Shenrancaijing original
Author | Tang Yahua
Edit | Mu wind
Yuan Ruo is the founder and CEO of a start-up company, and some investors in the company advised him to dig up people from large factories to be management at the beginning of his business. At the critical stage of financing, investors even suggested that he drastically recruit the middle level of large factories and give the company's executives a "big change". The reason is that such a good storytelling can quickly rush performance, financing, raise valuations, and impact IPOs.
He recruited four large factories to be the vice presidents of the company, and the treatment was all millions of dollars a year, but in the end, because these people either could not implement their ideas or could not adapt to the rapid changes of the startup company, in the end, Yuan Ruo personally dissuaded the people he had recruited.
Once, the middle level of large factories was dug up to be executives in small and medium-sized companies, which was a promising career development direction. In this process, the salary and resume of the middle level of the large factory rise with the step-by-step job-hopping. After the talents with the halo joined, small and medium-sized companies quickly expanded their scale, and did not hesitate to exchange high losses for high growth, rapid financing, and running to impact the listing. Everything looks wonderful.
But in the past two years, large factories have begun to shrink, the middle layer responsible for uploading and issuing excess, many people have been laid off, and the entrance to the flow between large factories has almost closed. The road that originally jumped to a small company was almost blocked. The reason is that the bubble start-up company needs the middle layer of the large factory to decorate the façade for growth, and now it is the juncture of survival, and the middle layer of the large factory that is accustomed to modular business and is accustomed to screws will only be dissatisfied with the startup.
Many entrepreneurs have found out after the high-paying appointment of the middle level of large factories that the middle and high level cultivated by their own companies is the most suitable.
The middle floor of the big factory, is it really not fragrant?
"The middle level of 4 large factories with an annual salary of one million yuan has been dissuaded by me"
The middle level of large factories comes to small companies, and the first big problem encountered is that the ideas are difficult to implement.
Yuan Ruo recalled that the first person he recruited was the middle level of a large factory in Silicon Valley, "his understanding of the profession is very deep, there are many good ideas, I am happy to think that I caught the big bull, but also think he will be very helpful for the company's financing." It was later discovered that almost all of his ideas were floating in the air. He is not good at management, does not solve problems, and cannot implement ideas.
"He was an expert in the former company, responsible for finding direction, proposing ideas, and gaining insight into the industry. Six months after joining the company, his problems could not be hidden, and executives of the same level and his subordinates came to me to complain that he did not seek his position in his position," Yuan Ruo said.
Yuan Ruo had communicated with him many times, reminding him to complete the things in front of him first, and then make long-term planning, but to no avail. "He's very professional, he looks at things in the longer term, and I admire him very much, but no way, we're a startup, everybody does things with a problem-solving posture, and there's no room for him to 'do nothing.'" Finally, I talked to him openly and honestly and suggested that he still go to the big factory. ”
People who can't solve the problem can't do it, and some people who are too capable are often uneasy about the status quo and just want to use the startup as a springboard, and such people can't stay long when they join.
The second vice president of Yuan Ruozhao is the third in command of a large domestic factory. According to his description, this person has good ability and has made considerable achievements in the company's year, but his style is somewhat inconsistent with the company's culture.
"He used to work in a company that was wolf-like and wild, and he often said radical, even 'bloody' things at company-wide conferences, and most people in our company were uncomfortable with his remarks." Yuan Ruo did not take this as a big problem, he wanted to tolerate people with different personalities, as long as he could solve the problem, he could accept it.
Until he touched the company's red line, Yuan Ruo did not know that he wanted to start his own business to do the company's upstream and downstream business, so while doing business, his mind has been very active, and the resources of the company have paved the way for their own entrepreneurship, "But our relationship with suppliers is very good, and I will soon know what actions he has." ”
Yuan Ruo told him very frankly, "You can tell me that I can only work here for a while, we anchor for a time, you can help us solve any problems, and even we have room for cooperation, so we don't have to tinker with it in private." In the end, the executive also left awkwardly.
Even if the mid-level of the large factory that has been parachuted in can be smoothly integrated into the company, because of the difference in the working style of the large and small factories, there will be some difficulties in the process of business promotion.
