每日阅读2021-11-14

Picture a typical MBA lecture theatre twenty years ago. In it the majority of students will have conformed to the standard model of the time: male, middle class and Western. Walk into a class today, however, and you'll get a completely different impression. For a start, you will now see plenty more women – the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, for example, boasts that 40% of its new enrolment is female. You will also see a wide range of ethnic groups and nationals of practically every country.

It might be tempting, therefore, to think that the old barriers have been broken down and equal opportunity achieved. But, increasingly, this apparent diversity is becoming a mask for a new type of conformity. Behind the differences in sex, skin tones and mother tongues, there are common attitudes, expectations and ambitions which risk creating a set of clones among the business leaders of the future.

Diversity, it seems, has not helped to address fundamental weaknesses in business leadership. So what can be done to create more effective managers of the commercial world? According to Valerie Gauthier, associate dean at HEC Paris, the key lies in the process by which MBA programmers recruit their students. At the moment candidates are selected on a fairly narrow set of criteria such as prior academic and career performance, and analytical and problem solving abilities. This is then coupled to a school's picture of what a diverse class should look like, with the result that passport, ethnic origin and sex can all become influencing factors. But schools rarely dig down to find out what really makes an applicant succeed, to create a class which also contains diversity of attitude and approach – arguably the only diversity that, in a business context, really matters.

Professor Gauthier believes schools should not just be selecting candidates from traditional sectors such as banking, consultancy and industry. They should also be seeking individuals who have backgrounds in areas such as political science, the creative arts, history or philosophy, which will allow them to put business decisions into a wider context.

Indeed, there does seem to be a demand for the more rounded leaders such diversity might create. A study by Manna, a leadership development company, suggests that, while the bully-boy chief executive of old may not have been eradicated completely, there is a definite shift in emphasis towards less tough styles of management – at least in America and Europe. Perhaps most significant, according to Manna, is the increasing interest large companies have in more collaborative management models, such as those prevalent in Scandinavia, which seek to integrate the hard and soft aspects of leadership and encourage delegated responsibility and accountability.

• 单词

1. conform -v 符合；顺应；遵守

conformity -n 一致性；遵守

1. standard -adj标准的； -n标准
2. ethnic -adj 民族的

ethnic group -民族团体

1. practically -adv 几乎；差不多
2. tempt -v引诱；怂恿 -adj吸引人的；诱人的
3. apparent -adj 显然的；显而易见的
4. commercial -adj 商业的
5. recruit -v 招募
6. candidate -n候选人；应试者
7. criteria -n标准；原则
8. applicant -adj 申请人；求职人
9. of old -昔日的
10. executive -n总经理
11. eradicate -v 根除；消灭
12. definite -adj 一定的；确定的
13. prevalent -adj流行的；普遍存在的
14. integrate -v 整合；成为一体
15. delegate -v 委托；授权

• 句子

1. Picture a typical MBA lecture theatre twenty years ago.  In it the majority of students will have conformed to the standard model of the time: male, middle class and Western.

想象一下二十年前一个典型的MBA演讲厅。在该课程中，大多数学生将遵循当时的标准模式：男性、中产阶级和西方。（这里的picture用作动词意为 想象一幅…的画面）

1. Behind the differences in sex, skin tones and mother tongues,

在性别、肤色和母语差异的背后，

1. At the moment candidates are selected on a fairly narrow set of criteria such as prior academic and career performance, and analytical and problem solving abilities.

目前，选择候选人的标准相当狭窄，比如之前的学术和职业表现，以及分析和解决问题的能力。

1. But schools rarely dig down to find out what really makes an applicant succeed, to create a class which also contains diversity of attitude and approach – arguably the only diversity that, in a business context, really matters.

但学校很少深入挖掘到底是什么让申请者成功，创建一个态度和方法多样的班级——在商业环境中，这可能是唯一真正重要的多样性。（注意状语位置灵活的调动）

1. A study by Manna, a leadership development company, suggests that, while the bully-boy chief executive of old may not have been eradicated completely, there is a definite shift in emphasis towards less tough styles of management – at least in America and Europe.

领导力发展公司Manna的一项研究表明，尽管旧时代的欺负型首席执行官可能还没有被彻底根除，但至少在美国和欧洲，重点已经明确转向了不那么强硬的管理风格。