Withdrawing from the field of new energy vehicles, Huawei "admitted"?
In 2021, the global new energy automobile industry has exploded. According to the Statistics of the International Energy Agency, global sales of new energy vehicles will double to 6.6 million units in 2021, and the Chinese market alone contributed 3.521 million vehicles, an increase of 160% year-on-year, leading the world for seven consecutive years. However, at this point when many "laymen" such as Xiaomi, 360, and Meituan have entered the new energy vehicles, a news about Huawei's dumping of the automatic driving business has detonated the entire industry.
According to foreign media reports, Volkswagen plans to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving division for billions of euros to make up for the technical systems it is not good at. Although neither side has commented on this matter at present, as early as 2018, Huawei has reached cooperation with Volkswagen's Audi brand in ADS autonomous driving technology and vehicle specification-level chips. Regardless of whether the two sides eventually continue to cooperate or acquire, since the glory business was sold at the end of 2020, when there is market competition pressure, Huawei seems to have been adopting a defensive and weak strategy.
Many people began to question, is Huawei's wolf nature gone? In this regard, we have found the answer in the management philosophy of Huawei in the past.
First, cheer up internally and show weakness to the outside
As a private technology company starting from 20,000 yuan, Huawei has been able to survive the siege and interception of many multinational technology giants along the way, and surpassed Nokia and Ericsson in 2013 to become the world's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer.
In the more than 30 years from the founding of Huawei in 1987 to the present, although Ren Zhengfei has had a domineering declaration that "the world's telecommunications industry is divided into three worlds, Huawei must have one", such statements almost appear in internal speeches, or small talk with employees, rather than externally. When speaking to the outside world, such as in an interview with CCTV, Ren Zhengfei's attitude and tone are more "taking the United States as a teacher." ”
Encouraging the inside and showing weakness to the outside is Ren Zhengfei's management philosophy of "guarding the weak, showing weakness, and then winning the strong with the weak".
At the end of 1997, when Ren Zhengfei was busy preparing for Christmas in the United States, he led huawei executive team across the United States from east to west, and successively inspected Hughes, Bell Labs, HP and other technology companies in the United States, especially the inspection of IBM Company made Ren Zhengfei feel the most. Gerstner, then president of IBM, showed Ren Zhengfei the entire product development process of IBM, who heard with great interest from morning to evening. Ren Zhengfei found that not only IBM, but also the European and American technology giants AT&T, Nortel, and Lucent are all similar management models, and in the end, Ren Zhengfei decided: learn from IBM, learn from the United States.
From 1998 to 2008, Huawei spent a total of 4 billion yuan to hire hundreds of blonde "American tutors" from IBM to help Huawei manage changes in eight projects, including organizational structure, financial structure, and product development architecture. Taking the United States as a teacher, Huawei has jumped from a Local Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer to an international communications equipment manufacturing giant in less than 10 years.
In 1998, Huawei's inventory cycle was 3.6 times a year, and its revenue was only 410 million yuan. By 2003, after the first round of Huawei's "IBM reform", Huawei's revenue reached 31.7 billion yuan. The inventory cycle also rose to 5.7 per year.
At the beginning, during the overall "IBM reform", there were Huawei elders who complained, why should Chinese wear suits and ties? Ren Zhengfei did not have any nonsense about this, and directly ordered: "Whoever does not cooperate will be laid off." ”
Since "showing weakness" is Ren Zhengfei's management idea, why should Ren Zhengfei "use strength" for Huawei's elders?
Second, we must be strong in things and weak in people
In 2011, Ren Zhengfei pointed out in the article "Success is not a reliable guide for the future": Huawei's future business environment will become more and more difficult, don't be complacent, don't be crazy, we must learn to "bully and show weakness, inside and out soft" . It means "doing things in a high profile and being a low-key person". Therefore, we see that when Ren Zhengfei gets along with employees, he has no boss's shelf at all, and even sometimes shoots his subordinates' "horse farts". But if an employee blatantly violates Huawei's code of conduct, even if it is an executive or a senior, Ren Zhengfei will deal with it seriously.
Unlike many domestic companies that often invite subordinates to dinner and send leaders gifts, in the first edition of Huawei's "Huawei Employee Code", Ren Zhengfei advocated that Huawei's leaders at all levels should invite colleagues and subordinates to eat and eat noodles. Exchange ideas and work at the dinner table. This is actually a manifestation of the leader's "showing weakness", by inviting subordinates to dinner, Ren Zhengfei gave the manager the opportunity to pat the employee's "ass" in the code of conduct.
The most taboo thing about being a boss is that you think you know everything, your subordinates are not smart, always emphasize your authority, and ignore everyone's subjective initiative. Ren Zhengfei "shows weakness" to employees, so that each employee does not have to be a promise when expressing his thoughts, and cultivates the courage and strength of each employee to be independent. When a company encounters a bottleneck in development, there will be no situation where no one is available.
According to huawei executive meetings, once Huawei's chairman Sun Yafang was in a meeting with the head of the marketing department, when the topic talked about promoting a manager, Ren Zhengfei, who liked to "talk about two sentences" without anything, suddenly walked into the conference room and began to express his opinions. Ren Zhengfei believes that the executive selected has no wolf nature and cannot be promoted. But before Ren Zhengfei could finish speaking, Sun Yafang interrupted Ren Zhengfei's speech and retorted: "Ren Zong, you don't know him, he is not what you said. Ren Zhengfei was speechless for a moment, like an unwelcome person silently walking out of the conference room by himself, and muttering in his mouth: "I just talk casually, you continue." ”
Some people may laugh at Ren Zhengfei's "good bullying", in fact, this is the cleverness of Ren Zhengfei. Taking the initiative to "show weakness" in exchange for employees to better serve Huawei, why not enjoy it?
Li Kang, a literary scholar during the Three Kingdoms period, once said: "Wood shows in the forest, and the wind will destroy it; the deeds are higher than the people, and the multitudes will not do it." ”
Life in the world, too high-profile, will eventually be high-profile backlash. Previously, Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's mobile phone business, publicly said: "3 years of super Apple, 5 years of super Samsung." Ren Zhengfei knew about it and criticized Yu Chengdong bitterly, and issued a "gag order" within the company, who was saying "extinguish Apple, Samsung", fined 100 yuan.
If you want to be a real strong person, you must learn to hide your sharp edge and learn to show weakness.
III. Conclusion
Nowadays, Huawei has repeatedly suffered difficulties in the chip field, and Ren Zhengfei's choice is not to draw a clear line with his opponents and confront the soldiers. Instead, it actively maintains normal cooperation with American technology giants through the export of 5G patents and other means. This possible acquisition cooperation with Volkswagen in the field of autonomous driving is also a kind of wisdom to retreat into progress.
At the same time, in China, Huawei has taken Hubble investment as the carrier and actively supported the development of innovative technology companies such as domestic chips, semiconductors, integrated circuits, and industrial-grade software with financial advantages, and invested in 4 EDA software companies in 2021 alone.
Still water can flow deeply, and the strong can only be exchanged for a moment of happiness, and it is possible to laugh to the end when it is weak. Ren Zhengfei's understanding of this truth can be described as quite profound.