商学院为何开设表演课？

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商学院为何开设表演课？

天之聪教育 2013-07-15 天之聪教育 364次

商学院为何开设表演课？

MBA students learn that all the business world’s a stage

In business, everyone has a role to play. From presentation to management, impact and influence vary hugely depending on an individual’s behaviour.

在商界，人人都有自己的角色。从做演示到做管理，个人产生的影响力在很大程度上取决于他的行为。

Business schools are drawing lessons from the theatre to enhance their students’ ability to become strong leaders and communicators. But, rather than training students as actors, they are using strategies from the stage to enhance students’ approach across a range of business situations.

商学院正在从表演中寻找强化学生能力的方法，以求把他们培养为优秀的领导者和沟通者。然而，他们并不是要把学生培养为演员，而是利用舞台上的策略强化学生在各种商业场合的应对能力。

Using acting skills in business training is mainly a western phenomenon. In the US, a number of business schools offer tailored drama electives, such as MIT Sloan School of Management and Stanford Graduate School of Business. In the UK and continental Europe, universities tend to use a specialist training agency rather than run a course in-house, according to Geoff Church, director and founder of UK-based acting company Dramatic Resources.

在商业培训中应用表演技能在西方国家是常见现象。在美国，有很多商学院提供量身定制的表演选修课，比如麻省理工大学斯隆商学院(MIT Sloan School of Management)和斯坦福大学商学院(Stanford Graduate School of Business)。英国表演公司Dramatic Resources总裁兼创始人杰夫•丘奇(Geoff Church)表示，在英国和欧洲大陆，大学往往会外聘专业培训机构，而不是自行开设表演课。

“There is no question that it started in the west, the UK is a hub for this,” he says. The trend for the theatrical approach is less common further east, he adds, although awareness is building. Dramatic Resources has begun working with Insead in Abu Dhabi and recently worked in Bangkok and India for Adecco, the temporary employment agency. It has also collaborated with the Saïd school at the University of Oxford, Durham University Business School in the UK and IMD in Switzerland.

他说：“毫无疑问，这种做法始于西方，主要是英国。”他补充说，对东方而言，商学院增加表演课的趋势没有那么普遍，尽管这种意识已经在形成。Dramatic Resources已经开始与欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)阿布扎比校区开展合作，最近还开始在曼谷和印度与短期工作人才中介公司德科(Adecco)开展合作。同时它还与牛津大学(Oxford)赛德商学院(Saïd)、英国杜伦大学商学院(Durham University Business School)、瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院(IMD)开展合作。

“Bringing real actors into class is extremely powerful and effective,” says Arturo Bris, director of advanced strategic management at IMD. “An executive’s job is very often like an actor being on stage and giving craft to a particular, written role.”

洛桑国际管理发展学院高级策略管理主管阿图罗•布里斯(Arturo Bris)说：“请真正的演员来上课非常管用，效果很明显。高管的工作往往就像台上的演员，要按照剧本预设的特定角色去表演。”

At MIT students on the “EnActing leadership: Shakespeare and performance” programme become a theatre company for the course duration, culminating in a performance of Hamlet. According to Christine Kelly, a senior lecturer in managerial communication at MIT, identifying with Shakespeare’s characters in a leadership context gives students more presence and the ability to project well even in stressful scenarios. “Having to perform fools the brain into thinking ‘this is a real situation’,” she says.

在麻省理工学院(MIT)，参与“EnActing领导力：莎士比亚与表演”课程的学生们在参与课程期间组成一家剧院，课程最后集体表演一场哈姆雷特(Hamlet)的戏剧。MIT管理沟通高级讲师克里斯蒂娜•凯利(Christine Kelly)表示，在领导力培训中，让学生饰演莎士比亚戏剧中的角色，能够让学生更好地展现自己，并锻炼在压力下出色表现的能力。她说：“在被置于表演情境时，大脑会认为‘这是一个真实的场景’。”

MIT lecturer Daena Giardella teaches improvisational leadership in which she coaches students to experiment by responding differently.

麻省理工讲师蒂娜•吉亚德拉(Daena Giardella)教授的是即兴领导力，在这门课程中她训练学生尝试不同的应对。

“Some people are by default more outgoing, some are more retiring, more quiet,” she says. “We look at those default habit roles and I challenge them to move out of their comfort zone.”

吉亚德拉说：“有些人天生就比较外向、有些人则比较内向、安静。我们针对这些与生俱来的习惯角色，迫使他们挑战自我，走出自己的‘舒适区’。”

A crucial skill spanning acting and business is making others look good, Ms Giardella adds: being able to welcome others’ viewpoints while adding your own creates greater influence than putting down conflicting ideas.

表演和商业都需要的一种关键技能是，让别人感觉舒服。吉亚德拉补充说：能够接纳别人的观点并补充自己的观点，要比压制相冲突的观点产生更大影响力。

Teaching acting skills in business school is not about trying to put on a mask, says Deborah Gruenfeld, who teaches “Acting with power” at Stanford. “Everybody has sides of themselves that they don’t use often, but what learning to act does is give you an opportunity to find the parts of yourself that can relate to the characters and the role you are playing.”

