and this guy, that you sort of recognize from down the hall,

而你在樓下辦公室看過的一個傢伙

walks right into your cubicle and he steals your chair!

就直接走進你辦公室，還偷走你的椅子！

Doesn’t say a word, just rolls away with it.

一句話也沒說，就推著椅子離開了

Doesn’t give you any information about why he took your chair out of all the other chairs that around there.

他沒有告訴你為何附近有這麼多張椅子，他卻只拿你這張

Doesn’t acknowledge the fact that you might need your chair to get some work done today.

他可能也不知道你需要椅子來完成一整天的工作

You wouldn’t stand for it. You’d make a stand.

你不可能站著工作，所以你要堅持自己的立場

You’d follow that guy back to his cubicle and you’d say “Why my chair?”

你會跟著那傢伙回到他的辦公室，問他：「為什麼拿我的椅子？」

Okay, so now it’s Tuesday morning when you’re at the office,

好，星期二早上，你在辦公室裡

and a meeting invitation pops up on your calendar.

你的電子月曆上突然出現一場會議邀約

And it’s from this women that you kind of know from down the hall

邀請人是一位你還算認識的樓下的女員工

and the subject line references a project that you’ve heard a little bit about.

會議主題是關於一個你略有聽過的計畫

But there’s no agenda.

但沒有會議議程

There’s no information about why you were invited to the meeting,

你摸不著頭緒為何自己被邀請參與會議

and yet you accept the meeting invitation.

但你還是接受了邀請

And you go.

並且去參加了

And when this highly unproductive session is over,

當這個超級沒有效率的會議終於結束時

you go back to your desk and you stand at your desk

你走回自己的辦公桌

and you say “Boy I wish I had those 2 hours back...

然後你說：「天啊，真希望我剛剛浪費掉的那兩小時還拿得回來...

like I wish I had my chair back."

就像我希望能把椅子拿回來一樣

Everyday, we allow our coworkers, who are otherwise very, very nice people

每天我們都允許我們同事，那些在工作場合外其實非常好的人

to steal from us.

偷走我們的東西

And I’m talking about something far more valuable than office furniture.

我說的是那些比辦公室家具更珍貴的東西

I’m talking about time.

我說的是時間

Your time.

你們的時間

In fact, I believe that we are in the middle of a global epidemic,

我相信我們身處在全球流行病中

of a terrible new illness, known as MAS,

一個恐怖的新疾病，叫做MAS

Mindless Accept Syndrome.

「不經意接受症」

The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome is just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up on your calendar.

不經意接受症的主要徵狀就是立刻接受出現在桌曆上的會議邀約

It’s an involuntary reflex, ding, click, bing, it’s in your calendar. “Gotta go, I’m already late for a meeting”

這可說是一種反射動作，叮、點開通知、行事曆上有記錄，「該走了，開會要遲到了」

Meetings are important, right?

會議很重要，對吧？

And collaboration is the key to success in any enterprise

而合作又是企業成功的關鍵

and a well-run meeting can yield really actionable positive results.

一個好的會議可以產出實際可行的正面結果

But between globalization, and pervasive information technology,

但在全球化和資訊科技的普及之下

the way that we work is really changed dramatically over the last few years.

近幾年來我們工作的方式有不少劇烈變化

And we’re miserable.

我們很痛苦

And we’re miserable not because the other guy can’t run a good meeting,

我們不是因為他人無法搞好一場會議而痛苦

it’s because of MAS,

而是因為不經意接受症而痛苦

our mindless accept syndrome, which is a self-inflicted wound.

我們的不經意接受症就是一種自己造成的創傷

Actually I have evidence to prove that MAS is a global epidemic.

其實我有證據證明不經意接受症是一種全球性的傳染病

Let me tell you why.

讓我告訴你們為什麼

A couple years ago, I put a video on YouTube,

幾年前，我上傳一部影片到Youtube上

and in the video, I acted out every terrible conference call that you’ve ever been on.

影片中，我呈現了所有你可能經歷過最糟糕的電話會議

It goes on for about 5 minutes and it has all the things we hate about bad meetings.

影片長約五分鐘，裡面包含了所有爛會議中會發生的氣人鳥事

There’s, uhm, there’s the moderator that has no idea how to run the meeting.

像是不會主導會議的主席啊

There are the participant who have no idea why they’re there.

不知為何在場的參與者啊

The whole thing kind of collapses into this collaborative train wreck,

所有讓人崩潰的會議災難都在這部影片中

and uh, everyone leaves really angry.

最後大家都帶著怒氣離開

It’s kind of funny.

這蠻有趣的

Let’s take a quick look, just a little .. “Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal

讓我們來看一下，「我們今天的目標是取得重要提案的共識

and as a group, we need to decide of –bloop bloop-

身為一個團隊，我們要決定…-嗶嗶-(有人進入電話會議)

Hi, who just joined?”

嗨，是誰加入呢？

“Hi it’s Joe! I’m working from home today!”

