去怀疑的勇气
In Oxford in the 1950s, there was a fantastic doctor, who was very unusual, named Alice Stewart. And Alice was unusual partly because, of course, she was a woman, which was pretty rare in the 1950s. And she was brilliant, she was one of the,
在20世纪50年代的牛津有一位很优秀,不寻常的医生她叫Alice StewartAlice很不寻常,因为她是个女的医生这对于在20世纪50年代很罕见了她非常厉害,是当时最年轻的
at the time, the youngest Fellow to be elected to the Royal College of Physicians. She was unusual too because she continued to work after she got married, after she had kids, and even after she got divorced and was a single parent,
"皇家医师学院"最年轻的学员之一她很不寻常还因为在她结婚生子后她还继续工作甚至在她离婚成为单亲妈妈之后
she continued her medical work. And she was unusual because she was really interested in a new science, the emerging field of epidemiology, the study of patterns in disease. But like every scientist, she appreciated
她继续着她的医学工作她很不寻常还因为她对一门新的科学感兴趣当时新出现的流行病学对于疾病规律的研究但跟每个科学家一样,她知道为了让她
that to make her mark, what she needed to do was find a hard problem and solve it. The hard problem that Alice chose was the rising incidence of childhood cancers. Most disease is correlated with poverty,
出众,她需要寻找到难题然后解决她Alice当时选择的难题是童年期癌症发生率的上升大多数疾病都是跟贫穷有关的
but in the case of childhood cancers, the children who were dying seemed mostly to come from affluent families. So, what, she wanted to know, could explain this anomaly? Now, Alice had trouble getting funding for her research.
不过在童年期癌症的问题上,这些垂死的孩子似乎大多数都从富裕家庭中而来因为她想知道,怎样才能解释这样一种特殊现象呢?当时,Alice很难为她的研究筹备到资金
In the end, she got just 1,000 pounds from the Lady Tata Memorial prize. And that meant she knew she only had one shot at collecting her data. Now, she had no idea what to look for. This really was a needle in a haystack sort of search, so she asked everything she could think of.
最后,她只得到了1000英镑,从Lady Tata纪念奖得来的这意味着她知道她对于收集数据只有一次机会她完全不知道应当寻找什么这对于需要大量数据的研究来说是一个沉重打击因此她问了所有她能想到的东西
Had the children eaten boiled sweets? Had they consumed colored drinks? Did they eat fish and chips? Did they have indoor or outdoor plumbing? What time of life had they started school? And when her carbon copied questionnaire started to come back,
这些孩子有没有吃煮沸的甜食?他们有没有喝花里胡哨的饮料?他们是不是吃油炸鱼和薯片了?他们是不是使用过户内或者户外的铅制品?他们什么时候开始上学的?而当她的用碳做的调查问卷回来的时候,
one thing and one thing only jumped out with the statistical（统计的） clarity of a kind that most scientists can only dream of. By a rate of two to one, the children who had died had had mothers who had been X-rayed when pregnant.
只有一个明显的数据显示了出来,这是大多数科学家都无法想象的三分之二的这些由于癌症而死的孩子他们的母亲在怀孕的时候都做过X光检查
Now that finding flew in the face of conventional（传统的） wisdom（智慧）. Conventional wisdom held that everything was safe up to a point, a threshold.
这个发现对于传统观念是一大冲击传统观念认为任何事情在一种程度上都是安全的,像一个门槛
It flew in the face of conventional（传统的） wisdom（智慧）, which was huge enthusiasm for the cool new technology of that age, which was the X-ray machine. And it flew in the face of doctors' idea of themselves, which was as people who helped patients,
这对于这一观念是很大的冲击尤其是对于当时新科技,X光机器的巨大热情而且对于医生对自己的看法也是巨大的冲击因为他们都是帮助病人的
they didn't harm them. Nevertheless, Alice Stewart rushed to publish her preliminary findings in The Lancet in 1956. People got very excited, there was talk of the Nobel Prize,
而不是害他们的不过呢,Alice Stewart还是很快的将她最初的发现在1956年的The Lancet杂志中发表了人们都很兴奋,有人还提到诺贝尔奖的可能
and Alice really was in a big hurry to try to study all the cases of childhood cancer she could find before they disappeared. In fact, she need not have hurried. It was fully 25 years before the British and medical --
Alice也很着急她想去学习她能找到所有的儿童癌症的资料在他们消失之前事实上,她并不需要那么急过了25年之后,英国的医学建树--
British and American medical establishments abandoned the practice of X-raying pregnant women. The data was out there, it was open, it was freely available,
英国和美国医学建树也禁止了给怀孕女人的X光测验数据都是开放的,很容易获得
but nobody wanted to know. A child a week was dying, but nothing changed. Openness alone can't drive change.
