(This article was first published on the "Liu Run" public account, with 1.5 million readers to gain insight into the essence of business, welcome to subscribe)
I have a vague feeling that a set of management methodologies independent of the "Western classics" is quietly changing the chinese business world.
Quietly, but unstoppably. When you suddenly realize it, the waves are already terrifying. I don't think I'm qualified to name this "rough seas." But I have to call it. So, please allow me to boldly call it for the time being: distributed management.
What is "distributed management"? Why can it change the business community in China?
This started from a communication I had with Wang Chuan, xiaomi's co-founder and chief strategy officer, a few days ago.
To do consulting, you need to communicate with the best entrepreneurs on a regular basis.
Only by feeling their feelings, thinking about their thinking, and thus absorbing the changes at the forefront, the most profound insights, and the most advanced theories, can we precipitate, sort out, and popularize the wisdom contained in them, so that more people can benefit.
So, doing counseling, the thing I enjoy the most, is to collide with the wisest brain from time to time.
For example, Wang Chuan.
— 1 —
Super Flat:
The management level, which depends on the extent of management
Where did we start talking? That's right. From Management. From the concept of "super flattening".
In 2015, in order to write the book "Internet +: Xiaomi Case Edition", I interviewed almost all of Xiaomi's co-founders. At that time, Xiaomi was growing at a rocket-like speed, and its annual income was as high as 74.3 billion yuan just 4-5 years after starting a business. 74.3 billion. Looking around, there were no opponents. Too fast. It was so fast. So, curiously, I asked everyone a question:
From a management point of view, how did Xiaomi achieve such rapid growth?
The answer everyone gave me was: super flat.
What is Super Flat?
We know that the management of a company is hierarchical. For example: CEO, Business Unit President, Vice President, Department General Manager, Director, Manager, Supervisor, Employee. From top to bottom, 8 levels. There are too many levels, so let's compress it. That is: CEO, vice president, director, manager, employee. Compress it, 5 levels. That's it: flattening.
But they told me that at Xiaomi, there are only 3 layers of management in the company: Lei Jun, co-founder, employees. A company of several thousand employees, only 3 levels. To compress, compress me to the extreme. That's it: super flat.
Xiaomi at that time 7000 people.
I asked Wang Chuan that Xiaomi now has 30,000 people. 30,000 people, is your management level still "super flat"?
It's still very flat.
However, how can 30,000 people still be "flat"?
In addition to his hard work, Wang Chuan is also a theoretician I greatly admire. He said: To discuss whether the "bureaucratic organization" can be flattened, we must first understand a set of basic concepts of management: management hierarchy and management range.
CEO, Vice President, Director, Manager, Employee. 5-4-3-2-1, from top to bottom management, from bottom to top step by step reporting. That's the management hierarchy.
I think it's easy for you to understand that the fewer management levels there must be, the better. Because whether it is passing decisions from top to bottom or feedback from bottom to top, the more levels of handling, the greater the loss of information and the lower the efficiency of the organization.
But can the management hierarchy be reduced indefinitely? It depends on the extent of the administration.
What is a management range?
The management range is the upper limit of the number of subordinates of a manager. If a director can manage 5 managers, a manager can manage 5 employees, and no more management can manage it, then we say that the management range of this company is: 5.
A company of 40 people, if the management range is 5, how many management levels are required?
No matter how you design the organizational structure, you need at least 4 levels. As shown in the figure:
So what if the management range is 6? That only requires 3 levels. As shown in the figure:
The larger the management, the fewer the management levels. On the other hand, to narrow the management level, that is, to squash the organization, the number of employees managed by each manager will inevitably increase.
So, when we're talking about whether a bureaucratic organization can be flattened, we're essentially talking about whether we can get a manager to manage as many employees as possible.
So, how many employees can a manager manage?
In our previous training, it was usually recommended not to manage more than 6. Why? Because management requires a lot of communication, it is time-consuming, but essential. Moreover, the communication time will increase with the number of managers, geometric progression. Therefore, once the management range exceeds 6 people, communication between everyone (1:1, performance appraisal, especially various department meetings, etc.) will eat up all the time of the manager, resulting in neglect of real goals.
