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Business
商业版块
Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Rivals and colleagues
竞争对手与同事
How managers should balance competition and co-operation.
管理者应该如何平衡竞争与合作。
The modern company exalts both competition and co-operation.
现代企业既推崇竞争，也推崇合作。
Competition is the defining feature of markets; inside organisations, too, employees compete for limited resources.
竞争是市场的本质特征，在组织内部，员工也会为有限的资源而竞争。
Sometimes that contest is obvious, as when performance is openly ranked or there is a race for a specific job.
有时，这种竞争是显性的，比如公开绩效排名，对某一份工作竞争上岗。
Sometimes it is left unspoken: there is only so much money to go round and only so many promotion opportunities on offer.
有时，这种竞争是隐形的：可以分配的钱只有那么多，晋升机会也只有那么多。
Either way, competition is always there.
无论是哪种方式，竞争总是存在的。
Yet the reason firms exist is to co-ordinate the activities of many actors in pursuit of common goals.
然而，公司存在的原因是协调多个行动主体的活动，以追求共同的目标。
Departments and teams are expected to work together.
人们期待各部门和各团队能共同合作。
Collaborative behaviour is usually celebrated.
合作行为通常会受到赞扬。
Companies dole out awards for the most helpful co-workers, not the Macbeth prize for the colleague most likely to murder you in your sleep.
公司为最乐于助人的同事颁发奖项，而不是为最有可能在你睡着时谋杀你的同事颁发麦克白奖。
Rivalry and teamwork can go together nicely.
竞争和团队合作可以良好地结合在一起。
A paper published in 2022 by Eric VanEpps of the University of Utah, Einav Hart of George Mason University and Maurice Schweitzer of the University of Pennsylvania looked at the best way to handle an old conundrum.
犹他大学的埃里克·凡艾普斯、乔治梅森大学的艾纳夫·哈特和宾夕法尼亚大学的莫里斯·施维茨尔在2022年发表了一篇论文，研究了解决一个古老难题的最佳方法。
To make a good impression on the higher-ups, you need to highlight your own achievements.
要给上级留下好印象，你需要凸显自己的成就。
But bragging about how great you are is not a recipe for being liked.
但吹嘘自己有多棒并不招人喜欢。
A strategy of taking the credit for some things and doling out praise to colleagues for others resolved this problem.
对此，一个解决办法是将某些事情归功于自己，并为其他事情而表扬同事。
It is not easy for managers to strike the right balance between encouraging contests and collaboration.
对于管理者来说，要在鼓励竞争和促进合作之间取得适当的平衡并非易事。
(You just need to hear the word “co-opetition” to know how ugly things can get.)
（听到“竞争性合作”这个词，你就知道问题有多严重。）
Competition can spur more effort but it can also have unintended consequences.
竞争可以刺激人们更加努力，但也可能产生意想不到的后果。
A recent study by Eddy Cardinaels of Tilburg University and Christoph Feichter of the Vienna University of Economics and Business asked supervisors to use a forced performance-ranking system to assess workers’ creativity.
蒂尔堡大学的埃迪·卡迪纳尔斯和维也纳经济贸易大学的克里斯托弗·费克特最近的一项研究，要求主管使用强制绩效排名系统来评估员工的创造力。
Forced rankings require managers to assign employees to given places on a scale: if there are ten workers, say, then one must come top and one must come tenth.
强制排名要求管理者将员工分配到指定的等级位置上：比方说，如果有十个员工，那么必须有一个人排在第一位，也要有一个人排在第十位。
This approach just stressed everyone out—a bit like bellowing “relax” in someone’s face.
这种方法让每个人都感到压力很大，有点像朝着某个人咆哮“你给我放松”。
People tried harder but they also became less creative.
结果员工们更努力了，但他们也变得不那么有创造力了。
In a literature review published in 2020 Gavin Kilduff of the Stern School of Business at New York University, Blythe Rosikiewicz of West Chester University and Christopher To of Rutgers University concluded that competition is more likely to backfire when people feel threatened: for example, when the costs of losing are high or when people are competing against others known to be better at the task in question.