但是没人想知道这一点每周都有一个小孩在垂死挣扎但就跟啥都没发生一样开放性无法带来改变
So for 25 years Alice Stewart had a very big fight on her hands. So, how did she know that she was right? Well, she had a fantastic model for thinking.
25年来Alice Stewart在做很大的斗争所以说,她怎么知道她当时是对的?她有一个极佳的思考模型
She worked with a statistician named George Kneale, and George was pretty much everything that Alice wasn't. So, Alice was very outgoing and sociable, and George was a recluse. Alice was very warm, very empathetic with her patients.
她当时与一位名叫George Kneale的统计学家合作而George刚好与Alice正互补Alice非常外向和社交化而George是个隐居者Alice很热情,与她的病人有很多互动
George frankly preferred numbers to people. But he said this fantastic thing about their working relationship. He said, "My job is to prove Dr. Stewart wrong." He actively sought disconfirmation.
而George相比之下更喜欢数字,而不是人们不过他提到过他们工作关系的极大好处他说:"我的工作就是证明Stewart博士是错的."他积极地寻找错误的证明
Different ways of looking at her models, at her statistics, different ways of crunching the data in order to disprove her. He saw his job as creating conflict around her theories.
以不同方式研究她的模型她的数据,以及不同方式去利用数据来证明她是错的他把他自己的工作当作为Alice的理论创造矛盾
Because it was only by not being able to prove that she was wrong, that George could give Alice the confidence（信心） she needed to know that she was right. It's a fantastic model of collaboration（合作） --
因为只有他无法证明Alice是错的时候,George就可以带来Alice所需要的自信让她相信她是正确的这是完美的合作的模型
thinking partners who aren't echo chambers. I wonder how many of us have, or dare to have, such collaborators.
由伙伴之前相互补充我想知道有多少人有过,或者敢有过这样的合作者
Alice and George were very good at conflict. They saw it as thinking. So what does that kind of constructive conflict require? Well, first of all, it requires that we find people
Alice和George对于矛盾很擅长他们认为这就是思考那么这种建设性的矛盾要求什么呢?首先呢,它需要我们去找到
who are very different from ourselves. That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive, which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves, and it means we have to seek out people
十分不同的人们这意味着我们必须抗拒精神上的推动那就是我们更喜欢像我们的人们这意味着我们必须寻找有不同背景,
with different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking and different experience, and find ways to engage with them. That requires a lot of patience and a lot of energy.
不同训练,不同方法去思考以及不同经验的人们,而且还要去想办法与他们交流这需要很多热情和能量
And the more I've thought about this, the more I think, really, that that's a kind of love. Because you simply won't commit that kind of energy and time if you don't really care.
我想这一点想的越多,真的,我觉得这是一种爱因为如果你不在乎的话,你不可能付出那么多能量的
And it also means that we have to be prepared to change our minds. Alice's daughter told me that every time Alice went head-to-head with a fellow scientist, they made her think and think and think again.
这还意味着我们必须准备好去改变我们的想法Alice的女儿告诉我每次Alice去和一个同事科学家会面,他们都让她一遍一遍的思考.
"My mother," she said, "My mother didn't enjoy a fight, but she was really good at them." So it's one thing to do that in a one-to-one relationship. But it strikes me that the biggest problems we face,
"我的母亲",她说,"我的母亲不喜欢争吵,但是她却很擅长."因此这在一对一的关系中是一个方面但这使我想到那些我们面对过的最大难题
many of the biggest disasters that we've experienced, mostly haven't come from individuals, they've come from organizations, some of them bigger than countries, many of them capable of affecting hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives.
经历过的最严重的灾难,大多都不是由个人引起的而是从组织而来的有些比国家还大大多数都有影响上百人的能力甚至上千人,上百万人
So how do organizations think? Well, for the most part, they don't. And that isn't because they don't want to, it's really because they can't.
那么这些组织是怎么想的呢?其实大多数情况下,他们是不思考的这不是因为他们不想而是因为他们无法
And they can't because the people inside of them are too afraid of conflict. In surveys of European and American executives, fully 85 percent of them acknowledged that they had issues or concerns at work
因为在组织里面的人对于矛盾有一种恐惧心理在对欧洲和美国行政人员的调查中，有百分之85都承认他们有一些他们自己不敢说出
that they were afraid to raise. Afraid of the conflict that that would provoke, afraid to get embroiled in arguments that they did not know how to manage, and felt that they were bound to lose.
的话题和意见对可能产生的矛盾有恐惧心理不想被缠绕在他们不知道怎么处理的争论中而且感到他们肯定会输
Eighty-five percent is a really big number. It means that organizations mostly can't do what George and Alice so triumphantly did. They can't think together.
百分之85可是很大的数字这意味着大多数组织没法做George和Alice成功做到的事情他们不能心往一处想
And it means that people like many of us, who have run organizations, and gone out of our way to try to find the very best people we can, mostly fail to get the best out of them.
