【中英双语】兼顾敏捷行动与批判思维
无节制的紧急行动可能适得其反，而且代价高昂。如果你反应太快，最终可能会做出短视的决定或提出肤浅的解决方案，忽略了根本原因，并在这个过程中造成附带损害。
可是如果你过于谨慎，反应迟缓，就会措手不及，可能会错过机会，或者被新挑战耗尽精力。
为了平衡这两个极端，你需要慎思型的紧急行动——有意识地快速思考当前优先事项的能力——使最佳思维与最快速的行动过程协调起来。
How to Act Quickly Without Sacrificing Critical Thinking
An unbridled urgency can be counterproductive and costly. If you’re too quick to react, you can end up with short-sighted decisions or superficial solutions, neglecting underlying causes and create collateral damage in the process.
无节制的紧急行动可能适得其反，而且代价高昂。如果你反应太快，最终可能会做出短视的决定或提出肤浅的解决方案，忽略了根本原因，并在这个过程中造成附带损害。
But if you’re too deliberative and slow to respond, you can get caught flat-footed, potentially missing an opportunity or allowing an emergent challenge to consume you.
可是如果你过于谨慎，反应迟缓，就会措手不及，可能会错过机会，或者被新挑战耗尽精力。
To balance these two extremes, you need reflective urgency — the ability to bring conscious, rapid reflection to the priorities of the moment — to align your best thinking with the swiftest course of action. In my work, coaching leaders at every level through a variety of management dilemmas, I’ve developed three strategies to practice reflective urgency:
为了平衡这两个极端，你需要慎思型的紧急行动——有意识地快速思考当前优先事项的能力——使最佳思维与最快速的行动过程协调起来。在我指导各级领导解决各种管理困境的工作中，我制定了三种策略来践行慎思型紧急行动：
Diagnose your urgency trap
诊断你的紧急性陷阱
To get started, you need to identify what’s limiting your quality thinking time — the habitual, unconscious, and often counterproductive ways that you push harder to get ahead when you feel the pressure of too many demands.
首先，你必须确定是什么限制了你的高质量思考时间——习惯性的、无意识的、通常适得其反的方式。当你因要求过多而感觉到压力时，你会更加努力地推动这些方式。
Common urgency traps include: ending one meeting prematurely, only to rush to the next one with more unfinished business; multitasking during work that requires your complete presence and full attention, which only diminishes the quality and accuracy of your output; saying yes to projects that dilute your contribution and burn your energy, when selectively saying no is the wiser choice. Traps like these keep you stuck in triage mode. In this mindset, taking time out to reflect on your intentions and actions feels like a luxury you can’t afford.
常见的紧急性陷阱包括过早结束一次会议，却带着更多未完事项匆忙赶往下一场会议；在要求你全身心投入的工作中同时处理多项任务，这会降低你产出的质量和精准度；在应当适当拒绝时，却接下那些会削弱你贡献、消耗你精力的项目。类似陷阱会让你陷入分类取舍模式。在这种思维模式下，你很难抽出时间思考自己的意图和行动。
But if you’re able to spot your trap, then you can stop the self-defeating habits that keep you in a constant state of elevated urgency.
可是，如果你能发现陷阱，你就可以停止那些让你一直处于高度急切状态的弄巧成拙的习惯。
For example, Jenna was a new manager struggling to adjust to the dueling pressures of delivering her own work, while keeping the team accountable for theirs. Trying to get it all done without any drop in performance, her urgency trap was an involuntary shift to extreme command-and-control. In her words, “Everything felt like an urgent crisis, so I acted like it was.”
比如，詹娜是一位新任经理，她在努力适应这样的殊死压力：一边要完成自己的工作，一边又要让团队对他们自己的工作负责。为了在不降低业绩的情况下完成这一切，她的紧急性陷阱就是不自觉地向极端指挥控制转变。用她的话说，“一切就像一场近在眼前的危机，所以我表现得就像这就是一场危机一样。”
This mindset triggered knee-jerk reactions to overinvolve herself in delegated work and to communicate harshly by bottom-lining every email, one-on-one conversation, and team discussion. The result was that her team felt increasingly micromanaged and less engaged in their contributions. And because Jenna’s conversations were all rushed and impersonal, she failed to deepen relationships and establish trust within the team.
这种心态引发了下意识的反应，让她过度参与已授权他人的工作，并通过为每封电子邮件、一对一对话和团队讨论设置底线来进行严厉的沟通。结果是，她的团队感到越来越多地受到微管理，贡献的参与度也越来越低。由于詹娜的谈话都是仓促而冷漠，她未能在团队中深化关系并建立信任。
To stop leading with such an acute sense of urgency, Jenna made two changes. First, she got better at learning from her own experience. When demand spiked and she felt the instinct to control things as a means of staying ahead of the curve, she got out of her own way and followed through on previous delegation. Before sending an email to demand a progress update, she paused to review the timeline and task completion agreement already in place. This helped her avoid micromanaging the team, and it freed up time for her to focus on the big picture.
