Trying（trying my best）

一、Trying（trying my best） to Repeat Success听力原文：

Good morning,everyone.

In the last few lectures I've been dealing with business finance,but now I'm going to move on to business systems.

And in today's lecture I'm going to talk about what can go wrong when businesses try to copy their own best practices.

Once a business has successfully introduced a new process-managing a branch bank,say,or selling a new product-the parent organisation naturally wants to repeat that success,and capture it if possible on a bigger scale.

The goal,then,is to utilise existing knowledge and not to generate new knowledge.

It's a less glamorous activity than pure innovation,but it actually happens more often,as a matter of fact.

However,surprisingly,getting things right the second time is not necessarily any simpler than it was the first time.

Now,there's been a lot of research into how companies can repeat their previous successes,and it certainly hasn't been confined to the United States.

It seems that most large industries are trying to repeat their own successes,and manage the knowledge they've acquired-but even so it has been shown that the overwhelming majority of attempts fail.

A host of studies confirm this,covering a wide range of business settings:branch banks,retail stores,real estate agencies,factories,call centres...

to name but a few.

So why do so few managers get things right the second or third time?

Let's consider one reason for failure-placing too much trust in the people who are running the successful operation,the'experts'shall we say.

Managers who want to apply existing knowledge typically start off by going to an expert-such as the person who designed and is running a successful department store-and picking their brains.

Now,this approach can be used if you want to gain a rough understanding of a particular system,or understand smaller,isolated problems.

The trouble is,even the expert doesn't fully grasp the whole thing because when it comes to complex systems,the individual components of the process are interwoven with one another.

The expert never has complete access to the necessary information.

And the situation's complicated even further by the fact that experts are usually not aware of their own ignorance.

The ignorance can take various forms.

For instance,a lot of details of the system are invisible to managers.

Some may be difficult to describe-learned on the job and we"known by workers perhaps,but impossible to describe in a way that's helpful.

And there are some things that people know or do that they're not even aware of.

Now,let's consider two types of mistake that can occur when a manager actually starts to set up a duplicate system to replicate a successful process.

Firstly,perhaps he forgets that he was just trying to copy another process,and starts trying to improve on it.

Another mistake is trying to use the best parts of various different systems,in the hope of creating the perfect combination.

Unfortunately,attempts like these usually turn out to be misguided and lead to problems.

Why?

Well,for various reasons.

Perhaps there weren’t really any advantages after all,because the information wasn't accurate.

Or perhaps the business settings weren't really comparable.

More typically,the advantages are real enough,but there are also disadvantages that have been overlooked.

For example,the modifications might compromise safety in some way.

So,what's the solution?

Well,I don't intend to suggest that it's easy to get things right the second time...

it's not.

But the underlying problem has more to do with attitudes than the actual difficulty of the task,and there are ways of getting it right.

These involve adjusting attitudes,first of all...

being more realistic and cautious really.

Secondly,they involve exerting strict controls on the organisational and operational systems.

And this in turn means copying the original as closely as possible.

Not merely duplicating the physical characteristics of the factory,but also duplicating the skills that the original employees had.

Reliance on a template like this offers the huge advantage of built-in consistency.

