I need to make a confession at the outset here. 开始前我必须先向你们告解
A little over 20 years ago I did something that I regret, something that I'm not particularly proud of, something that, in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but here I feel kind of obliged to reveal. 二十多年前我做了一件让我后悔莫及的事一件我丝毫不感到骄傲的事一件我希望没有任何人会知道的事但今日我认为我有必要揭发我自己
In the late 1980s, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, I went to law school. 80年代晚期因为年少轻狂我进入法律学院就读
Now, in America law is a professional degree: you get your university degree, then you go on to law school. 在美国法律学位是个专业学位你得先拿到学士才能进入法律学院
And when I got to law school, I didn't do very well. 当我进入法律学院时我的成绩不怎么好
To put it mildly, I didn't do very well. 客气地说我的成绩不怎么好
I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90 percent possible. 我的毕业成绩成就了在我之上那其他九成的同学
Thank you. 谢谢你们
I never practiced law a day in my life; 我这辈子从来没做过律师I pretty much wasn't allowed to. 基本上那样做可能还会犯法
But today, against my better judgment, against the advice of my own wife, I want to try dust off some of those legal skills -- what's left of those legal skills. 但今日我违背我的理性违背我太太的忠告我想重拾那些过去所学的诉讼技巧，所剩无几的诉讼技巧
I don't want to tell you a story. 我不想向你们说故事I want to make a case. 而是提出一个陈述
I want to make a hard-headed, evidence-based, dare I say lawyerly case, for rethinking how we run our businesses. 提出一个有根据货真价实的法庭陈述来重新思考我们的管理方法
So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, take a look
at this.
陪审团的女士先生们请看看这个This is called the candle problem. 这便是有名的蜡烛问题
Some of you might have seen this before. 你们之中有些人可能已经看过了
It's created in 1945 by a psychologist named Karl Duncker. 它是在1945年由心理学家Karl Duncker所创造的
Karl Dunker created this experiment that is used in a whole variety of experiments in behavioral science. Karl Duncker创造了这个实验在行为科学中被广泛运用
And here's how it works.Suppose I'm the
experimenter.
情况是假设我是实验者
I bring you into a room. I give you a candle, Some thumbtacks and some matches. 我带你进入一个房间给你一根蜡烛一些图钉和火柴
And I say to you, “your job is to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn't drip onto the table.”Now what would you do? 告诉你说现在尝试把蜡烛固定在墙上让烛泪不要滴到桌上你会怎么做
Now many people begin trying to thumbtack the candle
to the wall.
许多人尝试用图钉把蜡烛钉在墙上Doesn't work. 行不通
Somebody, some people -- and I saw somebody kind of make the motion over here -- some people have a great idea where they light the match, melt the side of the candle, try to adhere it to the wall. 有些人台下也有些人做出这样的动作有些人想到他们可以点燃火柴溶化蜡烛的底部尝试把它黏在墙上
It's an awesome idea. Doesn't work. 好主意但行不通
And eventually, after five or 10 minutes,most people figure out the solution, which you can see here. 差不多过了五到十分钟大部分的人便会想出解决办法就像图片上那样
The key is to overcome what's called functional
fixedness.
重点是克服功能固着
You look at that box and you see it only as a receptacle for the tacks. 当你看到盒子你不过把它当成装大头针的容器
But it can also have this other function, as a platform for the candle. The candle problem. 但它还有其它功能那就是作为蜡烛的平台
Now I want to tell you about an experiment using the candle problem, done by a scientist named Sam Glucksberg, who is now at Princeton University in the U.S. 现在我想告诉你另一个实验利用蜡烛问题由一个现在在普林斯顿大学叫做Sam Glucksberg 的科学家所做的实验
This shows the power of incentives. 这实验让我们看见动机的力量
Here's what he did. He gathered his participants. 他是这么做的他将参与者聚集在一个房间里
And he said,“I'm going to time you. How quickly you can solve this problem ?”告诉他们我要开始计时看看你们能多快解决这个问题
To one group he said, “I'm going to time you to establish norms, averages for how long it typically takes someone to solve this sort of problem.”他对其中一群人说我只是想取个平均值看一般人需要花多久的时间才能解决这样的问题
To the second group he offered rewards. 他提供奖励给另一群人
He said,“If you're in the top 25 percent of the fastest times, you get five dollars. If you're the fastest of everyone we're testing here today, you get 20 dollars.”他说如果你是前25%最快解决问题的人就能拿到五块钱如果你是今日所有人里解答最快的你就有20块钱
