创造你的运气

Iam a great believer in luck, wrote Thomas Jefferson, “and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.

托马斯·杰斐逊(Thomas Jefferson)曾写道：“我非常相信运气，而且我发现，我越是勤奋，运气就会越好。

Most business leaders will tell you that hard work and skill, rather than chance, are the keys to success. Luck does exist but it is something that must be mastered and controlled. “For the most part, I think you create your own luck in business, says John Cridland, director-general of the CBI, the UK employers’ federation.

大多数企业领导人都会告诉你，勤奋和技能是成功的关键，而不是运气。运气确实存在，但运气这东西要靠自己把握和控制。英国工业联合会(CBI)总干事约翰·克里德兰(John Cridland)说：“大多数情况下，商业上的运气都要靠自己去创造。

In his book On Leadership, Allan Leighton, former Royal Mail chairman and chief executive of Asda, focuses on characteristics such as skill, determination, intuition and hard work as essential to success – with luck playing only a minor role. He quotes electronics retail entrepreneur Julian Richer as saying that “luck is taking advantage of opportunities.

曾担任英国皇家邮政(Royal Mail)董事长和阿斯达公司(Asda)首席执行官的阿兰·雷顿(Allan Leighton)在其《论领导力》(On Leadership)一书中集中讲述了技能、决心、直觉、勤奋等成功的基本因素，而运气只起着很小的作用。他引用电子零售企业家朱利安·理查尔(Julian Richer)的话说：“运气就是把握机遇。

All this fits in well with our standard view of entrepreneurs and business leaders. They are at the centre of what happens. If they take purposeful action, and if they have the right skills and drive and the right team around them, success will follow. This concept can be traced back to the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, who dismissed the role of luck in success. He argued that success is dependent on the morality and willpower of the agent, and that neither of these is affected by luck. We are in control; we make our own luck.

这与我们对企业家和企业领导人的标准看法是非常吻合的。他们是核心。如果他们采取目的明确的行动，并拥有合适的技能和动力，身边还有一支给力的团队，那么成功就是水到渠成的事。这一理念可以追溯到启蒙时代的哲学家伊曼努尔·康德(Immanuel Kant)。康德认为成功靠的不是运气。在他看来，成功取决于道德和意志力，而这两者都不受运气的影响。我们是主导，运气是我们自己创造出来的。

Others question whether this is true. Long before Kant, Aristotle pointed out that our ability to do certain things depends in part on background factors, such as family life and education, over which we have no control.

其他人对此表示怀疑。早在康德之前，亚里士多德(Aristotle)就指出，人们做事情的能力在一定程度上取决于家庭和教育这些我们无法控制的背景因素。

Jonathan Gosling of the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter argues that this is still true. He notes how many successful entrepreneurs come from family backgrounds affected by tragedy. “Losing a parent at a young age is hardly good luck, but many entrepreneurs say their later business success is due to the self-reliance they learnt as a result, he says.

埃克塞特大学(University of Exeter)领导力研究中心的乔纳森·戈斯林(Jonathan Gosling)认为，如今这种看法依然正确。他还指出，很多成功的企业家都来自于遭遇不幸的家庭。他说：“小的时候失去父亲或者母亲确实很悲惨，但很多企业家都说，他们后来在商业上的成功都得益于因此而锻炼出来的自力更生能力。

“Luck plays a part in success of all kinds, says Prof Gosling. “Staying on top takes luck as well as skill. But we often mistake one for the other.

戈斯林教授说：“运气在形形色色的成功中起着一定作用。保持领先既需要运气也需要技能。但人们往往会将二者混淆。

The economist Daniel Kahneman has noted that we often describe people as skilful – and, in business, re-ward them accordingly – whereas they have in fact been merely fortunate. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Prof Kahneman argues that we need to get better at distinguishing expertise from luck, and to ack-nowledge the role the latter plays in business as well as in life.

