When it comes to Gree, we have to mention Dong Mingzhu. Nowadays, Dong Mingzhu and Gree have reached the point where people and enterprises are indistinguishable. Dong Mingzhu is Gree, and Gree is Dong Mingzhu.
So much so that Dong Mingzhu, who is almost 70 years old, has been reluctant to hand over power until now, you must know that her benefactor, the real founder of Gree, Zhu Jianghong, chose to retreat bravely and hand over power to Dong when he was younger than her.
When Dong Mingzhu was promoted, the vast majority of people in the interior were opposed. The reason for the opposition is that Dong Mingzhu's personality is too conceited, speaks harshly, and even likes to scold people, easily offends people, and is not good for internal unity.
Now it seems that these people's opposition is justified, without Zhu Jianghong's Gree, Dong Mingzhu's conceit is becoming more and more obvious, and Gree management has basically become Dong Mingzhu's only one-word hall.
However, combined with the historical background, Zhu Jianghong's promotion of Dong Mingzhu was considered at that time.
According to Zhu Jianghong's autobiography, "Zhu Jianghong's Autobiography: My 24 Years at the Helm of Gree", Lao Zhu wrote in particular how I promoted Dong Mingzhu.
Dong Mingzhu came to Zhuhai from the inland in 1990 and came to Haili to work as a salesman. At that time, Gree was not called Gree, but Hailey.
A salesman is the most basic job, and Dong Mingzhu himself is also a person with a low starting point. Anhui Wuhu Cadre Education College, where Dong Mingzhu graduated, is a school for adult college entrance examinations, and the academic content is not high. The EMBA of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in the back is also gold-plated with money. If you really want to be more serious, Dong Mingzhu's first education is high school.
Dong Mingzhu's early career was a salesman who mixed the rivers and lakes, so after Dong Mingzhu came to power, his management style was also very heavy, and sometimes he even seemed unqualified.
This is completely different from Zhu Jianghong's starting point.
Zhu Jianghong graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of South China Institute of Technology (now South China University of Technology), and after graduation, he was assigned to work as an inspector in a factory in Baise, Guangxi, and then was promoted to technician, then workshop director, section chief, and finally factory director.
The sixth from the right in the second row is Zhu Jianghong
Later, he returned to Zhuhai from Baise and worked in the Special Economic Zone Industrial Development Corporation, becoming the general manager of two of its subsidiaries, one is Guanxiong Plastic Factory and the other is Haili Air Conditioning Factory, both of which almost collapsed, but he turned losses into profits and finally merged into today's Gree.
It can be seen from Zhu Jianghong's background that he has risen step by step, very pragmatic work, and has a very deep accumulation of technology, management and operation, and is also loved by employees.
Zhu Jianghong, who has a deep understanding of technology, knows that the quality of technology and products is the guarantee for finally obtaining customers. But in China in the 90s, advertising and sales were more important. A lot of the company's profits are divided by sales commissions, which affects the wages of R&D personnel and the funds invested in technological updates.
In 1994, Zhu Jianghong began to change this situation, drastically reducing the commission of sales personnel and improving the treatment of R&D personnel to balance the salary difference between scientific and technological personnel and sales personnel.
Many sales quit and left one after another, including the head of Gree's business department. Gree urgently needs to promote personnel from the sales grassroots to be the head of the business department.
From the perspective of sales, Dong Mingzhu did a very good job that year, and the performance of Anhui and Jiangsu in charge of Gree was the best, and Dong Mingzhu still had a sense of the overall situation, and did not run away because of Zhu Jianghong's reform, but supported Zhu Jianghong very much.
In the secret ballot of the business department, Dong Mingzhu ranked second, and Dong Mingzhu's strengths have always been seen by Zhu Jianghong, so he decided to nominate her as the head of the business department.
But this suggestion was opposed by many high-level Gree leaders, and the reason for the opposition was the aforementioned that Dong Mingzhu was conceited, mean, and scolding. However, Zhu Jianghong believes that no one is perfect, and in order to employ people, we must first see people's strengths.