In a large enterprise, such as a company of 10,000 people, if the management range is locked to 6, do you know what that means? It meant that in order for 5,000 people to work, I had to have 5,000 managers to take care of them. And the salaries of these managers are still several times that of the people who work. Extremely inefficient.
So, is there any way to break the "6" limit of management amplitude?
Yes. As soon as you find an efficient tool.
For example, a meeting.
— 2 —
Flying Parade:
Don't talk, just type
Meetings are probably the most time-consuming of any management work.
Wang Chuan said that recently I saw a report that nearly 40% of an organization's time is spent on meetings. Executives, in particular, are either in meetings or on their way to meetings. They spend almost 100% of their time in meetings.
Deciding how many employees a manager can manage depends almost entirely on how many people you can meet with at the same time and efficiently.
If I could meet with 10 people at the same time and it was very efficient, I could almost increase the management from 6 to 10. At this time, our organization is "flattened". If I can meet with 100 people at the same time, my management level can be increased to 100. At this time, our organization is "super flat".
How?
Find efficient tools.
In the past, the tool we used for meetings was called the "conference room." In order to meet, people have to shuttle through the conference rooms.
I myself attend a regular meeting of the Artificial Intelligence Department every week. This conference, all responsible persons related to artificial intelligence, were required to attend, a total of more than 90 people. It is not easy to find a "conference room" that can accommodate more than 90 people. The meeting begins. The reporter speaks first. Then I ask questions. Then he answered. And then the next person. It's like "being turned by two people watching", which is very inefficient.
I thought, here's why. Later, I understood that the root cause of this problem is a limitation of the tool "conference room", that is, the exclusive nature of sound to space.
What do you mean?
In the "conference room" tool, we hold meetings with sound. To hold a meeting with sound, one person must speak and everyone listen. Because once there are two sounds, it will form a disturbance, and no one can hear it clearly. That is: sound has an exclusiveness to space. Participants actually wanted to discuss with each other, but the facilitators could not allow everyone to turn their heads. So, we have to remind everyone often: don't talk, please concentrate.
As a result, those inspirational creativity was buried.
So what to do?
Runzong, I must recommend "Flying Book" to you. Did you start using it? I recommend Flying Books to every friend around me. Why? Because the "flying reading meeting" is held on the flying book, "sound" can be used without it.
If you want to improve the efficiency of meetings, you must break the exclusivity of sound and turn one meeting into multiple meetings. Just like a multi-core CPU, all the brains calculate synchronously, and all the speeches communicate at the same time, and the efficiency of the meeting can be multiplied.
No sound, so what? Use "Text". Let me tell you how we use "words" to hold meetings.
For example, we're going to have a regular meeting on artificial intelligence. First of all, my secretary will send out an invitation to the meeting for all participants and ask everyone to prepare a meeting material in advance. What you plan to say at the meeting, don't "say", just use the article method, "write" in the document.
No documents, no meetings. Remember. I recommend the Ideal Car Flying Parade. Now Li wants to and Zhang Hui they are too, no documents and no meetings.
But remember, write documents, do not write PPT.
Writing PPT is to "upward" report. Meetings are not about reporting upwards, about finding problems together and solving them. Just write 1-2-3-4-5. Take the time to think, don't take the time to beautify.
The next day at 9 a.m., the meeting was held on time.
The conference room is a common tool offline. Flying Parade is an online communication tool. Therefore, those who can participate online do not need to go to the conference room in the flesh. In this way, the number of participants is likely to be large and the efficiency is possible.
Then, the moderator announces, now give everyone 5 minutes, please read the document of the first reporter.
yes. The reporter, do not speak. See for yourself. Because "speaking" will bring about "the exclusivity of sound to space" and reduce the efficiency of communication. In addition, the speed of reading is faster than the speed of speech, and if the reporter is asked to repeat it, it will take a lot longer.
