????此外，經(jīng)理人通常不會(huì)完全禁止未經(jīng)授權(quán)的交易，除非公司出現(xiàn)損失，這其實(shí)也是一種賭博行為。加州大學(xué)伯克利分校（University of California, Berkeley）領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力與溝通專業(yè)教授巴里?斯托稱：“我們從未聽(tīng)到過(guò)有哪條金融丑聞?wù)f，某位魔鬼交易員為公司多賺了20億美元。”如果交易員的未經(jīng)授權(quán)交易“押準(zhǔn)了盤口”，公司自然地會(huì)給他們獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，這就使得未經(jīng)授權(quán)交易更加難以避免。

????或許，交易員大腦短路的最大表現(xiàn)在于“輸錢”之后，他們會(huì)禁不住翻盤的誘惑，做出一系列非理性的決定。斯托的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，幾乎所有魔鬼交易員都難逃這樣的厄運(yùn)；這種做法被稱為“惡性增資”。

????這意味著盡管每筆交易都是獨(dú)立的，但人們?cè)谧龀霎?dāng)前的決定時(shí)，幾乎不可避免地會(huì)將之前的損失考慮在內(nèi)。結(jié)果就是，如果我們?cè)跊Q策時(shí)，腦子里想著如何讓自己擺脫困境，在第三方旁觀者眼里，此時(shí)做出的決定明顯是拙劣的。

????人都會(huì)有一個(gè)特定的臨界點(diǎn)，達(dá)到這個(gè)點(diǎn)之后，非理性的選擇實(shí)際上變成了合理選擇。比如，某個(gè)交易員損失了資金，于是開(kāi)始進(jìn)行風(fēng)險(xiǎn)越來(lái)越高的投機(jī)。他意識(shí)到，自己的飯碗或?qū)⒉槐＃踔習(xí)淮丁６鴮?duì)于這名交易員而言，損失10億美元或20億美元的懲罰并無(wú)區(qū)別。一旦突破了臨界點(diǎn)，為了讓自己脫身，交易員只有兩個(gè)選擇：要么加倍豪賭，要么束手就擒。這樣看來(lái)，無(wú)論他怎么做其實(shí)都是合理的。盡管公司依然有大量資金面臨風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，但對(duì)于交易員而言，現(xiàn)在他已經(jīng)沒(méi)什么可輸?shù)牧恕Ｔ谖C(jī)狀態(tài)下，人們想到的首先是自保，而不是公共利益。

????在阿多博利身上到底發(fā)生了什么？這一點(diǎn)目前尚不明確。一般而言，一個(gè)人一旦覺(jué)得自己陷入了困境，很難阻止他去冒險(xiǎn)一搏。要想避免這種行為，最有效的方法之一不是依賴安全防護(hù)軟件，而是著力打造辦公室文化。雖然交易員的工作環(huán)境壓力重重，但依然要讓他們感覺(jué)，如果他們進(jìn)行了違規(guī)交易，但僥幸未造成損失，他們可以與經(jīng)理人交流心中的疑惑和不全。

????斯托認(rèn)為，提高對(duì)這種錯(cuò)誤的懲罰同樣存在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)：交易員可能會(huì)更加謹(jǐn)小慎微，不敢有任何閃失，從而失去了學(xué)習(xí)的好機(jī)會(huì)。這樣，一旦交易員犯了錯(cuò)，公司會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些錯(cuò)誤極其重大，根本無(wú)從掩蓋。

????投資活動(dòng)中特別容易出現(xiàn)這種行為，因此雇主需要借助各種各樣的防范與平衡機(jī)制，包括：詳盡透徹的招聘方法、開(kāi)放的溝通文化、超強(qiáng)的可疑交易鑒別技術(shù)，以及超靈敏的人員監(jiān)督系統(tǒng)。

????正如戴維?約翰遜的一位客戶曾經(jīng)說(shuō)道：“必須盡量招聘道德最高尚的交易員。而在制定公司的政策和規(guī)定時(shí)，又必須把他們想象成謊話連篇、欺詐成性的惡棍。”

????譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

????Besides, it's a fair bet that managers do not root out unauthorized trades unless they lose the company money. "You haven't heard of financial scandals where a rogue trader has earned $2 billion extra for the company," says Barry Staw, a professor of leadership and communication at the University of California, Berkeley. Traders who have bet correctly on unauthorized trades are inadvertently rewarded, making the behavior tough to break.

????But perhaps the biggest mental glitch at work is the temptation to make a series of irrational decisions after losing money. Almost everyone falls prey to this phenomenon, according to Staw's research; it's called "escalation of commitment."

????In trading, this means that even though trades are discrete events, it is near impossible for people not to factor a previous loss into their current decisions. The result is that when we want to dig ourselves out of a hole, we make decisions that a third-party observer could clearly identify as bad ones.

????At a certain point, people hit a threshold where irrational choices actually become rational. Say a trader is losing money, and he begins to make riskier and riskier bets. He realizes that his career is in jeopardy and he might even be arrested. The penalty may not change much, for the trader, whether he has lost $1 billion or $2 billion. If that's the case, once he crosses that threshold, it is rational to go double or nothing in an attempt to get out of the hole. Although there's still plenty of money at stake for the company, the trader likely has nothing more to lose at this stage. And people operating in crisis mode tend to look out for their own skin rather than the common good.

????It's still unclear what happened with Adoboli, but in general, it is difficult to reverse this pattern of risky betting once a person feels trapped. One of the best ways to prevent this behavior doesn't rely on security software but rather the culture in an office. Even though traders operate in such a high-pressure environment, they need to feel like they can talk to their managers about problems, insecurities about trades they might have done wrong, and near misses.

????One of the risks of raising the penalty for mistakes is that traders may feel less inclined to come forward with small errors that could be learning opportunities, Staw says. Then the company only sees the huge ones that are too big to hide.

????Investing is so prone to this kind of behavior that employers need to put all systems of checks and balances in place: extremely thorough hiring practices, an open culture of communication, strong technology to catch suspicious trades, and hyper vigilant human oversight.

????As one of David Johnson's clients once told him, "You have to hope that your traders are the finest moral people around. Then, you set up your policies and your rules as if they're all lying, cheating crooks."