《未来的五种智力》(Five minds for the future)

 《未来的五种智力》(Five minds for the future)
作者：霍华德•加德纳
哈佛商学院出版社(Harvard Business School Press)出版，24.95美元

温斯顿•丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)曾经说过：“未来的王国是思想的王国。”看到霍华德•加德纳(Howard Gardner)非常赞成地援引他的这番话，或许并不令人惊讶。加德纳教授在哈佛大学教育研究生院(Harvard graduate school of education)主讲认知和教育学，早在20年前就已经是著名的人类智力分析家。

他于1983年出版的《智力的结构：多元智能理论》(Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences)一书，引发了关于人类智能的争论，一直持续至今。加德纳认为，不能将智能视为一种单一的素质或能力，在他看来，人类能够表现出来的智能有8到9种。此后，心理学家和教育学家一直对此争论不休。

而他在新书《未来的五种智力》中提出的“5种智力”，不应与他的多元智能理论相混淆。该最新作品着眼于管理者和员工需要在21世纪成功发挥的智能手段。

加德纳将这5种不同智力分为：条理头脑、综合头脑、创造头脑、尊重头脑和伦理头脑。条理头脑“至少掌握了一种思维方式，”加德纳表示，“如果一点条理都没有……那么这个人就注定要跟随他人的步调。”

综合头脑“从各种不同的消息源提取信息……并按照对总结者和其他人有意义的方式，将它们整合起来……随着信息量以令人眼花缭乱的速度激增，综合能力变得日益至关重要了”。

作者认为，创造头脑负责“开辟新的领域”。“它提出新创意，引出新问题，唤起新的思维方式，得到出乎意料的新答案。”这样做，创造头脑就能寻求比电脑“至少领先一步”。

尊重头脑“关注并容纳人类个体之间和群体之间的差异……在我们这个彼此相互连结的世界，偏隘或无礼都不再是可行的选择。”

最后，伦理头脑“界定了员工如何才能达到自利以外的目的”。伦理头脑随后“基于这些分析采取行动”。

加德纳并未说明，他在这里总结的，是我们获得成功的必需品质。但他很好地说明了他列举的这5种智力的重要性。在现代世界，要想成功，就要有专业的条理头脑。对于那些不能综合提炼复杂信息的人而言，必然会感到信息过量，随后就会陷入信息失控的命运。创造头脑将我们与智能机器区别开来，而智能机器使得那些能力不强的人类显得多余。

这些说法在过去两个世纪或许比较正确，但在当今世界，挑战已经日趋激烈。更具争议的是，加德纳认为，不尊重他人的人也“不值得得到他人的尊重，而且还会毒化工作场所的气氛”，而没有伦理道德的人“将造成一个缺乏正派员工和负责公民的世界：我们没人想生活在那种悲惨的星球上”。

持怀疑态度的读者可能会反对这位博学的教授偶尔采用的极端腔调——没错，这本书是学术性的。其他人则会主张，人们可以照样非常愉快地工作，不用停下来考虑在某个既定时刻是否出现了加德纳所说的某种智力。

然而，作者指出了专业人士在这个竞争过于激烈的时代所需的必要特质。身在“象牙塔”中的他“旁观者清”。

更有用的是，他提醒我们注意那些看似拥有这些关键技能，但实际上只是装出来的同事。例如，要注意那些经验不足、但声称精通某项工作的人，注意那些只是将随机材料混在一起的伪综合者，注意那些其创意既不理想也非原创的“创新者”，注意那些只是无知地宽容他人的“恭敬者”，注意那些个人水准远不及其吹嘘的“伦理鼓吹者”。

归根结底，加德纳希望推广“优良工作”，尽管他自己也不确定能否达到这个目标。当今对所有人而言都是艰难时刻，即使你拥有一种或几种智力：“当‘争论精神'成为政治和大众传媒的特征时，人们就很难表现出对他人的尊重……当那些摒弃伦理道德的人获得如此众多的名利回报，而更广大的社会却没有（至少迄今还没有）要求他们承担责任时，人们就很难依照道德准则行事。”

译者/何黎

《FT商学院》

BOOK REVIEW: MENTAL BUILDING BLOCKS FOR THE NEXT CENTURY
Five minds for the future
By Howard Gardner
Harvard Business School Press, $24.95

“The empires of the future will be the empires of the mind,” Winston Churchill once said. Perhaps it is not surprising to see Howard Gardner quoting him approvingly. Professor Gardner holds the chair in cognition and education at the Harvard graduate school of education and has been a prominent analyst of the human mind for 20 years.

His 1983 publication, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, started a debate on human intelligence that continues to this day. Gardner argued that, rather than looking at intelligence as a single quality or capacity, we need to consider eight or nine kinds of intelligence that, in his view, people are capable of displaying. Psychologists and educationalists have been having a jolly good row about that one ever since.

This new book's “five minds” should not be confused with Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The latest work looks at the intellectual approaches managers and employees will need to function successfully in the 21st century.

Gardner identifies these five different minds as: disciplined, synthesising, creating, respectful and ethical. The disciplined mind “has mastered at least one way of thinking”, Gardner says. “Without at least one discipline...the individual is destined to march to someone else's tune.”

The synthesising mind “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”.

The creating mind “breaks new ground”, the author says. “It puts forth new ideas, poses unfamiliar questions, conjures up fresh ways of thinking, arrives at unexpected answers.” In so doing, the creating mind “seeks to remain at least one step ahead” of computers.

The respectful mind “notes and welcomes differences between human individuals and between human groups . . . In a world where we are all interlinked, intolerance or disrespect is no longer a viable option.”

Last, the ethical mind “conceptualises how workers can serve purposes beyond self-interest”. The ethical mind then “acts on the basis of these analyses”.

Gardner does not suggest he has summarised here the only qualities any of us need to prosper. But he makes a good claim for the importance of the five minds he has picked out. Success in the modern world requires a mastery of professional disciplines. Information overload, and subsequent helplessness, is the fate of those unable to synthesise complex data. Creativity sets us apart from intelligent machines that threaten to make less able humans redundant.

These statements have probably been more or less true for two centuries, but there is an intensity to the nature of the challenge today. More controversially, Gardner argues that people without respect “will not be worthy of respect by others and will poison the workplace”, while people without ethics “will yield a world devoid of decent workers and responsible citizens: none of us will want to live on that desolate planet”.

Sceptical readers may object to the at times arch tone adopted by the learned professor – there is no mistaking this book's academic origins. Others will argue that businesses can carry on their work very happily without pausing to consider whether any one of Gardner's minds is being deployed at a given moment.

Yet the author has put his finger on some vital attributes needed by professionals in this hyper-competitive age. He has a clear view from his ivory tower.

Even more usefully, he warns us to be alert for colleagues who appear to display these essential skills, but are in fact simply faking it. Watch out, for example, for those who claim mastery of a subject on the basis of inadequate experience, pseudo-synthesisers who merely lump haphazard material together, “creatives” whose ideas are neither sound nor original, “respecters” who merely tolerate others from a standpoint of ignorance, and “ethical champions” whose personal standards fall far short of the values they trumpet.

It is “good work” that Gardner ultimately wants to promote, even if he is uneasy about the prospects of achieving it. These are tough times for all, even if you possess a fine mind – or minds: “It is difficult to be respectful toward others when an ‘argument mentality' characterises politics and mass media...it is difficult to behave ethically when so many rewards – monetary and renown – are showered on those who spurn ethics but have not, or at least have not yet, been held accountable by the broader society.”