我們身處一個科技潛力看來永無止境的時代，因此，有很多人認為，能讓世界大變樣已經(jīng)不算什么意外了。事實是，很少有人會實現(xiàn)雄心壯志。那么，成功做到的人有什么秘笈呢？

我希望能給所有期望改變世界的人一些幫助。這些人主要是高校里的莘莘學(xué)子，也有活躍在谷歌這種大企業(yè)或者比爾?蓋茨基金會等非營利組織的活動家。

過去八年，我寫了十位真正改變世界的人，無論用什么標(biāo)準(zhǔn)評判，他們確實改變了世界，而且影響不僅停留在他們生活的時代，一直流傳至今。這些任務(wù)不單單是偉大的思想家，還得是實干家——他們親身推動文明步入更高層次，引領(lǐng)人類邁進全新的紀元。

最初著手研究這十位任務(wù)的人生經(jīng)歷和所處的年代時，我不知道他們會不會有什么共同點。畢竟，他們生活的時代不同，獲得成就的領(lǐng)域也各不相同。當(dāng)我完成研究開始動筆時才想起要問：“如果把這十人視作一個群體能觀察出什么？他們?nèi)绾潍@得成就的？”

我得出了三大結(jié)論。

其一，用哲學(xué)家以賽亞?柏林的著名劃分法來看，這十位全是“刺猬”型人，都不是“狐貍”型人。刺猬型人只知道一件大事且只做這件事，從病理學(xué)角度看，這類人孜孜不倦地追求一元價值。狐貍型人則追求多個目標(biāo)，但都淺嘗輒止。

刺猬型人的一個典型例子是法國政治經(jīng)濟學(xué)家讓?莫內(nèi)。第一次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，二十出頭的莫內(nèi)沉迷于拉近歐洲國家之間的關(guān)系，他一直做各種嘗試，一直到1951年創(chuàng)立歐盟的前身——歐洲煤鋼共同體很久。

同樣地，美國商人賽勒斯?菲爾德也是這類人。他認為大西洋兩岸傳送電報可能是史上最重要的全球通信工程，所以在二十多年時間里心無旁騖地努力，就屢試屢敗，屢敗屢試，直到實現(xiàn)目標(biāo)。

其二，以我對這十個人成就的了解，他們并沒有改變了歷史長河的流向，只是加快了歷史的進程。他們的成功也要感謝所處環(huán)境存在機遇，他們只是比其他同行更迅速把握了機遇，也利用得更充分。換言之，他們成為英雄是需要一些特殊客觀條件的。

上世紀80年代的英國前首相撒切爾夫人就是一例。她是一位具備高超技巧的政治家，有能力主導(dǎo)激進的社會變革，以自由政策取代社會主義。但讓她之所以推進得順風(fēng)順?biāo)且驗榇饲笆暧呷P失敗，經(jīng)濟瀕臨崩潰，政府已經(jīng)沒法有效治理國家，那種情況下民眾亟需、也愿意接受大刀闊斧的改革。

我還可以舉出一個類似的人物——上世紀中國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人鄧小平。在中國封閉三十年后，他啟動了改革開放，他的巨大成就正是建立在之前混亂的基礎(chǔ)之上，三十年的自我封閉導(dǎo)致中國錯過了與東亞各國一起發(fā)展的黃金期，數(shù)千萬的中國人也身陷苦難。

其三，雖然我研究的十位人物都做出了巨大的社會貢獻，讓原本溝通不暢的社會關(guān)系變得緊密，可那并非他們的初衷。他們根本沒考慮過全球化，想的都是別的事情，比如個人權(quán)力、積累財富、維護確保個人地位等。每個人面前都是一堆不得不解決的問題。

15世紀，葡萄牙航海家亨利王子主持修建船只，組織船隊，采用最先進的航海技術(shù)，讓葡萄牙和其他歐洲國家的探險者最終能抵達亞洲和美洲，由此成為歐洲航海探險之父。雖然亨利王子自稱航海主要目的是傳播基督教，但彼時葡萄牙王室窮困潦倒，國王的第三子亨利更主要的目的是找新辦法賺錢并提高聲譽。

18世紀末，羅斯柴爾德家族創(chuàng)始人梅耶?阿姆謝爾?羅斯柴爾德出身于歐洲最受壓迫的猶太人貧民窟。但后來他和五個兒子一起創(chuàng)立了當(dāng)時全球最有影響力的私人銀行，還一手締造了全球債券市場。盡管如此，我懷疑他們有沒有考慮過讓世界更和平、更相互融合。他們只不過想發(fā)家致富。

