浪费时间的会议|《经济学人》管理与职场专栏
如何让会议更高效
就像普罗米修斯每天等待上帝派遣的鹰来啄食自己的肝脏一样，大多数员工对于一个两小时的会议也抱有同样观感。对于还有工作尚未完成的员工，会议已经成为一种折磨。
会议的低效是永恒的问题。1957年，管理学学者和著名作家C.Northcote Parkinson提出“琐碎定律”：“投入在某项会议议程上的时间与其涉及的金额成反比”。本着同样的精神，本专栏提出一个更广泛的原则，应用于十人及以上会议，姑且不谦虚的称其为“巴特利定律”：“会议中80%的人80%的时间都被浪费了”。
注：管理学上，帕金森发现一种称为琐碎定律的现象。在讨论非常专业而且金额庞大的事情时，一般人由于缺乏专业知识，不敢随便发言，以免失言，贻笑大方，因此多半会肯定（或逃避）该重大方案，而提些与主题无关的鸡毛蒜皮小事。相对的，对于简单的琐碎小事，由于平常大家都会接触到而且有相当认识，反而意见特别多，帕金森称此现象为琐碎定律。上述情况会造成，一个组织花费大量时间讨论没什么意义的琐事，事情的重要性与组织投入的时间精力成反比。
这条定律可得出多种推论。至少80%的会议做出的决定与会议中最高薪者意见一致。简言之，那些持有不同意见的人其实是在白费口舌。也许因为知道这是无用功，一个大型会议中，不到一半的参会者会发言，至少一半参会者会在某个时间查看手机。
这个问题部分源于一个悖论，虽然工作者讨厌参加会议，但他们更讨厌被排除在外。没有什么比一个没有邀请你参加的部门会议更让人起疑的了。为了避免这种担心，管理者倾向于尽可能多的邀请可能感兴趣的人参会。
当有重要事情发生，比如领导层或战略调整，或者宣布裁员等，显然应该全体参会。如果将员工分成小组，在小型晨会上，除了工作进展还有更多内容可以交流，整个过程可能需要15分钟时间。
但是大多数会议拖延更长时间。宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院管理学教授Maurice Schweitzer说，准备工作充分时，会议效果最好。如提前将会议议程通知参会者，防止猝不及防——临时通知经常导致负面反应。可惜准备工作在管理中可不是什么有趣的事，因此准备充分的情况很少，他补充道。
一个前提是，确定会议的目的是说服员工支持一项管理决定，还是了解员工的看法和问题。如果是前者，那么无论谁组织会议，持赞同观点的人应该先发言并推动会议议程。但是在一个运转良好的企业，这样的会议应该为数不多。
如果会议的目的是了解员工的想法，那就需要一种新方法。Maurice Schweitzer认为，应该鼓励职位较低的员工发言，并遵循“不打断原则”以免吓到他们。另一种方式是让员工提前匿名提交意见。
“不打断原则”的风险在于，话多的同事可能会使会议十分冗长，在这种情况下，每个员工都会对喋喋不休讨论与议程无关问题的人和无法区分个人轶事和科学证据的人失去耐心。因此本专栏建议将插话的时间控制在2-3分钟以内。
避免帕金森“琐碎定律”最好的方法就是合理安排议程。德勤咨询的Jay Bevington认为，人们倾向于将最重要——同时也是最容易引起争论的议程留到会议最后。但是这样的问题应该最先解决。
此外，除非会后所有参会者都知道会议决定，否则召开会议就没有意义。Jay Bevington说，很多人会惊讶的发现，许多董事会后并不清楚会议上的决定。
不过，对于乏味的会议，最好的解决办法是少开。通用电气的新老板John Flannery呼吁“尽可能少开或不开会”。得益于现代技术奇迹，即时通讯群让管理者和员工保持联系。信息以简便的方式传递，与之无关的员工可以忽略这些信息，继续工作。今后管理者想要召集会议时，他们必须很好的回答这个问题：这个会议真的有必要开吗？
原文拾粹：
Taking minutes, wasting hours
1、经济学人的文章标题经常使用巧妙的俗语或双关，此处使用排比句式，Taking minutes在这里应为做会议记录，借此指代开会
How to make meetings work better
MOST workers view the prospect of a two-hour meeting with the same enthusiasm as Prometheus awaited the daily arrival of the eagle, sent by the gods to peck at his liver. Meetings have been a form of torture for office staff for as long as they have pushed pencils and bashed keyboards.