The first reporter was Liu Jing. She reported about the "Q version of the little love girl image". Liu Jing did not speak, and all the other 90 participants read the document. 5 minutes.
After Zheng Zhaoqing finished reading, he checked the sentence "Q version of the little love girl image and the Xiaoice has been cooperating to try", and then typed on the computer to launch a comment: Can it also be applied to WeChat's emoji store?
This comment is actually equivalent to a silent "raise your hand and ask a question".
Liu Jing also did not speak, typing on the computer to reply: Yes. Now it can spread on its own, before trying to enter the WeChat WeChat emoticon store to charge, because we are a commercial image, personal authors do not charge.
Zheng Zhaoqing then typed and added a comment: You can also look at Feishu, I found that there is not much content in the Feishu Emoji Store now.
Liu Jing replied: Feishu We can contact it as soon as possible.
Zheng Zhaoqing praised this reply. It's like saying: I'm done asking my question. Thank you.
However, Liu Jing's answer was not just Zheng Zhaoqing's question. At the same time, Zhao Bowen ticked the "small talk interface of the virtual image of Xiao Ai" and "raised his hand to ask questions" by typing: this red-haired two-dimensional image was set in 2017. I don't know if there are new aesthetic tendencies in the second dimension in 2020.
Fan Huixia and 5 other people have used the way of praise, saying: I think so too.
Fan Huixia also typed and added: At present, there are more and more animation apps, and the styles include Chinese comics, Japanese comics, American comics and so on. It is recommended to investigate or let professional two-dimensional and animation personnel also help design it.
Liu Jing replied: This year, together with smart products, we will start the upgrade design of the image of the little love girl, and if there is a plan, we will also seek everyone's suggestions.
Then 5 people said: Okay.
5 minutes. 90 participants asked questions in the form of "typing" on a document at the same time, and Liu Jing answered in the form of "typing". Many times, it is not even everyone who asks questions and the reporter answers; it is everyone who asks questions and everyone answers. If anyone has a good idea, they can also take the initiative to bring it up for everyone to discuss. With a solution, the host can also immediately "@" someone, designating someone responsible for tracking execution. In this way, several threads, many back and forth, within 5 minutes, the discussion was completed. End, then, the next reporter. Then, the next one.
That's the power of tools. Wang Chuan said that I spent 30 minutes with 90 people to have a meeting that could not be finished in the past few hours. You say, do we have a chance to improve our management margin? Does our management level have the opportunity to be super flat?
I was an eye-opener. Flying Reading Club, is this the function of this tool?
Wang Chuan said that feishu is a tool. Flying reading will be one method.
All methods are derived from tools. When new tools appear, new approaches are born. When the bayonet tool appeared, it was accompanied by hand-to-hand combat methods. When the tank tool appears, it will be accompanied by the method of blitzkrieg.
With the "real-time synchronous editing" function of the "Flying Book Document" tool, it will be accompanied by the "Flying Reading Meeting", which is a meeting method of "no talking, only typing".
Moreover, using this method, I found that: 1) it may be because instead of speaking face-to-face, instead of using words, everyone spoke more enthusiastically, 2) the collision of comments back and forth stimulated each other's inspiration and generated a lot of new ideas; 3) several people raised their hands at the same time to ask questions, participated in multiple threads of discussion at the same time, and the reporter jumped back and forth to answer, which greatly improved the efficiency of communication. Particularly interesting. You really see creativity that you've never seen before.
After I listened, I was amazed.
Wang Chuan said, however, that's not the core yet. When we say "super flattened", we are still talking about a tree-like "hierarchical organization". In a bureaucratic organization, subordinates report to superiors, one level at a time, not only upwards, but up to the top, like trees. Super flattened is also a tree, just say this tree is as small as possible.
So what is the core? The core is that because of the emergence of new tools, perhaps the future organizational form will change from "hierarchical organization" to "network organization". That's the really big change. Because in a mesh organization, there is no concept of management hierarchy, or management range.
