Leadership Updates | Are good managers paranoid?

Are good managers paranoid?

That's not what I said. In 2002, a management bestseller called "Only Paranoid Can Survive" came out, which has been reprinted many times over the past 20 years and has become a classic in the field of business management. Under his leadership, Intel completed a key battle in the field of semiconductors and chips, defeated Motorola, broke through the collective siege of Japanese semiconductor companies including NEC, Toshiba, and Hitachi, and maintained its leading position in the industry for many years before the rise of NVIDIA.

In Grove's view, good managers must stay focused, not half-hearted, let alone indecisive, and decisive action is always much stronger in the face of important strategic turning points. You can't sacrifice principles for performance, you can't sacrifice values for growth, and insist on doing the right thing, not the right person in the eyes of others. Nowadays, these practices have long become the consensus of excellent enterprises, and they are also the code of conduct for many outstanding entrepreneurs and managers.

In fact, Grove is not the only one in the corporate world when it comes to "paranoia". Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, is a well-known paranoid, he is very harsh in his evaluation of people, often at both ends of the spectrum of genius or stupidity, and even more harsh on products, he can throw the experimental stage product on the ground in front of engineers, and then say that it is "garbage". However, it is this paranoid style of Jobs that has made Apple continue to lead in the Mac, iPhone, and iPad eras;

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is known for paranoia, on the day he acquired Twitter, he forced to hold the washbasin to Twitter for a meeting, in less than half a year, paranoid layoffs of nearly 90%, bringing efficiency and performance multiplication, so that Twitter was reborn, in terms of Tesla cost control, Musk insisted on integrated casting, even if the process was immature at that time, the supply chain could not keep up, and the goal could not change, which made the automobile manufacturing system that lasted for many years have undergone great changes. Musk also uses first principles to transform the rocket launch industry, in his opinion, why can't rockets be used multiple times back and forth, and why can't the launch cost be lower? Under his propulsion, Space X has now become the world's largest company in launching rockets and satellites;

Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, also showed his "paranoid" side many times in the switch business that year, and later in the mobile phone and 5G business. Strategically focused, never bothered, even in the era of rapid real estate development, Huawei was unmoved and did not set foot in the real estate field; In order to cope with possible changes and avoid falling into the possible bottleneck problem, Ren Zhengfei promoted the establishment of Huawei's 2012 laboratory plan very early, stockpiling many technologies including chips, storage, operating systems, cloud computing, etc., and sticking to the bottom line of investing more than 10% of annual sales revenue in technology research and development.

In addition, there are Bezos of Amazon, Zuckerberg of Facebook, Zhang Ruimin, founder of Haier, Ma Yun, founder of Alibaba, etc., many heads and managers of excellent companies have a "paranoid" side, and their paranoia has brought about the healthy and sustainable growth of enterprises. That's why Grove's book "Only Paranoid Can Survive" resonates with so many entrepreneurs and managers.

Are good managers paranoid? This is what Gruff, the former president of Intel, inspired us from his best-selling book "Only Paranoid Can Survive". Apple Jobs, Tesla Musk, Huawei Ren Zhengfei, Alibaba Ma Yun and other entrepreneurs, they also have a "paranoid" side. Why do many good managers have a "paranoid" side? I would like to share with you three observations:

· The first is paranoia about the company's mission, vision and values. The so-called "paranoia" is not for personal preference, but for the long-term development of the enterprise. In the case of Musk, Tesla's mission is to "accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy", and it is based on this mission that Musk continues to invest in the field of electric vehicles. He has mentioned many times that revenue and profit are not the most critical, and many people think that he does not have a backache when he stands and talks, but we can't just see Tesla, which has survived the survival period, led the sales and made profits, and forgot that Tesla, which has experienced many years of losses, never compromises at the manufacturing process and technical level, and often faces the soul torture of Wall Street.

It's hard to stay up for a long night with continuous losses. What to do? Rigid product manufacturing and technology research and development, no formalistic meetings, no useless PPTs, no president's offices and bookshelves as window dressing, because these are incompatible with the mission of "accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy". Musk, who is known for his slamming of doors, is paranoid at the level of cost control and internal management, which just allows Tesla to maintain its technological leadership and competitive advantage, and such "paranoia" is more and more for the company.

Conversely, those "paranoia" that are only motivated by the personal preferences of the entrepreneur and completely for the sake of personal face often bring unimaginable disasters to the enterprise.

· The second is paranoia about customer value and product value. The so-called "paranoia" is not out of showmanship, but for the sake of paying for customers. Taking Zhang Ruimin's smashing refrigerator as an example, many years ago, Zhang Ruimin came to Haier's predecessor, Qingdao Refrigerator General Factory, to take office, at that time, the company was heavily in debt, could not pay wages for several months, the factory was stinking, the factory discipline was lax, workers dozed off at work, came when they wanted, left when they wanted, and were seriously absent from work. In order to improve the management level, Zhang Ruimin launched 13 rules and regulations to strictly enforce, dare to grasp the typical, and never show mercy, such "paranoia" soon made the team look new.

One day, Zhang Ruimin received a letter from a user, reflecting that the refrigerator produced by the factory had quality problems. Zhang Ruimin led the managers to inspect the warehouse and found that 76 of the more than 400 refrigerators in the warehouse were unqualified. Immediately called all employees to the warehouse for an on-site meeting and asked everyone what to do. Just when everyone felt that these problems didn't matter, and even proposed to sell them to internal employees as a cheap point for welfare, Zhang Ruimin made the decision to smash the refrigerator on the spot, such a kind of "paranoia" made Haier full of vitality, and only then did Haier become famous in the field of global home appliances. This is the paranoia of customer value and product value, and this paranoia will make a great enterprise.

On the other hand, the kind of show-like "paranoia", or the "paranoia" that is serious on the surface, but is actually performed for others to see, is ultimately harmful to others and to oneself.

· Third, paranoia about corporate culture and ways of doing things. The so-called "paranoia" is not due to the preference of the boss, but the healthy development of the enterprise. Taking Huawei as an example, Huawei advocates a corporate culture and way of doing things that are "customer-centric, striver-oriented, long-term hard work, and criticism and self-criticism". How to make this cultural concept real?

Obviously, it is useless to sing a high profile, and it is even more useless to draw cakes and shout slogans every day, Huawei's approach is to let colleagues who truly believe in and practice these cultural concepts "good people have good rewards", which should ultimately be reflected in the promotion of job ranks, in the promotion and salary increase, in the acquisition of career opportunities, and in the selection of cadres and the distribution of bonuses at critical moments. As long as there is a violation of the corporate culture and way of doing things, even if it is a sales champion, it will not be tolerated, as long as it does not make a choice that conforms to the corporate culture and way of doing things at the critical moment, even if the past performance is excellent, it will get corresponding feedback in the value evaluation and value distribution, and adhere to the objective and fair evaluation system of things and not people.

Conversely, if the "paranoia" of the enterprise is only the personal preference of the boss or founder, rather than based on the corporate culture and way of doing things, then this "paranoia" can easily lead the company astray.

Finally, let us make a little summary, excellent entrepreneurs and managers should be paranoid about the mission, vision and values of the enterprise, paranoid about customer value and product value, and paranoid about corporate culture and way of doing things. It's not personal preference, it's not showmanship, it's not boss preference. What do you think about this, please leave a message in the comment area.