大多数工作中的冲突与性格无关
译者：moonlight650
原作者：Ben Dattner 发表时间：2014-05-28工作中的冲突到底是什么原因造成的？要想解决冲突该从哪里着手？
Conflict happens everywhere, including in the workplace. When it does, it’s tempting to blame it on personalities. But more often than not, the real underlying cause of workplace strife is the situation itself, rather than the people involved. So, why do we automatically blame our coworkers? Chalk it up to psychology and organizational politics, which cause us to oversimplify and to draw incorrect or incomplete conclusions.
冲突随处可见，工作场所也不例外。人们很容易把冲突的发生归咎为性格使然，但是，在工作中，冲突的根源常常是事情本身，而不是起冲突的人。所以，我们为什么要不假思索地怪同事呢？要怪就怪心理因素和公司政策吧，它们使得我们把问题简单化了，从而得出了错误或不完整的结论。
There’s a good reason why we’re inclined to jump to conclusions based on limited information. Most of us are, by nature, “cognitive misers,” a term coined by social psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor to describe how people have a tendency to preserve cognitive resources and allocate them only to high-priority matters. And the limited supply of cognitive resources we all have is spread ever-thinner as demands on our time and attention increase.
对情况没有足够了解就急于下结论这种现象很好解释。我们大多数人天生就是社会心理学家Susan Fiske 和Shelley Taylor描述的“认知吝啬鬼”，对自己的认知资源很是吝啬，只肯花在重要的事情上。碰到费时费神的事情时，就更不肯付出自己有限的认知资源了。
As human beings evolved, our survival depended on being able to quickly identify and differentiate friend from foe, which meant making rapid judgments about the character
and intentions of other people or tribes. Focusing on people rather than situations is faster and simpler, and focusing on a few attributes of people, rather than on their complicated entirety, is an additional temptation.
在人类进化过程中，我们的生存依赖于迅速辨认区分敌友。这意味着必须快速对其他人或部落的性格、意图做出判断。观察人比观察局势更快更简单，而观察人的部分特性比观察其复杂的全部特性更具诱惑力。
Stereotypes are shortcuts that preserve cognitive resources and enable faster interpretations, albeit ones that may be inaccurate, unfair, and harmful. While few people would feel comfortable openly describing one another based on racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes, most people have no reserv ations about explaining others’ behavior with a personality typology like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (“She’s such an ‘INTJ’”), Enneagram, or Color Code (“He’s such an 8: Challenger”).
利用成见是节省认知资源，快速得出结论的一条捷径，尽管所得出的结论可能不准确、不公平或有危害。尽管没有几个人能带着种族、民族或性别成见怡然自得地公开议论彼此，但是，大部分人却能毫无保留地用各种性格类别去解释别人的行为，如梅尔斯-布里格斯性格类型测量表（“她太有点‘ＩＮＴＪ’性格了”）、九型性格测试表或颜色性格测试表（“他太有点８号色了：挑战型性格”）。
Personality or style typologies like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, the DISC Assessment, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and others have been criticized by academic psychologists for their unproven or debatable reliability and validity. Yet, according to the Association of Test Publishers, the Society for Human Resources, and the publisher of the Myers-Briggs, these assessments are still administered millions of times per year for personnel selection, executive coaching, team building and conflict resolution. As Annie Murphy Paul argues in her insightful book, The Cult Of Personality Testing, these
horoscope-like personality classifications at best capture only a small amount of variance in behavior, and in combination only explain tangential aspects of adversarial dynamics in the workplace. Yet, they’re frequently relied upon for the purposes of conflict resolution. An ENTP and an ISTJ might have a hard time working together. Then again, so might a Capricorn and a Sagittarius. So might any of us.