为了不再以如此强烈的紧迫感进行领导，詹娜做出了两个改变。首先，她更善于从自己的经历中学习。当需求激增时，她感到控制事物的本能是保持领先的一种手段，于是她一改之前的方式，坚持在执行前授权。在发送一封要求更新进度的邮件之前，她会停下来查看已经存在的时间表和任务完成协议。这帮助她避免了对团队进行微管理，并腾出时间让她专注于大局。
Second, Jenna implemented a new communication habit to shift her leadership presence from cold and excessively direct to engaging and supportive. Before each conversation or meeting, she quietly considered two questions: What impact do I want to have on my team right now? When I walk out of the room, what words do I want them to use to describe my influence? For Jenna, these two questions were straightforward enough to start applying immediately. The reflective act of pausing, to review delegation agreements and to consider her communication impact, was enough to jolt her out of the autopilot mode fueled by her urgency trap.
其次，詹娜养成了一种新的沟通习惯，让她的领导气质从冷峻和过于直接转变为风趣和支持。在每次谈话或会议之前，她都会静静地思考两个问题：我现在希望对团队产生什么影响？当我走出房间时，我希望他们用什么词来描述我的影响力？对詹娜来说，这两个问题简单得足以立即开始应用。暂停下来审视授权协议并考虑她的沟通影响，这样的慎思行为足以将她带出因紧急性陷阱而激发的惯性。
Once you diagnose your own urgency trap, you can bring the same thoughtful reflection to your critical moments to disrupt the pattern.
一旦诊断出自己的紧急性陷阱，你就可以在关键时刻进行同样谨慎的思考，从而打破这种模式。
If you’re unaware of what your trap is, answer the following prompt to explore it: “When the demands I face increase and my capacity is stretched thin, a counterproductive habit I have is….” Once you pinpoint the initial behavior, the unproductive thinking that holds it in place will be evident.
如果你不知道自己面对的陷阱是什么，那就请回答以下问题：“当我面临的需求增加而能力不足时，我拥有的一个适得其反的习惯是……”一旦你确定了最初的行为，禁锢它的无效思维就会一目了然。
Bring focus to the right priorities
要把重点放在正确的优先事项上
Another problem is the unconscious tendency to focus on less important work, because we enjoy it or we’re good at it, at the expense of our highest priorities. Chris Argyris, the influential MIT professor and organizational thinker, showed how routine behaviors like this can become accepted norms when we fail to recognize and challenge ourselves to address them.
另一个问题是有人会无意识地倾向于关注不太重要的工作——因为我们喜欢或者擅长——却以牺牲当务之急为代价。麻省理工学院富有影响力的教授和组织思想家克里斯·阿吉里斯（Chris Argyris）表明，当我们未能认识自我并挑战自我去解决这些问题时，这样的常规行为会成为公认的规范。
This was true for Marcus, a senior leader who developed a habit of obsessing over administrative tasks. The busier he got, the more he slipped into tactical mode, in order to get things checked off his to-do list as quickly as possible. It helped him feel productive, but failing to delegate these tasks meant he never had time to focus on longer-term, strategic issues.
马库斯也是如此，他是一位执著于管理任务的高级领导。他越忙碌，就越容易陷入战术模式，以便尽快核销待办清单中的事情。这让他觉得工作富有成效，但不将任务授权于人，意味着他永远没有时间集中关注长期战略问题。
To shift this pattern, Marcus applied a quick reality test during pivotal moments of transition throughout his day. The task was to fill in the blanks to complete this sentence: “I’m tempted to work on…, but I know I should focus on…”
为了改变这种模式，马库斯在关键过渡期进行了快速的现实测试。任务是填好这句话：“我禁不住想做……但我知道我应该专注于……”
On the surface, this question seems obvious. But for Marcus, it was precisely the simplicity and ease of application that helped him combine reflection with quick action. The thoughtfulness embedded in the statement triggered a deliberative choice, one dictated not by the urgencies of the moment or easy tasks that felt gratifying to accomplish, but by his honest assessment of his highest priorities.
这个问题似乎非常简单。但对马库斯来说，这个问题的简单易行可以帮助他将深思与快速行动结合起来。这句话中的深思可以引导人做出慎重的选择，这种选择不是因为当时情况紧急，或轻松的任务完成起来令人愉悦，而是因为他诚实地评估了自己的最高优先事项。
Avoid extreme tilts
避免过度倾斜
In a perfect world, you would fluidly pivot from reflection to action, but that’s not the world you inhabit. You cannot reduce the demands you face, nor can you afford to attack them with the reckless abandon of unchecked urgency. But you can recognize that not every issue requires the same approach. Depending on the situation, you can consciously, and subtly, turn down or dial up the required elements of reflection and urgency.