而这意味着跟我们一样的许多带领组织的人都在尽可能找到他们能找到最好的人不过大多数都失败了
So how do we develop the skills that we need? Because it does take skill and practice, too. If we aren't going to be afraid of conflict, we have to see it as thinking,
那么我们怎样培养我们需要的技巧呢?因为这的确需要一些技巧和练习如果我们不惧怕矛盾的话,我们必须把它当作思考
and then we have to get really good at it. So, recently, I worked with an executive named Joe, and Joe worked for a medical device company. And Joe was very worried about the device that he was working on.
然后我们必须变得很擅长因此,最近,我在和一个叫Joe的行政人员工作,Jow为一家医疗设备公司工作他很担心他正在工作的这台医疗设备
He thought that it was too complicated and he thought that its complexity（复杂性） created margins of error that could really hurt people. He was afraid of doing damage to the patients he was trying to help. But when he looked around his organization（组织）,
实在太复杂了以至于这台机器可能会产生一些错误去伤害人们他很害怕去伤害那些他想帮助的人们不过他看了看周围的人,
nobody else seemed to be at all worried. So, he didn't really want to say anything. After all, maybe they knew something he didn't. Maybe he'd look stupid. But he kept worrying about it,
没人似乎有这种担心因此,他不想把自己的想法说出来毕竟,其他人可能知道他有不知道的东西,这样他会看起来很愚蠢但是他始终非常担心,
and he worried about it so much that he got to the point where he thought the only thing he could do was leave a job he loved. In the end, Joe and I found a way for him to raise his concerns.
以至于他到达一种程度他觉得唯一可以做的事情就是辞掉他热爱的工作最后,Joe和我找到一个提升他担心关注度的方法
And what happened then is what almost always happens in this situation. It turned out everybody had exactly the same questions and doubts. So now Joe had allies. They could think together. And yes, there was a lot of conflict and debate
结果呢,总是发生的事情果然再一次发生了.所有人其实都有着同样的问题和怀疑所以现在Joe和他的伙伴.他们可以往一处去思考当然,这其中有很多的矛盾和辩论
and argument, but that allowed everyone around the table to be creative, to solve the problem, and to change the device.
不过这使得所有人都变得有创造力,都能去解决问题去改变这台设备
Joe was what a lot of people might think of as a whistle-blower, except that like almost all whistle-blowers, he wasn't a crank at all, he was passionately devoted to the organization（组织）
Joe有点像是大多数认为的揭发者只不过像所有揭发者一样,他不是在异想天开他有激情地为组织付出
and the higher purposes that that organization（组织） served. But he had been so afraid of conflict, until finally he became more afraid of the silence. And when he dared to speak, he discovered much more inside himself
以及为组织的目标所努力不过他对于矛盾太过于惧怕直到最后沉默对他来说更为可怕而当他敢于说出口的时候,他发现了更多的自己
and much more give in the system than he had ever imagined. And his colleagues don't think of him as a crank. They think of him as a leader.
以及他从未想象过的对于系统的贡献而且他的同事没觉得他的想法是天方夜谭他们认为他是个领导者
So, how do we have these conversations more easily and more often? Well, the University of Delft requires that its PhD students have to submit five statements that they're prepared to defend.
所以说,我们怎么样才能更简单更经常地来发起这些对话呢?嗯, Delft 大学要求它所有的博士学生必须提交他们已经准备好可以进行辩护的5个陈述
It doesn't really matter what the statements are about, what matters is that the candidates are willing and able to stand up to authority. I think it's a fantastic system, but I think leaving it to PhD candidates
这些陈述是什么都无所谓重要的是这些选手们愿意而且有能力对权威提出挑战我认为这是一个极棒的系统不过我觉得把这些留给博士生
is far too few people, and way too late in life. I think we need to be teaching these skills to kids and adults at every stage of their development, if we want to have thinking organizations and a thinking society.
太少了,而且太晚了我认为我们应该向所以小孩和大人都来教授这些技巧如果我们想要能够思考的组织和社会
The fact is that most of the biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden.
事实上,那些我们曾经见证过的最大的灾难,很少是由于一些隐藏的或者秘密的信息而产生
It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to, because we can't handle, don't want to handle, the conflict that it provokes. But when we dare to break that silence,
都是由那些公开的信息而造成的不过我们只不是完全忽略了而已因为我们不想去处理引起的各种麻烦和矛盾但是当我们愿意去打破这种沉默
or when we dare to see, and we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking. Open information is fantastic,
或者我们敢于看到并且制造矛盾我们使得我们以及周围的人进行最有效的思考公开信息是很棒的
open networks are essential. But the truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.
公开的网络很关键但是事实不会让我们自由除非我们拥有技能,习惯,天赋,以及道德上的勇气去利用它
Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning. (Applause)
公开并不是一个结束它只是一个开始(鼓掌)