Question

Camaraderie over Competence

The importance of liking people is the subject of an article in the Harvard Business Review, which has carried out an experiment to find out who we’d rather work with. Hardly surprisingly, the people we want most as our workmates are both: brilliant at their jobs and delightful human beings. And the people we want least are both unpleasant and useless. More interestingly, the authors found that, given the choice between working with lovable fools and competent jerks (性情古怪的人), we irresistibly choose the former. Anyway, who likes those stupid men who annoy or hurt other people? We might insist that competence matters more, but our behavior shows we stay close to the people we like and sharing information with them.

What companies should therefore do is get people to like each other more. The trick here is apparently to make sure staffs come across each other as often as possible during the day. They also should be sent on bonding courses and so on to encourage friendliness and break down displeasure. However, more outdoor-activity weekends and shared coffee machines inspire no confidence at all.

The reality is that people either like each other or they don’t. You can’t force it. Possibly you can make offices friendlier by tolerating a lot of chat, but there is a productivity cost to that. In my experience, the question of lovable fool against competent jerk may not be the right one. The two are interrelated: we tend not to like our workmates when they are completely hopeless. I was once quite friendly with a woman whom I later worked with. I found her to be so outstandingly bad at her job that I lost respect for her and ended up not really liking her at all. Then is there anything that companies should be doing about it?

By far the most effective strategy would be to hire people who are all pretty much the same, given that similarity is one of the main determinants of whether we like each other. I think this is a pretty good idea, but no one dares recommend this anymore without offending the diversity lobby group. There is only one acceptable view on this subject: teams of similar people are bad because they stop creativity. This may be true, though I have never seen any conclusive proof of it.

Not only do we like similar people, we like people who like us. So if companies want to promote more liking, they should encourage a culture where we are all nice to each other. The trouble is that this needs to be done with some skill.

1.According to the research, which kind of colleagues would most people tend to choose?

A.Nice but unintelligent.

B.Creative but unattractive.

C.Competent but unfriendly.

D.Humorous but unambitious.

2.The author talks about her experience to show that ______.

A.people respect outstanding leaders

B.people tend to like optimistic workmates

C.a workmate’s working ability is important

D.talkative workmates makes offices friendlier

3.Some people think that similar people working together may ______

A.offend each other

B.create fewer new ideas

C.talk more and work less

D.be likely to stick together

4.To encourage workmates to like each other, companies could ______.

A.set more coffee machines in the work place

B.organize team-building activities outside the office

C.encourage a diversity of opinions in workplace

D.employ staff who have a lot in common

Answer

1.A

2.C

3.B

4.D

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。本文通过调查发现人们乐于与聪明乐观，工作能力强的人一起工作，因为同事的能力很重要，相似的人在一起工作会阻碍创新能力，并据此为企业提供了一些建议。

1.细节理解题。根据第一段中“Hardly surprisingly, the people we want most as our workmates are both: brilliant at their jobs and delightful human beings.” 毫不奇怪，我们最希望成为同事的人既是工作出色的人，也是讨人喜欢的人。由此可知，人们乐于和聪明且乐观的人一起共事，故选A。

2.推理判断题。根据第三段中“we tend not to like our workmates when they are completely hopeless.” 当我们的同事在工作上毫无希望时，我们往往不喜欢他们。由此判断出，作者通过讲述自己的经历来说明同事的工作能力是很重要的。故选C。

3.细节理解题。根据第四段中“teams of similar people are bad because they stop creativity.”可知，相似的人在一起工作会阻碍创新能力，故选B。

4.推理判断题。根据最后一段中“Not only do we like similar people, we like people who like us. So if companies want to promote more liking, they should encourage a culture where we are all nice to each other.” 我们不仅喜欢相似的人，我们也喜欢喜欢我们的人。因此，如果公司想要促进更多的好感，他们应该鼓励一种我们都善待彼此的文化。因此判断出，公司应该雇佣有共同点的员工，故选D。