線上英文首選│MySkylines

What If You Could Truly Be Yourself at Work? （在工作中展現真實的自己）

For two years
now, we have been holding regular "community" meetings at our office
to give team members an opportunity to check in about how they're doing, not
just professionally but also personally. Each person answers several questions
beginning with a deceptively simple one: "How are you feeling
today?"* The rest of us simply listen.

這兩年來，我們就定期在辦公室裡舉辦「社群」集會，讓我們的團隊成員談談自己最近的情況，不僅是專業上的表現，也包括私人生活。每個人都要回答好幾個問題*，首先是個表面看似簡單的問題：「你今天覺得如何？」每個人在說的時候，其他人就只是聆聽。

It was only
when we faced a sudden crisis that I finally understood why these meetings had
been so important. On a weekend last October, the 23-year-old son of one of our
team members died unexpectedly and tragically. On Monday morning, I called our
team together in our conference room.

直到公司碰到一個突發的危機，我才終於體認到這些聚會竟是如此重要。去年10月的某個週末，我們一位團隊成員23歲的兒子意外慘死。隔週的星期一，我把所有團隊成員都集合到會議室。

The feelings
that surfaced that morning were raw — grief, bewilderment, fear, an acute
awareness of the fragility of life and the preciousness of our own loved ones,
and empathy for our grieving colleague.

那天早晨，公司裡瀰漫了各種低落的情緒—哀痛、困惑、恐懼，還有突然意會到生命的脆弱、珍視身邊我們所愛的人，以及對悲傷同僚的感同身受。

The emotions ran even higher at a community meeting on
the first day our colleague returned to work several weeks later. Painful as it
was for all of us, we were able to create a container for our colleague's
heartbreak. Sharing our feelings also made them feel less burdensome. We held
her, and holding her held us. It was cathartic, and that helped each of us to go
back at the end of the meeting and focus again on the work at hand.

幾週後，那位同事回到來上班的第一天，團隊成員們的情緒在社群會議上又更加強烈。雖然我們每個人都很痛苦，但能夠承載同事的傷痛欲絕。藉由分享彼此的感受，也讓大家的心情不再那麼沉重。我們擁抱她，而擁抱她也讓我們獲得心理上的支持。這個聚會有淨化心靈的效果，幫助每個人在聚會結束時，再度把心力專注在手邊的工作上。

It dawned on
me that day how powerful and liberating it is to say exactly what you're
feeling, and to feel truly listened to without judgment.

那天的經歷讓我體會到，說出心裡真正的感受，而且有人不帶價值判斷地真心聆聽你所說的話，會讓人感覺多麼強而有力、多麼能釋放心裡的重擔。

The impetus
to hold community meetings came to us from something called "the Sanctuary Model,"
developed by a psychiatrist named Sandra Bloom as a way to help people deal
with chronically stressful and overwhelming circumstances — mostly in the world
of mental health.

促使我們召開社群會議的原動力，來自一個由心理醫師珊卓拉‧布魯姆（Sandra Bloom）所創的工具，稱為「避難模式」（the Sanctuary Model）。這個工具可用來幫助人對抗令人無法承受的長期壓力環境，這大多屬於精神健康的範疇。

Increasingly,
however, the everyday experience of corporate life can be overwhelming in and
of itself.

然而長久以來，我們每天身處於工作之中，這本身也可能是一種難以承受的壓力。

In addition
to whatever stresses we bring from home, including not getting sufficient
sleep, we're deluged with email, running from meeting to meeting, skipping
meals, and working longer and more continuous hours than ever. Is it any
surprise we're struggling? Worse yet, in most workplaces the unspoken
expectation is that we will check any strong emotions we're feeling at the
door.

除了家庭生活為我們帶來的種種難題，例如沒有充足的睡眠，我們還被電子郵件所淹沒、開不完的會、沒時間用餐、工作時間比過去更長。若說我們是在掙扎求生存，也就不令人意外了吧？更糟的是，職場上大多數人都有個默契，就是不要把心中的強烈情緒帶到公司。

You know the
drill. You put on your game face when you walk into work. "How are
you?" a colleague asks, by rote and without real interest.
"Fine," you respond, automatically, regardless of how you're actually
feeling.

你知道該怎麼做。在踏進工作場所的那一刻，你換上嚴肅的表情。一位同事例行公事地問了你一句：「你好嗎？」並不真的對你的回答感興趣。你機械性地回答：「我很好。」不管你真實的感受是什麼。

"How
many of us," Bloom writes, "have ever felt truly safe in a social
setting ... [meaning] cared for, trusted, free to express our deepest thoughts
and feelings without censure, unafraid of being abandoned or misjudged,
unfettered by the constant pressure of impersonal competition, and yet
stimulated to be thoughtful, creative, spontaneous and solve problems?"

布魯姆寫道：「在我們之中有多少人，曾在一個社會情境中感到無比安全……（是指）覺得有受到照顧、被信任，能夠不受譴責、自由地抒發內心最深處的想法與感受，不用懼怕被拋棄、被誤解，一方面能夠擺脫無情競爭的持續壓力、一方面又能受到啓發而變得思慮周詳、有創意、具自發性，而且能夠解決問題？」。

To the
contrary, as demand grows, we feel more anxious, more isolated, and more
vulnerable.

現實狀況往往都與期望相反，隨著要求提高，我們感到愈來愈焦慮、被孤立，且更加脆弱。

Each of us
has a tipping point — a moment when we feel so depleted that we fall into survival
mode. We're often unaware of it, but when we move from feeling calm and secure
to anxious and under siege, we literally become different people.

每個人都有一個臨界點，也就是覺得自己已經耗盡心力、落入求生存模式的時刻。我們常常都沒有意識到這點，但當我們的心情從平靜、安詳，變成焦慮、感到受困時，我們就變成了截然不同的人。

Our fight or flight
physiology kicks in. In turn, our focus automatically narrows to protecting
ourselves. We lose the ability to think clearly and creatively, respond to
others with care and consideration, or consider the long-term consequences of
our choices. Instead, we do whatever we think we need to do to survive in the
moment.

此時，我們在戰鬥或飛行時會產生的生心理變化現象，開始起作用。我們的專注焦點自動縮小為保護自己。我們失去清晰思考和創意思考的能力，無法以關心與體貼的態度回應別人，甚至無力考量自己的決定長期會造成什麼後果。相反的，我們的所作所為，全為了讓當下的自己能夠存活。

Community,
I've come to deeply believe, is the cure. It does indeed have the power to
serve as a sanctuary — to protect, ground and encourage us, not just in extreme
circumstances, but also in the face of countless everyday challenges. Support
in a community can also give us the strength to forego immediate gratification
in favor of choices that uphold shared values, serve the collective good, and
generate long-term value.

我逐漸深信，社群的支持是解決上述問題的良方。它的確有效用可成為「避難所」，它能保護、鼓勵我們，讓我們覺得踏實，不只是在極端情況下如此，在我們每天面對無止境挑戰時，也是如此。來自社群的支持，也能夠提供我們力量，放棄追求當下的滿足感，而是把心力放在那些能夠提升共有價值觀、對群體有利、且能產生長期價值的選擇上。

資料來源：http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2013/01/what-if-you-could-truly-be-you.html