— 3 —
Reticular tissue:
Assemble with @ and disband with ✓
oh? What is mesh tissue?
Remember that AI conference just now? After the meeting, my assistant sent a copy of the meeting minutes and "@" all the attendees, as well as other stakeholders mentioned in the meeting.
What is "@"?
In Feishu, "@" is a "rallying number". I "@" you anywhere (documents, schedules, chat groups, etc.) and you will receive a reminder. Tell you that someone is looking for you.
Note that not all of the people I "@" in the minutes of the meeting are reported to me in the "bureaucratic organization". They are "assembled" just because they are related to artificial intelligence. For example, in my to-do last week, "@" understands wisdom. Remind him to complete the "wake-up guidance content construction plan".
After Xie Zhi received the reminder, he opened the meeting minutes.
Well. It's really important. I'm doing it, get it done as soon as possible. So, he freed his hand and completed the plan first. When he was done, he marked this one on the meeting minutes with a "✓" to indicate completion. I disbanded. You keep up the good work. Then, this task is drawn a line to indicate that others have completed it.
Assemble with @ and disband with ✓
Runzong, what did you notice? When a tool allows employees to "assemble with @ and disband with ✓ "everyone can be on the same page, waiting for their respective nodes. In the past, it was "things revolve around people, now people revolve around things", everything is pulled in groups, specialized groups, and everyone has established a temporary cross-departmental team to jointly solve "things". Once there is a "thing", the gathering is a fire; once the "thing" is completed, the sky is full of stars. Why do we still have to stack people and stand as a "tree" of reporting layer by layer?
The tree-like hierarchical organization has two problems.
The first is central processing.
I talked to Zhang Yiming. Yiming believes that the problem of tree-like "hierarchical organization" is that there is only one central processing unit (CPU). All nodes can only rely on the COMPUTING power of the CPU to make decisions, and then through the tree-like organizational structure, layer by layer to the end.
However, as the number of people in the company increases, the tree is bound to grow larger. At this time, the decisions uploaded in the tree are likely to be eaten in the middle layer. Because in their eyes, information is power. At the same time, the problem of central processing is that no matter how powerful the processor computing power is, it will one day become a bottleneck.
What to do? Surgery on the tree. This is why Ren Zhengfei said that he would "cut off the hands and feet of the upper echelons, the buttocks of the middle layers, the heads of the grass-roots layers, and the extra flesh of the whole body."
Second, the loss is too large.
If you want 5,000 employees to work, you have to send 5,000 managers who are much more expensive than them to manage them. This is another problem with the tree-like "hierarchical organization".
The larger the organization, the higher the management cost of the bureaucratic organization, and eventually the adjustment loop is formed, which becomes the ceiling that seals the upper limit of the company's development.
What to do? Super flattened. That's why, in the early days of Xiaomi's entrepreneurship, we only had a 3-tier management architecture.
But do we have a way not to tinker with bureaucratic organizations? Can we find a more effective organizational form than a hierarchical organization?
Yes. For example: matrix organization.
Many companies, in order to optimize organizational efficiency, began to experiment with "matrix" management. In the technical department, sales department, implementation department of these main trunks, horizontal set of "project team". This is "matrix management".
(Figure: Matrix organization)
I transferred 7 of you from the technical department, the sales department, and the implementation department, found a conference room, temporarily set up a "combat office", and in the next 5 months, I will overcome the difficulties for this big project of a customer. This project group, just a code name, called "will be the top of the top".
This is matrix management. Solve specific problems by organizing resources horizontally and vertically.
However, in matrix management, resources are organized in "departments", not "things". Although there are changes, it is still not flexible enough.
What about reticulated tissue?
Everyone can be dispatched by everyone to fight for "things".
Just like Xie Zhi, in any Feishu document (that is, in a "thing"), I can @ come in all relevant people at any time. No matter where these people are distributed in the organization, as long as there is something, I will assemble instantly as soon as I am @. As soon as he was @ , he immediately joined the battle. As soon as the mission is completed, hit a ✓, immediately disband, and return to the original work.
