Accenture's personal stories would be best left untold
Steve sat by the hospital bed and wept. His father, at the age of just 55, had had a massive stroke and was paralysed down one side. As the son's tears fell, the father opened his eyes, and suddenly Steve knew everything was going to be all right.
Zoe stared down at the pregnancy predictor. Positive. This was at least three years before she had planned a baby. She looked in the mirror to check her response, and found she was grinning from ear to ear.
Why am I telling you these intimate little stories? At the top of this column it says “On Work”. This is meant to give readers a clue that if they feel like reading about work, then they are in the right place. It is also meant to give them a clue that if they feel like reading about strokes and pregnancy tests they are in the wrong place, as these are not to do with work, which is one of the reasons work is so soothing.
If you are employed by Accenture, however, you will know it is more complicated than that. Zoe and Steve are Accenture consultants who are featured with eight others on a DVD revealing the sort of things that you would not generally share with your 100,000 closest colleagues.
Ten Digital Stories is a sort of U-certificate Oprah Winfrey, in which people talk about their religion, disability and lack of success with contraceptive methods. Asha muses about how complicated her wedding is going to be as she is half Buddhist, half Muslim, and her fiancé is an Australian/Croatian Catholic. Samantha describes a birthmark on her baby's face which started swelling, and could have (though didn't) cost the infant her sight. Andy tells us that after a night drinking dodgy Turkish spirits in Bodrum he ended up in hospital having a terrifying panic attack, and has suffered from them since. (“I've never let them interfere with my work,” he adds, in case anyone was worrying.)
I watched the DVD in the privacy of my own sitting room, jaw slack, groaning quietly. There was one question in my head. Why? Actually, two questions: why are Steve, Zoe, Asha and Samantha doing this? And why has Accenture chosen to release their stories to the entire company?
It wasn't just the 10 exhibitionists one wonders about. There were several hundred disappointed others all clamouring to tell their own digital stories, but who were not chosen. The motivation is doubtless similar to that which propels people towards the sacrificial altar of reality TV. Most of us crave attention and even sensible Accenture consultants sometimes do some pretty odd things to get it.
But why did Accenture itself think this a good idea? The UK managing director gives two reasons. People work better if they understand their colleagues and the DVD helps them do this. It is also a celebration of how diverse the company is.
On the first point, I don't see how understanding the people in your company makes you do your job better. There may be some personal details that are relevant to people who work closely together, but not many. If I were Steve's line manager I would want to know that his father had had a stroke. He would need time off, and forgiveness for any peculiar behaviour. However, for those who have never heard of Steve and work in Accenture offices half way around the world, the knowledge has no value whatsoever.
However, according to the company's press office, Ten Digital Stories has gone down a storm. Eight thousand people have already downloaded it from the website. “These short stories were wonderful, and to know they are about people we work with made them that much more enjoyable,” says an unnamed consultant in Miami, whose quote the press office guilelessly informs me was “unaided”.
You could say this DVD creates a warm, fuzzy, family feeling by proving that Accenture employs human beings who have human emotions and experiences. But one sincerely hopes that most people in the company were working on that hypothesis anyway.
Not only do warm, fuzzy feelings leave me cold, they are also bad business. It becomes much more difficult to discipline someone when they have shared their anguish over their baby's birthmark or their panic attacks with the entire company.
Possibly a better reason for the DVD is as a demonstration of diversity, though even here I struggle to find anything to admire. What is the company trying to say in its choice of stories? On the DVD there are four Asian tales, all of which are fairly bland. Simply being Asian seems to be a help in getting picked to tell your story. The white consultants had to try a bit harder, coming up with stories involving sickness, disability or parenting. All tales are presented with an upbeat message in the end (“My dad is getting better; My baby is made special by her mark; My panic attacks are much less frequent now) and contain nothing that might be disturbing to Accenture clients.
But what about all those other diverse personal experiences that in a big company such as Accenture someone must be living through right now? Where is the woman who has had an abortion following an illicit affair with her boss? Where is the woman who has breast cancer and is going to die? Where is the man whose life has been ruined by divorce, and who is fighting a nasty legal battle to see his kids?
We will never hear about these stories, because they are real life, and real life can get very nasty and that has no place at work. But neither does happy-ever-after real life.
Lest I sound too negative, I will end this column by describing the part of the DVD I like. Zoe's story about her unplanned baby is called Delivery, which is cheering as it represents an unusual example of the consultant using this word in its proper context. Babies are delivered; High Performance as in the company slogan “High Performance. Delivered” is not.
