Chapter 43 Northern Spring

This "Spring of the North Country" was written in April 2001. It is a model essay for Ren Zhengfei to go to Japan in the "winter" to seek the way to start a business.The long and cold winter wears down people's fighting spirit. An article "Spring in the North Country" tells people that winter is coming soon, and can spring be far behind?It has aroused people's enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, and made people in confusion see the dawn of hope. In the beautiful spring season when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, we set foot on the land of Japan.This trip to Dongying, we are not here to feel the breath of exotic spring and appreciate the cherry blossoms all over the mountains and plains, but to learn the experience of surviving winter.

As soon as I set foot on the land of Japan, my first impression was still the same tranquility, peace, cleanliness, affluence and comfort as ten years ago.From remote villages to bustling big cities, the streets are still so tidy, and everywhere they go is still so orderly; people are still so kind, kind, and polite, and their footsteps are still so hurried; The old lady in the small hotel, from the office worker in the big company, to... all are so peaceful, optimistic and dedicated, they cherish their work so much, and the opportunity to serve others, work seems to be their highest Enjoy without any restlessness, dissatisfaction and resentment.In my opinion, Japan is still the Japan of ten years ago, and the Japanese are still the Japanese of ten years ago.

But who would have thought that Japan has experienced the coldest and longest winter since the war in the past ten years.It is precisely because what I have seen and heard now is based on such a long period of low growth, which makes me feel especially deeply.The vast majority of companies in Japan have not increased wages in the past eight years, but social security is still better than that in Northern Europe, which is really amazing.Once Japan takes off again, such a foundation will surely allow it to soar into the sky.If Huawei suffers two consecutive winters, we don't know whether Huawei people will remain calm, deal with it calmly, overcome difficulties, and look forward to spring.

Since the early 1990s, Japan has experienced low growth, zero growth, and negative growth for ten consecutive years... This winter is too long.How did Japanese companies survive, what difficulties did they encounter, what experience did they have, and what enlightenment can they give us?This is the purpose of our visit to Japan. Huawei has experienced ten years of rapid development, can it continue to develop for a long time, will it encounter low growth, or even a long period of low growth; what problems exist in the company's structure and management; can employees survive the rapid promotion in peacetime? Whether the rapid development of cash flow will be interrupted, such as when the river freezes, there will be a trickle, so that the enterprise will not be completely stagnant... These are the things that business leaders should study in advance.

There will always be winter in Huawei, and it is better to prepare cotton clothes than not to be prepared.How should we deal with Huawei's winter?This was something we pondered and discussed while we were in Japan. In a tavern in a remote village, I happened to meet a group of traveling Japanese retirees. They enthusiastically sang "Dragon" for us, and we couldn't help but sing the Hokkaido folk song "Northern Spring" with them. They are so optimistic, enthusiastic and carefree, which infected me.In contrast, I feel that the Chinese elderly have a lot of worries, are full of worries, and live a very tiring life.The heavy hearts of our fathers made them never feel relaxed until their death.

I have listened to "Northern Spring" hundreds of times, each time with tears in my eyes and shocked by its unpretentious lyrics. The intention of the original author of "Spring in the North Country" is to praise entrepreneurs and strugglers, not a love song that young people today mistakenly think. When a young man left his hometown and his relatives to fight for his career, only his mother cared for him all the time, so that the city didn't know that the seasons had changed, and when spring came, she sent him cotton clothes to protect him from the severe winter.And I no longer have a mother who would send me zheergen (Houttuynia cordata), wild vegetables, and sausages, all of which can only live in eternal memory.Children travel thousands of miles and mothers are worried. Parents all over the world are the same, worrying about their children.I wrote the article "My Father and Mother", and my Japanese friends also translated it into Japanese and English for the employees to circulate. They mistakenly thought that I was a filial son.I was so guilty and miserable because I didn't fulfill my responsibility to take care of my parents.I devoted all my energy to my work and forgot my parents' safety. I was actually an incompetent son.

A person leaves home and struggles to obtain a better life, and love is the most important part of a better life, but love is like a single-plank bridge, you cannot live through it.It has been five years since I left home. When the remaining snow is melting and the stream is gurgling, facing the single-plank bridge across the road, I really don’t know if others have passed by, and the girl I love is safe.That kind of melancholy, that kind of loss, that kind of confusion, what if you succeed? There are clumps of ditangs, morning fog, quiet waterwheels, huts, and bursts of carefree nursery rhymes accompanied by the taciturnity of father and brother.Most of us can go to college because of the silent dedication of our father and brother.They have worked hard and accumulated bit by bit to provide for the isolated and helpless wanderers far away, but they themselves have no culture.They used their hard backbones to set up the first step in our life and career.

