六月份的就业报告令人失望，新闻称美国制造业增长缓慢，股市比十年前还要低迷。我们该换个新的视角重新评估美国经济形势了。

    星巴克公司（Starbucks）首席执行官霍华德•舒尔茨长期以来坚持推动对美国经济的探讨并且关注美国的就业需求，这一点确实值得赞赏。加里•哈默尔说的很对。他表示，该如何处理现如今差强人意的员工敬业度状况，老板们必须扪心自问。这两大问题相互关联，其中一个是宏观问题，而另一个较为具体。两大问题悬而未决都已经很久了。

    为了应对这些问题，我们必须诉诸一些颠覆性的观点，同时还要考虑那些挑战传统观念的解决方式。《大白话》（Talk Normal）一书的作者蒂姆•菲利普斯表达的观点即是如此。他在书中没有用寻常方式来探讨员工的敬业度问题，也没有像很多人那样仅仅表达支持。他精确指出了企业病的一个主要根源所在，那就是员工对企业的认同感。

    这听起来有悖常理。毕竟，如果你让人们认同自己工作的公司，他们会更投入，这听起来是合理的。这应该是件好事，不是吗？但大多数人的身份感和自我价值感取决于他们的工作单位。菲利普斯称，正因为此，很多人为了适应环境会屈服于公司压力，他们的观点会被群体思维所吞噬。他们不太可能在正确的时候提出反对意见。

    创新性的观念和解决方案也不会从这种唯唯诺诺中产生。它也会使董事会成员忘记自己所肩负的更宏观的责任，那就是促进社会良善，这也正是舒尔茨努力提倡的。对公司团队的认同会让我们无视《站在太阳之上》（Standing on the Sun）作者茱莉亚•科尔比和克里斯•梅尔所说的“竞争崇拜”，这会阻碍那种能产生真正创新的合作。

    认同自己的工作单位可能有问题，这种观点听起来当然很荒谬。但如果我们是以严肃态度来解决舒尔茨和哈默尔所关注的这种似乎很棘手的问题，那么董事会成员和其他商业领袖就有必要去接受这些有悖直觉的观念。

    梅根•哈斯塔德在一篇名为《工作中太自我意味着灾难》（When 'being yourself' at work spells disaster.）的文章中用另外的方式指出了这一观点。哈斯塔德称，那些并未真正参与到任何企业的自由职业者拥有一个优势，那就是他们可以把精力集中于完成工作，不太容易受到公司政治的妨碍，或者为了努力去适应环境而心烦意乱。正如我们所知，努力适应公司在我们的职业生涯中是不可避免的一环。

    我在一家金融服务企业进行业绩评估时曾经为一名员工提供建议。我认为，这是我针对员工提出的最佳建议。当时那位员工的评估结果并非百分百优秀，但也不差。评估之后是较大幅度的加薪。

    我对他说：“这不仅仅是我的意见，也包括其他人的观点，但这是从我的想法中修改和发展而来的。你可能认为有用，但也可能没用。我在这里说了什么对最终报告来说不是关键。十年以后你不会在乎，也不应该在乎。真正重要的是你自己的想法。请从这份评价中尽量选取有用的信息，丢弃掉其他部分。我只是想为你提供帮助。”

    With a disappointing June jobs report, news that U.S. manufacturing is slowing, and the stock market below levels of a decade ago, it's time to put on some fresh goggles and reevaluate our economic condition.

    Certainly, Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz deserves applause for his persistent attempts to push the conversation on our economy and address our need for jobs. And Gary Hamel is right that bosses need to look in the mirror to deal with the sorry state of employee engagement today. Both of these problems are related: one a macro example, the other, on a smaller scale. And both have dragged on for a very long time.

    To address these issues, we'll need to appeal to some upside-down thinking and consider solutions that fly in the face of conventional wisdom. And Tim Phillips, author of Talk Normaldelivers just that. Rather than discuss employee engagement in the usual way, or simply encourage it as many might, he pinpoints a major culprit of corporate malaise: when workers identify with their corporations.