因此，總結(jié)成功人士經(jīng)驗的過程中我發(fā)現(xiàn)一個道理：假如要尋找真正會改變世界的人，要小心那些不管多么努力，但精力十分分散的人。不要輕信那些自稱在創(chuàng)造歷史、而沒有跟隨歷史潮流而動的人；也不要相信那些過于理想主義的人，哪怕再虔誠也不行。這些人可能小有成就，但很難成為真正引領(lǐng)變革的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。

作者杰弗瑞.E.加藤系耶魯大學(xué)管理學(xué)院名譽院長，著有《從絲綢到硅谷：以十段非同尋常的人生道路講述全球化》一書。

譯者：Pessy

校對：夏林

I wish I had a nickel for every person who aspires to change the world. They can be found at corporations such as Google GOOG 0.53% , in not-for-profit organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among students in countless universities. Given our age of seemingly limitless technological possibilities, maybe it’s not surprising that so many people feel they can make dramatic change happen on a massive scale. The truth is, however, very few men and women will achieve such ambitions. But for those who do, what is the recipe?

Over the past eight years I set out to write about 10 people who, by almost any measure, actually didchange the world. Their achievements had to be so spectacular that they not only changed their world, but that the impact of what they did extended to our era, as well. The characters couldn’t be just great thinkers but instead they had to be doers — people who ushered in a whole new age by rolling up their sleeves and driving civilization to a higher plane.

When I began my research into the lives and times of these 10 path breakers, I had no idea what they would have in common, if anything. After all, they lived in different eras and their achievements were in vastly different fields. It was only after I researched and wrote about them that I sat back and asked, “What observations could I make about the ten as a group? How did they achieve what they did?”

I drew three major conclusions.

First, all my protagonists were, in the famous words of philosopher Isaiah Berlin, “hedgehogs” and not “foxes.” Hedgehogs know and do one big thing. They are pathologically relentless in pursuit of a single, big idea. Foxes pursue multiple projects but in a shallower way. A good example of the former is Jean Monnet. From his early twenties during World War I, he was obsessed with closer relations among European nations, and he pressed for that until well after he had created the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, the forerunner of the European Union. Likewise, Cyrus Field oversaw the building of the transatlantic telegraph, possibly the most important global communications project in history, over a period of some two decades during which he did nothing else but try and fail, over and over, until he got it all right.

Second, as far reaching as their achievements were, none of my characters bent the river of history. Instead, they just quickened the currents. They succeeded because historical circumstances gave them the opening, and because they seized the opportunity quicker and better than others who might well have done the same thing. In other words, they needed exceptional preconditions to rise to truly heroic levels. A case in point was Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Yes, she was a highly skilled politician who could make a crystal clear case for radical change in the form of replacing socialism with laissez faire policies. But the great winds in her sails came from the utter policy failure of Great Britain for the previous decade, a near collapse of the economy and a breakdown in effective governance that made the population demand and accept radical change. I could make a similar argument with Chinese premiere Deng Xiaoping, who opened China to the world after Mao’s three decades of having sealed itself off, and whose great advantage was that his predecessor’s policies were an abject failure, forcing China to miss out on all the progress that was happening in East Asia and created misery for hundreds of millions of its citizens.

Third, while each of my protagonists was responsible for a huge advance in bringing heretofore disconnected societies closer together, that wasn’t their goal. They didn’t care a wit about globalization. They were preoccupied with something else –personal power, amassing wealth, insuring their own stature — and they were all riveted on a set of problems before them that they had to solve. In the fifteenth century, Prince Henry built the ships, organized the crews, and brought to bear the latest nautical techniques, allowing Portuguese and other European explorers to eventually reach Asia as well as the Americas. In the process he became the father of European seaborne exploration. While Henry said his principal aim was spreading Christianity around the world, as the third son of an impoverished king his bigger purpose was generating an income and a reputation that he could achieve by no other means. Mayer Amschel Rothschild climbed out of Europe’s most oppressive Jewish ghetto in the late eighteenth century to build, together with his five sons, the most powerful private bank the world had seen and virtually create the global bond market. Nevertheless, I doubt they gave a thought to building a more peaceful, integrated world. They just wanted to get rich.

So one moral of the story is this: If you are searching for men and woman who will reallychange the world , beware of those whose efforts, no matter how monumental, are too scattered. Look askance at those who claim they are creating history rather than taking advantage of its ebb and flow. And be suspicious of those who, even with the utmost of sincerity, profess excessive idealism. Such people may well do wonderful things, but they are likely to fall short of real transformational leadership.

Jeffrey E. Garten is dean emeritus of the Yale School of Management and author of From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives.