Zeng Guofan was a man of letters, how did he manage the generals of the Xiang Army? His management methods, whether in the official arena or in the mall, have been emulated by many people, and the effect is very good.
To understand Zeng Guofan's method of managing the generals of the Xiang Army, we must first understand his employment criteria. The standard is very simple, with only 12 words:
Have integrity, no officialdom, more organization, less talk.
It is precisely because of the standard that Zeng Guofan has his own category when selecting generals. There is no one who can enter this category who does not listen to his command.
What is the mystery of these 12 words, which can become the magic weapon for Zeng Guofan to manage his subordinates? Let's start by analyzing these 12 words in detail:
Ethics: refers to being a person with principles and conscience in mind; no official spirit: it is simple and not smooth; more methodical: doing things logically and has a mind; less big words: not saying big words, being realistic.
These 12 words fully embody Zeng Guofan's skill in driving people:
The first is to establish your own management category.
At the beginning of the third year of Xianfeng (1853 AD), Zeng Guofan served as the minister of hunan regimental training, and after obtaining permission from the Xianfeng Emperor to agree to his proposal to create a "large regiment" in Hunan, Zeng Guofan took a very bold method, that is, to recruit officers and soldiers through generous salaries.
During the Qing Dynasty, the life of ordinary people was relatively difficult, there was no more channel to make money, although there was a great danger in being a soldier, but the conditions given by Zeng Guofan were very attractive, attracting many people to participate.
In the process of forming the Xiang Army, Zeng Guofan adhered to the principle of "will be personally elected", and the above 12 words are the categories he gave, that is, anyone who meets this standard can enter the Xiang Army camp, otherwise, he does not want it at all.
Why some companies have their own selection criteria when recruiting talents, this is the category. At the same time, it is also for the convenience of management. This method was used by Zeng Guofan when he created the Xiang Army.
The second is to fully grasp the weaknesses of human nature.
Zeng Guofan is a very good summative person, his 12 words, not out of thin air, but on the basis of absorbing the shortcomings of the green camp.
Zeng Guofan believed that the reason why the Green Camp had no combat effectiveness and could not compete with the Taiping Army was that the problem was in the generals, because the generals were accustomed to the bureaucratic atmosphere in the official arena and did not do things realistically.
According to Zeng Guofan:
The official spirit is too heavy, the heart is too tricky, the simplicity is scattered, and the true qi is scattered.
Zeng Guofan had never led soldiers to fight before he founded the Xiang Army, and although he had acted as a soldier during his time as an official in the capital, he had a relatively short time and had no experience in managing generals, but he understood the weaknesses of the Green Camp very well, which was why he firmly believed that if he wanted to destroy the Taiping Army, it was necessary to retrain an army.
The employment standards he formulated fully grasped the weaknesses of human nature, and when a person's nature is ethical and honest, such a person is more convenient to manage.
Zeng Guofan had a general named Li Xubin, who was not good at talking, but his academic cultivation was very good, and when he encountered the enemy, he often let others attack the places that were easy to fight, and he specially fought some places that were not easy to fight, and whenever the grain was distributed, he also let others choose first, and he took the rest of the bad ones.
Li Xubin was very respectful and loyal to Zeng Guofan, and in the seventh year of Xianfeng (1857 AD), Zeng Guofan was deprived of military power by the Xianfeng Emperor because he returned home to worry about his father Ding's filial piety, but when Li Xubin encountered problems, he would still ask Zeng Guofan for advice first.
From this we can see that the reason why Zeng Guofan was able to manage the generals of the Xiang Army well was that he completely grasped the first pass, that is, the employment criteria when he selected talents played a role.
References: References: The Complete Works of Zeng Guofan, The Biography of Zeng Guofan, The Annals of Zeng Guofan, Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, etc.