老板当上父亲未必会更好

Now that the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant, all sorts of people have been presuming to predict how parenthood will be for the royal couple. David Cameron has assured the nation that they will make wonderful parents. Noel Gallagher, grumpy pop star and father of three, has warned the future king that he should get back into the army at once as it will be a lot more peaceful than being at home with a baby.

如今，剑桥公爵夫人（Duchess of Cambridge，即英国凯特王妃）怀孕了。各色人等纷纷猜测，为人父母对这对王室夫妇将意味着什么。戴维·卡梅伦(David Cameron)向英国民众保证，他们将是出色的父母。而身为三个孩子的父亲、脾气暴躁的流行歌手诺埃尔·加拉格尔(Noel Gallagher)则警告未来的英国国王，他应该立即回到部队，因为那里将比有孩子的家里和平多了。

My bet is rather different. I suspect that Prince William will respond to fatherhood by feathering his nest at the taxpayers’ expense. Unlike the predictions made by Messrs Cameron and Gallagher – based on politeness and prejudice – mine is backed by solid research. In the current issue of Administrative Science Quarterly is a study showing that male bosses greet the birth of a child in a pretty elemental way: they give themselves a pay rise. And not only do they celebrate by paying themselves more, they pay everyone else less.

我的猜想则完全不同。我怀疑，威廉王子(Prince William)当上父亲后，会从纳税人身上拔毛，为自己的爱巢“添砖加瓦。卡梅伦和加拉格尔的预测是出于礼貌和偏见，我的预测则不一样——我的预测有可靠的研究做依据。最新一期《管理科学季刊》(Administrative Science Quarterly)上发表的一项研究显示，男性老板欢迎孩子降生的方式相当实在：给自己加薪。他们庆祝的方式不仅包括给自己加薪，还包括给其他所有人降薪。

The study (which I first read about in the Economist) was carried out on a large sample of Danish chief executives and found that following the birth of a child the boss’s pay went up by an average of 4.9 per cent. Meanwhile their underlings were paid about 1 per cent less than had the CEO remained childless.

这项研究（我最初是在《经济学人》(Economist)上读到的）对丹麦许多首席执行官进行了大规模抽样调查后发现，在孩子降生之后，老板的薪水平均会上涨4.9%。同时，这些首席执行官的下属薪水会比老板没有孩子时下降1%左右。

According to the researchers, this reflects the way men are driven to husband resources once they become fathers. But as these men were CEOs and already had more than enough resources to husband, I think it shows something darker – that having a child makes you selfish. Or rather that it radically changes priorities: family rises up the list, everything else – including work – drops down.

研究人员指出，这反映出，男性一旦成为父亲，就有了节约资源的动力。但由于这些人是首席执行官，手中已经有足够多的资源，不必节约，我认为这就揭示了更为阴暗的一面——有孩子让人变得更自私。或者说，有孩子极大地改变了轻重缓急的次序：家庭的优先度上升，其他一切事情（包括工作）的优先度下降。

The study is refreshing as few academics seem willing to investigate the possibility that parents aren’t necessarily an asset at work. Instead everyone is expected to swallow an untested hypothesis that says parents are better bosses because they are more approachable, more empathetic and better mentors.

这项研究令人耳目一新，因为似乎很少有学者愿意调查这种可能性：当上父母对工作而言未必是好事。相反，人们期望大家都接受这样一种未经证实的假设：已经为人父母的老板更好，因为他们更容易亲近，更有同情心，更能提供良好的指导。

Such a view does not tally with my own experience; neither does it sound plausible from first principles. For the experience of parenthood to make you more nurturing at work, the following two conditions would both have to apply. First, your parenting style would have to be nurturing to start with as opposed to, say, command and control, which is my default style at home. Second, you would have to fail to make any distinction between how you treat babies whom you are genetically predisposed to adore and how you treat random adults whom you may not even like.

这种观点与我的经验不符，从常理来看也不大可信。如果说为人父母能让你在工作中变得更“循循善诱，那就必须同时满足以下两个条件。首先，你养育孩子的风格必须一开始就是循循善诱的，而非说一不二的。而我在家的默认风格就是说一不二。其次，你必须对这两种人一视同仁，一种是你出于本能就容易喜爱的自己的孩子，另一种是你甚至可能谈不上喜欢的某个成年人。

As well as making managers more grasping, I can think of three other effects parenthood may have, none of them especially good. Again, there seem to be no studies to test any of them, which is a pity, especially if you consider the drearily obscure things that management academics spend their lives researching. First, being a parent probably makes people more risk-averse, more inclined to take the steady career path rather than the more interesting one. Second, it may also make us marginally less creative – the pram in the hall being the enemy of good art, and all that. Since Cyril Conolly raised the matter in the 1930s, I haven’t seen anyone put it to rest. Third, it makes you conflicted. You are endlessly divided over how to allocate time – and anxiety. This last effect could make you a better boss as work is also about conflict and managing time, and therefore parents have a head start. Or it could mean that you simply give your family priority and never have quite enough left over to do the job properly. I’ve seen both effects in operation; which is more common I would dearly like to know.

除了使经理人更加贪婪以外，我还能想到为人父母可能产生的另外三种效应，其中哪一种都不是很好。同样，似乎还没有研究对其中的任何一种进行验证，这令人遗憾，特别是考虑到管理学领域的学者穷经皓首研究的东西是多么沉闷晦涩。首先，当上父母让人更加厌恶风险，更愿意选择稳定的职业道路，而不是更有趣的职业道路。其次，为人父母会略微降低人的创造性——客厅里的婴儿车不利于创造出艺术佳作，也不利于一切创造性活动。西里尔·科诺利(Cyril Conolly)在上世纪30年代提出了这个问题，但据我所知，这个问题迄今为止还没有得到解决。第三，当上父母会让你面临冲突。你总在没完没了地纠结于如何分配时间——以及心思。最后这种效应会让你成为更好的老板，因为工作也是关于冲突和时间管理的，因此为人父母是个优势。但这也可能意味着，你干脆把家庭摆在第一位，再也没有多少时间和精力去好好工作。这两种情况我都见过。我很想知道哪种更为常见。

Either way, for the royal couple it doesn’t matter much. For them there is no conflict. If you are a hereditary monarch, having babies is the most important part of the job. Traditionally, monarchs have hoped for boys. Yet I have scientific reasons for hoping the child Kate is carrying is not a boy. The Danish study shows that bosses behave better when they have girls. They take a much lower rise for themselves (3 per cent as opposed to 6 per cent) and are inclined to be generous, especially to their female underlings.

不论是哪种情况，对这对英国王室夫妇而言，都没有多大关系。对他们来说，冲突是不存在的。如果你是一位世袭君主，生孩子才是最重要的工作。按照传统，君主希望要男孩。但我希望凯特怀的是女孩——丹麦的那项研究表明，如果老板生的是女儿，他们的行为对其他人而言会好得多。他们给自己加薪的幅度较小（涨幅是3%，而非6%），往往待人更加宽厚，尤其是对女性下属。

I have noticed this effect too, and it doesn’t stop when the children grow up. Indeed, I’ve known male managers who have never been keen on promoting women suddenly become bigger feminists than Simone de Beauvoir the minute their daughters join the workforce.

我也注意到了这一点，这种现象在他们的女儿长大以后也不会消失。真的，我就认识一些男性经理人，以前从不热心于提拔女部下，而自己的女儿一参加工作，他们马上摇身一变，成为了比西蒙娜·德·波伏瓦(Simone de Beauvoir)更坚定的女权主义者。