TWO years ago, a student of mine named Nicole was torn on where to start her career. While applying for jobs in finance, technology, consulting and marketing, she suddenly realized that her biggest concern wasn’t what she did, but where she worked.

两年前，我有一个名叫妮可（Nicole）的学生纠结着从哪里开始她的职业生涯。在金融、技术、咨询以及市场领域求职的过程中，她突然发现自身最大的焦虑不在于做过什么工作，而在于工作地点。

When it comes to landing a good job, many people focus on the role. Although finding the right title, position and salary is important, there’s another consideration that matters just as much: culture. The culture of a workplace — an organization’s values, norms and practices — has a huge impact on our happiness and success.

当找到一份好工作时，许多人都倾向于专注于自己的角色。尽管头衔、职位及薪水很重要，还有一方面也同样重要，那就是文化。公司的文化，也就是组织的价值观、准则以及惯例等，对我们的幸福感和成功有很大影响。

But how do you figure out the culture of a company you’ve never worked for? As Nicole tried to evaluate company cultures, she kept asking the Passover question: “How is this organization different from all other organizations?” And, as with Passover, I told Nicole, the answer should come in the form of a story. Ask people to tell you a story about something that happened at their organization but wouldn’t elsewhere.

但是怎样挖掘你从未工作过的公司文化？当妮可试着评估某个公司的文化时，她不断问自己一个逾越节式的问题：“该公司与其他公司有什么不同？”和逾越节一样，我告诉妮可，答案就隐藏在故事中。可以问问其他人，看看有什么故事发生在他们公司而不会发生在其他公司。

After collecting stories from people at different levels of an organization, Nicole noticed that they touched on common themes. That was a good sign: There was some consensus about the company’s values. But when she talked to other companies, the same kinds of stories kept surfacing in every company she talked to. Why?

通过从公司不同层级的员工收集故事，妮可发现它们都触及共同的主题。这是一个好的迹象：说明公司的价值观存在某种一致性。但当她与其他公司的员工交谈时，她发现同样的故事在每家公司上演，这是为什么？

Three decades ago, in a classic study, a team of researchers led by the Stanford professor Joanne Martin analyzed the stories people told about their workplaces. They discovered an organizational uniqueness bias: People think their cultures are more distinctive than they really are.

在三十年前的一项经典研究案例中，斯坦福大学（the Standford）教授乔安妮·马丁（Joanne Martin）带领一组研究人员对不同公司员工所讲述的故事进行了分析。他们发现一种组织中的独特性偏见：与实际情况相比，人们往往认为自己公司的文化更为独特。