二、Trying（trying my best） to Repeat Success听力中文翻译：

大家早上好。

在过去的几节课中，我一直在讨论商业金融，但现在我将继续讨论商业系统。

在今天的讲座中，我将讨论当企业试图复制自己的最佳实践时可能出现的错误。

一旦一个企业成功地引入了一个新的流程，比如说管理一家分行，或者销售一种新产品，母公司自然希望重复这一成功，并在可能的情况下在更大范围内取得成功。

因此，目标是利用现有知识，而不是产生新知识。

与纯粹的创新相比，这是一项不那么吸引人的活动，但事实上，它发生的频率更高。

然而，令人惊讶的是，第二次做对并不一定比第一次简单。

现在，已经有很多关于公司如何重蹈覆辙的研究，当然不仅仅局限于美国。

似乎大多数大型行业都在试图重复自己的成功，并管理他们所获得的知识，但即便如此，已经证明绝大多数尝试都失败了。

大量研究证实了这一点，涵盖了广泛的商业环境：分行、零售店、房地产代理、工厂、呼叫中心。。。

仅举几个例子。

那么，为什么很少有经理能在第二次或第三次做对事情呢？

让我们考虑一下失败的一个原因——我们应该说，过于信任那些成功运营的人。

想要应用现有知识的管理者通常首先去找专家，比如设计和经营一家成功百货公司的人，然后挑选他们的大脑。

现在，如果您想大致了解特定系统，或了解较小的孤立问题，可以使用这种方法。

问题是，即使专家也不能完全掌握整个过程，因为当涉及到复杂系统时，过程的各个组成部分是相互交织的。

专家永远无法完全获得必要的信息。

由于专家们通常不知道自己的无知，情况变得更加复杂。

无知可以采取各种形式。

例如，管理者看不到系统的许多细节。

有些可能很难描述——在工作中学到的东西，我们“也许被员工所认识，但无法用一种有用的方式来描述”。

还有一些人们知道或做的事情他们甚至没有意识到。

现在，让我们考虑两种类型的错误，当经理实际开始设置复制系统来复制成功的流程时，可能会发生这两种错误。

首先，也许他忘记了他只是想复制另一个流程，并开始尝试改进它。

另一个错误是试图使用各种不同系统的最佳部分，以期创建完美的组合。

不幸的是，像这样的尝试通常会被误导，并导致问题。

为什么？

嗯，由于各种原因。

也许毕竟没有什么优势，因为信息不准确。

或者，也许商业环境并不具有可比性。

更典型的情况是，优势确实存在，但也存在被忽视的劣势。

例如，修改可能会以某种方式危及安全。

那么，解决方案是什么？

嗯，我不想说第二次做对事情很容易。。。

事实并非如此。

但潜在的问题更多地与态度有关，而不是任务的实际困难，而且有一些方法可以纠正它。

这些包括调整态度，首先。。。

更加现实和谨慎。

其次，它们涉及对组织和运营系统实施严格控制。

这又意味着尽可能地复制原作。

不仅复制了工厂的物理特征，还复制了原员工的技能。

依赖这样的模板提供了内置一致性的巨大优势。

三、Trying（trying my best） to Repeat Success听力问题：

Question 31-34

Choose the correct letter,A,B or C.

31.Compared to introducing new business processes,attempts to copy existing

A.more attractive.

B.more frequent.

C.more straightforward.

32.Most research into the repetition of success in business has

A.been done outside the United States.

B.produced consistent findings.

C.related to only a few contexts.

33.What does the speaker say about consulting experts?

A.Too few managers ever do it.

B.It can be useful in certain circumstances.

C.Experts are sometimes unwilling to

34.An expert's knowledge about a business system may be incomplete because

A.some details are difficult for workers to explain.

B.workers choose not to mention certain details.

C.details are sometimes altered by workers.

Question 35-40

Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.Setting up systems based on an existing process

Two mistakes

Manager tries to:

•improve on the original process

•create an ideal from the best parts of several processes

Cause of problems

•information was inaccurate

•comparison between the business settings was invalid

•disadvantages were overlooked,e.g.effect of changes on

Solution

•change

•impose rigorous

•copy original very closely:

-physical features of the

-theof original employees

四、Trying（trying my best） to Repeat Success听力答案：

31.B

32.B

33.B

34.A

35.combination/system

36.safety

37.attitude/attitudes

38.control/controls

39.factory/factories

40.skills

五、Trying（trying my best） to Repeat Success听力答案解析

31.B此题的答案出现在强烈转折词之后，原文but it actually happens more often中often和备选项B中的frequent同义。

32.B原文A host of studies confirm this,covering a wide range of business settings...的意思是有很多研究已经证实了这个，并且这些研究覆盖了范围很广的商业背景。

33.B原文...this approach can be used if you want to gain a rough understanding of a particular system,or understand smaller,isolated problems.的意思是如果你想大概了解一个特定的系统，或者了解孤立的小问题的话，可以使用这个方法。那么，可以推断出这个方法可以在特定的环境下使用，因而答案选B。

34.A原文中的difficult to describe和备选项中的difficult for workers to explain表达同样的意思。

35.combination/system此题答案应该是一个名词，另外，ideal和perfect是同义词，因而不难找出答案。

36.safety原文的modification和题干中的change都表示改变的意思。

37.attitude(s)首先这道题的定位词是solution，另外，题干中的change和原文中的adjust都表示改变的意义，根据这两点，不难找出答案。

38.control(s)原文exert strict controls和题干中imposing rigorous controls的意思都是施行严格的控制。

39.factory/factories原文characteristics和题干中feature的意思都是特点。

40.skills原文skills that the original employees had的意思是原来的雇员所拥有的技术。