TED演讲：活着的意义

Ricardo Semler是一位非常成功,又很激进企业家。

他这次在TED演讲中和大家分享他是如何以一种看似无序的方式管理自己的公司，他是如何看待人生，以及他又是如何推进一项新的教育改革的。

中英演讲稿：

00:11

On Mondays and Thursdays, I learn how to die. I call them my terminal days. My wife Fernanda doesn't like the term, but a lot of people in my family died of melanoma cancer and my parents and grandparents had it. And I kept thinking, one day I could be sitting in front of a doctor who looks at my exams and says, 'Ricardo, things don't look very good. You have six months or a year to live.'

每周一和周四， 我都要学习如何死去。 我把它们称作我的终结日。 我妻子费尔南达不喜欢这个词， 但是我的家族中很多人 都死于黑色素瘤癌， 我的父母和祖父母也都患有这种病。 我不由得想，总有一天我会去见医生， 他/她看着我的检验结果说， “里卡多，情况看起来不太好。 你的生命只剩下半年到一年的时间了。”

00:38

And you start thinking about what you would do with this time. And you say, 'I'm going to spend more time with the kids. I'm going to visit these places, I'm going to go up and down mountains and places and I'm going to do all the things I didn't do when I had the time.' But of course, we all know these are very bittersweet memories we're going to have. It's very difficult to do. You spend a good part of the time crying, probably. So I said, I'm going to do something else.

如果是你就会开始思考要如何 利用这余下的时间。 你通常会说， ”我得花更多的时间在孩子身上。 我要去这些地方， 我要翻山越岭，走南闯北， 我要完成之前一直没做成的事。“ 不过当然，我们都知道 这些都会成为苦乐参半的回忆。 这很难做到。 你可能会把大量的时间拿来痛哭一场。 于是我决定，要做点别的事。

01:04

Every Monday and Thursday, I'm going use my terminal days. And I will do, during those days,whatever it is I was going to do if I had received that piece of news. (Laughter)

每个周一和周四， 我会好好利用我的终结日。 如果我得到了这个(不幸的)消息， 我就会在那些天里去完成我想做的事。 (笑声)

01:17

When you think about -- (Applause) when you think about the opposite of work, we, many times,think it's leisure. And you say, ah, I need some leisure time, and so forth. But the fact is that, leisureis a very busy thing. You go play golf and tennis, and you meet people, and you're going forlunch, and you're late for the movies. It's a very crowded thing that we do. The opposite of workis idleness. But very few of us know what to do with idleness. When you look at the way that wedistribute our lives in general, you realize that in the periods in which we have a lot of money, wehave very little time. And then when we finally have time, we have neither the money nor thehealth.

当你想到—— (掌声) 当你想到工作的反义词， 我们在很多时候会想到”休闲“。 你会说，噢， 我需要一些闲暇时间，等等。 不过实际上，休闲是个非常累人的过程。 你要去玩高尔夫球和网球，约见朋友， 要去吃午饭，赶着去看电影。 我们要做的事多得让人应接不暇。 其实工作的反义词是”无所事事“。 不过很少有人知道要怎么 才能做到无所事事。 你可以大致看一下我们是 如何分配这一生的， 你会发现存在一些周期， 当我们有很多钱的时候， 我们没有什么时间。 当我们有时间的时候， 却没什么钱，身体也出了状况。

02:04

So we started thinking about that as a company for the last 30 years. This is a complicatedcompany with thousands of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of business that makesrocket fuel propellent systems, runs 4,000 ATMs in Brazil, does income tax preparation for dozensof thousands. So this is not a simple business.

于是在过去的三十年中， 我们一直在以运营公司的方式思考这个问题。 这是个结构复杂的公司， 拥有几千名雇员， 几亿美元的 火箭燃料推进系统的生意， 在巴西运营着4000台ATM机， 为几万人准备收入税材料。 所以这不是一个简单的生意。

02:28

We looked at it and we said, let's devolve to these people, let's give these people a company wherewe take away all the boarding school aspects of, this is when you arrive, this is how you dress, thisis how you go to meetings, this is what you say, this is what you don't say, and let's see what'sleft. So we started this about 30 years ago, and we started dealing with this very issue. And so wesaid, look, the retirement, the whole issue of how we distribute our graph of life. Instead of goingmountain climbing when you're 82, why don't you do it next week? And we'll do it like this, we'll sellyou back your Wednesdays for 10 percent of your salary. So now, if you were going to be aviolinist, which you probably weren't, you go and do this on Wednesday.

