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So successful, in fact, that just a couple of days ago, they announced that this was now their core business moving forwards.
这一项目如此成功，以至于几天前，他们刚宣布这个项目将成为他们的主营业务。
It’s only by focusing on these anomalous mavericks that they could see their own path to renewed success and growth.
只有关注了这些与众不同的公司，才能找到通向成功的新道路。
Now, not everything in business goes according to plan.
经营公司的时候，不是所有的事都会照着计划走。
In fact, sometimes the plans go horribly awry.
现实是，计划甚至会严重走偏。
But you know what?
但你知道吗？
That can be a source of inspiration, too.
这也可以是你灵感的来源。
To find out how, let’s play the “Pre-Mortem Game.”
为了说明这一点，我们来玩一个叫“事前分析”的游戏。
So your role in this game is to write ... the obituary for your company, which is going to fail with 100 percent certainty in five years’ time.
你的任务是，给你的公司写一份破产声明。写出那些一定能让你的公司在五年内破产的事情。
What is the cause of death? What will have been the point of failure?
直接导致破产的原因是什么？破产的那一刻会发生什么？
Why will it have failed? How will it have failed?
为什么会失败？公司是怎么走向失败的？
The challenge here is that it’s easy to be seduced into the baseline fallacy.
但这很容易会导致基线谬误。
The baseline fallacy is the idea that it’s the current business model which is the low-risk bet.
基线谬误就是会让你觉得，目前的商业模型的风险是最低的。
And of course that tends to be true until it isn’t true, at which point it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
这在当时听起来好像不错，直到它开始出问题。而这时你再想去修正已经来不及了。
Now, your employees are an early-warning indicator.
你的员工其实就是早期的预警信号，
They will have intuitions if the model begins to slip, but it’s very hard for them to speak up.
他们会很早就察觉到公司的商业模型开始出问题，但他们很难发声。
And it’s even taboo for them to speak up when the business model is under pressure.
而且当公司经历坎坷的时候，指出问题会让他们受到责难。
But when executives create playgrounds -- spaces for the safe exploration of alternatives and alternative scenarios -- then you get to tap into your employees’ considerable experience about the vulnerabilities and the weak spots and the blind spots of your company.
但假如公司的高管能给出一个能让员工畅所欲言的环境，那你就能利用员工宝贵的经验，看到公司的弱点、存在的缺陷以及公司高管忽视的事情。
Does anyone remember visiting recently one of these gorgeous marble palaces?
你们有谁记得最近参观过这样的富丽堂皇的大理石宫殿吗？
No? It’s probably been a while since we visited the local banking branch.
不记得了？确实，距离人们上次踏足这些银行地方分行的大厅已经有一段时间了。
Had bricks-and-mortar banks played the “Pre-Mortem Game,” perhaps they would have heard their employees expressing some concerns about the gradually dwindling flow of customers to local branches.
假如这些实体银行有玩过这个“事前分析游戏”的话，他们很可能会知道他的员工对支行客流量减少的担忧。
And perhaps they would have been slightly less taken by surprise when companies like NewBank, a digital native, seized, very rapidly indeed, on that opportunity to convince, to date, more than 40 million Latin Americans that in-person transactions in real buildings were a quaint but obsolete relic of the past.
这样的话，当像 NewBank 这种数字银行迅速抓住机会，说服了至今有超过四千万名的拉丁美洲的客户抛弃过时的传统银行交易的时候，他们应该就不会如此惊讶了。
It’s only when you bring your vulnerabilities into full view in this way that you may be motivated to reimagine your business and to do so in a robust manner.
只有当你清楚看到自己的弱点的时候，你才会认真地想改善你的公司。
It’s why the Roman Catholic Church invented the role, the position of the Devil’s advocate in the 16th century to test the future consequences of its decisions to appoint new saints.
这也是为什么罗马天主教廷在十六世纪设立了魔鬼代言人（Devil’s advocate）这一个职位，所可能产生的结果。
They did that by imagining what would Satan say or propose or counterpropose, in addition to the normal procedure of thinking about the big man upstairs.
他们的预测是通过在领会上帝的旨意之外，想象魔鬼可能说的话、提的建议或反对的意见来实现的。
Now, any human being, any employee, any team and therefore any company can harness human imagination.
所有人、员工、团队以及所有公司都能尽情利用自己的想象力。
It’s a defining trait of our species.
这是人类独有的一个能力。
Failures to imagine in business are really failures of leadership.
在商业中没办法发挥想象力，就意味着在领导上的失败。
Business is a serious matter, but it should not exclude play.
商业是一件非常严肃的事，但这并不意味着就不能玩耍。
When leaders embrace play and imagination games, they can unlock the imagination of their employees, uncover disruptive new strategies and renew their lease on the future.
当领导者能接受玩耍以及想象力游戏的时候，那他们就能成功激发员工的想象力，提出颠覆性的新策略，以及保住他们未来的工作。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
