•宾只是他的笔名。在这次交谈中，他向我分享了自己的人生和商业哲学，推广他将于4月15日由哈珀柯林斯公司( Harper Collins)出版发行的新书《课程》(The Curriculum)。如果你时常被宾的《财富》专栏逗得捧腹大笑，你肯定会喜欢这本书。《课程》采用精装本，厚纸印制，看起来很有档次，里面煞有其事地列举了一套商界人士的另类行为规则。

    真的行得通吗？

    因为你听宾谈得越多（无论你在听他讲话的同时是不是在喝酒），你就越觉得他说得有道理。比如，他谈到“如何看起来不傻”这个关键主题，其中包括“睿智的点头”和“选择性质疑”等方面的指导。他还建议你应该如何穿衣，如何去除异味。在以“假装金融行家”为主题的一章中，他帮助我们每个人解开了心中的疑惑，字里行间散发着智慧的光芒。他的“大师课程”包括如何举办会议，如何管理无聊情绪和林肯城市汽车(Town Car)等话题，用他的话说，这些都是“很重要的东西”。

    宾教导读者，如果想给别人留下你很在行的印象，装模作样地看电子表格并不见得是最有说服力的方式。他建议采取两种方法。其一，你可以大声嚷嚷，“这他妈的都是什么玩意？”此语一出，演示者肯定会吓得不行。其二，指着某一个特定的单元格，说：“我不明白你怎么搞出这个来的，”这样说保证会让演示者手忙脚乱地解释一阵子。

    与斯坦利•宾一同饮酒让我想起了小时候看约翰尼•卡森采访喜剧大师们的经历。在巴迪•哈克特和唐•里克莱斯这样一些喜剧演员面前，卡森几乎插不上一句话，虽然他老是想板着脸，但总是以失败告终。我采访斯坦利•宾也是这种情形。他向我解释说，这本书的所有数据都来源于他的国家严肃研究协会(National Association for Serious Studies)，宾已经把这家组织公司化了。“这些都是专有数据，所以我不能分享，”他面无表情地说，那模样似乎是出自一本描写红菜汤地带(Borscht Belt，对美国俄裔犹太人的谑称——译注)的漫画书。“但我保证，这本书的所有内容都恪守了互联网新闻业的最高标准。”

    谁又能跟他狡辩呢？难道使用那些被严肃人士冒充为智慧的连篇废话？在宾看来，他的研究跟胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)恰恰相反。这家研究所“尽是一些得出无用结论的高端人士。我手下都是一帮废物，但他们得出的结论却绝对是经得起考验的。”就像任何有意或无意的“伪巨著”一样，《课程》也配有信息图表。而且还不少。其中一张显示的是，与客户喝酒往往发生在销售周期哪一个时点，以及这样做的效果。很有意义。

    也许最重要的是，宾还向普通商界人士传授伪造一副“可持续的表面形象”的技巧。“如果一个人在工作之外无法保持自己的真实个性，这个人肯定会发疯，”他说。“或者，这个人会成为一个大人物，因为他根本就没有真实的个性。”由此可以看出，宾对大佬们还是有所了解的，但这本书的目标受众却并不是他们。“我假想我的读者是一些比较正常的人，”他说。关于这一点，他是绝对认真的。 （财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    "I don't think business journalism should be serious," says Stanley Bing, perhaps the least serious business journalist I know, as we settle into our comfy chairs recently at a fancy San Francisco dining club over a late-afternoon drink.

    Bing, the Fortune columnist, humorist, author, and alter-ego for a real-life business executive with a real name, is sharing his philosophy on life and business with me to promote his new book, The Curriculum, which Harper Collins will publish April 15. If you're amused by Bing's Fortune columns, you're going to love this book, a hardcover, thick-paper-stock, impressive-looking, completely make-believe set of rules on how to conduct oneself in business.

    Or is it?

    Because the more you listen to Bing talk, whether or not you're consuming alcohol simultaneously, the more sense he makes. He covers, for example, the critical subject of "how not to look stupid," which includes guidance on "sagacious nodding" and "selective questioning." He gives advice on what to wear and how to smell. He imparts wisdom on what we all want to know in his chapter on "feigning financial literacy." His "master curriculum" includes lessons on how to do meetings, managing boredom, and, in his words, "important stuff" like town-car management.

    Bing teaches his reader not so much how to read a spreadsheet as the most convincing way to give the impression of understanding one. He counsels two approaches. One involves shouting, "What the fuck is that?" which is certain to cow the presenter. The second is to point at a specific cell and say, "I don't understand how you got this," which is guaranteed to send the presenter into a delirium of explanation.

    Sharing a drink with Stanley Bing reminds me of when, as a child, I watched Johnny Carson interview great comedians like Buddy Hackett or Don Rickles. Carson rarely got in a word, and his efforts to keep a straight face always failed. So it is with Bing, who explained to me that all the data in his book comes from his National Association for Serious Studies, which he has incorporated. "It's all proprietary, so I can't share it," he deadpans, with the timing of a Borscht Belt comic. "But I assure it all adheres to the highest standards of Internet journalism."

    And who's to quibble with him, what with all the crap serious people pass off as wisdom? He presents his research as the opposite of what happens at the Hoover Institution, made up of "all these high-quality people who make bogus conclusions. I have bogus people who reach perfectly justified conclusions." Like any intentionally or unintentionally bogus presentation, The Curriculum has infographics. Lots of them. One shows where drinking happens in the sales cycle and its effect. It's positive.

    Perhaps most importantly, Bing teaches the average business reader how to fabricate a "sustainable persona." "If you don't retain your genuine persona outside of work, you'll go insane," he says. "Or you'll be a mogul, because they don't have real personas." So you know, Bing knows a thing or two about moguls. This book isn't for them. "I'm assuming my audience is relatively normal people," he says. About this, he is dead serious.