经济学家丹尼尔·卡尼曼(Daniel Kahneman)指出，我们有时候赞赏获得商业成功的人很有技能，而实际上他们仅仅是运气好而已。在《思维，快慢有别》(Thinking, Fast and Slow)一书中，卡尼曼教授认为，我们需要更好地区分技能和运气，并承认后者在商业和生活中所起的作用。

Should we be challenging the notion that we make our own luck? Ed Smith, the former England cricketer who has written widely on the role of luck in sport, including his book Luck: What it Means and Why it Matters, believes so. “Since luck consists of that which is beyond our control, he says, “making your own luck is an oxymoron. If you are making it, it is not exactly “luck, it is something else. It might mean putting yourself in the way of serendipity, but that is not exactly luck.

我们是否应该挑战运气是我们自己创造的这一理念？英国前板球运动员埃德·史密斯(Ed Smith)认为答案是肯定的。史密斯经常在其文章中提到运气在体育中的作用，他在《运气》(Luck)一书中也写道：它（运气）到底是什么？为什么很重要？他说：“因为运气包含一些我们所无法控制的因素，因此创造运气就是一种矛盾的说法。如果能够创造出来的话，那就不是真正的运气了，而是别的东西。它可能意味着机缘凑巧，但这并不是真正意义上的运气。

R. Gopalakrishnan, executive director of Tata Sons, thinks part of the problem lies in the fact that we treat luck as a single phenomenon. He says there are, in fact, three kinds.

Tata Sons执行董事戈R·帕拉克里什南(R. Gopalakrishnan)认为，部分原因在于，我们将运气作为单一的现象来对待。他说，实际上运气可以分为三种。

First, there is what he calls “earned luck, which comes from preparation and flexibility – “all the good that comes from hard work and being alert. An athlete who puts in long hours of training and finally makes it to the final of a major sporting event is the recipient of earned luck.

第一就是他所说的“赢得的运气，来源于充分准备和随机应变——“所有源自勤奋和敏捷的好事。一个运动员经过长时间的训练，最终打入重大赛事的决赛，他就是这种运气的获得者。

Then comes “unearned luck – pure chance events that come out of the blue. The same athlete who wins the top prize when his main opponent is forced to withdraw because of injury is the recipient of unearned luck.

还有就是“不劳而获的运气，纯粹是从天而降的运气。同样一个运动员如果是因为主要对手因伤退赛而获得冠军，那就是“不劳而获的运气。

Finally, says Mr Gopalakrishnan, there is a third “hybrid category that consists of unexpected events that, thanks to our training and preparation, we are able to recognise, seize and take advantage of. It is here that there are striking examples of businesses that have seized on lucky chances and turned them into competitive advantage.

最后，戈帕拉克里什南说，还有第三种“混合类型的运气，由于我们的训练和准备，使得我们能够看到、抓注并利用好一些突发事件。比如说有些企业抓住机遇，并将其转变为竞争优势，这就是鲜明的例子。

Mr Cridland points to the development of Post-it notes (see panel) as an example of how serendipity can lead to great things. Mr Smith talks of the Ecofisk oilfield, discovered almost by accident after Phillips Petroleum had abandoned hope of finding oil and given orders to shut down the operation. Engineers on site went ahead with one last drill anyway – and struck oil.

克里德兰用便利贴的发展为例证明机缘凑巧是如何带来伟大事物的。史密斯谈到了埃科菲斯克(Ecofisk)油田, 它是菲利普斯石油公司( Phillips Petroleum)已经放弃找到石油的希望并下令关闭操作之后意外发现的。现场的工程师在最后一次钻探的时候，意外地发现了石油。

But do such game-changing discoveries come about because people are making their own luck, or is something more subtle happening? The 16th-century diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli argued in The Prince that luck, or fortuna, was impossible to control. However, fortuna sometimes offered opportunities to those who were clever and alert enough to spot them, and flexible enough to move quickly in response. This is not making your own luck; rather, it is spotting the chances offered by luck and moving to grasp them before they slip away.