梅尔斯-布里格斯性格类型测量表、九型性格测试表、
DISC(Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness)性格评估表、赫尔曼大脑优势测评表、托马斯-吉尔曼冲突模式测评表以及其它各种性格或风格类型测评方法，都遭到了学术心理学家们的抨击，认为其信度和效度无法证实或存在争议。然而，根据测试出版商协会、人力资源协会、以及梅尔斯-布里格斯性格类型测量表出版商的说法，这些检测表每年的使用量仍然达到数百万，被用于人员选拔、高管培训、团队建设以及冲突解决。就像安妮.墨菲.保罗在她那本有着出色见解的《狂热的性格测试》一书中所讲的，类似星座式的性格分类最多只扑捉到了少量的行为差异，相互结合也只能解释引起工作冲突的动态因素的皮
毛，但却经常被用来作为解决冲突的法宝。（按照那些测试的结果），发明家型性格的人可能很难跟按部就班型性格的人合作，但也可以说，可能是摩羯座跟射手座的合不来。如此以来，任何一个人都可能被说成无法合作的对象。
The real reasons for conflict are a lot harder to raise — and resolve — because they are likely to be complex, nuanced, and politically sensitive. For example, people’s interests may truly be opposed; roles and levels of authority may not be correctly defined or delineated; there may be real incentives to compete rather than to collaborate; and there may be little to no accountability or transparency about what people do or say.
冲突发生的真正原因很难说出，很难分解，因为真正的原因往往比较复杂、微妙，在政策方面比较敏感。例如，大家的确有利益上的冲突；个人的角色及权限定义不清，描述不明；激励机制可能偏重的是相互竞争而不是相互合作；对员工的言行既不问责，也不透明。
When two coworkers create a safe and imaginary set of explanations for their conflict (“My coworker is a micromanager,” or “My coworker doesn’t care whether errors are corrected”), neither of them has to challenge or incur the wrath of others in the organization. It’s much easier for them to imagine that they’ll work better together if they simply understand each other’s personality (or personality type) than it is to realize that they would have to come together to, for example, request that their boss stop pitting them against one another, or to request that HR match rhetoric about collaboration with real incentives to work together. Or, perhaps the conflict is due to someone on the team simply not doing his or her job, in which case talking about personality as being the cause of conflict is a dangerous distraction from the real issue. Personality typologies may even provide rationalizations, for example, if someone says “I am a spontaneous type and that’s why I have a tough time with deadlines.” Spontaneous or not, they still have to do their work well and on time if they want to minimize conflict with their colleagues or customers.
如果两个员工就他们之间的冲突编出一套安全的说辞（“我的同事太注重细节“或者”我的同事对纠小错不上心“），那么,他们谁也不必冒险让团队里其他人不高兴。他们更容易相信，只要了解对方的性格（或性格类型），两人就能更好的合作；却很难意识到，其实两个人必须携手做点什么，如一块儿去要求领导不要做出让他们必须相互对立的安排，或者要求HR不要光嘴上说得好听，要真的奖励员工之间的相互合作。或许，冲突的发生确实是因为团队中有人没有完成自身的工作，那么，把冲突归咎为性格问题就是一种危险的做法，偏离了追踪问题真正的根源。性格类型甚至可能会成为貌似合理的借口。例如，有人可能会说，”我的性格就是比较随意，因此很难对付有时间限制的工作。” 可是，不管是不是随意型性格，想要与同事或顾客之间尽量少起冲突，就必须按时很好地完成自身的任务。
Focusing too much on either hypothetical or irrelevant causes of conflict may be easy and fun in the short term, but it creates the risk over the long term that the underlying causes of conflict will never be addressed or fixed.
花心思为冲突找说辞、找不相干的原因，从短期看轻松有趣，但从长期看，却可能导致一直不去寻找问题真正的根源或解决问题。
So what’s the right approach to resolving conflicts at work?
那么，解决工作中冲突的正确方法是什么？
First, look at the situational dynamics that are causing or worsening conflict, which are likely to be complex and multifaceted. Consider how conflict resolution might necessitate the involvement, support, and commitment of other individuals or teams in the organization. For example, if roles are poorly defined, a boss might need to clarify who is responsible for what. If incentives reward individual rather than team performance, Human Resources can be called in to help better align incentives with organizational
goals.
