To truly pursue a great enterprise, we must have cultural consciousness. Culture is certainly important, but how important is culture? Ren Zhengfei wrote in an article very early on:
"Resources will eventually be exhausted, and only culture can survive. A high-tech enterprise cannot do without culture, and only culture can support sustainable development......"
Today, any new employee who joins Huawei will see this passage in Ren Zhengfei's "Letter to New Employees".
Any organization, over time, will form its own "culture". It's not you who decides the culture, or the culture that decides you.
Cultural consciousness requires enterprises to pay attention to the summary, precipitation, shaping, inheritance and correction of culture from the beginning. Why does Huawei's culture continue to grow? Tan Changchun, a well-known management expert, will take you to understand.
Author: Tan Changchun, a well-known management expert
来 源:正和岛(ID:zhenghedao)
First, first-class enterprise to build culture
A few years ago, Huawei faced the impact of the Internet, when Internet thinking was prevalent, and the so-called wool came out of the pig, and the dog paid for it, and these trends of thought affected the minds of half of Huawei's employees who were concentrating on research and development from time to time. At this time, Huawei has also reached an important stage in its historical development, that is, Huawei will usher in the special historical mission of continuous innovation and leadership in the next decade.
Therefore, on October 28, 2016, 2,000 R&D experts who have been working in Huawei for more than 10 years who have received generous dividends and high salaries swore to go to all parts of the world to deepen their technical cultivation when Ren Zhengfei was present at the scene and none of the senior executives of major product lines were absent.
Many people who attended the swearing-in meeting recalled that the scene, the formation, the passion, and the determination were not inferior to the troops who really took the oath to the front line. The big slogan of "Chunjiang Plumbing Duck Prophet, Don't Break Loulan and Don't Return" shows Huawei's spirit of daring to think, dare to do, and not be afraid of hardships.
Since the 1995 Huawei Basic Law, Huawei's cadre-building, team-building, and corporate culture have continuously yielded fruitful results.
Huawei, like the Il-bomber that was battered in World War II, has key engines and fuel tanks that have not been damaged, and problems with the wings and fuselage can be repaired while flying back. Just as the plane finally returned safely, Huawei will definitely "land safely" after this "strike".
2. Values
The core competitiveness of an enterprise comes from the core values of the enterprise. Huawei's "customer-centric" corporate culture has injected strong and positive energy into the healthy development of the organization. It also enables Huawei's products, operations, and management to achieve a correct and outstanding system that is closest to users.
The recognition of values is the highest form of identity.
Truly "great" businesses are often similar in nature. To some extent, Huawei's core values can even be said to be the "truth" of corporate operation and management. If customer-centric is not the manager of enterprise management, is it people-oriented, quality first, parity and preferential price, technology leadership, etc.?
The role of values is to truly become the guide for all business and management activities of the enterprise. The "values" of all enterprises in the world are correct, but if they cannot be used as a guide for all business and management activities of enterprises, such "values" will only degenerate into "always correct nonsense". Perhaps, under the guidance of customer-centric values, Huawei has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build integrated research and development of IPD products, and spent tens of billions of yuan to improve the operation and management of various aspects, so that Huawei can always overcome difficulties and achieve continuous breakthroughs!
Huawei's three sentences of core values - "customer-centric, striver-oriented, long-term hard work", are very realistic, not at all as elegant, confrontational, and atmospheric as the core values of some enterprises. But values are not meant to be heard, they are meant to be delivered.
3. Corporate culture and strategy
Strategy and corporate culture determine the lifeblood of a company, many relevant departments of enterprises do corporate culture construction, but do not know where the corporate culture comes from, why do corporate culture, what corporate culture solves, do not know these roots, perhaps corporate culture has been difficult to do well, because the foundation is not good, the height is not enough.
Corporate culture is about who we are, and strategy is about where we want to be, who we serve, and what needs we meet.
From the initial establishment of culture, vision, mission and values, an enterprise has internal environmental analysis and external resource analysis, and then strategy formulation, and then strategy implementation.
Under the guidance of Huawei's Basic Law, Huawei's strategic goal of the world's communications industry can only be realized.
Fourth, corporate culture and business
Many companies do not know the relationship between corporate culture and business, because many people think that corporate culture is virtual, but business is real. And we want to say that corporate culture is the softest hard management ability! So much so that some enterprises now put forward the saying that "culture is business"!
"Force out of a hole, profit out of a hole". This is also Huawei's business strategy, which proves that the corporate culture is derived from business success. To sum it up in a few words, it is "to focus on their own strengths, give full play to the ability of the organization, and release the subjective initiative and creativity of employees on the main channel, so as to produce greater benefits".