嗨，我是喬，今天在家上班

“Hi Joe, thanks for joining, great, I was just saying, we have a lot of people on the call that we’d like to get through,

謝謝你的參與，我剛才才說，今天有太多人在這次電話會議需要提到

So we’ll skip the role call and dive right in.

所以今天就不點名，直接進入正題

Our goal today is to make an agreement on a very important proposal.

我們今天的目標是達成重要的協議

As a group, we need to decide if –bloop bloop-

身為一個團隊，我們要決定…-嗶嗶-

Hi, who just joined?

嗨，誰加入了呢？

No? I thought I heard a beep.”

沒有？我以為我有聽到嗶一聲

Sound familiar? Yes, sounds familiar to me too.

聽起來很熟悉？對，這對我來說，也聽起來很熟悉

Couple of weeks after I put that online, five hundred thousand people in dozens of countries,

影片上傳後幾週，來自數十個不同國家的五十萬人

I mean dozens of countries watched this video.

我是說來自數十個不同國家的人都看過這部影片

And three years later, it’s still getting thousands of views every month.

三年後，每個月仍然有數千點閱率

It’s close to about a million right now.

現在的點閱率已接近百萬

In fact, some of the biggest companies in the world, companies that you’ve heard of but I won’t name,

其實，世界上一些大公司，你絕對聽過，我在此就不一一唱名

uh, have asked for my permission to use this video in their new hire-training

他們已經徵求我的同意，在新進員工訓練中使用這部影片

To teach their new employees how not to run a meeting at their company.

教導新進員工不要這樣在公司進行這樣的會議

And if the numbers there, million views and it’s being used by all these companies isn’t enough proof that we have a global problem with meetings,

若光看上百萬的點閱率和大企業的使用還不足以證明我們有全球性的會議問題

there are the many, many thousands of comments posted online after the video went up.

上千則影片下的留言更能證明

Thousands of people wrote things like “OMG that was my day today”,

數千人留言：「天啊！我今天就是這樣！」

“That was my day everyday”,

「我每天都這樣」

“This is my life!”

「這就是我的人生！」

One guy wrote, “It’s funny because it’s true.

一位男士留言：「這真有趣，因為這是事實

Eerily, sadly, depressingly true.

很恐怖、很難過、很令人沮喪的事實，

It made me laugh until I cried,

它讓我笑到流淚

and I cried, and I cried some more.”

接著我哭了，然後我開始大哭」

This poor guy said “My daily life until retirement or death.

這位可憐的人寫道：「這就是我退休前或死前的生活

Sigh.”

唉！」

These are real quotes and it’s real sad.

這些都是真實的留言，而且真的令人難過

Common theme running through all of these comments online

出現在留言中的常見的主題..

is this fundamental belief that we are powerless to do anything other than go to meetings

是根本的信念，所以我們常常開完會後，就提不起勁來做其他工作

and suffer through these poorly run meetings, and live to meet another day.

還要受盡糟糕會議的折磨，日復一日，

The truth is we’re not powerless at all.

其實我們不會無能為力

In fact, the cure for MAS is right here in our hands, it’s right here in our fingertips, literally.

事實上，不經意接受症的治療方法就在我們手上，就在我們掌握之中，真的

Something that I call “No MAS,”

我稱它為「拒絕不經意接受症」

which is something if I remember my high school’s Spanish means something like “Enough already make it stop!”

我記得高中上西班牙文課時，學到這個字的意思是「夠了，可以停了」

Here’s how NO MAS works, it’s very simple okay?

「拒絕不經意接受症」是這樣的，非常簡單

First of all, the next time you get a meeting invitation that doesn’t have a lot of information in it at all,

首先，下次你收到會議邀約，卻資訊不明

click the tentative button!

按下「考慮」鍵！

It’s okay, you’re allowed, it’s why it’s there, it’s right next to the accept button,

考慮鍵就在接受鍵的旁邊

or the maybe button or whatever button is there for you not to accept immediately.

或是按下「可能參與」或其他不需要馬上接受的按鍵

Then, get in touch with the person who ask you to, uh, to the meeting,

找尋問你與會的人聊天

Tell them you’re very excited to support their work,

告訴他們你非常想要支持他們的作法

uh, ask them what the goal of the meeting is.

並詢問會議的目標

Tell them, you know, you’re interested in learning how you can help them achieve their goal.

告訴他們，你非常有興趣知道你能用什麼方法幫助他們達成目標

And if we do this often enough, and we do it respectfully,

如果我們常常這樣做，而且有禮貌地做

people might start to be a little more thoughtful about the way they put together meeting invitations.

人們會仔細思考發送會議邀約的方式

And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it.

而你也會更仔細決定要不要接受邀約

People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine!

想像之後人們可能會開始寄發議程

Or they might not have a conference call with 12 people talking about a status

或著他們不會找那麼多人只為了討論一個狀況

when, uh, they could just do a quick email and get it done with.

當他們可以直接傳電子郵件就完成事情

People just might start to change their behaviour

人們開始改變他們的行為

because you changed yours.

因為你改變了你的行為

And they just might bring your chair back too!

而且他們也許還會把你的椅子還回來呢！

No MAS!

拒絕不經意接受症！