那么这类扭转局势的发现是人们自己创造的运气，还是更微妙的事情在发生呢？16世纪外交家尼可罗·马基亚维利(Niccolò Machiavelli)在《君主论》(The Prince)中指出，运气是不可能被控制的。然而，有时候运气只为那些足够聪明和敏捷的人提供机遇，这些人非常灵活，能够快速做出相应行动。这并不是创造运气，而是发现运气提供的机会，并在机会溜走之前快速行动抓住它们。

In order to manage luck, Mr Smith warns against being too prescriptive in strategic thinking. His experience as a cricket captain taught him that too much planning could be harmful and it was better to trust his players to react to what they found on the field. The same is true in business: “If you are committed to over-prescriptive, over-predictive, over-schematised courses of action then you are unable to react to serendipity. Sometimes, loosening rather than tightening and clarifying is the best way to expose yourself to opportunities.

为了把握好运气，史密斯反对在战略思维上过于教条。曾担任板球队队长的经历让他明白，过多的规划可能会有害，最好是信任队员在场上的表现。商业上也是同样的道理：“如果过于教条，过度预测，行动过于按部就班，那么你就无法抓住意外的机遇。有时候，放下而不是执着才是获得机遇的最佳方式。

Mr Gopalakrishnan agrees. It is important to master luck as much as possible, he says, but earned luck and unearned luck have to be managed in different ways. “Earned luck has a road map, he says, “and there are certain methods you can follow. With unearned luck you are at sea, with only a compass to guide you. Here, all one need do is wait for a chance and then seize it with both hands.

戈帕拉克里什南认同这种说法。他说，尽可能地把握运气非常重要，但“赢得的运气和“不劳而获的运气应该以不同的方式把握。“赢得的运气有一个路线图，他说，“也有一定的方式可以遵循。但如果是不劳而获的运气，就有如在茫茫大海一样，指引你的只有指南针。你所要做的就是等待机遇，然后紧紧抓住它。

For Mr Gopalakrishnan, luck and skill are both important in this process. Mr Smith concurs: “Success comes when chance and skill interact, and create something quite new.

在戈帕拉克里什南看来，运气和技能在这个过程中都很重要。史密斯表示同意：“当机遇和技能进行互动，创造出新事物的时候，成功就来了。

But to manage luck in this way, it seems we need to recognise that we are all to some extent lucky. In tennis, most male professionals are now more than 6ft tall; anyone shorter than this is unlikely to make it. Yet we cannot choose how tall we are. Opera singers too are born with the potential to sing well, and those of us born with a singing voice like a frog in a rusty bucket have no hope of equalling them. Some with fine voices never realise their potential because they lack access to singing teachers and voice coaches. Again, success is down to the chance circumstances of birth and background.

但要想以这种方式把握运气，我们似乎有必要意识到，在某种程度上我们全都是幸运的。在网球运动中，现在大多数的男性职业运动员都高于6英尺，低于这个身高的都不太可能成功。然而，我们的身高是无法选择的。歌剧演唱家也是拥有唱歌的天赋，因而我们这些唱歌声音像青蛙在生锈的铁桶里叫的人是无法与他们一比高低的。有些嗓音很好的人从来没有意识到自己的天赋，是因为他们没有遇到声乐老师和教练。此外，成功也与出生和背景这些偶然因素有关。

“Looking back, says Prof Gosling, “luck is how we account for the extraordinary fact that we have survived thus far. Any other explanation – for example, based on good sense and cleverness – is plausible only in the narrowest of perspectives.

戈斯林(Gosling)教授说：“回过头来看，我们能活到现在是件很不寻常的事情，只能用运气来解释。而任何其他解释，比如基于良好的感觉和智慧，都只能说非常狭隘。

To succeed, it seems, we need to be two things: skilful, but also be lucky.

为了获得成功，我们似乎需要两个因素：拥有技能，但同时也要有运气。