????對美國經濟前景感到樂觀的人（包括我在內）總是喜歡把目光投向美國人的一系列特質：美國人喜歡風險和革新；美國人擅長短期記憶，因此全民信心高昂；就連個人的貪欲和一點癡心妄想也不失為一件好事，因此這些特質都預示美國經濟會再次復興。

????不過《紐約時報》的消費專欄作家愛麗娜?塔根卻在她的新書中拋出了一個新的觀點，她指出了美國人的一個缺點：美國人不愿意面對自己的錯誤，也不愿意從錯誤中學到教訓——直到這些小錯釀成大禍。

????塔根的新書名叫《錯誤無傷大雅：犯錯的意外收獲》（Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong），書中所傳達的信息是文化上的，而不是經濟上的。這本書本月剛剛上架，它來得正是時候——眼下恰好是美國大投行貝爾斯登（Bear Stearns）倒閉三周年的祭日。貝爾斯登的崩潰正是金融危機的導火索，1300多萬美國人在危機中失業，至今生活苦不堪言。

????當代美國人是在鬧哄哄的政治和苛刻的媒體環境下成長起來的，他們覺得自己在直面錯誤方面堪稱是專家。現實社會上演了一出又一出揭示人性弱點的肥皂劇。政客們深知（或者別人會很快提醒他們），如果自己犯了錯，除非他們做出“鄭重道歉”，否則他們的仕途就會斷送在這些錯誤上。

????在這方面，美國政府尤其有著值得夸耀的歷史，美國政府一向喜歡通過國會聽證會和總統委員會調查危機背后的各種錯誤，然后建立起各種官僚機構，防止這些錯誤在未來再次發生。不過它的預防效果常常不盡人意。比如當年由于情報失察，美國發生了911事件，后來美國成立了國土安全部（Homeland Security Department）。但在卡特里娜颶風后，國土安全部在保護沿海人口方面卻做得并不理想，我們只能希望該部門在保護美國人免受恐怖襲擊上能表現得好一些。

????一個新的官僚機構的建立，并不說明人們對危機背后的錯誤達成了政治共識。以美國國會建立的金融危機調查委員會（Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission）為例，去年在國會已經通過了徹底的銀行業改革方案之后，金融危機調查委員會公布了一份調查報告，闡述2008年金融危機爆發的原因。而這個委員會揭露的最大問題，其實是它揭露了美國政界在金融危機的根本原因究竟是什么這個問題上存在著多大的分歧。

????商業界一向不乏各類書籍和咨詢公司來向他們提供建議，告訴他們如何把犯錯的苦果轉變成更好的商業實踐——比如摩托羅拉公司（Motorola）著名的“六西格瑪”生產體系（“六西格瑪”是一種質量管理手段，它曾經挽救了瀕臨倒閉的摩托羅拉公司——譯注）；或是哈佛大學的克里斯?阿格瑞斯發明的“雙環學習”法，該方法旨在找出導致犯錯的內在價值觀。然而，盡管有這么多資源防止他們犯錯，但在美國全國性的經濟崩潰中，金融部門還是扮演了主角。

????塔根在書中引用了一些研究，這些研究表明，盡管企業都想從錯誤中學到教訓，然而事實證明，這是一件“很難執行”的事。如果牽涉眾多利益，那么從錯誤中總結經驗教訓更是“幾乎不可能”的。塔根的研究顯示，我們花了大把大把的時間和精力，來為自己的錯誤辯解，而不是坦承自己犯了這些錯誤，并從中學習必要的教訓。

????塔根寫道：“人們經常把犯錯當成一件丟臉的事，認為應該越早翻過這一頁越好，而不是把它當成一件需要檢討和學習的事。”因此，許多情況下人們都未能“發現系統的問題”。

????我們的驕傲取決于行事的正確。我們總是喜歡支持自己看法的數據，因此我們往往對其它數據視而不見。領導者們經常采取自我辯解的行為，這甚至形成了一種自我強化效果。

????加州大學洛杉磯分校（UCLA）的一項研究指出，美國人還存在著一種文化偏見，從小就重視“能力”，輕視“努力”。美國人在表揚小孩子的時候，往往夸他“真聰明”，而不是夸他“干得好”。如果學生的功課出了錯，人們往往覺得這個學生表現得很“失敗”，而忽視了這樣一個道理：課業上的錯誤說明學生還有某些需要學習的東西。美國人的這種教育方法與中國人和日本人的教學方式形成了鮮明的對比。

????這種心理一直影響到了美國商界，導致華爾街形成了一種過分信任和崇拜個人才智的人才體系。塔根指出，在這種人才體系下，許多人不愿承認、也不愿糾正自己的缺陷，從而導致他們形成了思維定式。