One of the problems is that small companies have insufficient budgets and need to spend small money to do big things. Xie Nan, co-founder of a quality education company, told Shen Yan that their company had recruited a person in charge of marketing from a large factory, with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan. The first big problem that arises after recruiting people is the budget, she pointed out that people in large factories are very accustomed to using a certain budget to achieve a certain effect. "But small businesses like ours, with a marketing budget of just over $1 million a year, have to do a lot of things with very little money, and they feel difficult to operate." We recruited two or three people like this, and after a few months, they couldn't find an effective way, we couldn't see the effect, and finally they all left. ”
In addition to the budget, there is also a problem that the working mode of the middle level of large factories is fixed, and it is difficult to adapt to changes.
Yuanruo followed up with two large factories in the middle layer, encountering this kind of problem. For example, he said, the company has a business, itself has a relatively standardized way of operating, because the environment has changed, the goals have changed. The Leader from the big factory still uses the previous thinking to make plans and execute. "In the end, we found that his department had completed the KPIs he had set, but all of their business basically did not correspond to the company's business, and in the eyes of other departments, including me, the whole department was busy for a year."
After review, Yuan Ruo felt that the executive was used to managing a small part of his responsibility when he was in a large factory, and did not need to consider the connection, but when he came to a small company, what he did could not be connected with the company's business, and what he did was useless.
So why did his problems go so long before they were discovered? Yuan Ruo explained that on the one hand, it is because the middle-level from the big factory is very good at reporting, and the other is because the problems of the business are not easy to show in time, and there is a certain lag.
"Many middle-level factories have a magical reporting ability, he did not lie, but good at whitewashing his business", although Yuan Ruo also had some doubts, but he still chose to trust him.
It wasn't until the problem occurred and the company's management began to dismantle and find the cause, only to find that there was a problem half a year ago. "Our own corporate culture is that the management exposes the problems of its own department and cross-examines each other, and this executive has often developed a short-term mentality, and the family ugliness will never be publicized." The company's HRBP found it the hardest to understand their department, and even afterwards found that their departmental meetings were designed and the HRBP hearings could not find any problems. ”
Yuan Ruo believes that this is the mentality of a professional manager, but the senior level he needs is a partner mentality that can be tied together to do things from the perspective of the overall situation of the company.
Two years ago, Zhao Yong, who came out of a large factory and started his own business, also had the same feeling. He wanted to make achievements on the Douyin number, and recruited a middle-level from Douyin with a high salary, "After a week, I asked him to make a set of plans for me, and he only handed me a directory, wrote a framework and some methodology, such as live broadcasting every day, can not read the manuscript, these Douyin official colleges have it." ”
Zhao Yong immediately dissuaded him, "I need him to help me solve the problem of growth, not to provide an impractical methodology, we ask for short and fast, immediate results, I do not have time to train him; second, I let him integrate with colleagues, lead the team, he is not willing to go." Zhao Yong found that he worked in Douyin, and did not necessarily understand Douyin, many people learned skills in the big factory are a small module, small companies need a person to fight the world, he does not have this awareness.
Join the middle level of the big factory of the startup: the difficulty is not to do things, but to be a person
In the view of the owners of some startups, some large factories are not grounded in the middle level, have no ability to implement on the ground, and cannot keep up with the changes. However, in the eyes of the middle level of large factories, the rule of small and medium-sized companies is greater than the system, and the layman guides the insider, which is another situation.
Ricky used to do retail business in the middle of Alibaba, JD.com and other companies, and the biggest problem he encountered when he went to small companies was "how to get people". He concluded afterwards that when he arrived at a new company, he had to learn to be a person first.
Ricky used to do well in a company business, but was dissuaded for offending key people. "The boss said that after you came, the whole business has changed a lot, but you don't get along well with some people." Ricky said that this person is actually the boss's good friend, this kind of mom-and-pop shop type team, and the boss's relationship is not good, no matter how bad the work can not be retained.
