2020年经济学人 巴托比职场专栏--2020年适用经理人的八项计划(3)

7. Keep meetings short. Ideally, a meeting should be the length of a sitcom¹ episode not a film by Martin Scorsese. Bartleby’s law is that 80% of the time of 80% of the people at meetings is wasted. If you doubt the numbers, have a think about the last big meeting you attended. Did everyone speak or was the discussion dominated by a small subset? How many people were gazing at their phones? A lot of people attend meetings out of a sense of duty or fomo (fear of missing out). And what is the purpose of the meeting? If it is just to update people on progress, that can be done in an email or in a one-to-one conversation (which has the added benefit of allowing you to talk to your staff). Big meetings involving all the staff should be reserved for big news like acquisitions or lay-offs.

7.保持会议简短。理想情况下，会面的长度应该是情景喜剧的长度，而不是马丁·斯科塞斯的电影。根据巴托比定律，参加会议的80%的人80%的时间都浪费了。如果你对这些数字有疑问，想想你最近一次参加的大型会议。是每个人都发言了，还是只有一小部分人在讨论？有多少人在盯着自己的手机？许多人参加会议是出于一种责任感或害怕错过。会议的目的是什么？如果只是让人们了解进展情况，可以通过电子邮件或一对一的交谈来实现（允许你和你的员工交谈有额外益处）。涉及所有员工的大型会议应该留给重大事件，如收购或裁员。

8.Drop the team-building exercises. Paintballing in the woods, tackling an army assault-course, constructing a model of the Empire State Building from matchsticks—no one wants to do this stuff. They don’t want to go to an awayday weekend, either; they would much rather be at home with their families. Why not build a team by introducing its members and explaining what you want each of them to do? It is a lot cheaper. It also wastes a lot less of everybody’s valuable time.

8.丢掉团建活动吧！在树林里玩彩弹游戏、应对军队突袭、用火柴棍做一个帝国大厦的模型，没有人愿意做这些事情。他们也不想出去度周末；他们宁愿呆在家里和家人在一起。为什么不通过介绍其成员并解释您希望他们每个人做什么来建立一个团队呢？便宜多了。也大大减少了每个人宝贵时间的浪费。

Will following these eight rules lead to instant business success? Of course not. None of this will work if the company lacks an attractive product or a decent business plan. But these rules might just make your firm a more efficient and pleasant place to work. And that is a reasonable goal for 2020.

遵循这8条规则会让你的事业立竿见影吗？当然不会。如果公司缺乏有吸引力的产品或像样的商业计划，这一切都不会奏效。但这些规则可能会让你的公司成为一个更有效率、更愉快的工作场所。这是2020年的合理目标。

1 sitcom   

n.情景喜剧，（广播、电视的）系列幽默剧

参考例句：

• This sitcom is produced in cooperation with Hong Kong TV.这部连续剧是同香港电视台联合制作的。
• I heard that a new sitcom is coming out next season.我听说下一季会推出一个新的情境喜剧。