One eternal problem has been their inefficiency. In 1957, C.Northcote Parkinson, an academic and legendary writer on management, came up with the law of triviality, that “the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved.” In that same spirit, this columnist would like to propose an even broader principle, applying to gatherings of ten people or more, and immodestly called Bartleby’s Law: “80% of the time of 80% of the people in meetings is wasted.”
2、in inverse proportion to，成反比，Time spent on a proposal varies in inverse proportion to its importance.在一项建议上所花的时间往往同它的重要性成反比
3、In that same spirit，本着同样的精神
Various corollaries to this law follow. After at least 80% of meetings, any decisions taken will be in line with the HIPPO, or “highest-paid person’s opinion”. In short, those who backed a different outcome will have wasted their breath. Perhaps because they are aware of the futility of their input, fewer than half of the people in a large meeting will bother to speak and at least half of the attendees will at some point check their phones.
4、corollary，推论
5、wasted one's breath，某人白费唇舌
6、futility，徒劳
Part of the problem lies in the paradox that, although workers hate attending meetings, they loathe being excluded even more. Nothing is so likely to induce paranoia than a department meeting to which you are not invited. To avoid this fear, managers are tempted to invite as many people as might be interested.
7、paradox，悖论
8、induce paranoia，引发猜疑
Clearly there are occasions when everyone should be involved: when a significant event occurs such as a change of leadership or strategy, or the announcement of job losses. If workers are organised into small teams, there is much to be said for the “morning huddle” in which members update each other on their progress; the whole thing can take 15 minutes.
9、morning huddle，晨间会议
But most meetings drag on for much longer. Maurice Schweitzer, professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says they work best when preparation is done. Informing people of the agenda in advance keeps them from being caught off guard—surprise often leads to a negative reaction to plans. Sadly, he adds, preparation is not a sexy part of management so seldom gets done.
10、 drag on，拖延，延长
11、being caught off guard，猝不及防
One prerequisite is to establish if the meeting is designed to persuade the staff to go along with a management decision or to learn about the workers’ ideas and problems. If the former, then allies of whoever is in the chair should speak first, and drive the agenda. But such meetings ought to be rare in a well-run firm.
12、prerequisite，先决条件
13、drive the agenda，推动会议议程
If a meeting’s object is to learn what people think, a new approach is required. Low-status employees should be encouraged to speak, says Mr Schweitzer, and there should be a “no interruption rule” so they cannot be intimidated. Another option would be to let people submit views anonymously in advance.
The danger of a “no interruption” rule is that garrulous colleagues might make such meetings extremely lengthy. At one point, every worker will have lost patience with “Tommy Tangents” (those who drone on at length about an issue that is irrelevant to the agenda) and “Hearsay Harrys” (those who cannot tell the difference between a personal anecdote and scientific evidence). So Bartleby would favour limiting all interventions to a maximum of 2-3minutes.
14、garrulous，话多的
15、 drone on at length，喋喋不休，长篇大论
The best way to avoid Parkinson’s law of triviality is to get the agenda right. Jay Bevington of Deloitte, a consultancy, says there is a temptation to leave the most important—and therefore the most contentious—items until the end of the meeting. Instead they should be tackled at the start.
16、contentious，有争议的
Furthermore, there is no point in holding a meeting unless everyone knows what has been decided afterwards. Mr Bevington says that many would be surprised how many board directors leave a meeting without being sure of what has been agreed upon.
But perhaps the best solution to tedious gatherings is to have far fewer of them. GE’s new boss, John Flannery, has called for “little or no meetings where possible”. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, messaging groups allow management and employees to keep in touch. Information can be imparted in succinct form and those who are not involved can ignore the messages and get on with their work. Next time a manager is tempted to call colleagues together, they must have a good answer to the question: “Is this meeting absolutely necessary?”
17、succinct，简洁的
译者注：本文选自《经济学人》（2018年6月30日）