Huawei's early advocacy of the principle of pressure and competition strategy is based on "force out of a hole", Huawei started from the switch, after more than 30 years of development has achieved the global status of the communications industry, but the development progress and speed of different product lines are also quite different, Huawei's success lies in Huawei made the right strategy, Ren Zhengfei's ability to lay out products and market layout in the field of communications, stems from its love to learn and figure out, and opened up the meridians of enterprise management.
For example, Huawei's wireless products, from the following of 2G, to the local technical advantages of 3G, to the comprehensive transcendence of 4G and the absolute leadership of 5G, can be experienced everywhere in the huge role of "force out of a hole".
Saying that corporate culture has nothing to do with business, has nothing to do with performance, reflecting that corporate culture has not played a real role in management, many enterprises just use some slogans of corporate culture to unify their thinking, and do not develop behavior and generate business value!
Fifth, corporate culture and interests, human nature
Huawei adheres to the principle of "making a hole out of the hole". For example, Huawei's EMT manifesto states that all of Huawei's income from the top to all key levels can only come from Huawei's salary, incentives, dividends, and other income, and no other additional income is allowed (Huawei's Basic Law prohibits employees from trading stocks or profiting from related party transactions). From the organizational and institutional aspects, it has blocked the behavior of individuals from the top level to the executive level seeking personal interests and hollowing out collective interests through the holes of related party transactions.
On the other hand, many start-up companies in the early stage of development, do be able to preserve the original intention, up and down the same desire, with the development of the company, the established strategy began to waver, in the face of existing interests, the core executives began to disagree, and even serious internal corruption problems, the use of corporate supervision and system loopholes for their own interests, many companies are not on the way to the charge, but died in internal management chaos, in a sentence to describe is "get a good hand, play their own sparse".
In the face of interests, it is difficult to guarantee that people's hearts will change. Some companies hire personnel from the public security system to set up a supervision and supervision system, which is also a last resort, and more importantly, it is necessary to check and fill in the gaps from the system and process, and affect the employees' temperament from the perspective of cultural atmosphere. Huawei's corporate culture management focuses on "human nature", which is the underlying management logic that small and medium-sized enterprises should learn.
Everyone says that Ren Zhengfei is a master of human nature, and they also say that Huawei's corporate culture has done a good job, and perhaps, corporate culture and human nature are inherently connected.
Sixth, the corporate culture runs through all work to customers and markets
"Customer-centric" is the way of management, which solves the original starting point of enterprise management. Entrepreneurs have different motivations for starting a business, and everyone has different pursuits for wealth, power, and fulfillment, but for a company to be successful, it must adhere to the "customer-centric" principle for a long time.
Any business that isn't customer-centric, sooner or later there will be problems. Technology-centric, product-centric, marketing-centric, market-centric, and government relations may all be momentarily successful, but if customers stop paying for your technology, products, and marketing, the business will be in crisis.
In the early days of the company's development, a small section chief of a post and telecommunications bureau went to Shenzhen for inspection, and Ren Zhengfei personally stir-fried vegetables for him. In fact, there is a food stall next to it, and it doesn't cost much to invite him to dinner, but the feeling of stir-frying by himself is different, which is the feeling of paying attention to customers.
"Customer-centric" is reflected in Huawei's four strategic statements: quality, service, cost, and prioritizing customer needs. Good quality, good service, low cost, give priority to meeting customer needs, this is called customer-centric.
7. Corporate culture and industry development
"Deep shoal, low weir". This is a concentrated embodiment of Huawei's business intelligence, and it is worth considering for enterprise managers.
"Shentaotan is to ensure that the investment in enhancing the core competitiveness and ensuring the investment in the future will not waver even in the financial crisis, and at the same time continue to tap the internal potential, reduce operating costs, and provide customers with more valuable services.
Low weir is to control their greed for profits, keep their profits lower, give more profits to customers, do not sacrifice long-term goals because of short-term goals, and treat upstream suppliers well.
This model is very similar to the "altruistic" thinking in Inamori's management philosophy, but Huawei does not pursue profit maximization, believing that it is overdrawing the future and hurting its strategic position.
After the financial crisis in 2008, the world's major operators are reducing their network construction budgets, major operators are mergers and acquisitions, global prices are transparent and profit barriers are constantly broken, coupled with the continuous decline of communication tariffs, which directly leads to a significant reduction in the demand for procurement equipment and network construction.
In order to maintain the balance of the business ecosystem, Huawei has begun to think about cost reduction from the perspective of operators while meeting customer needs, such as "watching the network and talking about the network", and actively helping customers find low-cost operation solutions to reduce the power consumption and improve the efficiency of equipment operation.
