評論
打印
One of the features in common between the phone hacking scandal, the various banking scams and the latest row, over the failure of G4S, is that the men at the top claim not to have known what was going on. OK, you can't expect the top person to know all the details of what their subordinates are up to. So what can we expect? I'd suggest two things.
電話竊聽丑聞、各種形式的銀行詐騙以及最近關(guān)于杰富士（G4S，國際安全解決方案供應(yīng)商）安保失敗的爭論有一個(gè)共同的特點(diǎn)：上頭的當(dāng)權(quán)者都聲明，自己并不知道到底發(fā)生了什么。當(dāng)然，我們也不能期望這些當(dāng)權(quán)者知道下屬做事的所有細(xì)枝末節(jié)。既然這樣，我們能期望的是什么呢？我認(rèn)為，有兩點(diǎn)。
The first responsibility of a leader, whether it's in business, the church or in politics is to appoint people they can trust to be honest and competent. Secondly, given the fact that there are bound to be some human failures, to ensure that the fail safe mechanisms for detecting honesty and competence are firmly in place and ready to detect something going wrong at an early stage. It's quite possible for a person at the top not to know personally about a particular failure, but still to regard themselves as rightly responsible. So we can have such a thing as an honourable resignation and I think of the resignation of Lord Carrington in 1982 over the invasion of the Falklands.
首先，無論在商業(yè)界、神學(xué)界還是政治界，一個(gè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者的第一責(zé)任在于任命其認(rèn)為誠實(shí)、有能力的人士。第二，考慮到這一過程中總會有些人為的因素導(dǎo)致任人不當(dāng)，那就要確保那些無法察覺出人員不誠實(shí)和無能的失靈的安全機(jī)制能夠穩(wěn)步得到改善、運(yùn)行順暢，并能在早期階段就能檢測出異樣。對于當(dāng)權(quán)者而言，他們自己本身很有可能不知道具體是哪里出了問題，但他們也應(yīng)該對失誤負(fù)起責(zé)任。所以，也就有了引咎辭職的做法，而我認(rèn)為1982年卡林頓勛爵因英國入侵福克蘭群島而辭職就屬于這種情況。
Accountability is a key concept not just for people in business or politics but for everyone. There is a powerful statement of Jesus which goes"To whom much is given, much will be expected". And he made it quite clear that every human being is ultimately accountable on this basis. Which is a rather scary idea. Certainly the church in the past rammed this home in an unpleasantly threatening manner.So I find it more helpful to think of this accountability in terms of a story about our life which we each have to tell or can tell to someone whose judgement we deeply respect. Each one of us has a unique story, which only we can recount. Some are conscious that life has dealt them a very good hand indeed. For example, in his recent memoirs, the former editor of The Times, William Rees Mogg says that his earliest memory is of his third birthday standing on a hill overlooking his parents' house and feeling"I'm very much myself, am William Rees Mogg and this is a good thing to be". For others the experience's been very different.
“問責(zé)”也是一個(gè)重要的觀念，這不僅是對商界或政界而言的，對每個(gè)人來說都是如此。耶穌有一句非常有力的警句：“凡得多者須多付出，別人多他的期望也高”。在這一點(diǎn)上，他非常清楚明了的表明，每一個(gè)人都必須負(fù)起責(zé)任。這是一個(gè)相當(dāng)可怕的想法。當(dāng)然，過去的教會總是充斥著這種威脅性的方式，令人不悅。 我們會因公正的判斷而十分尊重一些人，而我發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果把“問責(zé)”作為我們?nèi)松械囊粋€(gè)故事來向這些人講述，就會更有幫助。我們每個(gè)人都會有一個(gè)獨(dú)一無二的故事，只能由我們自己來講述。有些人會覺得，人生對他們不錯(cuò)。例如，《時(shí)代》周刊前主編威廉•李斯-莫格在他最新的回憶錄中說道，他最早的記憶是在三歲時(shí)，當(dāng)時(shí)他站在山上俯瞰自家的房子，感慨著“我就是我自己，就是威廉•李斯-莫格，這是再好不過的事情了”。而對于另外一些人而言，他們的人生經(jīng)歷大為不同。
A man suddenly started to turn up to services at the church where I was serving and when I got to know him he told me his history. He'd been abandoned by his parents and brought up by his grandparents who were addicts. His earliest memory is of them crawling around the floor. For years he did this and that including being a male prostitute. Then, when he told me all this he exclaimed"Out of this mess has come me." Wherever we've come from, what we end up with is a me with a story, what's made us happy and what's sad, where we feel we've made a contribution and where we might have failed. It's our tale, our account of ourselves, which we can tell, if not to a friend, at least to ourselves.
有一個(gè)人突然出現(xiàn)在我所在的教堂進(jìn)行服務(wù)，當(dāng)我去認(rèn)識他時(shí)，他跟我講述了他的故事。他自小被父母遺棄，是由吸毒的祖父母撫養(yǎng)成人的。他最早的記憶便是他們因毒癮發(fā)作、一起在地上痛苦爬著的情景。許多年來一直如此，他還成了一名男妓。他告訴我這一切時(shí)大聲的說道，“我就是來自這么一個(gè)糟糕的環(huán)境”。無論我們來自什么地方，最終，我們都是一個(gè)帶有自己人生故事的人，這故事可能有喜有悲，我們會覺得自己做出了貢獻(xiàn)或者失敗的一塌糊涂。但這就是我們的故事，由自己講述的故事，如果不能講給朋友聽，至少可以說給自己聽。
