Today's headlines first article, please do not move, offenders will be investigated.
"Life is like a banquet, coming and going, and this kind of gathering and dispersion is also the norm in entrepreneurship and life.
In the early days of New Oriental, Yu Minhong worked hard, even at an inconspicuous moment, he did not forget to promote his ideas.
He took the initiative to cooperate with his teachers and tried to win the support of the institution, while his partner Wang and Xu were in the United States.
With the rapid development of New Oriental, Yu Minhong became an entrepreneur with tens of thousands of students, and he began to miss his former friends and invited them to return to China to create a great cause together.
Yu Minhong described his dream to Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping, and deeply moved them, so Wang and Xu returned to China without hesitation. They worked happily together, were in high spirits, and hit it off. Subsequently, Wang Xu and Xu asked for shares, and Yu Minhong also gave them without hesitation.
To manage a company, Yu Minhong believes that the key is to balance three elements: power, interests and favors. This idea is similar to the plot depicted in "The Chinese Partner": three good friends start a business together and eventually take the company to the international market.
In reality, Yu Minhong, Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping jointly brought New Oriental to the New York Stock Exchange.
However, unlike the movie, the three leaders of New Oriental eventually went their separate ways, Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping left New Oriental and founded Zhen Fund, becoming high-profile angel investors.
Yu Minhong stayed at New Oriental and lived the life of a professional manager, as if he staged a realistic version of the story of 'Chinese scattered gangs'.
Although Mr. Yu said he had little to do with "The Chinese Partner" and that "the plot in the movie is far from what actually happened," that hasn't stopped people from connecting the two.
When explaining the parting of ways of the partners of New Oriental, Yu Minhong mentioned the story in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". He believes that Cao Cao is better suited to be the leader of an entrepreneurial team, because in his opinion, a good leader should be able to make decisions that sacrifice the merits. Yu Minhong quoted the story of the Three Kingdoms as a metaphor for his decision on Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang.
Cao Cao and Liu Bei were both influential leaders during the Three Kingdoms period, and both of them had a large number of talents under them.
However, although Liu Bei attached great importance to favors, attracted talents through favors, and achieved hegemony with the righteous brothers, in the end, Guan Gong left Cao Cao and returned to Liu Bei.
And although Cao Cao valued interests, he relied more on wisdom, ideas, and rules, and never bowed to anyone. These two leaders have very different leadership styles, but they are both able to succeed in their respective fields.
This situation gives the film a sense of irony, because the drama that is often staged in the Chinese business world today is precisely the 'parting of the ways'. ”
There are several stories: first, the teacher of New Oriental wanted to publish a book and invited Yu Minhong to write a preface, and he almost never refused.
The second is that there is a teacher from New Oriental who started a business, and Yu Minhong invested one million to support it at that time. But later, his career failed, he was at a loss, and he wanted to return to New Oriental, and Yu Minhong gave him another opportunity. This kind of open-mindedness is really rare.
The third is that in the past, Yu Minhong's salary was paid in cash and in a sack, which was quite inspiring. Some teachers said that they got more than one million a year, which is not a big deal. Someone else took more than three million, a bag of cash. However, the competition was fierce in that era, and most of the vocal cords of the teachers who gave lectures were damaged.
Most of these people later set up their own doors and wrote monographs, although they often complained about New Oriental, but they never heard anyone say anything bad about New Oriental.
In China, there are very few people in any industry who can maintain such a high level of professional ethics. These episodes show that Yu Minhong still has a set of ways to deal with interpersonal relationships.
Let's talk about Yu Minhong's strictness and stinginess. From the start-up to the listing, he has always been very strict (about his stinginess, it has simply become a source of jokes for New Oriental teachers). But when they broke up, Wang and Xu took away a lot of money.
Part of the reason why New Oriental succeeded later was that it did not invite Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping to return to China to help Yu Minhong in the first place. If you use them in the first place, the company may be doomed in no time. Because Yu Minhong can't lead them, and he can't afford the salary they want.
So in the initial stage, New Oriental was all family members helping, such as Yu Minhong's brother-in-law, his wife's brother-in-law, and so on. At that time, the company did not have a modern structure, and there was no need to worry too much about financial supervision, after all, the money did not flow to outsiders.
You don't need to worry too much about working hours, because it's all family. However, if it continues like this, it will be a big problem. With the growth of New Oriental, the company continues to introduce external talents, but the family members lack cultural literacy and management experience, but they often intervene.
This situation makes other employees, whether professional managers or teachers, feel disrespected, and they endure this situation for a long time.
Since 1995, Yu Minhong has realized that family members could become a stumbling block to New Oriental's development. So he went abroad to find his college and middle school classmates, who surpassed Yu Minhong's family in talent and ability.
With their strength, Yu Minhong cleaned up the family members and successfully pushed New Oriental to a new stage of development.
Yu Minhong's family background is very simple, coming from an ordinary family in the countryside. I can't remember how many times he failed in the college entrance examination. At that time, ordinary schools were already not very interested in this re-examination student. If he wanted to repeat his studies, he had to go to a local Xi school.