That's it: assemble with @ and disband with ✓ It can fight, the war can win, and the victory can disperse.
When you can skillfully use @ and ✓ to dispatch and disband resources, you will find that the computing power of all nodes in the entire distributed organization has been called up. Even if the hash rate of these nodes is large, they must be larger than the CPU. When more computing power is needed, just add more nodes, so the organization is scalable. This kind of mesh organization solves the challenge of organizational management ability due to the complexity brought about by growth, and no longer requires a large number of redundant management resources, and the company's management costs are greatly reduced.
Why wasn't it possible before?
Because there are no tools. Wang Chuan said that after having the Feishu document, everyone can instantly know everything and everyone participates in everything. Information becomes a tool, not a power. Then, everyone's computing power will be automatically fully utilized based on enough information.
Feishu CEO Xie Xin has said before that the most important organizational unit in the future may be the group, rather than the organizational reporting relationship. Each group is built for the sake of things.
So, Runzong, do you know why I said that the future organizational form is a network of tissues?
(Photo: Wang Chuan's speech on future organizational forms)
New tools, new approaches. New methods will even bring new forms of organization.
Wang Chuan spoke very excitedly. I was excited to hear it.
Final words
Today's millet, and 2015, are no longer the same.
Xiaomi in 2015, or a young man who has just exploded, with a product, stands alone in the world and is arrogant.
Today's Xiaomi already has 575 hardware products. Today's Xiaomi has thousands of stores offline. Today's Xiaomi, with more than 10 million apps with monthly active users, has already had 38 models. Today's Xiaomi has entered 90 countries and ranked among the top in 50 of them, or even ranked first. Today's Xiaomi is already a mature fortune 500 company. Today's Xiaomi has 30,000 employees.
30,000 employees. An efficient tool, and an advanced set of organizational forms behind it, is essential. Xiaomi also did take off again because of the use of efficient tools, advanced organizational forms, and did not get caught up in the huge body shape.
After listening to Wang Chuan's sharing, five words popped up in my mind: distributed management.
In the field of computing, there is a concept called "distributed computing". Can we rely more than supercomputers to solve big computing problems such as weather, code, and genes? If we can use millions, tens of millions of computers distributed in all corners of the world, and calculate at the same time, will the power be far greater than that of supercomputers?
That's it: distributed computing.
And Wang Chuan shared that in the Feishu, he "use @ to assemble, use ✓ disband", is not to use the wisdom scattered in all corners of the Xiaomi organization, and at the same time, will the strength of the battle be far greater than the central command army?
This is "distributed management", right?
In 2021, in the fortune list published by Fortune Magazine, the number of Chinese companies surpassed the United States for the first time to become the world's first.
When the United States ranked first in the number of fortune-500 companies, the world was learning from the "Western classic" management methodology dominated by the United States. And when China ranks first in the number of fortune-500 companies, based on new tools, will China give birth to some new management methodologies that are more suitable for China?
I do not know. But I'm clearly seeing that more and more advanced businesses are using tools to change organizations. Today, more and more mega companies (companies that manage more than 1 million people), such as Didi and Meituan, are essentially the power of information and algorithms. I have a vague feeling that distributed management may be becoming a methodology that was born in China and is more suitable for China. possible.
As a business consultant, I am thrilled by this possibility.
Congratulations to Xiaomi. Also bless the Flying Book.
I also hope that all enterprises that are constantly innovating in tools and methods can use their own strength to change the business community in China.
If you feel that this article is helpful to you, remember to pay attention to the "Liu Run" public account.
Similar dry goods, essential articles, we are updating every day.
We have published 1,500 original articles on business, management, the workplace, and personal growth.
Here, we use in-depth and simple language to sort out and explain workplace management skills for you, and analyze and gain insight into business rules for you.
At the same time, for the wonderful articles in previous issues, we also combed through the way of mind maps, with a total of 8 million words and 1500 articles.
Pay attention to the "Liu Run" public account, reply to the keyword "dry goods" in the weChat public account background, you can get it for free with one click.