酷兔英语


At The Wall Street Journal's Unleashing Innovation conference in Singapore, the question of innovation in Asia has come up again and again. At a panel with Hal Gregersen, professor of Innovation and Leadership at INSEAD and Ya-Qin Zhang, chairman of Microsoft's Asia Pacific research and development group, two tales stood out.


华尔街日报》在新加坡举办的"释放创新"大会(Unleashing Innovation)上,亚洲的创新问题被一次次谈到。在欧洲工商管理学院(INSEAD)创新与领导力教授格雷格森(Hal Gregersen)和微软(Microsoft)亚太区研发集团主席张亚勤参加的小组讨论上,两则故事特别有意思。



Mr. Zhang said when he oversaw products at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., he would get weekly updates from engineers. They would say projects were either green, meaning everything was fine; yellow, meaning there were a few problems; or red, meaning there were major problems. The engineers always solved the problems and delivered on time.


张亚勤说,他在华盛顿州雷德蒙德微软总部负责产品时,工程师每星期向他报告一次最新情况。他们会说项目为绿色、黄色或红色。绿色的意思是一切顺利,黄色代表有一些问题,红色意味著有重大问题。工程师有问题都能解决,且都按时完工。



In China, at the same weekly update sessions, every product was green, at every meeting. Why? Because the engineers in China wanted to resolve the problems themselves, and also because of a general discomfort with asking questions in Asia.


在中国,同样的每周新情况报告会上,所有产品都是绿色的,每一次会议都是如此。为什么呢?这是因为中国的工程师想自己解决问题,也是因为亚洲人总体上不习惯提问题。



That came through in a tale from Mr. Gregersen, who said often at Asian companies, questions get squelched. That makes employees uncomfortable asking provocative questions around their peers. And that in turn stifles innovation.


格雷格森讲的故事也说了这个现象。他说,在亚洲公司里面,提问常常受到压制,使员工不太敢对同事提出质疑性的问题,而这又会扼杀创新。



Leaders of companies, especially in Asia, need to create a safe space around them so questions can be asked without fear.


公司领导人、特别是亚洲公司的领导人需要在他们周围建立一种安全的环境,让人们可以提问题、无需害怕。



This theme has come up repeatedly at the conference. People have blamed education systems in Asia that encourage memorization rather than original thinking. Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline.com, said the system doesn't encourage imagination, which is essential for big innovations. Others have cited the hierarchical nature of Asia companies, where the senior executives are believed to know everything.


这个主题在大会上反复出现。人们将此归咎于亚洲鼓励记忆而不鼓励独立思考的教育制度。Priceline.com创始人沃尔克(Jay Walker)说,这种制度不鼓励想象,而想象对于重大创新来说是至关重要的。其他人则将上述问题归因于亚洲公司的等级结构。在这些结构里面,高级管理人员被认为是无所不知。



Ken Brown


Ken Brown