【原文&译文】

I①Job titles don’t usually  generate much excitement. ②They’re printed on business cards, emblazoned on LinkedIn pages, and used in formal introductions. ③Some organizations,however, see them as a chance to get creative. ④Consider Disney, which calls its  theme park workers “cast members” and its engineers and multimedia experts“imagineers.” ⑤Subway’s  line workers are “sandwich artists.” ⑥At some companies, receptionists are “directors of  first impressions” and PR people are “brand evangelists.”

职位头衔通常不会让人太过兴奋。这些名称印在商业名片上，写在领英页面上，用于正式介绍中。但是，一些组织机构却将其看成激励创新的契机。拿迪士尼来说，他们将主题公园的工作人员称为“演职人员”，将工程师和多媒体专家称为“幻想工程师”。地铁一线员工是“三明治艺术家”。在一些公司，接待员是“第一印象主管”，公关人员则是“品牌传教士”。

II①It would be easy to dismiss  retitling as a silly exercise in euphemisms.②But over the past decade  London Business School professor Dan Cable has come to view it as a legitimate  tool for improving workers’ attitudes and boosting recruitment. ③“The traditional view of  job titles is that they’re about standardization and benchmarking,” he says. ④“But titles often send the wrong signals and fail to  attract the best applicants. ⑤Companies should recognize that they are powerful symbols of  who we are, what we can do, and what others can expect from us.”

可能很容易觉得改变职位名称没什么，委婉地将其看作是愚蠢的行为。但过去的十年中，伦敦商学院的教授丹·凯布尔则认识到，这是改善员工态度、推动人才招聘的合法工具。“传统观点认为，工作头衔要标准规范，”他说，“但头衔可能常会发出错误信号，无法吸引优秀的应聘者。公司应认识到，职位名称是强有力的标志，标志着我们是谁，我们能做什么，以及他人对我们的期望。”

III①Cable and two colleagues published a 2014 study on “self-reflective” job  titles, and Cable has since expanded his work in the area. ②The paper took a deep dive  into a local chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, whose CEO invited employees  to create fun titles to supplement their official ones. ③“Although we were  skeptical in the beginning, our firsthand observations and in-depth interviews  made us wonder whether there are real psychological benefits to retitling  work,” Cable says. ④Employees described how their new and improved titles made their jobs  more meaningful and helped them cope with the emotional challenges of serving  families with sick or dying children. ⑤The researchers concluded that the initiative reduced  stress by helping people focus on the more purposeful aspects of their jobs.

2014年，卡布尔和两名同事发布了一份“自我反思的”职位头衔研究报告，随后卡布尔在这一领域展开了工作。这份报告对愿望成真基金会的一家当地分会进行了深入调研，该基金会的首席执行官邀请员工们创造有趣的头衔来补充其官方名称。“虽然我们刚开始很怀疑，但实际观察和深入采访却让我们开始思考将职位头衔重新命名是否真的会带来心理上的好处，”卡布尔说。员工们描述了他们新的改善后的头衔如何使工作变得更有意义，以及如何帮助他们应对在服务有患病或奄奄一息的孩子的家庭时所遇到情感挑战。研究员得出结论称这一措施通过帮助人们关注其工作更有意义的方面，来减轻他们的压力。

IV①To see if that dynamic would hold up in a full-fledged experiment, the researchers worked with employees at a  hospital chain. ②With one group, they outlined how the retitling had improved life at Make-A-Wish  and then asked the workers to suggest new titles for themselves. ③The researchers surveyed  the workers, along with members of two control groups, about their attitudes  toward their work before the retitling and five weeks later. ④They found that those who  had been asked to choose new titles had lower levels of emotional exhaustion,felt more validated and better  recognized for their work, and experienced greater “psychological safety,”which can promote free information exchanges. ⑤They concluded, “Rather than viewing  titles solely as sources and reflections of formality and rigidity  or mechanisms of bureaucratic control, our research suggests that titles can be  vehicles for agency, creativity, and coping.”

