向福尔摩斯学点决策技巧

    本期，《财富》书评栏目250 Words的山姆•麦克纳尼将采访马克斯•巴泽曼。巴泽曼是哈佛大学肯尼迪学院（Harvard Kennedy School）公共领导力中心（Center for Public Leadership）联席主任，哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）施特劳斯教席教授，曾出版过多部作品。他的新书《警觉的力量：最优秀的领导人会看到什么？》（The Power of Noticing: What The Best Leaders See）探讨了如何通过一些侦探工作，做出最佳商业决策。

    山姆与巴泽曼谈论了商界大反派伯尼•麦道夫和杰弗里•思科林，我们从魔术师身上可以学到什么？以及要成为“一流的观察者”需要哪些条件？

    麦克纳尼：最近出版的另外一本书《思考，快与慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow）中，丹尼尔•卡尼曼谈到了一种比较棘手的倾向，即人们只会考虑显而易见的信息。他还用一个缩写来代表这种情形：WYSIATI，意思是“眼见即为事实(What You See Is All There Is)”。而你却写道“眼见不见得是事实。”我们疏于考虑唾手可得的额外信息。这种情况能改变吗？

    巴泽曼：丹尼•卡尼曼和我在这方面确实有点分歧。他的著作中提到，人类会根据眼见为实的想法行事，并且提出了有力的证据支持这种立场。而《观察的力量》则主要讨论寻找额外信息带来的好处。一流的观察者与大多数人的区别在于，他们会超越丹尼精确描述的局限性。

    我们都可以成为我所说的“一流的观察者”。第一步是从周围寻找重要信息，并将其作为一项日常工作。其次，我建议在强烈的专注之后休息一下，检查你可能错过了哪些信息。强烈的专注是成功专业人士的典型特点。第三，询问有哪些组织结构特性可能妨碍了员工注意到关键信息，并采取措施对组织结构进行改革，对于指出组织面临的重大威胁和挑战的员工，要给予奖励。

    最后，你需要比那些为麦道夫“送钱”的对冲基金和宾夕法尼亚州州立大学（Penn State）的高管们做得更好，一旦发现任何错误迹象，都要更仔细地观察。

    伯尼•麦道夫。杰弗里•思科林。每一个行业都有坏人。但你在书中说，他们或许并不是真正的问题——相反，那些或许无意间做出的看似微不足道的不公决定，以及虽然无辜但保持沉默的旁观者，反而会造成最大的伤害。

    坏人会不断出现。未来十年，又会出现新一批恶棍，哲学家和宗教领袖们对此也束手无策。但心理学家却研究出一系列工具，可以帮助我们更有效地发现和应对其他人的不道德行为。如果当初本该有警惕性的人能采取一些措施，恐怕麦道夫会提前许多年锒铛入狱。然而，通常情况下，人们不会看到会造成短期负面影响的信息。我们不会看到我们聘用的员工的局限性，或者我们选择的投资所面临的伦理挑战。

    For this installment, 250 Words’ Sam McNerney sits down with Max Bazerman. Bazerman is the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Straus Professor at the Harvard Business School, and the author of numerous books. His latest, The Power of Noticing: What The Best Leaders See, explores how to make the best business decisions by deploying a little corporate detective work.

    Sam talks to Bazerman about arch corporate villains Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Skilling, what we can learn from magicians, and what it takes to be a “first-class noticer.”

    McNerney: In another recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman talks about our intractable tendency to only consider readily apparent information. He even has an acronym for it: WYSIATI, or What You See Is All There Is. You write that “what you see is not all there is.” We fail to consider additional information, even when it’s available. Is there hope for us?

    Bazerman: Danny Kahneman and I do not disagree here. His wonderful book argues that humans act as if what they see is all there is, and there is amazing evidence supportive of this position. The Power of Noticing focuses on the benefits of seeking additional information. First-class noticers differ from most of us in that they move beyond the limitations that Danny so accurately describes.

    We can all move toward becoming what I call first-class noticers. The first step is to put it on your agenda to look around to see what information around you is important. Second, I recommend taking a break from the intense focus that is typical of successful professionals and ask what information you might be missing. Third, ask what features of your organization may be preventing employees from noticing critical information, and take steps to change the organization to reward people for noticing key threats and challenges to the organization.

    And, finally, you need to do better than the hedge funds that fed money to Madoff, and the executives at Penn State, and take a closer look when something seems wrong.

    Bernie Madoff. Jeffrey Skilling. There are bad guys in every industry. But you write that maybe they’re not the real problem—that instead, there are actually a lot of little, maybe unwitting nefarious decisions and innocent but silent bystanders that really do the most harm. Could you talk about how “implicit blindness” can lure good people into unethical behavior?

    There will always be bad guys. In the next decade, new crooks will emerge, and philosophers and religious leaders haven’t provided too many insights on how to stop them. But psychology has unlocked a number of tools to help the rest of us do a better job of seeing and acting on the unethical behavior of others. Madoff would have been caught many years earlier if those who should have noticed had acted on what they saw. But, too often, people do not see information that would cause short-term negative effects. We do not see the limitations of the employee we hired or the possible ethical challenges of the investment that we chose.