    That sounds a bit counter-intuitive. After all, it would seem to make sense that if you get people to identify with the company they work for, they would be more engaged, which should be a good thing, right? But far too many people hinge their identity and self-worth to the organizations they work for. Because of this, Phillips argues, many succumb to corporate pressure to fit in, their ideas are swallowed up by groupthink, and they are less inclined to blow the whistle when they should.

    Creative ideas and solutions don't come from this kind of repetitive head-bobbing either. It also causes board members to forget their broader responsibilities to promoting social good (which Schultz is trying to correct). And identification with the corporate team can blind us to what Julia Kirby and Chris Meyer, co-authors of Standing on the Sun, call the "cult of competition," which prevents the kind of cooperation that produces real innovation.

    Sure, the idea that identifying with your workplace may be problematic sounds paradoxical. But if we are serious about solving the kind of seemingly intractable problems that Schultz and Hamel have in their sights, board members and other business leaders are going to need to become comfortable with counter-intuitive ideas.

    Megan Hustad pointed this out in a different way in an article titled "When 'being yourself' at work spells disaster." Freelancers who aren't identified at all with a specific firm have an advantage: they can focus on getting the job done, Hustad argues, and they are less hampered by the politics or distraction of fitting in that seems inevitable in corporate life as we've known it.

    I think the best advice I have given any employee first came out when I was delivering a performance review at a financial services firm. It was not a 100% stellar review but it wasn't a bad one either. And attached to it was a good raise.

    "This is just my opinion," I told him. "Sure, it may be somewhat filtered through others' views but it was massaged and has come out of my thinking. You may find it helpful -- but maybe it's not. In the final analysis, it doesn't matter at all what I wrote here. Ten years from now, you won't care and you shouldn't. What matters is what you think. Take the good from it that you can -- and please discard the rest. I am just one human, trying to be helpful."

    他听完我的话，递给我一个古怪的眼神，可能在想这是不是一个恶作剧。但随后我们进行了相当坦诚的讨论，只有我们两个人。

    当我们关注经济问题时，当一些老板开始反思并考虑改变他们的行为方式时，我们还需要观察当今世界的状况。我们知道，不论是公司、政府机构，抑或是传统的教育、社会或者宗教组织，这些机构并不能解决我们面临的问题。我们对这些机构的效能已经不再持以往的观点。但我们也不该感到无助。现在，公司和其他机构的力量比他们包含的各部分加总起来要弱一些。换句话说，公司内部人士的能量、能力和技术远比公司所展示出来的要强。有鉴于此，我们必须停止向其他个体（和我们自己）灌输思想，自我设限，画地为牢。

    如果公司员工认为自己不需要身边的组织结构，他们可能会更难控制。但如果我们不再需要以那种方式去控制他人，我们也许能发现新的可能性：老板不会再感到孤立无援；人们会认识到自身的力量也能够推动国家经济发展；员工会意识到恶劣老板的所想所为可能在短期内有影响，但其实到头来并不重要。

    Eleanor Bloxham是价值联盟公司和公司治理联盟（http://thevaluealliance.com）的首席执行官。公司治理联盟是一家董事会咨询公司。

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

    Yes, I got a quizzical look in return and he was probably wondering if it was a trick. But we then proceeded to have a frank discussion. Two people on a journey, nothing more, nothing less.

    While we address the economy -- and while some bosses start to look in the mirror and consider changing how they behave, we also need to see what the world has been showing us lately. We know our institutions -- whether they are corporations, government agencies, or even traditional educational, social, or religious organizations -- don't seem up to tackling the problems we face. Our view of their efficacy has changed. But that shouldn't make us feel weak. Corporations and other institutions today just happen to be smaller than the sum of their parts. Or, put another way, the power, ability, and skills of the individuals inside our corporations far exceed the capabilities that corporations are demonstrating. For that reason, we need to stop stuffing individuals (and ourselves) mentally into spaces that are too small to contain us.

    If people who work for companies do not believe they require the structure that surrounds them, they may be harder to control. But in giving up the need to control others in that way, we may discover new possibilities: corporations where bosses won't feel so lonely, individuals who recognize their power to get the national economy moving, and employees who know that what bad bosses think and how they act may have short-term consequences but don't really matter in the end.

    Eleanor Bloxham is CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance (http://thevaluealliance.com/), a board advisory firm.