老板的迷恋综合症 The boss crush phenomenon random brutal and outrageous

X is an impressive, slightly scary CEO. You will have heard of him. Y is a smartish, youngish man who works for his company. You won’t have heard of him, unless you work there too — in which case the very sound of his name will have you grinding your teeth.

甲是一位令人印象深刻、不怒而威的首席执行官，你肯定听过他的大名。乙是个聪明的年轻人，效力于甲的公司。你应该没听说过乙，除非你也在这间公司就职，若果真如此，你一听到乙的名字，一定会恨得咬牙切齿。

When Y was hired about three years ago, X took to him at once, decided he was a man of extraordinary talent and in no time at all, Y was given a big department to run. Because Y has neither the experience nor the personality for the job, he is screwing it up.

乙大约是三年前被招进来的，甲当时一眼就相中了他。甲认为这个年轻人有着过人的才能，当即就让乙负责一个大部门。由于乙既缺乏经验，也不是那块料，他干得一塌糊涂。

Various senior colleagues have protested, but they have been silenced. The CEO cannot and will not see that his protégé is a dog. He is too smitten.

许多资深员工都提出过异议，但他们被禁止多说。这位首席执行官既不能、也不愿承认他的爱将是个窝囊废。他太看好乙了。

This story, which I’ve had to doctor a little to avoid getting myself into trouble, is a common one, yet it isn’t an issue that leadership experts ever talk about. Instead they obsess over unconscious bias — the latest fashionable way in which all managers take bad decisions about people — and pack executives off on training courses to try to conquer their subtle, buried prejudices. But no one seems to worry about what happens when a boss’s bias is neither subtle nor buried but outrageous, and there for everyone to see — apart from the boss himself, who is blind to his own bias and instead congratulates himself on his prescience in spotting someone extraordinary.

这类故事我们耳熟能详（为避免惹麻烦，我做了些许改动），但领导力专家们却从未谈论过这个问题，反而热衷于谈论“无意识偏见”——这是最近的新潮流，意思是所有经理都识人不准。他们还让高管们参加培训课程，让他们努力克服自己那些轻微的、隐蔽的偏见。但似乎没人担心这种情况会导致什么后果，即老板的偏见非但不轻微，反而可谓丧心病狂；非但不隐蔽，反而是人人皆知，只除了老板自己——他非但看不见自己的偏见，反而庆幸自己慧眼识英。

The syndrome, which is a major character flaw of some of the world’s finest managers, needs a name and so I’m calling it boss crush. It is when an executive falls for someone, loses all judgment, refuses to listen and ensures that disaster will follow.

这种综合征是一种性格缺陷，在全世界最优秀的一些经理人身上也很严重。如果要为这一症状起个名字的话，我打算称之为“老板迷恋症”(boss crush)。当一个高管迷上某个员工时，他会失去所有判断力，拒绝听取旁人意见，然后灾难肯定随之而来。

A version of this was played out recently between David Cameron and Camila Batmanghelidjh. The prime minister developed a crush on the mesmerising, rainbow-turbaned head of Kids Company; large quantities of cash were shovelled into her charity; civil servants asked questions, but nothing happened — until things went so spectacularly wrong the plug had to be pulled.

最近戴维愠蕓伦(David Cameron)与卡米拉巴特曼海利迪(Camila Batmanghelidjh)之间就上演了这么一出“老板迷恋症”。我们的英国首相迷上了这位魅力四射、包着五彩头巾的Kids Company负责人，为她的慈善机构提供了大量政府拨款。公务员们对此提出质疑，但一点儿都不管用，直到这家慈善机构问题严重到不可收拾的境地，政府才停止对其拨款。

I first became aware of the boss crush phenomenon more than 30 years ago, when I was the love object myself. I was singled out by a cantankerous manager who got it into his head that I was all-round wonderful. I was given a job which I had no idea how to do, yet despite my manifestly indifferent performance, I was repeatedly told I was doing brilliantly.

我第一次意识到老板迷恋现象是在三十多年前，当时那个被迷恋的对象就是我自己。一位坏脾气的经理独独认定了我，他满心觉得我是个全方位人才。他给了我一份工作，可我完全不知该怎么做，尽管我的表现明明很平庸，他却不断对我说我有多出色。

In some ways I found this nice as I’m a sucker for being told I’m a genius. What was less nice was the feeling of being over-promoted, and what was even less nice was how little my colleagues seemed to like me. I have no idea how it would have ended: the man in question got fired for assorted misdemeanours and shortly afterwards I quit myself.

