Being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working
By Katherine W. Phillips on October 1, 2014
多元化怎样令我们更聪明
身边的人与我们不同，使我们更具创造性，更勤勉，也更努力。
凯瑟琳·威廉姆·菲利普 2014·10·1
The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.
It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious—you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So what is the upside?
首先，我们要承认，多元化这个问题很深奥。在美国，这个对各种观点包容性相对较高的国家，提到“多元化”，人们也会感到焦虑不安，矛盾重重。最高法院的法官们对多元化的原则难以达成一致意见，他们努力去实现审判的多元化；企业为能在内外部形成并实现多元化散尽千金，尽管如此，它们仍就面临着歧视诉讼；商界的领导阶层，仍由白人和男性主导。
我们有理由提出这样的疑问，多元化对我们有什么益处。专业技术多元化的益处显而易见——想要研发一款新型汽车，工程师，设计师和质量控制专家缺一不可——那么社会多元化的益处是什么呢？种族，名族，性别和性取向方面的多元化，又会为我么带来怎样的益处呢？研究表明，团体中的社会差异会引起一系列问题，如：内心不安，交往困难，信任缺失，感知性人际冲突增强，交流减少，凝聚力降低，对不敬的敏感度增强等。那么，其优点又体现在何处呢？
The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered 事实表明，要想构建创造力十足的团队和组织，多元化必不可少。多元化会使创造力增强。它推动了对新颖信息和观点的探索，成就更好的决策，从而使问题得以解决。多元化能改善公司的财务状况，造就自由的探索及突破性的革新。听取不同的意见会改变你的思维方式。这可不是一厢情愿的空想：通过对科学家，心理学家，社会学家，经济discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking: it is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers.
Information and Innovation
The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions and perspectives. This makes obvious sense when we talk about diversity of disciplinary backgrounds—think again of the interdisciplinary team building a car. The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist—and that is a good thing.
学家及人口统计学家团体数十年的追踪研究，我最终得出了这样的结论。
信息与创新
要想理解多元化的积极影响，关键在于理解信息多元化的概念。当人们聚集在一起以小组为单位解决问题时，不同的人带来了不同的信息，主张和观点。我们讲到学科背景多元化时，这一点尤为明显——不妨回头想想刚才提过的跨学科团队造车的情形。同样的逻辑也适用于社会多元化。种族，性别和其它方面各不相同的人们会为手头的工作带来独到的信息和经验。男性工程师和女性工程师从工程师和机械专家的角度，可能对同一事物持有不同的观点——这是件好事。
Research on large, innovative organizations has shown repeatedly that this is the case. For example, business professors Cristian Deszö of the University of Maryland and David Ross of Columbia University studied the effect of gender diversity on the top firms in Standard & Poor's Composite 1500 list, a group designed to reflect the overall U.S. 对大型创新机构的研究，再次表明情况的确如此。举这样一个例子，马里兰大学的克里斯蒂安·德热与哥伦比亚大学的大卫·罗丝两位商业教授研究了在标准&普尔（一家为反映全美股票市场情况的公司）指数综合排名前1500名中的顶级公司中，性别差异的影响。首先，他们查看了从1992年至2006年工资顶尖管理团队的规模及性别组成。equity market. First, they examined the size and gender composition of firms' top management teams from 1992 through 2006. Then they looked at the financial performance of the firms. In their words, they found that, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” They also measured the firms' “innovation intensity” through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks.
Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits. In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation. For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance.
之后，他们又查看了公司的财政状况。他们发现，一般情况下，用他们自己的话来说“公司高管团队中有女性代表，会令公司的价值提升420亿美元。”同样，他们根据调查比率及资产的扩展费用对公司的创新强度进行了评估，发现看重创新且顶尖领导团队中有女性的公司，财务收益更多。
种族多元化有着类似的益处。在一项2003年实施的研究中，达拉斯德克萨斯大学管理学教授奥兰多·理查德及其同事调查了美国177家国家银行的高管，并汇总出一个数据库。这个数据库对比了银行的财政业绩，种族多元化及行长对创新的关注程度。在那些注重创新的银行中，财政业绩的增长明显与种族多元化的增加息息相关。
Evidence for the benefits of diversity can be found well beyond the U.S. In August 2012 a team of researchers at the Credit Suisse Research Institute issued a report in which they examined 2,360 companies globally from 2005 to 2011, looking for a relationship between gender diversity on corporate 美国之外，多元化的益处同样随处可见。2012年8月，来自瑞士信贷研究所的一组研究人员发布了一项报告，报告中从2005年至2011年，他们对全球2360家公司进行了研究，探究公司管理董事会中性别多元化与公司财政表现的关系。果然，研究人员发现，那些董事会中有一名甚至多名女性的公司，能management boards and financial performance. Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity) and better average growth.
