雅思优秀作文思路：经济学人中的合作利弊分析

　　今天分享的经济学人文章是关于：论合作的利弊。文章最后课窝网将会给与相关雅思作文考题作为输出练习，大家要自我检测哦。

　　文章标题为：When teamwork works: the pros and cons of cooperating

　　PARA1:合作之普遍

　　Collaboration at work is generally seen as a good thing. Production ofThe Economistis a cooperative process. A crack team of editors removes most of the bad jokes before this column makes it into print. All writers sign a “gag” clause. (How did this get through? Ed.)

　　PARA 2:商科看重合作和交往能力超过专业能力

　　Businesses value collaboration. The latest survey by theFinancial Timesof what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work in a team, to work with a wide variety of people and to build, sustain and expand a network of people were three of the top five skills that managers wanted. Practical qualifications like accounting, programming and applied microeconomics were among the least-desired attributes.

　　build, sustain and expand a network of people建立、维持和拓展人际交往面

　　qualification资格认证　　

　　PARA 3:团队合作也有着潜在的风险

　　But managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “group-think”, when critics are reluctant to point out a plan’s defects for fear of being ostracized by the group.The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were reluctant to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.

　　“But managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “group-think”, when critics are reluctant to point out a plan’s defects for fear of being ostracized by the group.”管理者们总是需要去平衡(balance A with B)合作带来的优势和群体思维的风险。合作保证每个人都为了同样的目标去工作，而群体思维往往让批评者不愿意指出一个计划的缺陷因为害怕被团队所孤立。　　

　　PARA 4:群体智慧取决于独立思维的保持

　　A related phenomenon is the “wisdom of crowds”. Large groups are remarkably good, on average, at estimating such things as the number of beans in a jar or the weight of a prize calf.But that accuracy relies on the guesses being independent.When people are aware of the views of others, there is a tendency for them to herd, as participants are reluctant to look foolish by deviating from the majority view. The same effect may lead to stock-market bubbles.

　　herd vt.成群

　　deviate from偏离

　　Stock-market bubbles股票市场泡沫

　　PARA 5:一个实验去判定现代技术让人们更加多的合作，是好还是不好

　　Modern communication methods mean that collaboration is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail, messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that boost, or detract from, performance?A new study (“How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence” ) by Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer, three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (devising the shortest route for a traveling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each others’ views only intermittently.

　　boost提升

　　detract降低

　　keep informed of通晓

　　intermittently断断续续地

　　PARA 6:研究证明保持一定的独处更能提升创造

　　The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the optimal solution more often than the constant collaborators, but had a poorer average result.The intermittent collaborators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution.

　　optimal最佳的

　　PARA 7:创造性的活动还是需要独处时间去思考

　　When it comes to idea generation, giving people a bit of space to find a solution seems to be a good idea.Occasional collaboration can be a big help; most people have benefited from a colleague’s brain-wave or (just as often) wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.

　　brain-wave灵感=inspiration

　　PARA 8:另一本书说明好的团队智慧collective intelligence必备的条件

　　Further clues come from a book, “Superminds”, by Thomas Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.He says that three factors determine the “collective intelligence” of collaborating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better); and the proportion of women in the group (the higher, the better).Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others.

　　PARA 9:高级阶段的决策工作更加需要独立思维

　　Close teamwork may be vital in the lower reaches of a hierarchy, but at the top someone has to make a decision. At this stage, intense collaboration may be less helpful.In their book, “Friend & Foe”, Adam Galinsky of Columbia Business School and Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania found that fashion houses with co-creative directors were rated as less creative by industry experts over a decade (from 2000 to 2010) than brands that were individually led. They add that co- led teams of Himalayan climbers are more likely to suffer deaths than those with single leaders.　　

　　PARA 10:合作并不一直都好使，尤其是co-leadership

　　As the authors note,co-leadership “creates uncertainty over who is really in charge”.The battles between Sandy Weill and John Reed when they were co-chief executives of Citigroup in the late 1990s were infamous; the arrangement lasted just two years. Less than 5% of companies in theFortune500 have used a co-CEO structure since 1989.In short, collaboration may be a useful tool but it doesn’t work in every situation.Except atThe Economist, of course.

　　infamous臭名昭著的= flagrant=notorious

　　雅思写作“合作与竞争”话题考题

　　Many students are taught to push themselves to try and be better than other students, rather than work together for everyone's benefit. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

　　以上就是小编为大家整理的关于经济学人中合作话题的文章素材，记得练习哦。更多雅思真题回忆、雅思词汇量要求等问题，可以咨询我们。