首先，找到引起矛盾或者使矛盾恶化的动态因素。这些因素往往复杂且具有多面性。看看解决冲突是否必需有公司其他人或团队的参与、支持和承诺。例如，如果存在角色不明，那么老板可能就需要来明确一下谁到底该负责什么工作。如果奖励机制倾向的是个人表现而不是团队合作，那么，人力资源部门就该出面，让公司的奖励机制和公司目标更加的匹配。
Then, think about how both parties might have to take risks to change the status quo: systems, roles, processes, incentives or levels of authority. To do this, ask and discuss the question: “If it weren’t the two of us in these roles, what conflict might be expected of any two people in these roles?” For example, if I’m a trader and you’re in risk management, there is a fundamental difference in our perspectives and priorities. Let’s talk about how to optimize the competing goals of profits versus safety, and risk versus return, instead of first talking about your
conservative, data-driven approach to decision making and contrasting it to my more risk-seeking intuitive style.
接下来就该考虑改变现状双方承担的风险：体制，角色，过程，奖励或管理权限。要做到这一点，需要提出并商讨的问题是:"如果担当这个角色的不是我们两个，而是随便两个人，会出现什么矛盾？”例如，我是操盘手，你负责的是风险管理，那么，我们之间看问题的角度和优先考虑的东西就有着根本的不同。我们应该探讨的是如何最大程度地优化几组冲突的指标，如利润和安全性，风险与回报，而不是把你保守的用数字说话的决策手段跟我的更加冒险的直觉式工作方法做
比较。
Finally, if you or others feel you must use personality testing as part of conflict resolution, consider using
non-categorical, well-validated personality assessments such as the Hogan Personality Inventory or the IPIP-NEO Assessment of t he “Big Five” Personality dimensions (which can be taken for free here). These tests, which have ample peer-reviewed, psychometric evidence to
support their reliability and validity, better explain variance in behavior than do categorical assessments like the Myers-Briggs, and therefore can better explain why conflicts may have unfolded the way they have. And unlike the Myers-Briggs which provides an “I’m OK, you’re
OK”-type report, the Hogan Personality Inventory and the NEO are likely to identify some hard-hitting development themes for almost anyone brave enough to take them, for example telling you that you are set in your ways, likely to anger easily, and take criticism too personally. While often hard to take, this is precisely the kind of feedback that can help build self-awareness and mutual awareness among two or more people engaged in a conflict.
最后，如果你或者其他人觉得必须让性格测试参与冲突解决环节，那么，就考虑用那些非分类性的、经过反复验证的性格评估方法，如霍根性格调查表或者IPIP-NEO‘五大’人格维度量表（在此处免费获取）。这些测试方法的信度与效度有大量的同行评议以及心理测量证据佐证，较之梅尔斯-布里格斯式的分类评估，它们能更好地解释行为上的差异，从而更好地解释冲突的表现形式。与梅尔斯-布里格斯性格类型测量
表所提供的‘你好我好大家好’式报告不同，霍根性格调查表和NEO人格维度量表往往会在勇敢接受测试的人身上发现一些让人颇受打击的发展症状，例如，告诉你你的某些行为是身不由己的，比如易怒或者认定别人的批评就是针对你个人的。尽管这些检测结果让人难以接受，但是却恰好可以帮助冲突中的双方或多方提高自我认识以及加强相互了解。
As a colleague of mine likes to say, “treatment without diagn osis is malpractice.” Treatment with superficial or inaccurate diagnostic categories can be just as bad. To solve conflict, you need to find, diagnose and address the real causes and effects — not imaginary ones.
就像我一位同事喜欢说的：“不经诊断的治疗等于草菅人命。”而根据肤浅或不准确的类型式诊断进行治疗同样可恶。要想解决冲突，需要寻找、诊断并查清事情真正的因果----而不是主观臆想出来的那些。