How Diversity Provokes Thought
Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: they only show that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: for groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps.
In 2006 Margaret Neale of Stanford University, Gregory Northcraft of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I set out to examine the impact of racial diversity on small decision-making groups in an experiment where sharing information was a requirement for success. Our subjects were undergraduate students taking business courses at the University of Illinois. We put together three-person groups—some consisting of all white members, others with two whites and one nonwhite member—and had them perform a murder mystery exercise. We
实现更高的平均股本回报，举债经营的风险更低（既债务股本比），平均增长表现更好。
多元化怎样开拓思维
大量基于数据组的研究，存在一个明显的局限：它们仅仅表明多元化与一些更佳的表现有关，并不能说明它是造成更佳表现的原因。以小组为单位的种族多元化研究则可以令我们得出一些因果关系的结论。同样，探究结果很明确：那些重视创新和新理念的小组，多元化在其中起了作用。
2006年，我和斯坦福大学的玛格丽特·尼尔，伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳香槟分校的格雷戈里·诺斯克拉夫特共同设立了一项研究，旨在探索实验中，种族多元化对小型决策群体有何影响。对于这项实验，信息共享的成败决定了实验的成败。我们的实验主体是伊利诺伊大学进行商务课程学习的本科生。我们让他们三人一组（一些小组，组内成员都是白种人；另一些小组，成员为两个白种人和一个非白人种族）进行探索谋杀之谜的练习。我们确保所有组员共享同样一组信息，又单独给每个小组成员提供了一些仅他们自己知道的重要线索。为了找到凶手，小组成员们必须在讨论中
made sure that all group members shared a common set of information, but we also gave each member important clues that only he or she knew. To find out who committed the murder, the group members would have to share all the information they collectively possessed during discussion. The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the 共享他们获取的信息。存在种族多元化的小组明显要比全白人小组表现地更好。由于彼此相似，我们潜意识里会认为所掌握的信息相同，所持观点也相同。正是这样的观念，使得全白人小组无法高效地对信息进行处理，从而阻碍了创造力和新想法的发展。
groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation.
Other researchers have found similar results. In 2004 Anthony Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from
其他研究人员也得到了相似的结论。2004年，斯坦福大学教育学院的教授安东尼·安东尼奥和来自加利福尼亚大学，洛杉矶及其它研究机构的五位同事共同探究了在小组讨论中，种族多元化对最终意见组成的影响。来自三所大学的超过350名学生参加了此项研究。研究要求小组成员就普遍的社会问题（关于雇佣童工或死刑）进行15分钟的讨论。研究人员将不同意见记录下来并让小组中的白人和黑人成员分别将这些不同意见传递回小组。当黑人成员将不同意见传递回白人小组时，组内成员会觉得这样的观点更加新奇，引起更加广阔的思考及对可替代方法的思考。然而白人组员将同样的意见传递回白人小组时，效果并没有如此明显。我们可以从这个实验中得出这样的结论：从不同于自己的人那里听到不同意见，会比从同我们相似的人那里听到不同意见，更容易开拓思维。
someone who looks like us.
文章点评：
该篇文章属于说明题材的文章，译者对文章的把握很好，用增译，意译法使原文想表达的意思清晰易懂，使语意衔接更加流畅。如，
“The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. ” “首先，我们要承认，多元化这个问题很深奥。”
译者增译了句子的主语，更加符合汉语式的表达，使句子表达完整通顺，将“difficult”一词意译为“很深奥”更传神地表现了句子所传达的意思。
“In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict.”
“在美国，这个对各种观点包容性相对较高的国家，提到“多元化”，人们也会感到焦虑不安，矛盾重重。”
译者将“the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced”译为“对各种观点包容性相对较高”，译得很好，“包容性”一词与之后提到的多元化相呼应，
“you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts.”
“想要研发一款新型汽车，工程师，设计师和质量控制专家缺一不可。” “缺一不可”这四个字用得非常好，使句子更加通俗易懂。
“Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking:…”
“听取不同的意见会改变你的思维方式。这可不是一厢情愿的空想：……” 将“This is not just wishful thinking”译为“这可不是一厢情愿的空想”很贴切，又带有一种趣味性。
“In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation.”句中 将“then put together a database comparing…” 直接译为“这个数据库对比了……”简洁明了
“Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity…”
“果然，研究人员发现，那些董事会中有一名甚至多名女性的公司，能实现更高的平均股本回报……”
译者这里“果然”二字用的非常好，很符合语境。
整体来说译者对该篇文章的翻译较好，既补充了句子的完整性，增添了趣味性，又使语义衔接很连贯。
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