你是否工作太忙，甚至连在同事的办公室门口稍作停留，闲聊几句或相约共赴午餐的时间都没有？或者你认为工作就是工作，一切公事公办？如果你这么想，就得要小心了：不在工作中努力结交朋友、培养友谊，或许就等于自毁前程。

    近期的一项研究发现，积极建立办公室友谊、工作任劳任怨并经常组织办公室活动的人们在接下来两年中获得升职的可能性要高出40%。“你在工作中付出多少，直接影响到你在工作中得到多少，”《幸福优势：推动事业成功的七大积极心理学原则》（The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work）的作者肖恩•阿克称。

    阿克在研究中根据人们为同事提供的此类社会支持的多少，将所有人平均分成4组。最上面的25%是利他主义者，提供的此类社会支持最多，最下面的25%提供的最少。利他主义者自述工作满意度显著较高，工作的投入感比最下面的25%高出了10倍。

    因此，不仅这些人缘好的人自身能受益，公司同样也会受益。“幸福感是现代经济社会中最大的竞争优势，”阿克表示。“如果能在工作中找到创造幸福感的方法，生产率会提高31%，销售额提高37%，人们也会认为你更有魅力，你的创意能力会提升3倍。”

    为增加社会支持，路易斯安那州一家大型医疗保健提供商Ochsner Health System与阿克合作实施了“10/5英尺”法。Ochsner在给1.1万名员工讲授了互相提供支持的重要性后，要求员工们在医院里每次与他人相距不到十英尺时须进行眼神接触并微笑，距离拉近到5英尺时互致问候。

    自那以来，Ochsner获得病人推荐的概率提高了5%，病人就诊量增加。病人总体满意度显著提升。阿克说：“我们只需要稍微做出一些调整，就能轻松改变人们的交往模式。”

    社会支持还能改善个人健康。社会支持度高的人们往往会长寿，就像定期锻炼的人一样，而社会支持度低带来的伤害不亚于高血压。阿克表示，2007年对1,648名哈佛学生的研究发现，社会支持是高压力期幸福度的最佳指征，关联度达到了0.71，高于吸烟和癌症0.37的关联度。

    这项对于社会支持效应的调查是积极心理行动的一部分，它“强调个人有能力改变自身幸福度以及其他相关的正面人生结果”。参与阿克一项研究的人们被要求每天通过一些做法，建立积极心理，比如给认识的某个人写一条积极的留言，或者写下三件过去三周内感恩的事情。个人的人生满意度——普遍认为这一指标能准确预测工作场所的生产率和幸福度——平均得分从培训前的22.96（满分35）提升到了4个月后的27.23。

    Are you too busy to stop by your colleague's office to chat or go to lunch? Or are you someone who keeps work relationships strictly business? Be warned: If you're not reaching out to make and nurture friendships at work, you're probably hurting your career.

    Recent research finds that people who initiate office friendships, pick up slack for their co-workers, and organize workplace social activities are 40% more likely to get a promotion in the subsequent two years. "How much you give at work directly affects how much you get at work," says Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

    In his research, Achor divides individuals into quartiles based on how much they provide this kind of social support to colleagues. Work altruists, the top 25%, give the most, while work isolators, the bottom 25%, provide the least. Work altruists report significantly higher job satisfaction and feel 10 times more engaged by work than people in the lowest quartile.

    So not only do these uber-connectors benefit from their behavior, the employer gains as well. "Happiness is the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy," Achor says. "If you can find a way of creating happiness at work, you're 31% more productive, your sales are 37% higher, people perceive you as being more charismatic and you're three times more creative."

    To increase social support, Ochsner Health System, a large Louisiana health care provider that Achor works with, implemented an approach called the "10/5 Way." After educating 11,000 employees about the importance of offering support to each other, Ochsner asked employees to make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within 10 feet of another person in the hospital. If they pass within 5 feet, they say hello.

    Since then, Ochsner has seen a 5% increase in patients' likelihood to recommend the organization, greater unique patient visits, and a significant improvement in overall patient satisfaction. "We can change the social script very easily by making some small adjustments," Achor says.

    Social support also improves the health of individuals. People who receive high levels of social support are as likely to live longer as those who exercise regularly, and low social support does as much damage as high blood pressure. A 2007 study of 1,648 Harvard students found that social support was the best predictor of happiness in periods of high stress, with a correlation of .71, according to Achor. That's a stronger tie than the link between smoking and cancer, which is .37.

