头像的诅咒

Business Bartleby

商业版块，巴托比专栏

The curse of the headshot

头像的诅咒

What explains the corporate custom of strange poses and painted smiles

摆出奇怪姿势和标准微笑拍照的企业习俗应作何解释

Do an image search for the word “business” or “manager”, and what comes back?

输入“商业”或“经理”这个词来搜索图片，会有什么结果？

Nothing that remotely resembles business or managers.

一些和商业或者经理没有任何相似之处的东西。

It isn’t just that the people are attractive.

这不仅仅是因为图片里的人很有魅力。

It is what they are doing.

而是图片中人们在做什么。

Many stock photos feature well-dressed types sitting around a table.

许多常见照片上都是衣着光鲜的人围坐在桌子旁。

One of them is holding forth and everyone else is laughing madly, like cult members hearing that the Rapture has been brought forward a week.

其中一个人滔滔不绝，其他人疯狂大笑，就像宗教成员听说"被提"要早一周来临一样。

In other pictures, a speaker is pointing at a pie chart.

在其他图片中，一位演讲者指着一张饼分图。

Her colleagues look astonished at what they are seeing.

她的同事们对所看到的东西感到非常惊讶。

Or people are shaking hands, purposefully and often.

或者人们在刻意地、频繁地握手。

If they are ever left to their own devices, they stand in front of floor-to-ceiling windows and gaze moodily at the skyline.

如果是单独出现，他们会站在大落地窗前，忧郁地凝视着天际线。

What could they be thinking?

他们会在想什么呢？

Is it about what was on that pie chart?

是不是在想那张饼分图上有什么？

Some amount of business life involves sitting around a table.

在商业生活中，有时候确实需要围坐在桌子旁。

Occasionally there is laughter.

偶尔也会有笑声。

But if you wanted to represent the reality of a meeting, one person would be talking, two people would be listening and everyone else would be wearing the glazed expression of clerics who have just lost their faith.

但如果想如实表现一场会议，那么应该是一个人在讲话，两个人在听，其他所有人都是一幅刚刚失去信仰的神职人员的呆滞表情。

If there was an accurate stock photo of someone working at a desk, its surface would be covered in crumbs and the laptop screen would be showing its owner’s social-media account.

如果是一张精确地表现某人在工位上工作的常见照片，那么桌子上应该撒满零零碎碎的东西，笔记本电脑的屏幕上会显示这个人的社交媒体页面。

The corporate headshot is the way that firms use photography to bend reality.

企业头像是公司利用摄影来扭曲现实的方式。

But whereas stock photos tend to glamorise business, headshots achieve the reverse.

但是，尽管常见照片往往会美化企业，但头像却会实现相反的效果。

They make corporate life seem less fun than it actually is.

它们让公司生活看起来没有实际那么有趣。

Most companies’ websites contain a gallery of their senior executives and boards, the product of hours of awkward primping and posing.

大多数公司的网站都有高管和董事会成员的照片，这是几个小时的尴尬打扮和摆姿势的产物。

Executives are caked in make-up and asked to look into the camera with a succession of forced smiles.

高管们顶着厚厚的妆，被要求带着一连串强颜欢笑的表情看着镜头。

The results are consistently appalling.

结果总是令人惊骇的。

Most end up looking like well-dressed hostages.

大多数人最终看起来都像穿着考究的人质。

Someone, usually the general counsel, looks so pained that he or she appears to have just been Tasered.

有些人，通常是总法律顾问，看起来非常痛苦，就像他或她刚刚被电击了一样。

One or two eschew smiles altogether: in this context they are the hostage-takers.

有一两个人完全避免微笑：在这种情况下，他们就像是劫持人质的人。

The awkwardness is amplified if the photographer has decided to show more than a person’s head and shoulders.

如果摄影师决定把头和肩膀之外的部分也放入镜头，这种尴尬就会被放大。

Pity the executives who have been forced to stand side on to the camera, tilt their heads slightly like a giant parrot, fold their arms and told to look natural.

