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“Children, we have a new member of class this term. Please say hello to Travis, who has joined us from Uber. Travis, welcome to Leadership 101. I’m sure you’ll be very happy here.”
“孩子们，这学期我们班来了一位新同学。大家跟特拉维斯打个招呼吧，他来自优步(Uber)。特拉维斯，欢迎来到‘领导力101’班。我相信你在这里会非常快乐的。”
Caught by a dashboard camera arguing with an Uber driver, Travis Kalanick, the founder and chief executive of the ride-hailing service, this week apologised and told staff: “This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”
在被一部车载摄像头拍到与一位优步司机吵架后，这家叫车公司的创始人兼首席资讯官特拉维斯?卡兰尼克(Travis Kalanick)上周致歉并告诉员工们：“这是我第一次愿意承认我需要领导力方面的帮助，我想得到这方面的帮助。”
He will have plenty of helpers to choose from. The leadership industry is vast. Harvard’s Barbara Kellerman estimated in 2012 that well over $50bn annually was spent on leadership development, from the smallest coaching corner shop to the biggest business school. An Amazon search returns nearly 200,000 books on the topic (including mine). Despite this, as Jeffrey Pfeffer pointed out in his uncompromising 2015 attack on the sector, Leadership BS, there is still “overwhelming evidence of workplaces filled with disengaged, dissatisfied employees who do not trust their leaders”.
他可以从众多的帮助者中选择。领导力行业规模巨大。2012年时哈佛大学(Harvard)的芭芭拉?凯勒曼(Barbara Kellerman)曾估计，每年人们花在领导力发展方面的费用远远超过500亿美元，从最小的街角培训中心到最大的商学院。在亚马逊(Amazon)上可以搜索到近20万本这个主题的图书（包括我写的）。尽管如此，正如杰弗瑞?菲佛(Jeffrey Pfeffer)2015年在他的著作《Leadership BS》中严厉抨击该行业时所说的那样，“有大量证据证明在办公场所充斥着没有归属感、心怀不满的员工，他们不信任领导者”。
So as well as giving Uber’s founder the chance to atone, “educating Travis” would also offer the engorged and often ineffectual leadership industry an opportunity to redeem itself. Take an aggressive 40-year-old executive, who continues to behave like the “scrappy, small entrepreneur” he says he once was, and turn him into a leader that even Uber’s most disgruntled drivers can be proud of.
因此，“教育特拉维斯”不仅会让优步创始人得到一个改过自新的机会，还会为这个臃肿且通常无效的领导力行业提供一个自我救赎的机会。招收一个咄咄逼人的40岁高管（他的行为举止仍像是那种“好斗的小企业家”，他说他自己曾经是那样的人），把他变成一个甚至连优步最愤愤不平的司机都引以为傲的领袖。
It is a task worthy of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, who sought to pass off foul-mouthed flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a duchess. But, like Higgins’s challenge, the quest is strewn with obstacles.
这项任务堪比电影《窈窕淑女》(My Fair Lady)中亨利?希金斯(Henry Higgins)教授所做的事情，他试图让言语粗俗的卖花姑娘伊丽莎?杜利特尔(Eliza Doolittle)冒充公爵夫人。但与希金斯的挑战一样，这项任务困难重重。
First, there is the intractable would-be student himself. As a role model for life-long learning, Mr Kalanick falls short. Despite repeated efforts to polish the founder’s rough edges, Uber controversies keep coming. Last month brought to light not only the awkward video, but a potentially far more damaging claim by a female former engineer that Uber’s human resources team had ignored her allegations of sexual harassment.
