第1段

Innovation is key to business survival, and companies put substantial resources into inspiring employees to develop new ideas. There are, nevertheless, people working in luxurious, state-of-the-art centres designed to stimulate innovation who find that their environment doesn’t make them feel at all creative. And there are those who don’t have a budget, or much space, but who innovate successfully.

创新是企业生存的关键，公司会投入大量资源来激发员工提出新想法。然而，有些人在豪华的、设计用于激发创新的现代化中心工作，却发现环境并没有让他们感到创造力。还有一些人没有预算，或者场地有限，却能成功创新。

第2段

For Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, one reason that companies don’t succeed as often as they should is that Innovation starts with recruitment. Research shows that the fit between an employee’s values and a company’s values makes a difference to what contribution they make and whether, two years after they join, they’re still at the company. Studies at Harvard Business School show that, although some individuals may be more creative than others, almost every individual can be creative in the right circumstances.

心理学教授罗伯特·B·西尔迪尼（Robert B. Cialdini）认为，公司不如应该成功的一个原因是创新始于招聘。研究表明，员工价值观和公司价值观的匹配对他们的贡献以及是否在加入公司两年后仍然留在公司都有影响。哈佛商学院的研究表明，尽管某些个体可能比其他人更有创造力，但几乎每个人在适当的环境下都能有创造力。

第3段

One of the most famous photographs in the story of rock’n’roll emphasises Cialdini’s views. The 1956 picture of singers Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis jamming at a piano in Sun Studios in Memphis tells a hidden story. Sun’s ‘million-dollar quartet’ could have been a quintet. Missing from the picture is Roy Orbison, a greater natural singer than Lewis, Perkins or Cash. Sam Phillips, who owned Sun, wanted to revolutionise popular music with songs that fused black and white music, and country and blues. Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis instinctively understood Phillips’s ambition and believed in it. Orbison wasn’t inspired by the goal, and only ever achieved one hit with the Sun label.

在摇滚乐史上最著名的照片之一中，强调了西尔迪尼的观点。1956年在孟菲斯的太阳录音室拍摄的一张照片，显示了歌手埃尔维斯·普雷斯利（Elvis Presley）、卡尔·佩金斯（Carl Perkins）、约翰尼·卡什（Johnny Cash）和杰里·李·刘易斯（Jerry Lee Lewis）一起弹奏钢琴。这张照片背后有一个隐藏的故事。太阳录音室的“百万美元四重奏”本可以成为五重奏。照片中缺少的是罗伊·奥比森（Roy Orbison），他比刘易斯、佩金斯或卡什都更出色。孟菲斯录音室的老板萨姆·菲利普斯（Sam Phillips）希望通过融合黑人和白人音乐、乡村和布鲁斯音乐来革新流行音乐。普莱斯里、卡什、佩金斯和刘易斯本能地理解了菲利普斯的抱负并相信它。奥比森对这个目标没有激情，太阳唱片公司只帮他取得了一首热门歌曲。

第4段

The value fit matters, says Cialdini, because innovation is, in part, a process of change, and under that pressure we, as a species, behave differently, ‘When things change, we are hard-wired to play it safe.’ Managers should therefore adopt an approach that appears counterintuitive -— they should explain what stands to be lost if the company fails to seize a particular opportunity. Studies show that we invariably take more gambles when threatened with a loss than when offered a reward.

西尔迪尼表示，价值匹配很重要，因为创新在一定程度上是一种变革过程，在压力下我们这个物种的行为会有所不同，“当事物发生变化时，我们固有的本能是保持安全。”因此，管理者应该采取一种看似违直觉的方法——解释如果公司不抓住某个机会将面临什么损失。研究显示，当面临损失时，我们总是愿意承担更多的风险，而不是在获得奖励时。

第5段

Managing innovation is a delicate art. It’s easy for a company to be pulled in conflicting directions as the marketing, product development, and finance departments each get different feedback from different sets of people. And without a system which ensures collaborative exchanges within the company, it’s also easy for small ‘pockets of innovation’ to disappear. Innovation is a contact sport. You can’t brief people just by saying, ‘We’re going in this direction and I’m going to take you with me.’