这些高管被迫侧身站在镜头前，像一只巨大的鹦鹉一样微微倾斜头部，双臂交叉，还要表现得很自然，可怜可怜他们吧。

If you ever saw someone standing like this in real life, you would think “better cross to the other side”, not “I bet that person is great at creating shareholder value.”

如果你在现实生活中看到一个人像这样站着，你会想“最好从另一边走过去”，而不是“我打赌那个人很擅长创造股东价值”。

What on earth is going on?

到底是怎么回事？

There is some research to suggest that profile photos can have a useful effect in commercial settings.

有一些研究表明，个人资料照片在商业环境中可以产生有用的影响。

Humans are quick to form judgments about others by looking at their faces: baby-faced people are regarded as more trustworthy than those who look older, for example, whereas more mature faces convey expertise.

人类看到面容后能很快对他人做出判断：例如，娃娃脸的人被认为比那些看起来更老的人更值得信任，而更成熟的脸则看起来更专业。

A recent paper from Stuart Barnes of King’s College London and Samuel Kirshner of the University of New South Wales looked at the impact of facial characteristics on the prices that Airbnb hosts can charge their guests.

伦敦国王学院的斯图尔特·巴恩斯和新南威尔士大学的塞缪尔·基什纳最近发表了一篇论文，研究了面部特征对爱彼迎房东向客人收取费用的影响。

They found that hosts with attractive and trustworthy faces could charge up to 5% more per night than their peers for similar apartments.

他们发现，拥有迷人和值得信赖的相貌的房东每晚能比同类公寓的房东多收取5%的费用。

Unsurprisingly, perceived trustworthiness mattered more for small, shared accommodation.

不出所料，人们感觉到的信任度对小户型和共享的住宿更重要。

But the decisions made by consumers on online marketplaces do not explain corporate headshots.

但消费者在网上市场做出的决定并不能解释企业的头像拍摄。

Maybe some people try to choose between Disney+ and Netflix by going to the About Us section of their websites, but it seems unlikely.

也许有些人会访问迪士尼+和网飞的官网，点击“关于我们”，然后决定选择二者中的哪一个，但这似乎不太可能。

And even if executive profiles were somehow feeding into the subconscious decisions of investors and job applicants, it is not at all clear what type of photograph should follow.

即使高管简介以某种方式影响了投资者和求职者的潜意识决策，也完全不清楚应该出现哪种类型的照片。

Managers will already be trying to convey an impossible brew of leadership qualities, from breezy confidence to naked vulnerability.

经理们已经在努力传达一种不可能的领导力品质，从轻松的自信到不加掩饰的脆弱。

Now they have to look baby-faced too?

现在他们也要看起来像娃娃脸了？

No wonder people end up gurning.

难怪人们最后开始扮鬼脸。

So what does lie behind this strangely pervasive custom?

那么，这种奇怪的普遍习俗背后隐藏着什么呢？

A headshot is something for a new executive to show their mother, and for a weary one to show recruiters.

头像是新任高管给他们的母亲看的东西，也是疲惫的高管给招聘人员看的东西。

It is useful for employees who have no idea what their ultimate boss looks like.

对于不知道大老板是什么样子的员工来说，这是很有用的。

Leadership galleries increasingly serve as a crude but quick measure of diversity.

领导层照片集越来越多地被用作衡量多样性的粗略但快速的指标。

Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that it is just something that everyone else does.

也许最合理的解释是，这只是因为其他所有人都在这样做。

It is odd to have a leadership team that does not show their faces.

有一个不露面的领导团队是很奇怪的。

Odd but not impossible.

很奇怪，但也不是不可能。

Alphabet lists its board members’ names and eschews photos altogether.

Alphabet列出了董事会成员的名字，但完全不用照片。

You just have to imagine them, shaking their heads in amazement at a graph.

你只能想象他们的模样：对着一张图表惊讶地摇头称叹。