员工故事最好不要外扬
史蒂夫坐在病床边痛哭。他的父亲才55岁，却得了严重的中风，引起半身不遂。在儿子掉泪的时候，父亲睁开眼睛，突然间，史蒂夫知道，一切都会好起来的。
佐伊（Zoe）盯着怀孕测试计。结果呈阳性。她本打算三年后怀孕的，可不是这个时候。她看着镜子里自己的反应，发觉自己一脸笑容。
我为什么要告诉您这些非常私人的小故事呢？本专栏的上方写着“论工作”的字眼。其用意是说明，如果您想了解有关工作方面的内容，您找对了地方。另外一个用意，是为了告诉您，如果您想了解中风和受孕测试，可就看错了地方了。中风和怀孕和工作没有多大关系，所以工作才这么让人受用。
不过，如果您在埃森哲（ Accenture）工作，您会发觉，事情要比我的描述复杂。佐伊和史蒂夫都是埃森哲的咨询顾问。埃森哲出了一张DVD，内容是佐伊、史蒂夫和另外8个咨询顾问的一些个人情况。通常情况下，如果您也在一个有着10万人的公司做事，这些事情您是不会抖出来和同事们分享的。
《十个数字故事》（Ten Digital Stories）有点像U级的奥普拉?温弗里 （Oprah Winfrey）节目。这些故事的主人公们讨论的是诸如自己的宗教、残疾、避孕失败之类的话题。艾莎（Asha）在考虑自己婚礼会有多复杂，因为她的父母一方是佛教徒，一方是穆斯林，男方父母则是天主教徒，分别来自澳大利亚和克罗地亚。萨曼塔（Samantha） 描述说，她的孩子脸上有个胎记，而且胎记在开始长大，差点导致孩子失明。安迪告诉我们说，他有天晚上在Bodrum喝土耳其的烈酒，不想这酒后劲太大，引发惊恐症发作，最后进了医院，此后惊恐症一直与自己相伴。（“不过我不会让它来影响工作的，”他补充道。他是怕有人担心。）
还好，我在自家的客厅里看这DVD，所以看的时候，我一直嘴巴张得老大，而且一直轻轻地苦叫。我的头脑里一直在问着一个问题：为什么？事实上，我想到了两个问题：佐伊、史蒂夫、艾莎、萨曼塔他们为什么要这么做？还有，为什么埃森哲挑出他们的故事，说给整个公司里的人来听？
人们搞不懂为什么这10个人要说出自己的故事。其实，有好几百人争着抢着要诉说自己的数字故事，可惜他们还落选了，很失望。这背后的动机有点像现实秀电视节目，在其驱动下，人们自发地走向牺牲的祭坛。我们大部分人都想得到关注，就连理性的埃森哲顾问有时候也为了这个缘故，做出些荒唐事来。
但是埃森哲公司为什么会觉得这主意不错，要把员工“秀”出来呢？埃森哲英国分公司董事总经理给出了两个原因。如果人们对同事更了解，工作能做得更好，DVD能够促进了解，所以能改进工作。另外，这DVD也是为了庆祝公司的多元化。
关于第一点，我并不理解，为什么了解本公司的同事，就能够把工作做得更好？或许我们能了解和身边同事有关的一些生活细节，但这只是一鳞半爪。如果我是史蒂夫的主管经理，我会愿意知道他父亲中风的情况。他需要请假。他如果表现出异常行为，我也能表示谅解。可是，埃森哲的很多人根本就没有听说过史蒂夫这个人，而且分公司之间说不定隔了大半个地球，了解到他这些情况，根本无济于事。
但是，根据公司新闻办公室的说法，《十个数字故事》掀起了一场风暴。有8000人从公司网站下载了这些故事。“这种短故事很棒，而且都是自己同事身上发生的故事，所以读起来更有意思。”一位在迈阿密分公司工作的顾问说。新闻办公室的人很坦率地告诉我说，这位迈阿密顾问说“没有人要他这么说”。
您或许可以说，这张DVD营造了一种温馨的家庭感觉，证明埃森哲聘用的员工都是些有血有肉的人，有感情，有自己的经历。不过我们大家都真心希望这一假设也适用于其它公司，但愿他们也都是有血有肉的大活人。
温馨的气氛并不会让我感觉温暖，反而让我感觉冰冷，而且创造出这种气氛有不利的结果。既然有人把孩子脸上的胎记或者惊恐症这些痛苦遭遇告诉给全公司了，以后这些人出了什么错，来管教他们可就不是一件容易事了。
说DVD是为了说明公司多元化，这个解释或许更合理，不过很难找到值得赞赏的地方。公司挑选这些故事的时候，是想说明什么问题？故事里有4个亚洲人的故事，这几个人的故事都挺平淡无奇。如果正好是亚洲人，似乎就更有可能入选，讲述自己的故事。白人顾问就得多付出一些努力才行，就得有疾病、残疾、带孩子这些额外的故事。所有这些故事结尾都有个比较积极的信息，比如“我爸爸身体越来越好”；“我宝宝脸上的胎记让她更独特” ；“我的惊恐症发病率比以前少多了。”而且都不含有可能让埃森哲客户不安的内容。
埃森哲这么大的一个公司，故事不见得少。这些发生在其他人身上的故事都到哪里去了？某员工和上司发生了婚外恋，怀上孕之后去做了堕胎，她的故事跑哪里去了？某员工得了乳腺癌，性命难保，她的故事又跑哪里去了？某男员工离婚后生活一团糟，正在打官司争取孩子探视权，他的故事又在哪里？
我们永远不会听到这些故事，因为它们就是现实生活，现实生活有可能很难看，所以在工作之中不应该有一席之地。但是“从此过上幸福的生活”也不该出现在工作场所。
为了不让这篇文章通篇否定，我在本专栏文章结尾要说说这张DVD中我所喜欢的地方。佐伊给意外怀孕的孩子取名为Delivery(意思是产品或者服务的“交付”，同时也有孩子“出生”的意思，译者注。)咨询顾问们动不动就用这个字，这回可是用对地方了。孩子终归是要出生的。埃森哲公司的口号是 “交付（产生）高绩效”（High Performance, Delivered）。这高绩效却总是难产。