在理想世界里，你会顺畅地将深思转为行动，但现实世界不是这个样子。你无法减少面临的要求，也不能在应对这些要求时，不计后果地放弃无节制的紧急心动。不过，你可以认识到，并非每个问题都需要相同的方法。根据情况的不同，你可以有意识地精细调减或调增深思和紧急行动所需的元素。
Haruto was the VP of sales for a technology company. In the midst of a major new product launch, he knew that he had to think very carefully about his team’s strategy, but the pressure of impossible deadlines was constant. As a result, Haruto vacillated between the extremes of thoughtful reflection and urgent action. On some issues he flexed toward too much deliberation, got lost in the details, and became bogged down with analysis paralysis. As a result, he appeared aloof and indifferent to others, and his response to emerging issues was slow and ineffective. But with other issues, he swung toward urgency. With a mindset of “react first, think later,” Haruto spent more time cleaning up his hasty decisions than he did making them.
春子是一家科技公司的销售副总裁。在一个重大的新产品发布过程中，他知道他必须仔细考虑团队的战略，但难以如期完成任务的压力始终存在。结果，春子在谨慎思考与紧急行动两个极端之间摇摆不定。在某些问题上，他过于深思熟虑，沉迷于细节，陷入分析的泥潭。结果，他显得冷淡，对他人漠不关心，对新出现的问题反应迟缓且无效。可是在其他问题上，他转向了紧急行动。由于心存“先反应，后思考”的心态，春子花在清理仓促决定上的时间，比花在做决定上的时间更多。
Haruto recognized that he needed to stop the pendulum swing and focus more on the subtle tilts toward greater urgency in some cases and a reflective stance in others. To do this, he used a 60/40 breakdown as a logic model to increase his situational agility. For each initiative, he assessed whether success relied more on urgent action or thoughtful reflection. If he determined that a 60% focus on action was required (e.g., for tactical, routine work), Haruto would shrink the time and attention devoted to the work in order to favor efficiency. But if deliberation mattered more and action was only valued at 40% (e.g., for relationship-defining moments, innovation-specific work, etc.), he expanded the time and deepened his focus to allow for dynamic thinking.
春子认识到，他需要停止钟摆式的摇摆，平衡两种情况。为此，他采用了六四开的逻辑形式，提高情境灵活性。对于每一种举措，他评估了成功是更依赖于紧急行动还是更依赖于深思熟虑。如果春子确定需要将60%的注意力集中在行动上（比如，策略性的日常工作），他会缩短工作时间和专注力以提高效率。可是，如果谨慎行事更重要，行动只占40%（比如，定义关系的时刻、涉及具体创新的工作等），他会扩充时间，深化注意力，以便动态思考。
In some cases this was as simple as adding 20 minutes to an agenda to avoid the temptation to rush and leave half-considered issues on the table. In other instances it was a matter of scheduling shorter meetings, or setting self-imposed timelines to not get lost in the weeds.
在某些情况下，这事很简单，只需在议程上加上20分钟，以避免受到诱惑匆忙行事，把考虑了一半的问题搁置在桌上。在其他情况下，这意味着安排较短的会议或设定自我规定的时间表，以免迷失。
As you evaluate your daily responsibilities, avoid the temptation to treat every initiative the same. Knowing that you need the best of both — and that a perfect 50/50 split is unrealistic — make the subtle tilts toward reflection and action as needed to get the balance right.
当你评估日常责任时，避免忍不住对每种举措都统一处理。如果你明白自己需要两者的最佳结合——而且完美的对半开是不现实的——那就请根据需要，稍稍向深思和行动倾斜，以获得适当的平衡。
Like Jenna, Marcus, and Haruto, you can take these steps, at any time and in any sequence, to increase your capacity for reflective urgency. When you combine these microreflections with a heightened sense of urgency, your decisiveness and speed to impact will not be at the mercy of the counterproductive habits and unconscious oversights that occur when you act without your best thinking.
像詹娜、马库斯和春子一样，你可以在任何时间、以任何顺序采取这些措施，以提高你采取慎思型紧急行动的能力。当你将这些微观思考与高度的紧迫感结合起来的时候，你的果决与影响速度将不会受制于适得其反的习惯和无意识的疏忽大意，而你在没有进行最佳思考的情况下就采取行动时，这些习惯和疏忽就会发生。
杰西·索斯特林是普华永道卓越领导力指导中心（Leadership Coaching Center of Excellence）的主任，著有《职位描述之外》（Beyond the Job Description）、《在工作中重塑沟通》（Re-Making Communication at Work）和《管理者的困境》（The Manager’s Dilemma）。
永年 | 译 孙燕 | 校 刘隽 | 编辑