管理创新是一门微妙的艺术。公司很容易在市场营销、产品开发和财务部门之间陷入互相矛盾的方向，因为各个部门从不同的人那里得到不同的反馈意见。如果公司没有确保内部合作交流的系统，小型的“创新圈子”也很容易消失。创新是一种亲力亲为的活动。你不能简单地告诉人们，“我们要朝这个方向前进，我会带领你们一起走。”

第6段

Cialdini believes that this ‘follow-the-leader syndrome, is dangerous, not least because it encourages bosses to go it alone. ‘It’s been scientifically proven that three people will be better than one at solving problems, even if that one person is the smartest person in the field.’ To prove his point, Cialdini cites an interview with molecular biologist James Watson. Watson, together with Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA, the genetic information carrier of all living organisms. ‘When asked how they had cracked the code ahead of an array of highly accomplished rival investigators, he said something that stunned me. He said he and Crick had succeeded because they were aware that they weren’t the most intelligent of the scientists pursuing the answer. The smartest scientist was called Rosalind Franklin who, Watson said, “was so intelligent she rarely sought advice”.’

西尔迪尼认为，“跟风效应”是危险的，尤其是因为它鼓励老板独自行动。“科学已经证明，三个人解决问题的效果要比一个最聪明的人更好。”为了证明他的观点，西尔迪尼引用了与分子生物学家詹姆斯·沃森的一次采访。沃森和弗朗西斯·克里克一起发现了DNA的结构，DNA是所有生物的遗传信息携带者。沃森在采访中说了一句令我吃惊的话，他说他和克里克成功是因为他们意识到他们并不是追求答案最聪明的科学家。最聪明的科学家是罗莎琳·弗兰克林，沃森说她“聪明到极少寻求建议”。

第7段

Teamwork taps into one of the basic drivers of human behaviour. ‘The principle of social proof is so pervasive that we don’t even recognise it,’ says Cialdini. ‘If your project is being resisted, for example, by a group of veteran employees, ask another old-timer to speak up for it.’ Cialdini is not alone in advocating this strategy. Research shows that peer power, used horizontally not vertically, is much more powerful than any boss’s speech.

团队合作是人类行为的一个基本驱动因素。西尔迪尼说：“社会证据原则是如此普遍，以至于我们甚至不认识它，如果你的项目受到老员工群体的抵制，可以请另一个老员工支持它。”西尔迪尼不是唯一支持这种策略的人。研究表明，与任何老板的讲话相比，同事间的权力横向影响更具有影响力。

第8段

Writing, visualising and prototyping can stimulate the flow of new ideas. Cialdini cites scores of research papers and historical events that prove that even something as simple as writing deepens every individual’s engagement in the project. It is, he says, the reason why all those competitions on breakfast cereal packets encouraged us to write in saying, in no more than 10 words: ‘I like Kellogg’s Corn Flakes because….’ The very act of writing makes us more likely to believe it.

写作、可视化和原型制作可以激发新想法的流动。西尔迪尼引用了大量的研究论文和历史事件，证明即使是写作这样简单的行为也能深化每个人对项目的投入。这就是为什么所有那些早餐麦片盒上的比赛都鼓励我们写下不超过10个字的话：“我喜欢Kellogg's玉米片，因为……”写作的行为本身让我们更容易相信它。

第9段

Authority doesn’t have to inhibit innovation but it often does. The wrong kind of leadership will lead to what Cialdini calls ‘captainitis, the regrettable tendency of team members to opt out of team responsibilities that are properly theirs’. He calls it captainitis because, he says, ‘crew members of multipilot aircraft exhibit a sometimes deadly passivity when the flight captain makes a clearly wrong-headed decision’. This behaviour is not, he says, unique to air travel, but can happen in any workplace where the leader is overbearing.

权威不一定会抑制创新，但往往如此。错误的领导方式会导致西尔迪尼称之为“队长病”的情况，即团队成员选择不承担本应属于他们的团队责任。他称之为队长病，是因为他说，“在多飞行员飞机上，机组成员在飞行机长作出明显错误决策时表现出有时有致命的被动行为。”他说这种行为不仅存在于航空旅行中，也可能发生在任何一个领导者专横的工作场所。

第10段

At the other end of the scale is the 1980s Memphis design collective, a group of young designers for whom ‘the only rule was that there were no rules’. This environment encouraged a free interchange of ideas, which led to more creativity with form, function, colour and materials that revolutionised attitudes to furniture design.

在另一端是80年代的孟菲斯设计集体，这是一群只有一个规则的年轻设计师，“就是没有规则”。这种环境鼓励了思想的自由交流，从而在形式、功能、颜色和材料方面创造了更多的创新，彻底改变了对家具设计的态度。

第11段

Many theorists believe the ideal boss should lead from behind, taking pride in collective accomplishment and giving credit where it is due. Cialdini says: ‘Leaders should encourage everyone to contribute and simultaneously assure all concerned that every recommendation is important to making the right decision and will be given full attention.’ The frustrating thing about innovation is that there are many approaches, but no magic formula. However, a manager who wants to create a truly innovative culture can make their job a lot easier by recognising these psychological realities.