在某些方面，我觉得这样挺好的，因为我喜欢有人说我是个天才。不过感觉自己被过度提拔了就没那么好了，更糟糕的是我的同事似乎很不喜欢我。我不知道这一切会如何结束：那个人后来因各种各样的不当行为被解雇了，不久之后我自己也辞职了。

Since then I’ve taken a keen interest in the boss crush phenomenon, and tried to draw some conclusions.

此后，我就对“老板迷恋症”产生了浓厚兴趣，试图得出一些结论。

First, it has little to do with sex, and everything to do with power. The objects of the crush of a powerful man are as often men as women. Second, it is as random as real love. Sometimes the older boss falls for someone who reminds him of himself — but sometimes the object of the love is quite different. Sometimes the loved one is brilliant. Other times they are a liability. Most often they are a mixture of both.

首先，这种现象和性别没有什么关系，却与权力有很大关系。位高权重的人迷恋的对象可能是男性，但也同样有可能是女性。第二，这种迷恋和真正的爱情一样具有随机性。有时年纪较大的老板会迷上某个“年轻版”的自己——但有时老板迷恋的对象和他本人截然不同。有时候，被迷恋的人才华卓著。另一些情况下，他们也可能是个扶不起来的窝囊废。通常，他们是两者的混合体。

In many cases the object has brought the crush upon themselves following a brilliant campaign of sucking up. (Anyone who doesn’t believe that sucking up works, should read a blog post written by Marshall Goldsmith about the love we feel for our dogs, who are the most successful suckers-up ever invented.)

在很多情况下，这种迷恋是员工依靠成功的奉承巴结自己获得的。（任何不相信拍马屁有效果的人，都应该读一读马歇尔戈德史密斯(Marshall Goldsmith)撰写的一篇博客文章，这篇文章讨论了我们对自家狗的爱，而狗是有史以来最成功的奉承者。）

But some crush objects have never invited such attention. I can think of one who I used to know, who was grumpy, taciturn and viewed all power with great suspicion — and yet was revered by his doting manager.

但一些被迷恋对象从未主动寻求关注。我能想到我过去认识的一个人，他脾气暴躁、沉默寡言，对一切权力都抱怀疑态度——然而他的经理很喜欢他，对他推崇备至。

Like real love, the boss crush is blind. Worse than that, once the boss has publicly singled out the love-object as worthy of promotion, his pride is on the line. The crush object simply has to be good; nothing else will do. All warning signs are ignored, the truth only outs when it is too late. Then the after-effects of the crush are brutal — the former loved one is treated to rage and disdain and usually in the end is fired.

像真正的爱一样，老板的迷恋也是盲目的。更糟糕的是，一旦老板公开对自己喜爱的对象另眼相待，声称其值得提拔，他就搭上了自己的自尊。他喜爱的对象必须优秀；否则就不行。一切预警信号都被无视，真相只有在为时已晚的时候才会暴露出来。之后，这种迷恋的后续影响十分残酷——此前被迷恋的人会领教暴怒和蔑视，通常最终还会被炒鱿鱼。

The most troubling thing about this phenomenon is that there isn’t an answer. You can’t ban executives from crushes any more than you can ban teenagers. All you can do is notice the sorts of people who are prone to them, and be warned.

这种现象最麻烦的地方是它无解。你无法禁止高管们陷入迷恋，就像你无法禁止早恋一样。你唯一能做的就是注意到有这种倾向的人，并保持警惕。

In the absence of any studies and based only on my own observation, I’d say those most prone to crushes are sublimely confident of their own judgment, are somewhat isolated and inclined to be strong and charismatic. Which turns out not to be very helpful at all — they are just the sort of people most likely to rise to the very top.

没有任何相关研究，仅仅是根据我自己的观察，我得说，那些对自己的判断极度自信、某种程度上有点孤僻、喜欢显得强势而有魅力的人，最容易陷入这种迷恋。这个结论似乎根本没多大帮助——这些人正是最有可能爬上最高位的人。