上个月，我被邀请向同事们分享我在学习与发展方面的个人经验。以下是我给他们的建议。

 1.      另辟蹊径

在学校时，我曾想学习生物。后被告知，由于生物课与我也想上的历史课时间上相冲突，因此我不能选。于是我便再也没学生物了。人们建立机构是为了人的利益，然而他们却常常变得僵化（而为其工作的我们也亦如此）。如果在你的机构里，有人跟你说你觉得有价值的事情无法实施，你应该挑战这一决定。如果你无法改变机构的规定，那便要另辟蹊径达到目的。

2.       顾及未来

1970年代我在校时，曾放弃了一次免费的指法打字培训机会，那是我在培训方面所做过的最糟糕的决定。至今，我用两根手指缓慢打字所浪费的时间，累计起来可以多工作 好几年了。我当时认为自己永远不会成为一名秘书，便拒绝了培训。这真是一个冒傻气的决定。我的朋友们估计也没有预见到互联网的革命，可他们依然去上课了。 尽量向前看。如果未来不像你所期望的那样（往往确实不会像预想一般），那么你可以重新思考，再次行动。（我到现在还是没学打字。）

3.        以败为励

我常会细品自己的失败，比方说考试拿了低分，从而怯于接受挑战。更好的态度应是对自己的能力充满信心，越挫越勇。格雷戈里·温特爵士是我曾就读的剑桥三一学院的院长，在这方面我很敬佩他。他本科毕业的时候成绩平庸，于是他加倍努力，最终成为了优秀的研究者。他在人类免疫系统研究领域取得突破性的成就。你可以在网上读到他的事迹。

4.       持之以恒

如果你真的想有所成就，并且心怀信念，那么请迎难而上。曾经，我真正想做的是成为一名作家，但却从来没有足够的勇气去尝试。当我1980年代在贸易与工业部工作时，我与一位同事的先生曾数次交谈。他约比我小两岁，立志要成为一名成功的作家。当时他还没怎么发表文章，也没有收入。我以为他是不可能成功的。我估计他会靠着妻子公务员的薪水度日。与之相反，她辞去了工作，两人搬去了法国。她努力经营一个养猪农场。他继续写作。对了，他的名字是伊恩·兰金。你可以在网上读到他的故事。

5.      自知者明

我曾花了四年时间，却没能写出一篇博士论文。这其中有外界的原因，但主要是因为我的个性。我常无法坚信自己的选择，于是便不断拖延。我不擅于投入需要策略性 规划的大型和长期的项目。从这个角度而言，我既懒惰又胆怯：永远把最大的事情推后。我相信，我并不缺乏完成一个博士学位所需要的智力。如果我当时能更了解自己，我会选择一个授课式博士课程，逐步推进。我的失误在于选择了非授课模式，（且后来发现）课程毫无监督，只要求在最后递交一份巨长的论文。如果你知道自己想做什么，那么要好好考虑达到目的的不同方式。方式的选择，往往能决定成败。

6.     步步为营

如果你比我胆子更大，你可能会采取相反的措施：挥袖而去，从头再来。在我三十多岁的时候，我曾考虑过离开公务员系统，而去进修为一名律师。有位律师对我说， 最好能在已有的经验之上继续发展。考虑到我的脾性，这条建议对我很实用。我于是接连在日本和中国任职，并继续学习不同的语言。我一开始并没有打算成为一名公务员，但我所积累的经验对我十分有益。即使在退休之后，我还能继续掌握所学的语言（直到我脑力衰退或者离世，无论哪个先发生）。

7.   机不我待/偶然天成

在《亨利·亚当斯的教育》一书中，亨利·亚当斯提到过“偶然的教育”——本意在他处，却无意中受教。这些经验可能成为最有价值的。我没有完成我的博士论文， 但我在阅读和教课的过程中学到了很多。我甚至对自己更加了解了。随后，我的整个职业生涯都像是由偶然的机遇所编写成的。我本计划一辈子在英国当公务员，所以希望在此前获得一些海外工作的经验，于是便去了日本的一所大学，教了一年书。然而，正因为这份工作经验，我后来被邀请前往驻东京的大使馆工作。这开启了我借调外交部的职业道路。或许如果我能一开始就加入外交部会更好些。然而，也有可能不会更好。当机遇敲门时，一定要及时答应。

8.      自成一格

这是外交部常务次长给我们所有人的建议。这是蛮好的建议，只是我们或许不完全了解自身。除了思索你现在是谁，也想想自己想成为谁。你所做的事情只是你自身的一部分，但却是很重要的一部分。尽可能地去尝试，去做你所相信的事情。想想什么是你愿意投身的，什么是你不感兴趣的。

9. “公私分明”

无论我们对雇主和其他人负有如何的责任，我想建议你永远朝着自己的个人发展和满足感努力。这也可能是，事实上你在服务于他人的时候最有满足感，而且你在作为 一颗螺丝钉时最有成就感。而也可能与此相反。部分决定你做什么的基本原因应该从你自身出发，同时相应地，你承担所带来的风险。

10.   观察四周

无论你决定做什么，怎么做，都要不断地向你感兴趣的人和事学习。你和我所感兴趣的不会都一样。把眼光放到你自己的机构和眼前的工作之外，张望世界和社会的发展。这才会带来最多的机遇。习得。适应。反反复复。

 I was asked by my staff last month to share any tips I had from my own experience of learning and development.  These were the ten points I gave them.