In 2009, it began to vigorously promote the layout of the 4G network and the research and development of technology, which is a very wise choice to deal with the industry crisis, and then emphasize the low weir at the same time, but also make it clear that low profits are not losses, is to maintain viability, Huawei has been and competitors who can survive to the end, because living to the end is the ultimate victory, rather than fighting for the length of the moment, it turns out that Huawei survived to the end, competitors are either bankrupt or merger, do not need to grab the first will naturally become the first.
8. People are fundamental, and everything needs to be built by people
Corporate culture is assessed. Huawei's culture is based on assessment, not promotion, and is not forced out by training. Through the assessment system, everyone can truly identify with the culture. The labor attitude assessment is treated equally, from the boss to the grassroots employees, and Ren Zhengfei is no exception.
Huawei's labor attitude assessment uses the key event method, which does not rely on the supervisor to score, but uses the key event to correct whether you have this very good assessment. An employee said, I am particularly responsible, the supervisor took out the key event record, a certain day, a certain month, a certain day to give you a task, you forgot how much of a consequence, this is not a sense of responsibility, key event method, this is his cultural assessment.
How often do you take the test? Once a quarter, five times a year. The fifth is the general evaluation, and the overall evaluation gives a total score, what is the attitude of labor this year? What should I do after the exam? As of this year, Huawei has been taking the exam for 12 years. Labor attitude assessment has been in existence at Huawei for 12 years.
What should I do after the exam? The results of the assessment are linked to the pension. The pension does not depend mainly on your years of service with Huawei, but on the results of your work attitude assessment at Huawei, and depends on promotion. The assessment is directly linked to personal interests, and at the same time, it is used to determine the salary (mainly salary increase), how much bonus you will get, and how much stock you will get (Huawei because of employee stock ownership), and how many shares you will be allocated this year are related to the labor attitude assessment, which has produced a mechanism.
Of course, not everyone agrees with Huawei's culture. Huawei's assumption is that it's okay not to agree, but we give you a kind of power to get you to agree, and let you become a conscious action.
What is the mechanism here, you can oppose Huawei's culture, you can disagree with Huawei's culture, you can hate Huawei's culture, no problem? But do you hate pensions? Do you hate promotions? Do you hate opportunities? Do you hate company bonuses and shares? I don't think the vast majority of people will hate, otherwise they wouldn't be to Huawei. Huawei's culture is mainly supported by institutions, bonuses, and shares.
Why is the culture of some enterprises bad? It is because people who identify with the culture always suffer. Whoever agrees with the loss, who still agrees with the company's culture, betrayal becomes a trend, and who will still work for customers on the front line.
The ultimate goal of Huawei's assessment is not to let Lei Feng suffer, the devotees get a reasonable return, and at the same time, the non-lazy people are punished. Cultivate excellent corporate culture with the system, rather than just cultivating culture with morality and preaching, believe in the power of the system, and believe in the power of excellent culture.
9. A real set of content, not for the sake of publicity, or a text that satisfies the boss's culture
Using a variety of practical landing methods to achieve the landing is what some benchmark enterprises have always been doing.
For example, in Alibaba, values assessment is a way to implement values, and the proportion of values assessment is as high as 50%.
In recent years, Alibaba has updated its corporate culture to directly transform the "Six Pulse Divine Sword", that is, the six key core values, into behavioral standards and guidance, and under each value, there will be five behavioral evaluation levels, from unqualified to qualified, good, excellent, and exemplary. According to the results of this evaluation, employees will have a very intuitive measure of their own level, which is also a way to incorporate values into the assessment.
Even the values of the executive team are tied to bonuses, and the values score determines the amount of bonuses. Even if the performance is 100% or higher, if the values are not met, the bonus distribution for the current year will be automatically disqualified.
10. Corporate culture is a set of system engineering
The purpose of strategic investment and market expansion is to dilute the original cost and continue to control the cost, so that the market can truly produce benefits.
Nowadays, many start-up companies only pay attention to grabbing turf, and ignore taking root and flowering, many short-lived Internet start-ups are basically this kind of problem, savage growth, feel that their products are excellent, ignore internal management and business value realization, no matter how good the business model can not last.
Huawei's corporate culture is a collection of multiple elements, and it is not just about "sticking to customer-centricity, striver-oriented, long-term hard work, and insisting on self-criticism", but also to understand the business logic and business wisdom contained in it, which is the foundation of Huawei's culture, and this part is the source of in-depth discussion.
Typography | Edited by Shen Wangwang | Yoon Yoon Editor-in-Chief | Sun Yunguang