为了研究这种动力在充分的实验中是否依然有效，研究员与员工们共同在一家医院工作。针对一组员工，研究员概述了更换职位名称如何改善了他们在愿望成真基金会的生活，并询问了员工们为自己提出的新头衔。研究员对两个对照组的员工进行了调查，看在更换名称前和更换名称后五周他们的工作态度有何变化。研究人员发现，选择了新头衔的员工情绪疲惫的水平更低，觉得在工作中获得了更多认可，有更大的“心理安全感”，这能够促进自由的信息交换。他们总结称“我们的研究不是将职位头衔看作正式程序和严格要求的来源与反映，或是官僚控制的机制，而是建议头衔可作为公众服务机构、创造力和解决问题的工具。”

(“Creative Job Titles Can Energize Workers”. From the  May 2016 issue.Harvard Business Review.)

【词汇短语】

1. * emblazon[ɪm'blezn]vt. 颂扬；用纹章装饰

2. *evangelist[ɪ'vændʒəlɪst]n. 福音传道者；圣经新约福音书的作者

3. dismiss[dɪs'mɪs]vt. 解散；解雇；不予考虑

4. * euphemism['jufəmɪzəm]n. 委婉语；委婉说法

5. *benchmarking['bentʃ,mɑːkɪŋ]n. 标杆管理；标记；确定基准点

6. *full-fledged['ful'fledʒd]adj. 羽毛生齐的；有充分资格的；发育完全的

7. validated[ ˈvælɪˌdeɪtid ]adj. 经过验证的

8. formality[fɔr'mæləti]n. 礼节；拘谨；仪式；正式手续

9. rigidity[rɪ'dʒɪdəti]n.严格，刻板；僵化；坚硬

（注：标*的为超纲词）

【点评】

段I介绍相关背景，并逐渐引出全文讨论话题。句①首先给出一般情况，即职位头衔通常不会让人太兴奋，开启下文。句②继续句①的阐述，介绍了一般头衔都会应用于哪些场合，这些场合通常是比较严肃、正式的，也就体现了这些职位名称的严肃性。句③转折，指出一些公司却把这些头衔看作是一个突破口，以此来激励员工创新，them指job titles。句④句⑤句⑥对句③进行解释说明，分别举出了迪士尼的工程师和多媒体专家、地铁一线员工已经某些公司的接待员和公关人员的例子，他们的新头衔让人耳目一新。

段II开始分析讨论。句①首先退而指出人们对此现象可能产生的想法，即认为改变职位名称并没有什么用处，dismiss（if you dismiss something,you decide or say that it is not important enough for you to think about or  consider）一词充分地表达出了其中的否定意味。句②针对句①进行转折，引用专家观点，指出改变职位名称有利于改善员工态度、推动人才招聘，decade（十年）给出了研究的时间，体现了观点的可靠性。句③指出传统的观点，即工作头衔要标准规范。句④转折，指出传统标准职位名称的弊端。句⑤亮明观点，给出头衔应有的作用，体现其重要性，于是也暗示了改变传统职位名称的重要意义。

段III详细介绍说明了专家进行的调查研究。句①总述。句②给出了调研对象---愿望成真基金会，并介绍了该基金会进行的相关活动。句③直接引用专家观点，首先退步指出对改变职位名称这一做法的怀疑，随后转折，削弱了怀疑程度。句④解释说明上一句，参与其中的员工在态度和情感上发生了转变，变得更加积极。Made与helped并列，都是new and improved titles带来的好处。句⑤总结，给出研究结论，指出这一措施可减轻员工压力。

段IV承接上文，继续进行阐述。句①介绍了进一步研究的目的以及为此采取的措施。句②介绍了针对其中一组员工进行的调查内容。句③介绍了对两个对照组员工进行的调查。句④给出调查结果，选择了新头衔的员工在心理和情绪上感觉更好，这可带来一系列好处。句⑤总结，指出职位头衔不应仅局限于其原有的传统作用，而是可以作为一种解决问题、激发创造力的途径。Rather than（而不是）前置，先指出头衔传统的功用，而将真正的观点建议后置，起到突出强调的作用，呼应文章的主题。