    Researchers investigating the effects of social support are part of the larger positive psychology movement, which stresses the ability of individuals to change their own level of happiness -- and related positive life outcomes. Participants in one of Achor's studies were asked to take daily steps to build positivity, such as writing a positive message to someone in their social network or writing down three things they were grateful for over the course of three weeks. Individuals' mean score on the life satisfaction scale -- a metric widely accepted to accurately predict productivity and happiness at work -- moved from 22.96 before the training (on a 35-point scale) to 27.23 four months later.

   但在你开始邀请同事共赴午餐、晚餐和“找乐子”前，不妨先花点时间了解一下公司同事的交往现状，看看他们是建立、加深友谊的模式。

    “感觉你和某个人有联系，会带来不同。它是幸福之源，”《新领导人的百日行动计划》（The New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan）一书的作者、顾问乔治•布莱特表示。不过，“如果你进了一家人们不吃午餐的公司，却开始邀请人们共进午餐，那就是在自找麻烦。”

    例如，有家瑞士大银行的一位经理转到澳大利亚办公室工作后，希望给同事留个好印象，于是邀请所有人出席一场晚上7-8点钟的晚宴会议。结果遭到了整个团队的拒绝，人们说：“我们5点就下班了。”阿克回忆说：“这位领导只能全面改变领导风格。”

    “在有些公司里，下班后请直接上司去喝一杯是件好事，”布莱特同意。“但在另外一些公司里，就不太适合。你请他们喝酒，会让他们无法和家人团聚。还不如在早上请他们喝咖啡或中午一起吃午餐。”

    布莱特说，可以问问人们是如何互动的，了解一个公司的文化，但也要留意人们的回答是否准确。慢慢地，一位有决心的领导人最终可以改变企业文化，让它整体变得更具社会支持力。

    如果拿不准，从为同事提供专业支持做起总错不了。阿克说：“一旦你开始邀请人们与你碰面，或者开始在工作中帮助他们，你就改变了交往模式。”

    身处男性主导行业中的女性尤其可能在工作中被孤立，常驻纽约的职业发展教练米歇尔•弗莱德曼表示：“感到被孤立的人……在参与度和生产率方面都表现不佳。”

    比如，有些母亲就不愿在工作场合聊他们的孩子，担心会被贴上标签或看轻，难以与同事真正打成一片。

    “工作场合的纽带往往源于人与人之间的共同点。可以是一起努力的一个项目，或者共同处理的一宗案子或交易，”她说。“更深层次的纽带是你感觉自己和这整个人都有关系；而不仅仅是他的职业领域。”

    译者：老榆木

    But before you start inviting colleagues to lunch, dinner, and happy hour, take a moment to understand the importance of context. Look at how people in your organization create and deepen friendships.

    "Feeling like you're connected to someone else makes a difference, it's the root of happiness," says George Bradt, a consultant and author of The New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan. Still, "if you go into an organization and start inviting people to lunch in a place where people don't do lunch, you're in trouble."

    For instance, a manager at a large Swiss bank moved to the company'sAustraliaoffice and wanted to make a good impact by inviting everyone to a dinner meeting at 7 or 8 p.m. The team actually refused, saying, "We're done by 5." "That leader had to completely change his leadership style," Achor recalls.

    "In some organizations, inviting your direct reports out for drinks after the workday is a good thing," Bradt agrees. "In others it's an insult because you're making them drink and taking them away from their family. You have to take them out for coffee in the morning or lunch."

    You can learn about an organization's culture by asking questions about how people interact, but you must also observe whether the answers to those questions are accurate, he says. Over time, a determined leader can shift the culture to being more socially supportive overall.

    When in doubt, you can always begin by offering professional support to colleagues. "As soon as you start asking people to meet up with you or helping people with their work, you change the social script," Achor says.

    Women in male-dominated industries are particularly at risk of being socially isolated at work, notes Michelle Friedman, a professional development coach based in theNew York Cityarea. "The ones who feel isolated ... suffer in terms of engagement and productivity," Friedman says.

    Some mothers, for instance, resist talking about their kids at work for fear of being typecast or discounted, which keeps them from truly connecting with co-workers.

    "Workplace bonds generally form around things that people have in common. It can be working on a project together or if you're on a case or deal together," she says. "The deeper bonds I've seen are where you feel the bond is with the whole person; it's not just on the professional level."