I hope they don't suffer too much. When they are sad, they are relatively speechless and buy two glasses of beer.We must never forget them, never dislike them, and never forget to repay them. From this, I think that the success of each of us comes from the selfless dedication of our relatives. The driving force of our life, work and career comes first from the winter clothes of our mothers, from the taciturn father and brother, from the waterwheels, huts, and single-plank bridges in our hometown. There is a girl who once loved you but left... "Northern Spring" is an acronym for the struggle of the Japanese people.

I have personally experienced the diligence of the Japanese people. Without their spirit, it would have been difficult to rise from the ashes of World War II in 20 or 30 years.The Japanese nation is good at precision work, and it shines brightly in the era of product economy, which makes people all over the world look at the Japanese people with admiration.I also learned about the patience and optimism with which they surmounted depression in difficult times. Japan is an island country with a small land area, and most of them are high mountains. Therefore, the Japanese people have developed a habit of making things that are "big and heavy" into "short, thin and light".The small gardens are so beautiful, and the small streets are so neat and exquisite that every corner makes people feel comfortable and comfortable.Small but powerful cameras, home appliances that once swept the world market like lightning, a country without coal, iron ore, and oil, and high-quality cars produced all over the world.The industriousness of the Japanese people and the persistence of the German nation shocked the world in the era of mechanical and electrical products industry.Their spirit of no regrets, hard work, and continuous dedication has created the prosperity of Japan.

Although Japan is currently encountering difficulties, its people's spirit of patience, optimism, diligence and struggle has not changed, their beliefs have not changed, and their love for life and work has not changed.God rewards hard work, I believe Japan can survive this cold winter. After World War II, Japan’s economy started in the 1950s mainly relying on military supplies orders and the support of the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was the center of the world in the manufacturing of mechanical and electrical products. At that time, the added value was mainly in manufacturing.On this basis, the Japanese economy took off rapidly.After the end of the Cold War, the United States quickly transferred military technology to civilian use, which led to the rapid development of information technology.As information technology entered the industrial system, the added value of its industry was quickly transferred to the core technology research and development and sales links. The opening of the manufacturing industry has become a contract manufacturing with fierce competition and low profits. Japan, which takes manufacturing as its competitive advantage, has been hit hard.

