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When to trust your gut
何时该相信直觉
Humans have been honed over millions of years of evolution to respond to certain situations without thinking too hard. If your ancestors spotted movement in the undergrowth, they would run first and grunt questions later.
经过数百万年的进化，人类已经被磨练得可以在不费力思考的情况下就对某些情况做出反应。当你的祖先发现灌木丛中有动静时，都会先跑开，然后再咕哝着对刚才的情景表示疑惑。
At the same time, the capacity to analyse and to plan is part of what distinguishes people from other animals.
与此同时，分析和计划的能力是区分人类与其他动物的一个标志。
The question of when to trust your gut and when to test your assumptions--whether to think fast or slow, in the language of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist--matters in the office as much as it does in the savannah.
什么时候该相信直觉，什么时候该验证假设----用心理学家丹尼尔·卡内曼的话来说，究竟使用快思考还是慢思考----这个问题无论是职场还是在野外都同等重要。
Deliberative thinking is the hallmark of a well-managed workplace. Strategic overhauls and budget discussions are built on rounds of meetings, memos, formulas and presentations.
深思熟虑是工作场所管理有方的标志。一轮轮会议、备忘录、方案和演示是进行战略改革和预算讨论的基础。
Processes are increasingly designed to stamp out instinctive responses. From blind screening of job applicants to using "red-teaming" techniques to pick apart a firm's plans, rigour trumps reflex. Yet instinct also has its place.
越来越多的流程被设计出来以杜绝本能反应，小到盲选求职者，大到使用"红队策略"来打磨公司的计划，严谨还是比本能更胜一筹。不过，本能也有用武之地。
Some decisions are more connected to emotional responses and inherently less tractable to analysis. Does a marketing campaign capture the essence of your company, say, or would this person work well with other people in a team?
有些决策与情绪反应之间的关系更加密切，本质上也难以通过分析来下决断。比如，营销活动是否充分抓住了公司的本质，或者一个人能否与团队中的其他人顺利合作？
In sticky customer-service situations, intuition is often a better guide to how to behave than a script. Gut instincts can also be improved (call it "probiotic management").
如果遇到棘手的客户，直觉往往比指南更能指导如何行事。直觉能力也是可以提高的（可以称之为"益生菌管理"）。
Plenty of research has shown that intuition becomes more unerring with experience. In one well-known experiment, conducted in 2012, volunteers were asked to assess whether a selection of designer handbags were counterfeit or real.
大量研究表明，随着经验的积累，直觉会变得更加准确。在2012年的一项著名实验中，志愿者被要求判断一些名牌手袋的真伪。
Some were instructed to operate on instinct and others to deliberate over their decision. Intuition worked better for those who owned at least three designer handbags; indeed, it outperformed analysis.
实验要求一些人凭直觉判断，其他人则要深思熟虑后再做决定。对于那些至少拥有三个名牌手袋的人来说，依照直觉判断的正确率更高；确实，直觉比分析更准确。
The more expert you become, the better your instincts tend to be. However, the real reason to embrace fast thinking is that it is, well, fast. Instinctive decision-making is often the only way to get through the day.
越专业，直觉往往就越准确。但是，选择快思考的真正原因就是：快。依照本能做决策往往是让你顺利度过一天的唯一方法。
Researchers at Cornell University once estimated that people make over 200 decisions a day about food alone.
康奈尔大学的研究人员曾经估算出，人们每天光是思考吃什么都会做出200多个决定。
The workplace is nothing but a succession of choices, a few big and many small: what to prioritise, when to intervene, whom to avoid in the lifts and, now, where to work each day.
职场也不过是充斥着一连串的选择罢了，通常是几个重要的选择加上许多个微小的选择，比如优先考虑什么、何时干预、在电梯里避开谁，现在还要考虑每天在哪儿工作。