He believes that Dong Mingzhu's strength is that he grasps the sales work very carefully, is good at dealing with customers, tries to solve difficulties when he encounters them, and does not give up until he reaches the goal, which is the most needed strength of sales work.
Because of Zhu Jianghong's protection, Dong Mingzhu was successfully elected as the head of Gree's sales department, a middle-aged woman with a low degree and low appearance, and since then she has started a life like hanging.
Dong Mingzhu did a good job at that stage, so Zhu Jianghong recommended her to be the company's vice president of sales. Since Gree is a state-owned enterprise, and there is also the Gree Group after the reorganization of the Special Zone Construction and Development Co., Ltd., the appointment of the vice president must be approved by the group.
In this process, the group once again questioned Dong Mingzhu's character, and it was approved under Zhu Jianghong's hard work to explain and appoint.
In 2001, the Zhuhai Municipal Party Committee decided to let Zhu Jianghong serve as the chairman of Gree Electric Appliances (the former chairman was concurrently the head of Gree Group), due to the regulations of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, listed companies generally cannot be held by one person as chairman and general manager at the same time, so Zhu Jianghong once again recommended Dong Mingzhu to take over the position of general manager originally held by Zhu Jianghong.
Since then, Zhu Dongpei has begun to emerge in the entire electrical industry.
In 2012, 67-year-old Zhu Jianghong, feeling that he was old, officially stepped down as chairman of Gree Electric Appliances and Gree Group, and handed over the power to Dong Mingzhu.
According to the plan, Zhu Jianghong was originally invited to continue to serve as the honorary chairman of Gree Electric Appliances and the group. However, Zhu Jianghong resolutely refused on the grounds that "he is a person who loves to point fingers and is anxious when he sees something inappropriate, which will affect the work of the new leadership group."
It can be seen that Zhu Jianghong is a person who can afford to let go, and if he wants to retreat, he will retreat completely, and Gree began to enter the era of Dong Mingzhu.
Without Zhu Jianghong's watch, Dong Mingzhu's shortcomings were also revealed.
Unlike Zhu Jianghong's open-mindedness, Dong Mingzhu is particularly dictatorial, which fulfills the evaluation of some leaders of Gree in the early days, conceited.
At the same time, after coming to power, Dong Mingzhu began to aggressively squeeze out the executives who opposed her before, and the reason given was that the Tao was different. To put it simply, to oppose her is to be different.
Dong Mingzhu always likes to whitewash his decision-making with some big truths, which is very different from Zhu Jianghong's objective evaluation from a practical point of view.
In his autobiography, Zhu Jianghong emphasized many times that Gree was written by all Gree people. But Dong Mingzhu succeeded in doing it, and Gree was written by Dong Mingzhu. So much so that when we mention Gree now, we have long forgotten Zhu Jianghong, but only remember Dong Mingzhu.
In fact, in the face of Dong Mingzhu, who took all the glory of Gree on himself, Zhu Jianghong after retirement was also dissatisfied, and said this in his autobiography:
Some media are hyping "without Zhu Jianghong, there would be no Dong Mingzhu", this sentence may have some truth. Because of me, she has stepped into leadership positions at all levels of the company, standing on the big stage of Gree, she has the opportunity to show her strength, of course, she is also very hard-working, conscientious in her work, constantly honing, growing, and finally becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the country.
"Without Dong Mingzhu, there would be no Gree", I'm afraid it's debatable. As for the latter sentence of a person's ability: no matter how big it is, it is limited after all, and doing business is not done by one or two people, it should be the strength of the team, and besides, this sentence does not conform to the historical facts of Gree. In fact, every important historical node in the development of Gree is inseparable from the efforts of Gree employees, from the rectification and improvement of quality, the development and manufacturing of new products, the research and breakthrough of key technologies to the formulation and implementation of important policies of the company, etc., all reflect the hard work and dedication of the company's leadership and Gree employees, especially Guqian employees. Without them, Gree would not be where it is today.