傾聽女性的聲音

Speaking While Female

傾聽女性的聲音

YEARS ago, while producing the hit TV series “The Shield,” Glen Mazzara noticed that two young female writers were quiet during story meetings. He pulled them aside and encouraged them to speak up more.

數(shù)年前，在制作熱播電視劇《盾牌》(The Shield)的時候，格倫·馬扎拉(Glen Mazzara)注意到，在開劇本會的時候，兩位年輕的女性編劇不怎么說話。他把她們拉到一邊，鼓勵她們多多發(fā)言。

Watch what happens when we do, they replied.

看看我們發(fā)言的時候會怎樣吧，她們回答。

Almost every time they started to speak, they were interrupted or shot down before finishing their pitch. When one had a good idea, a male writer would jump in and run with it before she could complete her thought.

幾乎每次她們開始發(fā)言，話還沒有說完，就有人打斷或者否定她們的想法。如果她們想出了一個好點子，男編劇也會在中途搶過話頭，自己來繼續(xù)談這個點子。

Sadly, their experience is not unusual.

可悲的是，她們的這種經(jīng)歷并不少見。

We’ve both seen it happen again and again. When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, heads nod in appreciation for his fine idea. As a result, women often decide that saying less is more.

我們兩人都一次又一次地目睹這樣的事情發(fā)生。當(dāng)一個女人在專業(yè)領(lǐng)域內(nèi)發(fā)言時，她就是在走鋼索。人們或者無視她的話，或者說她太咄咄逼人。當(dāng)基本上同樣的話由一個男人說出時，人們就頷首以贊。其結(jié)果是，女性往往覺得少說話為妙。

Some new studies support our observations. A study by a Yale psychologist, Victoria L. Brescoll, found that male senators with more power (as measured by tenure, leadership positions and track record of legislation passed) spoke more on the Senate floor than their junior colleagues. But for female senators, power was not linked to significantly more speaking time.

一些新的研究為我們的觀點提供了證據(jù)。耶魯大學(xué)心理學(xué)家維多利亞·L·布里斯克(Victoria L. Brescoll)的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，擁有更大權(quán)力(從任期、領(lǐng)導(dǎo)職位和通過的立法數(shù)量來衡量)的男性參議員，在參議院的發(fā)言時間多于資歷較淺的同事。但對于女參議員而言，權(quán)力和更多的發(fā)言時間之間關(guān)系并不明顯。

Suspecting that powerful women stayed quiet because they feared a backlash, Professor Brescoll looked deeper. She asked professional men and women to evaluate the competence of chief executives who voiced their opinions more or less frequently. Male executives who spoke more often than their peers were rewarded with 10 percent higher ratings of competence. When female executives spoke more than their peers, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings. As this and other research shows, women who worry that talking “too much” will cause them to be disliked are not paranoid; they are often right.

布里斯克教授懷疑，影響力較大的女性依然發(fā)言不多，是因為她們擔(dān)心招人反感，因此進(jìn)行了更深入的調(diào)查。教授讓職業(yè)男性和女性來評估高管的能力，這些高管中，有些人表達(dá)自己觀點的時候比較多，有些則比較少。在男性高管中，發(fā)言更多的人獲得的能力評分要高10%。而在女性高管中，發(fā)言更多的人評分會低 14%，無論評分者是男性還是女性。該研究和其他一些研究所示，擔(dān)心自己發(fā)言“太多”會導(dǎo)致別人反感的女性并不是疑心病太重;她們的感覺往往是對的。

One of us, Adam, was dismayed to find similar patterns when studying a health care company and advising an international bank. When male employees contributed ideas that brought in new revenue, they got significantly higher performance evaluations. But female employees who spoke up with equally valuable ideas did not improve their managers’ perception of their performance. Also, the more the men spoke up, the more helpful their managers believed them to be. But when women spoke up more, there was no increase in their perceived helpfulness.

本文作者之一亞當(dāng)(Adam)在研究一家醫(yī)療保健公司以及為一家國際銀行提供咨詢時，驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)了類似的規(guī)律。當(dāng)男性員工提出的建議帶來了新的收入時，他們獲得了明顯更高的績效評價。但是，如果是女員工提供了同樣寶貴的意見，那么上司對她們的績效評價并不會有所提高。此外，男性發(fā)言越多，上司就越會覺得他們很能干。但當(dāng)女性多發(fā)言時，上司們卻并沒有這種感覺。

This speaking-up double bind harms organizations by depriving them of valuable ideas. A University of Texas researcher, Ethan Burris, conducted an experiment in which he asked teams to make strategic decisions for a bookstore. He randomly informed one member that the bookstore’s inventory system was flawed and gave that person data about a better approach. In subsequent analyses, he found that when women challenged the old system and suggested a new one, team leaders viewed them as less loyal and were less likely to act on their suggestions. Even when all team members were informed that one member possessed unique information that would benefit the group, suggestions from women with inside knowledge were discounted.