首先是这个顽固的未来学员自己。作为终身学习的典范，卡兰尼克还不合格。尽管优步曾多次努力打磨卡兰尼克的棱角，但有关优步的争议仍源源不断。上月曝光的不仅仅是那则令人尴尬的视频，还有来自一位前女工程师的指摘，其破坏力可能要大的多，她说，优步的人力资源部门对她提出的性骚扰指控置之不理。
Then there is the question of whether Mr Kalanick has already outgrown formal education. Most universities so worship entrepreneurs that they are more likely to be welcomed as guest lecturers or badgered for funding than admitted as students. Meanwhile, aspiring MBAs dream of out-disrupting Uber’s creators, not sitting alongside them in remedial leadership classes.
接下来就是卡兰尼克是否岁数太大不适合接受正规教育。多数大学对于企业家非常崇敬，企业家更有可能被邀请为演讲嘉宾或被缠着要赞助，而不是被录取为学生。与此同时，志向远大的MBA学员们梦想着瓦解优步的创造者们，而不是与他们坐在一起攻读补救性的领导力课程。
Finally, there is the question of whether teaching Uber’s leader how to lead would take the kick out of Mr Kalanick — the hard-charging attitude that helped him make his fortune in the first place — just as Higgins neutered Eliza’s winning charm.
最后，教授优步领导者如何领导是否会让卡兰尼克失去那股子劲头——当初正是那种拼搏精神让他发了财——正如希金斯让伊莉莎丧失了迷人魅力一样。
Still, something must be done. Uber’s problems have emerged from its dog-eat-dog culture, and culture — as many of those 200,000 leadership manuals will tell you — comes from the top. The Institute of Leadership & Management polled 1,200 UK workers recently: half agreed their leaders sometimes or frequently allowed their mood to dictate the climate of the workplace. The institute, incidentally, is one of many professional associations Mr Kalanick could join, rising to become a “Fellow”, with the right to put “FInstLM” after his name.
然而，还是必须做点什么。优步的问题源于其残酷竞争的文化，而文化来自顶层——在那些20万本传授领导力技巧的图书中，有许多书会告诉你这一点。领导力与管理学会(Institute of Leadership & Management)最近对1200名英国劳动者进行的调查显示，一半受访者表示他们的领导有时或经常任由自己的情绪支配办公场所的气氛。顺便说一下，该学会是卡兰尼克可以加入的许多专业团体之一，这样他可以成为一名“会士”(Fellow)，有资格在自己的名字后面加上“FInstLM”（即Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management的缩写——译者注）。
It seems more likely the Uber founder will seek one-on-one advice. I would counsel him against over-paying for his own management guru, however.
这位优步创始人似乎更可能寻求一对一的指导。然而，我将会建议他不要向自己的管理学大师支付过高费用。
Asked what Mr Kalanick should do, one business school professor suggests he should in future “stop, challenge and choose”: stop to think, challenge what he knows about the situation (and what he may not know — that dashboard camera) and choose the right response.
在被问及卡兰尼克应该怎么做时，一位商学院教授建议他未来应该“停下、质疑和选择”：停下来思考，质疑他所了解的情况（以及他可能不了解的情况——那个车载摄像头），然后选择正确的回应。
It is a fine, simple prescription, based on common sense — and that should be no surprise.
从常识来看，这是一个还不错的简单处方，人们不应对此感到意外。
For all the cash companies spend on training and the lifetimes academics devote to forging new theories, often the leadership industry peddles to leaders the advice and values most of us absorbed in nursery school.
尽管企业花了大量资金用于培训，学者们倾其一生探索新的理论，但领导力行业往往向领导者兜售我们大多数人在幼儿园就已接受过的建议和价值观。
For Mr Kalanick, in other words, it is probably already too late.
换言之，对卡兰尼克来说，学习领导力可能为时已晚。
“Children, just a reminder before we start the class: no fighting, ‘indoor voices’ only, and please wait until break-time before eating your humble pie. Travis?.?.?.?Travis! Don’t do that.”
“孩子们，在我们上课前先提醒一下：不要打闹，‘保持安静’，请等到休息时间再吃你的馅饼。特拉维斯……特拉维斯！别那么做了。”
