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Occasionally, I host roundtable debates between chief executives. They like to show off, which is tiresome, but eavesdropping on their high-level exchanges is almost always useful.
偶尔，我会主持首席执行官圆桌辩论会。他们爱炫耀，这一点令人厌烦，但是偷听他们的高层次对话几乎总是有所收获。
Last week, I led a working dinner for a different and more interesting group. Each person was leading digital transformation for public or private sector groups, from finance to telecoms to media. Among them were an inventor, a former television producer, a venture capitalist and a couple of computer scientists.
最近，我为另一群更有趣的人主持了一场工作餐会。他们每个人都在领导公共或私营部门组织的数字化变革，领域涉及金融、电信、媒体。在场的有一位发明家、一位前电视制作人、一位风险投资人和两位计算机专家。
As the only layman, I had expected an evening of forbidding tech talk. Unlike their bosses, though, this group wanted to be frank about the managerial challenges they faced. One described the off-the-record discussion as like a therapy session: Managers Anonymous, perhaps.
作为唯一的外行，我曾预想这个晚上会充满令人生畏的技术讨论。然而，与他们的老板不同，这些人希望坦陈他们所面对的管理挑战。一个人说，这种不作记录的讨论就像治疗会一样：名字或许可以叫做“匿名管理者”。
Some of the problems raised were predictable: the friction between new technology and legacy systems; the mismatch between rapid digital advances and the sluggishness of culture change; the quotidian frustrations of having to implement woolly strategy, and the perennial problem of being siloed with IT, who, in the words of one, “are the people who get the blame for everything”.
参加者们提出的一些问题是容易预料的：新技术和旧系统之间的摩擦；飞速的数字化进步与滞后的文化改变之间的错位；司空见惯的因为不得不实施混乱的策略而感到的沮丧；以及被困在IT部门内部的长期问题，用一位在场者的话说，“什么事情都会怪到IT头上”。
I was surprised, though, when the group started to complain about what I think of as a trivial part of corporate life: job titles. The chief digital officers were particularly exercised. “Who goes to Amazon and asks who their chief digital officer is?” asked one. “It would be like having a ‘chief paper officer’ at a newspaper,” added another scornfully.
然而，当这群人开始抱怨一个问题的时候，我感到很惊讶，在我看来这是职场生活中细枝末节的一部分：头衔。首席数字官(CDO)们格外烦恼。“哪个人会去亚马逊(Amazon)问谁是首席数字官？”一个人问。“这就像是在一家报纸设一个‘首席报纸官’一样，”另一个人讽刺道。
Chief executives, I can assure you, never gripe about their job titles — unless it is to lament that they don’t have enough of them or to moan that shareholder activists are trying to take one of them away.
我可以向你保证，首席执行官们从不抱怨他们的头衔——除非是抱怨头衔太少或者抱怨股东维权人士试图剥夺他们的某个头衔。
What is interesting about chief digital officers wanting to change their corporate handles is that they are part of a cohort of executives that others supposedly yearn to join.
首席数字官们希望改换头衔这一点之所以耐人寻味，是因为他们属于其他人理应渴望加入的高管行列。
In 2012, Gartner, the consultancy, predicted “chief digital officer” would be “the most exciting strategic role in the decade ahead”. The job was third in Korn Ferry’s list of “most in-demand C-level positions” for 2015, just behind chief innovation officer. The most recent survey by recruitment group Harvey Nash of chief information officers — who often have overall responsibility for technology policy — found almost one in five were working with a chief digital officer, more than double the previous year; 13 per cent of them actually coveted the digital job.
2012年，咨询公司高德纳(Gartner)预言，“首席数字官”将是“未来10年最令人兴奋的战略性角色”。在光辉国际(Korn Ferry)列出的2015年“需求最大的‘首席’职位”中，首席数字官紧随首席创新官之后，排在第3位。猎头公司Harvey Nash最近对首席信息官（通常从整体上负责技术政策）进行的调查发现，每5名首席信息官中就有1名和首席数字官共事，这个比例比上一年增加了1倍多；其中有13%的人实际上希望当首席数字官。