1.       Work around obstacles.

When I was at school, I wanted to study biology.  I was told I could not do so because the timing of the set clashed with history, which I also wanted to take.  As a result I never studied biology.  Institutions are developed by people for the benefit of people, but they tend to ossify (and so do we who work for them).  If people in your institution tell you that it is not possible to do something that you think would be worthwhile, then challenge that decision.   If you can’t change the rules of the institution, then find another way of achieving your objective.  

2.       Think hard about the future.

The worst decision I ever made about training was to turn down the offer of a free touch-typing programme when I was at school in the 1970s.  The time I have wasted by typing slowly with two fingers has now amounted to several working years.  I turned down the opportunity because I thought I was never going to be a secretary.  This was a foolish decision even then.  I don’t suppose my friends foresaw the internet revolution, but they still took the course.  Try to see ahead.  If the future is not exactly as you expect, which it won’t be, then think and act again.  (I still haven’t learned to type.) 

3.       Don’t mope about failure, use it as a spur.

I tend to brood over my failures, such as poor exam results, and shy away from challenge.  Better to be confident in your abilities, and press on despite set-backs.  I admire Sir Gregory Winter who is the current Master of my old college, Trinity College, Cambridge for this fact.  He got a mediocre degree as an undergraduate, but as a result redoubled his efforts to become a successful researcher.  He went on to make pioneering discoveries relating to the human immune system.  You can read about him on the internet.   

4.       Be persistent.

If you really want to achieve something, and believe in yourself, then keep going despite the obstacles.  What I really wanted to be was a writer but I have always lacked the nerve to try to become one.  When I was working at the Department of Trade and Industry in the 1980s, I talked several times to the husband of one of my colleagues.  He was about two years younger than me and was determined to succeed as a writer. At the time he had published little and earned nothing.  I thought it was impossible that he would succeed. I imagined he would live off his wife’s earnings as a civil servant.  Instead, she gave up her job and they left together for France.  She struggled to run a pig farm. He kept on writing.  His name, by the way, is Ian Rankin.  You can read about him on the internet.   

5.       Know your weaknesses.

I spent four years failing to write a PhD.  There were some external reasons for this failure but the main reasons were to do with my own character.  I tend to lack conviction about the value of the things I choose to do, so delay doing them.  I am poor at settling down to large, long-term tasks that require strategic planning.  In that sense I am lazy as well as cowardly:  I put off the biggest things for ever.  It wasn’t, I believe, that I lacked the intelligence to complete a doctorate.  If I had known myself better, I would have chosen a taught PhD course, building up bit by bit.  My mistake was to chose a “programme” with no teaching or (as it turned out) supervision of any kind, just a requirement to deliver a whopping thesis at the end of my studies.  If you know what you want to achieve then think hard too about the different ways you might achieve it.  The choice of methods could make the difference between success and failure.  

6.       Build on what you have achieved.

If you are bolder than I am, you might want to do exactly the opposite: walk away and start again.  At one point, in my thirties, I thought about leaving the civil service to train as a lawyer.  A lawyer I spoke to advised me that it was better to try to build on the experience I had already gained.  This was good advice for me, with my temperament.  I have been able to do that, in a way, with successive postings in Japan and China, and in my approach to learning languages.  I did not initially set out to become a civil servant, but the accumulation of experience has been interesting for me.  I also get to keep the languages I have learned after I retire (that is until my mental faculties fail me or I die, whichever is the sooner). 

7.       Don’t dismiss incidental education.

In The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams writes about “accidental education” – the lessons learned by chance, while aiming for another target. These can be some of the most valuable. I failed to write a PhD, but I learned a lot at that time by reading and teaching.  I even learned something about myself.  My entire career since then could I think be seen as  a chapter of accidents.  I went to work in Japan as a university teacher for a year or so because I wanted overseas work experience before, as I thought, spending the rest of my career in the home civil service in the UK.  It was because I had that Japan experience that I was asked whether I would like to work in the Embassy in Tokyo.  This became the start of a career on loan to the Foreign Office.  It might well have been better for me to plan a career in the Foreign Office to start off with.   Or, quite possibly, it might not have been.  Take advantage of chances as they arise.

8.       Be yourself.

This is the advice of the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office to all of us in our jobs.  It is not bad advice, though we don’t entirely know who we are.  Try to think too about who you would like to become as well as who you are now.   What you do is only part of who you are,  but an important part.  Try, as far as possible,  to do things you believe in.   Think also about what you aspire to, and what you don’t aspire to. 

9.       Selfless or selfish?

Whatever our obligations to our employer and to others, I think you would be well advised to aim always for your own personal development and satisfaction.  It may be that, in fact, nothing gives you more satisfaction than serving others, and that you will find that you can do that best as part of an institution.  Or it may not.  At least some of the fundamental choices about what you do are yours, as are the risks that go with them. 

10.   Keep looking around you.

Whatever you decide to do, and however you decide to do it, keep learning from the people and the things that interest you.   They will not all be the same as the things that interest me.   Keep an eye on global and social developments beyond your own institution and your immediate work.  That is where the most change will come from.  Adopt.  Adapt.  Do it again.