向狭窄开火

2007年11月22日 星期四 斯蒂芬·斯特恩(Stefan Stern)

思路狭窄的人将很难胜出。思维开阔非常关键。思维开阔的人有一个关键特点，是具备综合分析大量不同信息的能力。哈佛大学(Harvard)著名心理学家霍华德•加德纳(Howard Gardner)写道，这种综合分析的思维“会接收不同来源的信息……并将信息整合成他和其他人能够理解的形式……随着信息继续以令人眩晕的速度增加，综合分析能力变得更为重要。”

加德纳表示，有时你可以发现，未来能够取得极大成功的人，他们乐意完成那些从严格意义上讲不是核心的任务——那些你确实不需要做的事情。他的最新著作《迈向未来的5种能力》(Five Minds for the Future)探讨了哪类人可能最有能力应对21世纪的挑战。

斯蒂芬•斯特恩是英国《金融时报》商业生活版管理专栏作家。

本文是原文的节选，并在顺序上进行了一些修改。

Forget focus, celebrate breadth

Thursday, November 22, 2007 By Stefan Stern

The narrow-minded will struggle to get a look in. Breadth will be vital. A key characteristic of the broad-minded will be the ability to synthesise lots of different pieces of information. This synthesising mind, Howard Gardner, the eminent Harvard psychologist, writes, “takes information from disparate sources … and puts it together in ways that make sense to the synthesiser and also other persons … the capacity to synthesise becomes ever more crucial as information continues to mount at dizzying rates”.

Gardner says that you can sometimes spot future high achievers by their preference for pursuing tasks that are strictly non-core – things that they really don't have to do. His latest book, Five Minds for the Future, considers what sort of people are likely to be best equipped to deal with the challenges thrown up by the 21st century.