放松成就杰作

    谁还记得丹尼尔•平克的《自由职业国》（Free Agent Nation）吗？1997年发表于《快速公司》（Fast Company）的这篇文章预言了一个明媚的未来，那时候熟练员工在项目之间自由跳转，不受工作或公司的约束。15年后我们处于截然不同的经济环境，出现了“被迫创业者”，他们也会利用合同工作暂时过渡，加入自由职业大军。同时自由职业者的光彩也黯淡下来。

    然而不管独立合同工人的数量增加还是减少，我还是很奇怪为何没有人关注他们对东家公司带来的文化影响。但我也没发现什么问题，直到我开始为大型的C类公司工作。

    在我看来，完美的自由职业者就是那些富有创意的人，他们会以不修边幅的休闲形象闯进会议室，然后又不见踪影，努力工作直到交差。表面看起来是公平的交易：专才通过短期工作和大公司预算结合，而永久雇员也能看看新鲜，体会不同的工作节奏。

    然而我的梦想被无情地打破了，自由职业者也无法改变美式公司漫无目的和适得其反的运作方式。最大的问题就出在我的同事所说的“酝酿模式”上。

    酝酿模式就是指创作成果/原型/内容之间的所谓休耕时期。基本的想法就是创意工作在作品之间需要休息，要想获得好的成果，这个休息期必不可少。作家就很看重这种暂停：写一阵子，离开去做饭，再回来修改。或者，更多的时候，你觉得自己写的就是垃圾，只有出去走走，4个小时后再回来继续。

    小说家扎迪•史密斯在杂志《信徒》（The Believer）的一篇文章中把时间进一步推远。她的建议是，如果你写完了小说，“把它放进抽屉。尽可能的不去看。理想时间是一年或者更长。”要评判作品，你就需要客观看待。（对自己的作品，）要达到那个心理距离需要时间。很长的时间。

    所以我在想，既然公司在过去15年中一直在引入自由职业者，为何这样一个创意工作的基本原则还没有被公司文化所接受？项目经理何曾为无需着手工作的事项安排时间？

    聪明的现代经理对创意只是口头说说而已，他们的所作所为却让创意寸步难行。即使他们也欣赏休息是为了更好的工作这样的看法，对真正实行的人他们却又冷眼相看。他们觉得像个陀螺般的不停工作很高效、很给力，甚至是一切竞争优势的源头。处在这样的高压环境中，连多睡一会儿的想法都让人怀疑不够敬业。

    喜剧团体蒙提•派森（Monty Python）的演员兼编剧约翰•克里斯对这种愚蠢的做法表示强烈反感。“创意并非天赋，而只是一种运作方式。”他在一次录像讲座中如是说，然后又进一步解释说，天赋也许是需要的，但只要天性尚存即可。

    为了解释这一点，他不点名地批评了一位毫无建树的剧团同事。经过对其工作习惯的多年观察，克里斯得出的结论是：尽管此君比克里斯更机智、更聪明，甚至可以说更幽默，但他太讲究效率了。他找到喜剧问题的解决方案，宣告胜利，然后就继续下一个项目。与此相反，克里斯往往会抛弃第一个、通常那也是最明显的那个答案，继续思考。克里斯能够耐得住不上不下的寂寞，所以才能写出更好的段子。

    Anyone remember the "Free Agent Nation"? Daniel Pink's 1997 Fast Company article heralded a bright future in which the skilled workforce bounced from project by project, unchained from a desk or any one particular company. Fifteen years later and in a different economy, "necessity entrepreneurs" using contracted work as a stopgap measure have joined the happily self-employed. The sheen of free agency has tarnished in the meantime.

    Whether the numbers of independent contractors swell or contract, however, I'm surprised how little attention has been paid to what effect these agents can have on the culture of the companies that contract for their services. But I didn't see much of a problem until I began working with large, capital-C corporate firms.

    In my mind, the business of being the creative type who swooped into the conference room -- hair messy and altogether more casual -- who then retreated to work hard (and unseen) on the contracted deliverables, seemed ideal. It also seemed like a fair trade; the talent brought on short-term got to work with big corporate budgets, while permanent staffers got new faces to look at and a change of pace.

    Any hopes I had that the freelancer could help change some of corporate America's pointless and counterproductive mores were quickly dashed, however. Nowhere did those mores pinch more than when it came to what a colleague once dubbed "gestation mode."

    Gestation mode is the fallow period between versions of a deliverable/prototype/piece of content. The basic idea is that creative output requires rest between drafts, and this resting period can't be skipped if one wants the work done well. Writers are notorious for asserting the importance of time-outs: you write for a while, then you do the dishes, then revise. Or, more likely, you read what you wrote, decide it's garbage, so take a long walk, and return to it four hours later.

    In a piece for The Believer, novelist Zadie Smith pushed the time frame further out. Her advice for anyone who'd finished a novel was, "put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year or more is ideal." In order to judge the work, one needed to see it objectively. Achieving that psychological distance takes time. A long time.

    So why, I wondered, is an understanding so fundamental to creative production still alien to the corporate cultures that have been inviting in the free agent nation for 15 years now? When was the last time a project manager scheduled time for something not to be worked on?

    Enlightened modern managers pay a lot of lip service to creativity while they simultaneously make real creativity all but impossible. Even if project managers appreciate the idea of breaks, they look sideways at those who put that thought into practice. Working constantly is seen as efficient, sexy, and the source of all competitive advantages, and in such pressured environments even getting enough sleep becomes suspect.

    Monty Python actor and writer John Cleese had strong opinions about how stupid this was. "Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating," he told his audience in a videotaped lecture, before complicating the idea further by suggesting that some talent was required, namely a talent for not being done yet.

    To explain, he referred to an unnamed Monty Python colleague who rarely produced material that really sang. After years of observing the guy's working habits, Cleese concluded that while this man was smarter, cleverer, and arguably funnier than Cleese himself was, he worked too efficiently. He would land on a solution to a comedic problem, declare victory, and move on. Meanwhile, Cleese tended to discard the first -- and often most obvious -- solution that came to mind, and keep stewing. By tolerating the slight discomfort of being mid-process for a longer period of time, he produced better material.