????正如塔根指出的那樣，許多美國人認為先天的才華要勝過偶爾犯錯的后天努力，這是個很奇怪的現象。美國作家霍雷肖?阿爾杰的作品告訴了我們一個相反的道理：只要勤奮和努力，任何人都可以爬上人生的頂峰。愛因斯坦也曾說過一句名言：“一個人從未犯錯，是因為他從未嘗試過新事物。”

????我們往往認為，自由市場最大的好處就是它有自我糾正的本能。不過現在美國仍在努力爬出經濟衰退的深淵。因此有個問題很值得一問：政府和企業如何才能用巴菲特的標準來要求自己？——沃倫?巴菲特在2009年致股東的信里給他自己提出了一些標準：“2008年我做了一些愚蠢的投資。我至少犯一個重大錯誤，還有一些錯誤不那么嚴重，但也造成了不良后果。此外我還犯了一些疏忽大意的錯。當新情況出現時，我本應三思自己的想法，然后迅速采取行動，但我卻只知道咬著大拇指發愣。”

????這種檢討的話正是我們需要在企業的董事會里聽到的——也是我們需要在華盛頓聽到的。

????譯者：樸成奎

????Those optimistic about the nation's economic future (and count me as one) look to a litany of American characteristics that presage its revival: our comfort with risk and reinvention, a national confidence buoyed by short-term memory, even individual greed and bit of wishful thinking.

????A new book by New York Times consumer columnist Alina Tugend throws a new twist to that picture by pointing out an American shortcoming: Our resistance to confronting mistakes -- and learning from them -- before they turn into catastrophic blunders.

????The message of Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong is cultural, not economic. But it's a timely one coming this month -- the third anniversary of the collapse of Bear Stearns, which kicked off a financial crisis that continues to haunt the lives of more than 13 million unemployed Americans.

????Modern Americans -- shaped by raucous politics and a rapacious media --like to think of themselves as experts in confronting mistakes. Reality shows serve up juicy drama out of human shortcomings. Politicians know (or are quickly reminded) that they can't move on from bad misbehavior unless and until they issue the "grand apology."

????Washington, in particular, has a boastful history of investigating the mistakes behind a crisis -- through congressional hearings and presidential commissions -- and building bureaucracies designed to thwart them in the future. It often comes up short: One can only hope the Homeland Security Department -- a product of intelligence failures leading to 9/11 -- is better at protecting us against terrorist attacks than it was at protecting a coastline population after Hurricane Katrina.

????A new bureaucracy, moreover, isn't even an indicator that there is political consensus about the mistakes behind a crisis: The congressionally-created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission not only issued its report on the causes of the 2008 economic collapse after Congress had already passed sweeping banking reforms last year, its greatest revelation turns out to be the extent of disagreement over what those root causes actually were.

????The business community has no shortage of books and consultancies offering advice on how to turn the lemons of errors into a lemonade of better business practices (think Motorola's (MOT, Fortune 500) famed Six Sigma manufacturing system or the double-loop learning of Harvard's Chris Argyris, which is designed to ferret out the underlying values that lead to mistakes). Even with all that, the financial sector played a starring role in the nation's economic collapse.

????Tugend cites studies showing that despite all these best intentions on the part of organizations to learn from mistakes, it has proven "difficult to implement" in general -- and "all but impossible" when much is at stake. Tugend's research shows we spend a shocking amount of time and energy justifying our blunders, rather than owning up to them and learning needed lessons before moving on.

????"All too often mistakes are treated as something shameful that should be flung aside as quickly as possible, rather than something to be examined and learned from," she writes. As a result, there is widespread failure to "uncover system problems."

????Our pride is tied up in being right. We tend to favor data that confirm our beliefs so we don't see alternatives. Too often leaders practice defense routines that become self-reinforcing.

????There is also a cultural bias toward ability rather than effort, infused from an early age, when children are praised for being "smart" rather than doing a good job. Errors in schoolwork are treated as failures rather than an index of what still needs to be learned -- in sharp contrast to the Chinese and Japanese teaching styles, according to a UCLA study.

????Take this up the ranks of American business and we end up with a Wall Street talent system that worships (and therefore is too trusting of) individual brilliance. It creates, Tugend notes, a fixed mindset among people who won't admit or correct their deficiencies.

????It's odd, as she points out, that Americans embrace the notion that innate talent trumps mistake-making perseverance. That quintessentially American narrative, the Horatio Alger tale, makes the opposite case: With diligence and hard work, anyone can climb to the top. Or as Albert Einstein famously said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

????We like to think that a free market's greatest strength is its self-corrective nature. But as America struggles to climb out from the canyon of economic collapse, it's worth asking how both government and businesses can hold themselves to the same standard that Warren Buffett set for himself in his 2009 statement to shareholders: "During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments. I made at least one major mistake of commission and several lesser ones that also hurt. Furthermore I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to reexamine my thinking and promptly take action."

????Those are the kinds of words we need to hear more of in boardrooms -- and in Washington.