女性發(fā)言遭受的這種雙重約束扼殺了寶貴的意見，給公司造成了損失。德克薩斯大學(xué)的研究員伊桑·伯里斯(Ethan Burris)開展過一項實驗，要求一些團(tuán)隊為一家書店制定戰(zhàn)略決策。然后他隨機(jī)挑選一名成員，告訴此人書店的庫存系統(tǒng)存在缺陷，并給該成員提供了一些支持更優(yōu)方案的數(shù)據(jù)。在隨后的分析中，他發(fā)現(xiàn)，當(dāng)女性成員挑戰(zhàn)舊機(jī)制，并建議采用一個新的方案時，團(tuán)隊領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者認(rèn)為她的忠誠度較低，而且按照她的建議采取行動的可能性也較小。即使團(tuán)隊所有成員都被告知，某個成員掌握了有利于團(tuán)隊的獨家信息，但如果這個成員是女性，她提出的建議仍然會遭到輕視。

Obviously, businesses need to find ways to interrupt this gender bias. Just as orchestras that use blind auditions increase the number of women who are selected, organizations can increase women’s contributions by adopting practices that focus less on the speaker and more on the idea. For example, in innovation tournaments, employees submit suggestions and solutions to problems anonymously. Experts evaluate the proposals, give feedback to all participants and then implement the best plans.

顯然，企業(yè)需要想辦法終止這種性別偏見。進(jìn)行盲聽試奏的管弦樂團(tuán)會選擇更多的女性，同理，企業(yè)也可以引入一些舉措，減少對講者本身的關(guān)注，多留意想法，這樣就可以增加女性的參與。例如在創(chuàng)新競賽中，員工匿名提交建議和問題的解決方案。專家評估提案，給所有參賽人意見反饋，然后實施最佳的方案。

SINCE most work cannot be done anonymously, leaders must also take steps to encourage women to speak and be heard. At “The Shield,” Mr. Mazzara, the show runner, found a clever way to change the dynamics that were holding those two female employees back. He announced to the writers that he was instituting a no-interruption rule while anyone — male or female — was pitching. It worked, and he later observed that it made the entire team more effective.

由于多數(shù)的工作不能匿名完成，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者一定要采取措施，鼓勵女性發(fā)聲，并讓她們的聲音被人聽到。在《盾牌》劇組里，作為劇集主管的馬扎拉想到了一個聰明的辦法，改變了導(dǎo)致兩名女編劇緘默不言的風(fēng)氣。他向編劇們宣布了一項規(guī)定，任何人——無論男女——在提想法的時候，別人都不許插嘴。規(guī)則是有效的，他后來發(fā)現(xiàn)整個團(tuán)隊變得更有效率。

The long-term solution to the double bind of speaking while female is to increase the number of women in leadership roles. (As we noted in our previous article, research shows that when it comes to leadership skills, although men are more confident, women are more competent.) As more women enter the upper echelons of organizations, people become more accustomed to women’s contributing and leading. Professor Burris and his colleagues studied a credit union where women made up 74 percent of supervisors and 84 percent of front-line employees. Sure enough, when women spoke up there, they were more likely to be heard than men. When President Obama held his last news conference of 2014, he called on eight reporters — all women. It made headlines worldwide. Had a politician given only men a chance to ask questions, it would not have been news; it would have been a regular day.

對這種女性發(fā)言的雙重約束，長遠(yuǎn)的解決辦法是增加領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層中的女性人數(shù)。(正如我們在以前的文章中已經(jīng)了解到的，研究表明在領(lǐng)導(dǎo)技巧方面，男性更自信，但女性更勝任。)越來越多的女人正在進(jìn)入企業(yè)的高層，人們也逐漸習(xí)慣了女性的意見和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。伯里斯教授和他的同事對一家信用合作社進(jìn)行了研究，那里有 74%的管理人員和84%的一線員工是女性。毫無疑問，那里的女人發(fā)言時，被聽取的可能性要高過男性。在2014年的最后一次新聞發(fā)布會上，奧巴馬總統(tǒng)回答了八名記者的問題——全部是女性。此舉登上了世界各地的報章。但如果一個政治人士只給男人提問的機(jī)會，那就不會是新聞;那是尋常的一天。