我们看着这一切说， 我们不如把业务下放给这些员工吧， 让他们自己运营一个公司， 我们把董事会所有那些 条条框框的部分去掉， 比如你要什么时间来， 你要如何打扮， 你要如何参加会议， 你要说些什么， 你不能说什么， 再看看接下来会如何。 我们30年前就开始这样做了， 开始着手处理这个事情。 于是我们说，看吧，退休， 这就是我们如何分配生命的问题。 与其等到82岁的时候再去登山， 你为什么不下周就动身呢? 我们一般会这样做， 我们会以你工资10%的价格 把你的周三返卖给你。 这样一来，如果你想要成为一个小提琴家， 但这个愿望还没有实现， 你就可以在周三去做。

03:12

And what we found -- we thought, these are the older people who are going to be really interestedin this program. And the average age of the first people who adhered were 29, of course. And sowe started looking, and we said, we have to do things in a different way. So we started sayingthings like, why do we want to know what time you came to work, what time you left, etc.? Can'twe exchange this for a contract for buying something from you, some kind of work? Why are webuilding these headquarters? Is it not an ego issue that we want to look solid and big andimportant? But we're dragging you two hours across town because of it?

我们发现—— 我们认为，真正对这个项目感兴趣的 都会是些资历更老的人。 当然，第一批参与这个项目的人的 平均年龄是29岁。 我们开始了观察， 我们决定，要以一种不同的方式来运作。 于是我们开始这样说， 为什么我们想要知道你什么时间去工作， 什么时间下班之类的信息? 我们难道不能以此为交换签署一个合同， 从你那里购买点什么，比如一些工作? 我们为什么要建立这么多总部? 这不是一个关于我们想要高瞻远瞩进行 自我提升的问题吗? 但我们是因为这个才让你们 花2个小时从城那头跑过来干活儿的吗?

03:48

So we started asking questions one by one. We'd say it like this: One: How do we find people?We'd go out and try and recruit people and we'd say, look, when you come to us, we're not goingto have two or three interviews and then you're going to be married to us for life. That's not howwe do the rest of our lives. So, come have your interviews. Anyone who's interested ininterviewing, you will show up. And then we'll see what happens out of the intuition that rises fromthat, instead of just filling out the little items of whether you're the right person. And then, comeback. Spend an afternoon, spend a whole day, talk to anybody you want. Make sure we are thebride you thought we were and not all the bullshit we put into our own ads. (Laughter)

于是我们开始一个接一个的提问。 我们会这样描述它： 一：我们怎样招聘? 我们会出去尝试招募人们，跟他们说， 看，当你来找我们， 我们并不是进行几次面试， 然后你就需要一辈子为我们效力。 这不是我们利用余下生命的方式。 那么，来参加面试吧。 任何对面试感兴趣的人，都会出现。 然后我们会看到从由此产生的 直觉之外能获得什么， 而不只是通过填写表格来判断 你是不是最佳人选。 然后再让你回来。 花一个下午，一整天， 跟任何你想找的人谈话。 确定我们是你想找的对象， 别被我们广告里的写的破玩意儿忽悠了。 (笑声)

04:33

Slowly we went to a process where we'd say things like, we don't want anyone to be a leader in thecompany if they haven't been interviewed and approved by their future subordinates. Every sixmonths, everyone gets evaluated, anonymously, as a leader. And this determines whether theyshould continue in that leadership position, which is many times situational, as you know. And so ifthey don't have 70, 80 percent of a grade, they don't stay, which is probably the reason why Ihaven't been CEO for more than 10 years. And over time, we started asking other questions.

慢慢的我们进入了一个过程， 我们会这样说， 我们不想让任何还没有被未来的下属 面试和肯定的人成为 公司的领导。 每半年，每个人都要以领导的身份 接受匿名评估。 这决定了他们是否应该 继续在领导层任职， 多数情况下都是场景面试， 这个你们应该了解。 如果他们得不到百分之七八十的肯定， 他们就得走人， 这可能就是我已经从CEO的位子上 下来了10多年的原因。 过了一段时间， 我们开始问其他的问题。

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