img

When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible (有型的) accomplishments (造诣，成就). And our careers provide the most concrete evidence (确凿的证据；具体的证据) that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale (成交), teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave (行为不端，举止失礼) every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road (在路边；一段时间之后) that you can put your hands on your hips (臀部) and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating (退化，恶化). People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity (倾向，习性) to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition (倾向；素质；易染病体质) toward endeavors (努力) that offer immediate gratification (即时满足). If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning (震惊的) and sobering (使清醒的；使冷静的) pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.

Create a Culture

There’s an important model in our class called the Tools of Cooperation, which basically says that being a visionary manager isn’t all it’s cracked up (吹捧，赞扬) to be. It’s one thing to see into the foggy future with acuity (敏锐) and chart (绘制，计划，图表) the course corrections (进程修正，航线修正) that the company must make. But it’s quite another (但这完全是另一回事) to persuade employees who might not see the changes ahead to line up and work cooperatively to take the company in that new direction. Knowing what tools to wield (使用；行使) to elicit (引出) the needed cooperation is a critical managerial skill.

See you tomorrow