After Yu Minhong's mother found out, she didn't tell her family that she walked into the city alone. Disappeared for 3 days. Later, he returned home on a rainy evening, covered in mud, and brought news that the city's Xi class had agreed to accept Yu Minhong and that he could go there to study.
After hearing this, Yu Minhong knelt down directly and thanked him. No one knows what his mother went through in those 3 days, how to find the Xi school, how to find the person in charge, and how to persuade the other party to accept Yu Minhong. She didn't tell Yu Minhong about these things.
For Yu Minhong, his mother is his god. She gave him two lives. The first time was to give birth to him, and the second time was to push him to be admitted to Peking University desperately. In Yu Minhong's heart, the significance of his mother's existence is far higher than everything he owns, even if it is a listed company like New Oriental Group.
In fact, there is a hidden contradiction here, which is also a problem that cannot be reconciled.
Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping, if you have watched their interview videos, you will know that they don't think very highly of Lao Yu. To be precise, they despise Lao Yu from the bottom of their hearts, even to Yu Minhong's family, such as his mother.
Even if Lao Yu has achieved commercial success and made a lot of money. After Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping returned, they always had the idea of reforming the internal management of New Oriental. In short, they want to eliminate the power of Yu Minhong's family and cronies, and gradually replace them with their own people.
So Wang and Xu wanted to push for reforms, clear Yu Minhong's forces, and fight for control, so New Oriental's internal struggle for power began.
In 2002, Xu Xiaoping, Wang Qiang and other partners proposed a co-president system on the board of directors, taking turns as president, and Yu Minhong lost most of his power.
To be fair, when Yu Minhong lost power and went into the wilderness, although he was nominally the boss, he actually had little power. He would bring textbooks to class every day, and drink and chat with the teachers in the evening, not at all like a boss. The story of "Iron Rooster and Sycophant" told by Luo Yonghao happened during that time.
In 2004, the management of New Oriental changed wave after wave of presidents in the past two years, and no one could stabilize the situation, and finally invited Yu Minhong, who had been in the field for two years, to come back to preside over the overall situation.
Wang and Xu wanted to quickly list New Oriental in the United States, but Yu disagreed, feeling that it was too early. In fact, it was because Wang and Xu wanted to exit with a quick profit, while Yu wanted to make New Oriental bigger and stronger.
As a result, Wang and Xu's seizure of power failed, and eventually they withdrew, and New Oriental went public, each of them receiving billions in return.
Hey, many people have been smashing Yu Minhong's sign recently. But you must know that without Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping, New Oriental would have become a leader in the field of education, and without Yu Minhong, Wang Xu might not have been doing car washing or dish washing in the United States, and it may take some more time to find the job he wants and become an elite white-collar worker in the United States.
Yu Minhong has gone through a lot of arduous entrepreneurial paths, and Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping may not be willing to take such a road. But the problem is that Wang Xu wants to seize power, he just wants to go public and cash out his shares quickly, leaving the mess to Yu Minhong to clean up. After all, New Oriental is Yu's own son, but for Wang Xu, it is just a cash cow.
But to be fair, many people think that Wang and Xu are like lucky, they happened to cooperate with Yu, and then the company went public, but this is not the case.
When they came back to cooperate, it was on the basis of partnership, Yu provided the brand and infrastructure, and he took a 15% commission, and the rest was earned by themselves, to recruit students, and to open a branch school. For example, Yu is the king, and Wang Xu is the prince who led his troops to expand the territory.
Therefore, Wang Xu also has credit for the scale of New Oriental's expansion. Wang Qiang, as an engineer of Bell Labs, came back and personally served as a driver to drive a bus to pick up students, it is conceivable that the prosperity of the company at that time was still far away, but isn't this the characteristic that entrepreneurs should have?
After New Oriental went public, Wang and Xu took billions of dollars and started their careers as investors, while Yu Minhong was still silently guarding New Oriental to save and stabilize the company.
Yu Minhong once said that it is more difficult to find a partner than to find a wife, but finding a partner does not mean that everything will go smoothly. Partners are not just something that can be found, sometimes they do.
For partners, sometimes, there is only one step from partnership to dissolution. At this time, how to deal with problems not only shows their experience and wisdom, but also shows their vision and mind.
When it comes to partnerships, the biggest challenge comes from human nature. Shi Yuzhu, who has experienced parting ways, once commented profoundly: "The partnership system is like a democratic experiment. ”
In the end, Lao Yu has always shown a high-quality businessman's demeanor. He is an excellent leader and boss in China, both in terms of concept and action.
Whether it is the level of business, ethics or management, he is the person who truly lives up to the ideas he advocates, such as ensuring that the teachers' salaries are paid on time when the company is on the verge of closure.
Standing at this point in time in 2022, in addition to Ren Zhengfei, Cao Dewang and others, people like Yu Minhong are also worthy of our respect. New Oriental is like a biological child to Lao Yu, changing the fate of at least two or three generations of Chinese, although it has also intensified the fierce competition for education.
If New Oriental goes bankrupt, Lao Yu may still have wealth, but his mentality may change a lot. However, after the three of them are away from disputes and right and wrong, they may be able to sit down and chat.