Chinese enterprises need "stories and philosophies", and Chinese entrepreneurs need "family training"
Text: Yang Guang, President and Editor-in-Chief of Chinese and Foreign Management Media
Global Book Day 2022 has just passed. At this time five years ago, I wrote a short, thousand-word essay: "Choosing to Read." Five years later, in the environment of difficult virus control and high pressure of epidemic prevention, studying at home may be your last resort. But being able to read with peace of mind is a tough test for you—unless, of course, it's a good book.
Five years ago, I said, "When our experience needs to be precipitated, our experience needs to be confirmed, our cognition needs to be systematic, our confusion needs to be answered, our burden needs to be relieved, and our life needs to be sublimated, there is no better and more comfortable choice than picking up a good book under the sunset." Especially now when the outside is full of helplessness.
The ancients said that there was a house of gold in the book. In modern times, Mao Zedong chose to study in the downtown area because the more chaotic and even noisy the outside world, the more readers need to find moving experiences from good books, find rational thinking, find historical answers, and find future coordinates - especially when there is already a dispute on the Internet, and it is difficult to distinguish between true and false.
The question is, where do good books come from?
Supplements, medicines, and vaccines
Classics, of course. Yes, classics are always the best choice. But the problem is that the more classic, the more immortal because of universality, the more there is a sense of distance because of universality. What can be put in the four seas is like the four seas. Therefore, the classic is more like our nutritional supplement, which can be eaten at any time, and it is best to eat it often, but it should not be too high when the pain occurs.
So in our lives, in addition to supplements, we also need medicines.
So, what is the "medicine" in a good book? All medicines are for the symptoms, otherwise they become poison. As far as we entrepreneurs are concerned, as far as the core team of our entrepreneurs is concerned, the "symptomatic medicine" is undoubtedly the answer that those excellent enterprises and entrepreneurs who are similar to their own number but have taken a step or two earlier can directly answer the many problems they face. Unfortunately, in the operation and management of enterprises, it is not easy to "cure the disease".
Usually, we always like to argue about right and wrong, especially recently. In fact, no matter how opposed the positions are, we are all experiencing together. Experience, on the other hand, is often less clear about right and wrong— the experience itself tells us all the value. After experiencing it, you will naturally understand. If you haven't experienced it, the real realization is often after the future self-experience.
Mortals, who will only understand after their own experience, are the most extensive. Homo sapiens, who will understand by looking into the experiences of others, are destined to be few. Stupid people are people who can neither understand the experience of others nor understand their own experience, in fact, there are many people.
We as a business should also have the responsibility to mold ourselves into the second kind. Because the responsibility is great, because there are many risks, we can't afford to try and make mistakes, and we can't afford it. A lot of times, we have to get it right all at once. I remember a Go lecture, a senior chess player said a passage that impressed me: "You have to ask me where I should go next, I tell you I don't know." But the difference between me and you is that I know very well that I can't go anywhere. ”
Therefore, as a team of entrepreneurs, we need not only "special drugs", but also "vaccines".
The "vaccine" of Chinese enterprises is to present and share the sadness and joy experienced in the process of enterprise growth, the experience of tempering, the spirit stimulated, the thinking that has been precipitated, and the effects of extension, in the form of short and vivid stories, combined with shorter and more profound philosophies, to all enterprises and entrepreneurs who need to grow and experience, so as to achieve early immunity.
"Get vaccinated" as soon as possible
If there is a ready-made "good vaccine", it is necessary to get it as soon as possible – read a good book.
Doing business is about efficiency. The most efficient growth, the most efficient training, is to "borrow the stone of his mountain to attack the jade." The most condensed experience put forward by Haier founder Zhang Ruimin when he was at the helm for 30 years is: "Enterprise is a person, management is a borrowing force". And the most effective borrowing force is not only to invite external experts to give lectures, but also to directly learn from those enterprises and entrepreneurs who are on the same road as us, but only walk early and take a few steps ahead, what they have experienced, what they are facing, how they think, how they act, how they respond, and finally what they have achieved, and then summarized what they have done, or reflected on what they have done.
If it is said that personal personalities are very different, national cultures are very different, only the enterprise logic sandwiched in the middle is the most cross-industry, cross-regional and even cross-time and space characteristics, which is the most suitable for example. Because commerce and agriculture are different, they are destined to operate within the same logical system. Therefore, an ambitious but not yet complacent business and entrepreneur should actively read, think, discuss and learn from (especially during the epidemic quarantine) – those leading companies with homology (not necessarily need to be thunderous) with decades of ups and downs condensed "stories and philosophies".
Fortunately, the "good vaccines" around us have become more and more under the efforts of Chinese and foreign management and friends from all walks of life.
Those good books and stories are all done by the enterprise, and the philosophy is realized by us and the enterprise. Listen to jun's words, better than reading ten years of books. All you have to do is bring it.
"Making a Vaccine" in Advance
In addition to getting a "good vaccine", our entrepreneurial team also needs to make a "good vaccine" – a good book.
Businesses and entrepreneurs, and unlike other social roles, you are people whose vocation is to create and innovate. And what enterprises and entrepreneurs want to create and innovate, the starting point must be "products" and continue, and the high point must be "character", and continue. The end point is that the first two points have not been able to continue. From creation to creation, it is the inevitable process of the growth of excellent enterprises. In the middle, there must be a bond to achieve, that is, "works".
From "product" to "character", it is inseparable from "works".