But Ricky didn't know this when he first went to the company, and by the time he realized it, the contradiction between the two people had already arisen. "This is inevitable, as a nepotism, the leader's good relationship holds an important position, but it cannot play a role, I want to do these businesses well, I can only rely on professional ability to grab this thing." The result became a thing, and the person lost. ”
The problem with another type of person is that it is difficult to cooperate with people in the company. Ricky said, "After I went to a company, the budget has been approved, but the matter still needs to be nodded in agreement by the corresponding person in charge, and during a business trip, the other party hinted that I invited him to dinner and sang KTV." Although helpless, I can also understand that many people want to use their rights to the extreme. ”
The problem with this is that Ricky feels that a person's energy is limited, and if there are more people, there is no way to think about the business, but small companies are like this, and people rule more than the system.
In addition, Ricky's company, the head of the original company did not do well, recruited him from the outside, but the company did not completely separate the original person in charge from the business, which led to abnormally high communication costs and more difficult to promote. "I said my set of theories, people say other people's sets, although he has not done the business, but it has been a long time to manage this business, I first have to deal with the problem of the replacement of the old and the new, digest the original people."
It's hard to integrate with people within the company, and part of it is a matter of culture and style. Ricky once went to another company, a lot of Internet and e-commerce related terms, many people in the company have never heard of it. "I was in a hurry, I spoke fast, everyone could not digest, for this reason I also opened a special course to give everyone the terminology and basic common sense of popular science e-commerce."
For a long time after arriving at that company, he did not do business, but first explained to the person in charge of each docking what he wanted to do and how he needed to cooperate with each other. Later, he also encountered efficiency problems in the implementation, many people in the company are very unskilled in the use of some tools, doing retail involves commodity management, tens of thousands of SKUs, many people are not even familiar with Excel.
Of course, the most difficult "personnel" is to get the boss.
When Ricky did e-commerce in another company, he found that the payment also had to go through the offline process, "The supplier gave a quotation by email, we sent an email to confirm the demand, and then took the paper contract stamp to confirm the payment, the whole cycle took two to three weeks, I proposed to purchase a system or rent a system in the market, complete the order online, the person in charge of the company said no, saying that we are an Internet company, you can do it internally." ”
However, the system has not yet been made, and the business has to be greatly adjusted. Ricky is helpless, obviously doing the retail business, the boss does not listen to the opinions of retail people, more willing to listen to the ideas of old employees.
He also stayed at a company where the CEO had several "staff officers" who recommended a book on e-commerce to one of them, and the other party asked, "Who is the author of this book, whether our boss has money, and if there is no boss who has money, what he said is not right." After listening to this, Ricky was puzzled by the CEO's ability to recognize people.
To sum up, Ricky feels that the situation in the middle of the factory can be explained as "Maxima often exists, Bole does not often have."
Recently, Ricky was fired from his former club, and HR gave him the reason that there was feedback from employees that he was not cooperating. Ricky felt very distressed, "I look for a job again, I only dare to put the selection of people first, do not dare to make choices based on things." I don't care if I'm a big factory or a small company for my next job, I'll work with people I've fought, built trust, and like-minded people. ”
The middle floor of the big factory is not fragrant?
What value can the middle level of a large factory bring to a small company? Why is it so difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement?
In Ricky's view, there are three points that the middle level of large factories can bring to small companies: efficient management methods and concepts, resources, and people, "Theoretically, the middle level of large factories has experience, resources, and people, and with these small companies, it is theoretically possible to make rapid achievements." ”
Ge Jia, a senior Internet analyst, analyzed, "If someone who has made an architecture, product or solution made by a large factory comes to a small company, it is very helpful to improve the overall level of a small company." ”
The above values cannot be played out, and the problem is of course on both sides. First, let's look at the reasons for the middle layer of the big factory.
In the large factory, most of the middle level does the work of the executive level, they receive KPIs from the top level, dismantle it, assign it to each responsible person, and do the follow-up tracking, feedback and upward reporting by themselves. Most of the middle-level business capabilities may be excellent, but they do not have the ability to think independently, open up the wilderness and innovate in small companies. After all, the middle level of the large factory to the small company is the top level, and what is done is not to upload and issue, but from 0 to 1, to participate in the company's strategy formulation, and their original skills are difficult to reuse. Moreover, some large factories at the middle level overestimate their abilities and underestimate the difficulties they may encounter.