在斯坦福大学教授“有力的表演”课程的德博拉•格林费尔德(Deborah Gruenfeld)表示，在商学院教授表演技巧不是要教学生戴上面具。“每个人都有自己不常展露出来的一面，学习表演的作用就是给你一个机会，从自己身上找到可与你所扮演的人物和角色联系起来的部分。”

Part of self-development is finding more effective ways to behave, Prof Gruenfeld adds, such as a student recognising they are not very authoritative and using acting training to bring out more authoritative traits.

格林费尔德补充说，自我发展部分在于找到一种更有效的方式来改变自己的行为，比如说，当一名学生意识到自己不是很威严，就可以利用表演训练进一步挖掘自己性格中威严的潜质。

Students are often concerned that acting means a lack of authenticity, but Ed Freeman, who teaches “Leadership and theatre: Ethics, innovation and creativity” at Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, says this view is incorrect. “It is about emotional intelligence. A lot of people think of acting as big emotions, but that is just generally bad acting. We have got to be authentic.”

学生往往担心表演意味着不真实，但弗吉尼亚大学达顿商学院(Darden School of Business)教授“领导力与戏剧：道德、创新与创造”课程的埃德•弗里曼(Ed Freeman)认为，这种观点是不正确的。“这与情商有关。很多人认为表演必须表现戏剧化的情绪，但那通常只是糟糕的表演。我们必须力求真实。”

Being imaginative can bring out the skills that businesses seek, he says. “Every chief executive I know wants organic growth but very few people are willing to turn loose their people in terms of their creative sides.”

弗里曼表示，想象力可以激发出商业中需要的技能。“我所知道的每一个首席执行官都想实现有机增长，但很少有人愿意解放自己的员工，释放出他们的创造力。”

Many core drama skills are based on body language. “A lot of actors will say you use your body language to help transform your psychology,” says Prof Gruenfeld. The basics start with experimenting with different ways of holding the body and vocal exercises. Lessons then move on to how to use physical signals to show power or deference.

很多核心表演技能都是以身体语言为基础。格林费尔德教授说：“很多演员都认为，你需要用身体语言来帮助自己转变心态，”最基础的就是尝试不同的体态，以及不同的发声练习方式。第二步是，学习如何用肢体语言来显示权威或表示服从。

“There is always an objective sense of who has power in an organisation,” she says. “But . . . if you really want to understand who has influence, there is a lot more to it. You can look at peers and know that some have a lot more power than others.”

格林费尔德说：“一个组织中谁在掌权，这始终是个比较客观的问题。但……如果你真的想知道谁有影响力，这里面还有很多名堂。你可以观察一下你的同事们，就会发现有些人的权威比其他人大得多。”

For James Rice at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, who teaches the “Communicating with presence” course, something as simple as learning to breathe properly can improve communication. Identifying inhibitors in a rehearsal environment can lead to greater success in a real scenario, he adds.

美国新罕布什尔州的达特茅斯大学塔克商学院(Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth)教授詹姆斯•莱斯(James Rice) 开设了一门课程，教授“优雅沟通”。他认为，哪怕是学会恰当呼吸这类简单的事，都可以改善沟通质量。他补充说，在排练中发现不利于沟通的因素，可帮助我们在现实中更成功地沟通。

“To relax, to live in the presentation moment, you have to spend some time in self-observation and see what things keep you from doing that.” Actors and leaders need to be persuasive and inspirational, he adds, yet only actors properly study how to achieve that.

“为了放松和入戏，你必须花一些时间来自我观察，看看有哪些因素在阻碍你成功沟通。”他补充说，演员和领导都必须具备的两样东西是说服力和感召力，但只有演员会正儿八经学习如何获得它们。

According to Mr Church, too much emphasis is placed on outward appearance in business: “People assume that if someone can stand up in front of a room and be convincing, inspiring, engaging, that tells you they are a good leader in other ways, and if they can’t do that they are in some way incompetent.”

丘奇认为，商业中非常强调表面功夫：“人们认为，如果一个人可以做到站在众人面前，说服和鼓舞别人，吸引别人的注意力，就说明他在别的方面也是个好的领导。否则，就说他在某种程度上领导能力不足。”

Acting skills can help combat this by instilling greater confidence, he adds. “Our role is to get people to be themselves confidently while getting people to listen to them,” says Mr Church. All skills must ultimately be applied to the business world, but it is not about learning to mask behaviours; it is about exploring emotions, empathy, confidence, projection and authenticity.

丘奇补充说，掌握一些表演技巧可以为一个人带来更多自信，从而克服这个障碍。丘吉尔说：“我们的职责就是帮助人们自然、自信地发表讲话。”所有的技能最终都必须适用于商界，但重点不在于学习如何掩饰真实的行为，而在于探索情感、同情心、自信、预见性、以及真实性。

As Prof Freeman says: “It is really learning to be more effective as a human being.”

弗里曼教授说得好：“实际上学习的是如何更有效地发挥人类特性。”