Businesses and entrepreneurs, of course, are all done. But there is also a difference between what kind of dry method. One is the dry method of not looking up and relying on feelings, and the other is the dry method of recording and thinking. With records, there are credentials, there is reverence, there are boundaries; with thinking, there is precipitation, there is borrowing, and there is a boundary.
"Father of the United States" George. Washington, long before he was the leader of a precarious rebel force, and no one, including himself, could foresee that he would change the entire history of human political civilization in the future, he reserved his correspondence with all officers. The "world's first CEO" Jack, who recently passed away. Welch, when he was planning every day at GE for 20 years, still did not forget to save every note between him and his subordinates. The letters left by Washington in his early years will make future generations understand that what he created, defended, and did not fall from the sky, and how the unprecedented innovation of ending the imperial system for mankind with the strength of one man came about. And Welch's bits and pieces in his work have also made his two far-reaching management classics "Welch Autobiography" and "Win", and let the world understand how his continuous earth-shattering management changes came about.
These "works" actually represent these innovators, recording and thinking in the entire innovation process, and benefiting all mankind or at least the entire industry. Moreover, it is not to wait until the sunset to pick up the pen leisurely, or to cover the coffin, but to prepare carefully and grow dynamically.
Some entrepreneur friends must say: "You are talking too far, I do not have this ambition." "Well, we don't talk about benefiting or transforming the world, but we should at least benefit and influence our own businesses, or at least our own families." To create a "good vaccine", of course, you should first hit your own career, and hit the people you care about the most, so that your career and your most important people can share "immunity".
The ancients said that a person has achievements, that is, "three stands": Lide, meritorious service, and speech. Virtue is the result of cultivation; meritorious service is the result of hard work; and making words is the result of enlightenment. When you have achieved success in business, are still in difficulty, and still have expectations, there may not be a shortage of the first two, but it must be scarce and you need to use the "word" method to encourage yourself, motivate others, precipitate yourself, and admonish others.
Contagion, transmission, and inheritance
The original intention of creating a "good vaccine" is to vigorously promote it, so as to avoid "infection". All good enterprise development "works" must also have two other "conduction" functions: one is dissemination, and the other is inheritance. In other words, if you want not to be "infected", you must vigorously "spread" and "pass on".
In this era, there is no value that does not need to be disseminated.
Take Ukrainian President Zelenskiy. Under the curse of the ancestral training of "weak countries without diplomacy", he still quickly influenced almost the entire world through his "dissemination" as a professional actor, whether it was the United Nations General Assembly or the music awards ceremony, he won the opportunity for his motherland to survive under the seeming disparity in strength with his three inches of tongue. He even said that just by relying on "communication" itself, he has greatly changed the power pattern and strategic trend of the two warring countries. Who says that students and dramatists are useless?
It can be said that no matter what products your business is made of, and what kind of personality preferences you have, "communication" will affect your and your corporate destiny, and even your personal destiny.
That being the case, instead of letting your friends spread themselves to the fullest, or letting the self-media spread you at will, it is better to take the initiative to spread it yourself. Moreover, there is no doubt that no matter what industry you do, for today's good business and good products, brands must be there. Because the brand is based on the customer's perception of you. And this customer perception that you expect to form and implant must be "spread" under your continuous words and deeds.
The information age is destined to be the age of dissemination. Therefore, in this era, it is even more necessary to carefully realize the valuable inheritance.
Yes, the ancient Chinese always advocated words and deeds, but did not do. But even Lao Tzu, who advocated that small countries and widows and did not interact with each other in old age, would still write 5,000 words (which was almost equivalent to making a 100-episode TV series in the era of knife engraving), and then drifted west, so that the era and the future generations were full of ideological brilliance. If there is only Lao Tzu, but there is no Tao Te Ching, zhuangzi cannot be produced. With Zhuangzi, but without Zhuangzi, Chinese in later generations will not be able to settle their wounded hearts. Chinese culture can continue to this day, not so much because of these sages, but because these sages have achieved "inheritance" through "words" and "works", so that "China" is not only a geographical concept, but an evergreen tree of civilization.
And the more in an uncertain era, the more entrepreneurs need to spread their spiritual values and pass them on. The environment is changeable. It means that tangible artifacts are difficult to last, and the concept of intangibles is more important. The more times change, the more important it is to understand what does not change. In other words, the more we can't see clearly, the more we need to think clearly, and then pass on to future generations the part that transcends change and can and needs to be adhered to.
Obviously, we private entrepreneurs all hope that the family will inherit and carry it forward, as long as the family can be willing to pick up and receive it. And no matter whether the descendants of the family are willing to accept it, whether they can take it or not, or even regret that there is no successor, we will still have a very simple wish in our hearts: no matter what the enterprise we founded will become in the future, my children and grandchildren will be able to live happily, and they can live happily according to the style they and their families should have.
And this is the true meaning of inheritance. Not wealth, not enterprises, but the concepts and values of doing business and being a person.
Therefore, for the enterprise, you need to inherit a "corporate story and philosophy"; for the family, you need to inherit a "family training".
In short, only with active "transmission" and early "inheritance" can you, your business, and your family be free from unpredictable "infection".
Two books in the age of vaccines
Because of the new crown virus, we have begun to reluctantly enter an era of "vaccines".
Around the new crown virus, whether the vaccine will be imported, when the special drug will come out, and how long the dynamic clearance will last, we don't know. We enterprises and entrepreneurs can only do our own "vaccine" in our own small environment.
Under the many uncertainties and challenges, a book about the experience and thinking of other enterprises and entrepreneurs, a book about their own enterprises and their own experiences and thoughts, is a "good vaccine" for their own enterprises and families to be "double immune" and continue to grow.
Indispensable.