From the boss's point of view, Yuan Ruo believes that the most powerful thing about the big factory is that it has a very mature management system and business, but the people who build a management system and business model in the big factory, one type will be promoted all the way in the big factory, and the other type tends to start a business by themselves, and the probability is that they will not leave the big factory to come to the small company. "People who come to small companies may not have the ability to build business models and management systems that we need."
In addition, from the perspective of the general environment and the stage of industry development, "the middle level of large factories is suitable for the previous Internet investment and financing environment, they parachute into a small and medium-sized company with a halo, use their own experience to do the company's business, open up and close, spend a lot of money and grow, do the performance to a crazy valuation, constantly help the company to raise funds, and then IPO." In the bubble era, many people are doing growth, not solving problems, but using losses to make growth and scale look good. Yuan Ruo thought.
He explained that when the middle level of the large factory came in, the relatively benign result was that the company was successfully listed, and the malignant result was that the company failed to go public and the startup company was killed. This path is gambling, but now that this era has passed, it is the last word to survive, make money, and provide value.
Let's look at the problems of small and medium-sized companies.
Ricky believes that, first of all, the resources and funds of small companies cannot support what large factory people want to do; second, the organization and management capabilities of small companies are limited, and the organizational system cannot undertake the middle level of large factories, and the two sides cannot cooperate deeply; third, there is no consensus between the middle level of large factories and the managers of small companies, small companies are not patient enough, many things are difficult to produce results in a short time, but small companies are eager to succeed.
Moreover, large companies and small companies themselves have different stages of growth, and the mission given to employees is also different. The large factory system is mature, there is a stable structure, there is no existential crisis, the middle and grass-roots levels inside, there are general basic capabilities, do screws on the line, pan to any position can be connected. But small companies need people with professional skills who want to create value as soon as they take up a job. People from large companies do things for a much longer period than they think, consuming far more resources than small companies can afford.
"The combination of large factories and middle-level and small companies, one side does not have the foundation to undertake, the other side does not have enough ability or full estimation, just like the rich family married to the upstart, the knowledge structure of the two sides is not the same, many advantages are difficult to play out." Ricky said.
In addition, in large companies, some people will kick the ball and throw the pot when there is a problem, and when they go to a small company, they are the responsible person, and there is no one to cover the bottom. The big factories are relatively more tolerant, and mediocre people fish in muddy waters among excellent people. Small companies a radish a pit, very sensitive to cost control, eye-catching large factory people, no results, the problem was soon revealed.
Yuan Ruo has now completely stopped recruiting the middle level of the big factory to be a company executive. He tends to recruit young, intelligent, resilient and dynamic grassroots managers of large factories, such people have a large factory foundation, but they are not completely shaped by large factories, and then give them the opportunity to exercise and improve, so that they can grow into the middle and high level of the company.
Xie Nan began to explore more economical employment solutions, such as no longer recruiting marketers from large factories, but looking for agents to do delivery. "If you don't set up a special post on the launch, you can save hundreds of thousands of labor costs every year." Now the core management of their company is all following the company step by step.
"Nowadays, companies are beginning to live too tightly, and now the middle-level of large factories will become more and more cautious in choosing a career." Ge Jia said.
If the middle level of the large factory must go to the small company, the suggestions of many industry insiders are: first, be a consultant, the middle level of the large factory to make suggestions, the company's internal implementation, and the two sides should try to run into it for a period of time; second, the middle level of the large factory must have a zero mentality, put aside the aura of the big factory, break first and then stand, change from the mentality of a professional manager to a partner mentality, stand in the overall perspective of the company, assume the role of planner and leader; third, have more patience at the company level, and create an environment for new people to play their value as much as possible.
*The caption and illustration in the text are from pexels. At the request of the interviewees, Yuanruo, Xie Nan, Zhao Yong, and Ricky are pseudonyms.