2017年12月20日华盛顿邮报发表了瓦莱丽·施特劳斯的文章：“The surprising thing Google learned about its employees – and what it means for today’s students”，谷歌对其员工的聘用、解雇和升职数据进行了追踪分析，其结果可能颠覆我们之前的认知。
现今人们普遍认为21世纪技能要求学生掌握STEM科目 - 科学，技术，工程和数学 – 还要学习编程，因为好找工作。
但事实证明，这个认知忽略了学生真正需要了解和学会做的事情，来自谷歌的证据令人惊讶地证明了这一点。
凯西·戴维森撰文解释了谷歌对员工的研究，以及给全国学生和教育带来的启示。
凯西是CUNY 大学未来倡导项目的创始人，研究生院英语博士项目教授，也是《新教育： 大学如何变革才能帮助学生为变化的世界做好准备》一书的作者，还曾服务于Mozilla基金会的董事会，被奥巴马总统任命为全国人文委员会主席。
我们知道美国大学申请季刚刚过去，学生们都要完成大学申请作文《我想要成为...》，专家和家长们强烈建议要专注于STEM（科学，技术，工程和数学）才是找到好工作的唯一方法。
但最近两项对于工作中是否的成功研究却与传统的“硬技能”理论相反和矛盾，更令人吃惊的是研究结果来自于最STEM的公司：谷歌。
谷歌的两位创始人谢尔盖·布林（Sergey Brin）和拉里·佩奇（Larry Page）都是杰出的计算机科学家，他们坚信只有技术人员才能理解技术。
谷歌最初设定了招聘算法，对那些精英理工大学里计算机科学专业的高年级学生进行排序。
2013年谷歌做出决定开始测试他们的招聘假设，研究了自1998年公司建立以来积累的所有招聘、解雇和晋升数据，被成为“氧气计划”。
氧气计划的结论令人震惊：谷歌高层员工的8个最重要特质当中，STEM专长名列最后。
前面的7个重要特质全部都是软技能：做一个好教练；沟通和倾听；具有对他人的洞察力（包括其他不同的价值观和观点）；对同事有同理心和支持;批判性思维；解决问题能力;能够跨越复杂的体系和想法建立联接。
这些特质听起来更像是一个英语或戏剧专业的人，而不是程序员。
难道说这些顶层员工的成功不是源于他们的技术培训？
公司进而引入了人类学家和人种学专家深入研究数据后，扩展了招聘领域，包括人文专业，艺术家，甚至MBA，要知道以前布林和佩奇对MBA可是不屑一顾的。
2017年春天谷歌发布了另一项研究——“亚里士多德计划”，其结果进一步说明了在高科技环境下软技能的重要性。
亚里士多德计划分析了那些高效又具有创造力的团队数据。
一直以来，谷歌都以其A团队而感到自豪，A团队聚集了顶尖的科学家，每个人都拥有最专业的知识，抛出一个又一个最前沿的想法。
但是数据分析显示，公司最重要和最富有成效的新想法却来自于B团队，要知道B团体可不是由最聪明的人组成的呀。
亚里士多德计划表明，谷歌最出色的团队展现出一系列软技能：平等，慷慨，对队友想法的好奇心，同理心和情商。
列于榜首的技能还包括：情感安全，没有霸陵（成年人里面也有霸陵）。
为了取得成功，每个团队成员都必须自信地表达自己和犯错误，他们必须知道他们正在被听到。
谷歌的结果与另一项研究未来成功雇员秘密的结果不谋而合。
最近非营利组织全美大学和雇主协会调查了260家公司，包括小公司，也包括雪佛龙和IBM这样的大公司，发现沟通交流能力先于专业技能排在求职者技能前三。
沟通能力既包括与内部员工交流，又包括将公司产品和使命传达给外部组织的能力。
这有点象亿万富翁、风险资本家和“鲨鱼缸”的电视人物马克·库班（Mark Cuban）：他在投资最有可能成功的鲨鱼时在找哲学专业的创业者。
确实对于我们今天生活的世界来说，STEM技能至关重要，但是像史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）所坚持的那样，科技本身是不够的。
我们迫切需要的人，除了计算机，还需要拥有人文、文化和社会学的专业知识。
那些关于成功的错误观念不应该用来阻止学生们选择自己喜欢的专业。
想获得长期的、令人满意、富有成效的职业生涯的话，广泛的学习技能是关键。
能帮助你在瞬息万变的世界里茁壮成长并不是什么高科技，而可能是社会科学，甚至是人文和艺术，这些技能不仅帮助你为未来的工作做好准备，也为未来的世界做好准备。
附：英文原文
The surprising thing Google learned about its employees —
and what it means for today’s students
The conventional wisdom about 21st century skills holds that students need to master the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — and learn to code as well because that’s where the jobs are.
It turns out that is a gross simplification of what students need to know and be able to do, and some proof for that comes from a surprising source: Google.
This post explains what Google learned about its employees, and what that means for students across the country.
It was written by Cathy N. Davidson, founding director of the Futures Initiative and a professor in the doctoral program in English at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of the new book, “The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux.” She also serves on the Mozilla Foundation board of directors, and was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Council on the Humanities.
By Cathy N. Davidson
All across America, students are anxiously finishing their “What I Want To Be …” college application essays, advised to focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) by pundits and parents who insist that’s the only way to become workforce ready.
But two recent studies of workplace success contradict the conventional wisdom about “hard skills.” Surprisingly, this research comes from the company most identified with the STEM-only approach: Google.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both brilliant computer scientists, founded their company on the conviction that only technologists can understand technology. Google originally set its hiring algorithms to sort for computer science students with top grades from elite science universities.
In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998.
Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.
Those traits sound more like what one gains as an English or theater major than as a programmer. Could it be that top Google employees were succeeding despite their technical training, not because of it?
After bringing in anthropologists and ethnographers to dive even deeper into the data, the company enlarged its previous hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and even the MBAs that, initially, Brin and Page viewed with disdain.
Project Aristotle, a study released by Google this past spring, further supports the importance of soft skills even in high-tech environments. Project Aristotle analyzes data on inventive and productive teams.
Google takes pride in its A-teams, assembled with top scientists, each with the most specialized knowledge and able to throw down one cutting-edge idea after another. Its data analysis revealed, however, that the company’s most important and productive new ideas come from B-teams comprised of employees who don’t always have to be the smartest people in the room.
Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence. And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard.
Google’s studies concur with others trying to understand the secret of a great future employee. A recent survey of 260 employers by the nonprofit National Association of Colleges and Employers, which includes both small firms and behemoths like Chevron and IBM, also ranks communication skills in the top three most-sought after qualities by job recruiters.
They prize both an ability to communicate with one’s workers and an aptitude for conveying the company’s product and mission outside the organization. Or take billionaire venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” TV personality Mark Cuban: He looks for philosophy majors when he’s investing in sharks most likely to succeed.
STEM skills are vital to the world we live in today, but technology alone, as Steve Jobs famously insisted, is not enough. We desperately need the expertise of those who are educated to the human, cultural, and social as well as the computational.
No student should be prevented from majoring in an area they love based on a false idea of what they need to succeed. Broad learning skills are the key to long-term, satisfying, productive careers.
What helps you thrive in a changing world isn’t rocket science. It may just well be social science, and, yes, even the humanities and the arts that contribute to making you not just workforce ready but world ready.
来源：搜狐教育/米国读书；编辑整理：掌中看米国
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