在2020年的一篇文献综述中，纽约大学斯特恩商学院的加文·基尔达夫、西切斯特大学的布莱斯·罗西凯维奇和罗格斯大学的克里斯托弗·托得出结论，当人们因竞争而感到威胁时，竞争最有可能适得其反：例如，当失败的代价很高，或者当人们知道竞争对手实力更强但还是必须与其竞争时。
But even when the stakes are low, explicit competition can backfire.
但即使在风险较低的情况下，显性竞争也可能适得其反。
In an experiment conducted by Jeffrey Carpenter of Middlebury College and his co-authors in 2007, participants were asked to stuff envelopes.
2007年，米德尔伯里学院的杰弗里·卡彭特及其合著者进行了一项实验，参与者被要求把信装进信封。
When people were paid a bonus for stuffing the most envelopes, they worked harder than if they got a flat per-envelope fee.
当装信封最多的人可以获得额外奖金时，他们比只能装多少就挣多少的时候工作得更努力。
But when they were also given a chance to sabotage their peers to get ahead, the (correct) expectation that they themselves would be sabotaged made people work less hard than if they had got piece-rate pay.
但当他们也可以破坏同事的工作以获得领先优势时，他们预期(这种预期是正确的)自己的工作也会遭到破坏，这让他们比计件获得报酬的时候更不愿努力了。
Such behaviour arises because many people—and many of them men, since women tend to be less taken by the prospect of all-out competition—like winning for its own sake.
这种行为之所以会出现，是因为很多人--大部分是男性，因为女性往往不太喜欢拼尽全力去竞争--喜欢为了赢而赢。
This organic aspect to competition also shows up in rivalries between individuals.
竞争的这一天然方面也体现在个人之间的竞争中。
Workers tend naturally to benchmark themselves against their peers in the race for status and seniority; they don’t need an excuse.
在社会地位和职位等级的竞争中，人们天然地倾向于以同辈为标准进行比较，这样做不需要任何理由。
These specific rivalries can be especially motivating.
这些具体的竞争可能会特别有激励作用。
A paper from 2018 by Adam Galinsky and Brian Pike of Columbia Business School and Mr Kilduff found that teams in a range of American sports performed better the year after an intense rival did well in tournaments.
哥伦比亚大学商学院的亚当·加林斯基和布莱恩·派克以及基尔达夫在2018年发表的一篇论文发现，当劲敌在锦标赛中表现出色，接下来的一年，美国各种运动队就会表现更出色。
In another study, Lisa Ordonez of the University of Arizona and Messrs Kilduff, Schweitzer and To analysed American-football games and found that teams were more likely to take risky on-field decisions against fierce rivals.
在另一项研究中，亚利桑那大学的丽莎·奥多涅斯和基尔达夫、施维茨尔、托分析了美式橄榄球比赛，发现球队在面对强大的对手时，更有可能在场上做出冒险的决定。
Particular opponents encourage greater risk-taking than generic competition, at least if you are a very large man in tights.
特定的对手比一般的竞争更能鼓励人们冒险，至少对于穿紧身球衣的大块头橄榄球运动员来说是这样。
All of which argues for a restrained approach to encouraging competition.
所有这些研究都提倡以克制的方式鼓励竞争。
Balance individual incentives with group ones.
要平衡个人激励和团体激励。
If you are going to rate performance, make sure the measures are clear, objective and fair.
如果你要对绩效进行评级，请确保衡量标准明确、客观和公平。
Think about when risk-taking is more desirable (sales, say) and less desirable (clinical trials).
想想什么时候更鼓励冒险(比如销售)，什么时候不鼓励冒险(比如临床试验)。
By their nature organisations crackle with competitiveness.
从本质上讲，组织里充斥着竞争。
Adding a bit of fuel to the fire can be fine.
往火里加一点燃料是无妨的。
Spraying petrol everywhere is unnecessary.
但到处喷汽油就大可不必了。
