每天一篇经济学人 | How to read corporate cult...

Culture eats strategy for breakfast, runs the aphorism. It also projectile vomits employees who don’t fit in. In a survey conducted earlier this year by Flexjobs, an employment site, culture was the most common reason people gave for quitting. And it matters more than high wages. A study published last year by Jason Sockin of the University of Pennsylvania found that workers rated things like respectfulness, work-life balance and morale as more important to job satisfaction than pay. 

有句格言是这样说的：文化可以把战略当早餐吃掉。它还会让不适应的员工呕吐。招聘网站Flexjobs今年早些时候进行的一项调查显示，企业文化是人们辞职的最常见原因。而且企业文化比高薪资更重要。宾夕法尼亚大学的杰森·索金去年发表的一项研究发现，员工认为尊重他人、工作生活平衡和士气等因素对工作满意度的重要性高于薪酬。

The problem is that culture can be very hard to fathom from the outside. It resides in quotidian interactions between colleagues and in the hidden threads that bind decisions on everything from promotions to product development. You need to be inside an organisation to really understand it. But more sunlight is getting in. Firms are doing more to signal what they stand for. Jobseekers have new ways to peer inside firms. So do investors, who share their interest in evaluating corporate culture.

【1】fathom 弄懂

【2】quotidian 寻常的；司空见惯的

问题是，文化可能很难从外部理解。它存在于同事之间的日常互动中，也存在于从促销到产品开发等各种决策之间的隐藏线索中。你需要身处一个组织内部才能真正了解它。但是越来越多的阳光照射进来了。公司正在做更多的事情来表明他们的立场。求职者有了窥视公司内部的新方法。那些对对评估企业文化都感兴趣的投资者也是如此。

Offices are places where culture can be transmitted osmotically. Now that more workers are remote, firms increasingly write down their values. Qualtrics, a software firm, may not believe in grammar but it does believe in Transparent, All in, Customer obsessed, One team and Scrappy. Justworks, an hr technology firm, subscribes to Camaraderie, Openness, Grit, Integrity and Simplicity. Lists like these can turn blandness into an art form, and are overly determined by what will create an acronym. They may not reflect what actually happens inside the company. Plenty of firms are characterised by Cluelessness, Rancour, Amateurism, Skiving and Stupidity, but you won’t find that on the website. 

【1】osmotically 渗透地

【2】Camaraderie 同志情谊

【3】Grit 勇气；毅力

【4】Rancour 怨恨

【5】Cluelessness 无头绪；无知

【6】Amateurism 业余身份；不熟练

【7】Skive 逃避工作

办公室是文化渗透传播的地方。由于越来越多的员工远程办公，公司越来越多地降低他们的价值观。Qualtrics是一家软件公司，它可能不相信语法规则，但它相信透明、全部投入、客户至上、一个团队和好斗。人力资源技术公司Justworks信奉友爱、开放、坚毅、正直和简单》。像这样的列表会把平淡变成一种艺术形式，并且会过分地被创造的缩略词所决定。它们可能无法反映公司内部实际发生的情况。许多公司的特点是无知、怨恨、业余、逃避和愚蠢，但你在网站上找不到这些。

But companies that codify their values are at least thinking about them. And their choices can offer meaningful clues. Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, sets out its beliefs in ten “Tentaclemandments”. You need to see only that one word to know whether this is the workplace for you or whether you would rather be hurled into an active volcano. 

但是，编纂自己的价值观的公司至少在考虑这些价值观。他们的选择可以提供有意义的线索。加密货币交易所Kraken用10条“触手诫条”阐述了自己的信念。你只需要看到一个词，就能知道这是适合你的工作场所，还是你宁愿被扔进一座活火山。

Updates can also be instructive. In “ReCulturing”, a new book, Melissa Daimler lays out some of the changes that Dara Khosrowshahi made when he became ceo of Uber in 2017. The values of the previous regime, which included “Superpumped” and “Always be Hustlin’”, were overhauled for something a little less hormonal. The change from “Meritocracy and toe-stepping” to “We value ideas over hierarchy” told people something useful about the aspirations of the new leadership team. 

更新也有启发性。梅丽莎·戴姆勒(Melissa Daimler)在新书《文化重构》中列出了达拉·科斯罗萨西在2017年成为优步首席执行官后所做的一些改变。上一个管理体制的价值观，包括“超兴奋(保持打鸡血的状态)”和“永远忙碌(迅速行动，以最有创意的方式解决问题)”，都被全面修改为一些不那么荷尔蒙的东西。从“给别人制造麻烦让自己上位”到“我们重视思想胜过等级制度”的转变，让人们对新领导团队的抱负有了一些有用的了解。

Culture is increasingly readable in other ways, too. Since the pandemic, firms’ policies on remote working have given outsiders greater clarity on how employers view issues like work-life balance. Under increasing pressure from employees to take stances, companies are likelier to offer opinions on political and social issues. Others go the other way: Coinbase, another crypto firm, has made it clear that it won’t tolerate employee activism on subjects unrelated to its core mission. That’s information, too.

文化在其他方面的可读性也越来越强。疫情爆发以来，企业的远程工作政策让外界更清楚地了解了雇主如何看待工作与生活平衡等问题。在员工要求表明立场的压力越来越大的情况下，公司更有可能就政治和社会问题发表意见。其他人则反其道而行之: 另一家加密货币公司Coinbase则明确表示，不会容忍员工在与其核心使命无关的问题上采取激进行为。这也是信息。

Windows on cultural norms are being opened by regulators, who are pushing for greater disclosure about firms’ workforces. Candidates seem to value this kind of information: a working paper published earlier this year by Jung Ho Choi of Stanford Graduate School of Business and his co-authors found that clickthrough rates for job postings rose for firms with higher diversity scores. 

监管机构正在打开文化规范的窗口，他们正在推动更多地披露公司的劳动力。求职者似乎很看重这类信息:斯坦福大学商学院的Jung Ho Choi和他的共同作者在今年早些时候发表的一篇工作论文中发现，多元化得分越高的公司，招聘广告的点击率越高。

The behaviour of ceos used to be directly visible only to a limited number of people. Now bosses are everywhere, tweeting, posting and making stilted videos. In a recent survey by Brunswick Group, a pr firm, 82% of respondents said they would research the boss’s social-media accounts if they were considering joining a new firm. Even earnings calls offer insights. Academics at Columbia Business School and Harvard Business School have found that managers who invite colleagues to respond to analysts’ questions on these calls are more likely to work in firms that have more cohesive leadership teams. 

过去，只有少数人能直接看到首席执行官的行为。现在，老板们无处不在，他们在推特上发帖，制作做作的视频。公关公司宾士域集团最近的一项调查显示，82%的受访者表示，如果他们考虑加入一家新公司，他们会研究老板的社交媒体账户。就连电话会议也能提供深刻的见解。哥伦比亚商学院、和哈佛商学院的学者发现，邀请同事回答分析师关于这些电话会议的问题的管理者，更有可能就职于领导团队更具凝聚力的公司。

Employee-review sites like Glassdoor are another source of insight. These sites can be distorted by embittered ex-workers. But, says Kevin Oakes of the Institute for Corporate Productivity, a research outfit, they are also likely to contain “slivers of truth”. And all these slivers add up. There is no substitute for being at a firm day in, day out, if you want to understand what it is really like. But the outlines of corporate culture are more discernible than ever. That ought to lead to fewer cases of indigestion.

【1】embitter 使..怨恨；使..恶化

像Glassdoor这样的员工评论网站是另一个洞察的来源。这些网站可能会被心怀怨恨的前工人扭曲。但是，研究机构企业生产力研究所的凯文·奥克斯表示，它们也可能包含“一些真相”。所有这些真相碎片则说得通。如果你想了解一家公司的真实情况，没有什么能代替你日复一日地在那里工作。但企业文化的概要比以往任何时候都更加清晰。这应该能减少消化不良的情况发生。