In the 1970s when mass production, mass sales, and material production efficiency were very high, the growth rate of the Japanese economy was about 10%. After the 1980s, the environment centered on mixed innovation and knowledge productivity changed, and the system of Japanese enterprises did not As it changed, it quickly slipped from the center of the world economy to the edge of interests, with a growth rate of no more than 4%. After the 1990s, under the environment of globalization of the market economy, value-added knowledge, and the rapid development of an information society, Japanese companies The system has not changed fundamentally, and it has been thrown out of this economic circle at once, with a growth rate of about 2%.Japanese companies have been very successful in the past, but it is impossible for companies to achieve long-term sustainable growth by relying on one system.Is Huawei's growth model so reliable?It is also worthy of our reflection. During the period of rapid economic development in Japan, the United States regarded Japan and Germany as imaginary enemies.They carefully studied the weaknesses of Japan and Germany.In response to the closed policies of Japan and Germany, the United States implemented an open policy, adopting the introduction of world-class talents to work in the United States, introducing advanced technologies from all countries, speculating in the stock market, and attracting funds from all over the world.Moreover, Japan is a country with a relatively single ethnic group, lack of internal competition, and the income level of the people is relatively average, which also inhibits innovation.Although Japan has already joined the WTO, the opening of the government does not mean the opening of the market. The patriotic complex of the Japanese people makes it difficult for foreign companies and products to develop in Japan. Flights (of course, the good service of JAL is one of the reasons), and even travel abroad with Japanese rice and soy sauce.Therefore, the development of foreign enterprises in Japan is not enough to activate internal competition in Japan.Only fierce competition can promote innovation. Japan is insufficient in innovation, so that the original advantages cannot be sustained. At this stage, what makes Japan's manufacturing industry into trouble is the lack of innovation. The real drag on the Japanese economy is due to the large number of bad debts in the Japanese real estate industry.In the era of Japan's economic boom, Kakuei Tanaka proposed a plan to transform the Japanese archipelago. Because Japanese companies and people were very rich at that time, and the land resources in the island country were scarce, the land price and real estate skyrocketed all of a sudden, and the prosperity continued for decades. The investment in real estate over the years is not less than several hundred trillion yen.When the financial crisis came, coupled with lack of innovation in manufacturing and a sharp drop in revenue, real estate prices fell sharply, causing many companies that own real estate to become negative assets and heavily in debt.The money of these local companies mainly comes from the banks, and the banks are also in danger of being dragged down.If these non-performing debts are not removed, the company will not be able to turn around.Of course, if Japan took advantage of the opportunity of economic prosperity to implement diversification, introduce a large number of talents, revitalize education, break egalitarianism, promote internal competition, dissipate cohesion, stimulate new energy, and maintain the glory of manufacturing, real estate If we implement gradual contraction, the economy will not necessarily collapse. I was deeply inspired by the exchange with Professor Takeuchi Ryoki, an adviser on national conditions in Japan.There is no shortage of insightful people in Japan. They truly understand Japan's national conditions, know the symptoms of Japan, and understand the only way for Japan to get out of the predicament.It is believed that the difficulties they are currently encountering are difficulties in structural adjustment, and they will definitely go back to the road of revitalization. Compared with Japan, China's economic development has great advantages.Japan's basic equipment is very complete, and there is no place to be built; Japan's environmental protection is very good, such an industrialized country, environmental protection is so good, it is enviable, and there is no place to invest in environmental protection; people generally compare Wealthy and well-developed education, I really don't know where to start to start domestic demand.But China's economy is on the rise, not only in the west, but in the east, and the infrastructure is also very imperfect; the environmental protection in the east does not know how much investment will be made before the green mountains and green waters can be seen again; not only in the west, there are people who have not yet escaped poverty, that is, the people in the east Laid-off workers all need to improve their lives; 1.3 billion people have home ownership and a good public transportation system. I don't know how much investment will be needed to solve it.There are 1.3 billion people in the country receiving education, and the project of improving the cultural quality of the whole nation is very huge.To reduce the burden on farmers, the state will need hundreds of billions of yuan to build multimedia primary and secondary schools in rural areas, not to mention building the current university into a modern university, and it is not known how much investment opportunities there will be.Therefore, once China's start-up of domestic demand becomes a continuous behavior once all aspects of society are invested, China has at least 20 to 30 years of high-speed development opportunities.However, we must pay attention to the development. Once we get rich, we may have the problem of lack of motivation in the welfare society. If we prevent it early, the problems in Japan will not appear.At present, welfare states such as Canada and Northern Europe are facing the dilemma of excessive taxation, excessive welfare, and the loss of a large number of outstanding talents.We earnestly study and learn lessons, and we will continue to develop effectively. We visited industrial companies, which are better than other types of companies.The products are still on sale in the market, and the cash flow can still be transferred.It's just that the eight-year business growth curve is a flat line, with almost no growth, and the total wages have hardly increased, or even declined slightly. The three kinds of excesses faced by Japanese enterprises weigh heavily on their heads, making it difficult to adjust.These three difficulties are: overemployment, overequipment, and overdebt.These three excess adjustments involve organizational reform, structural and industrial reorganization, the transition to the development of knowledge-based innovation industries, and the cultivation of core management capabilities and transformation to speed management.The past Japanese corporate system hampered this transformation and made it very difficult.Japanese companies really feel that it is not about what is good or bad, but the key lies in whether they have core competitiveness. If Huawei's growth rate slows down significantly, the three excesses of Japanese companies will appear in Huawei.Without early understanding and sufficient mental preparation, you will fall into a passive state. As Japanese companies have not absorbed new employees for a long time, the average age of employees has gradually increased, and the talent structure has changed from pagoda-shaped to spindle-shaped. There are few outstanding talents, few new forces, and many older ordinary employees, which makes the enterprise lack of vitality and wages. higher cost.Due to the weakening of the flow of talents and the relative solidification of positions, innovation is obviously insufficient. The internal reform of Japanese enterprises lags behind, the competition among domestic enterprises is not fierce, and the internal employees of enterprises also lack the necessary competition.The internal and external causes of enterprise reform have not been highlighted because of the economic downturn.It is very difficult for Japanese companies to carry out major reforms entirely on their own.As mentioned earlier, Japan is a country with good security, comfortable life and stability. Although wages have not been raised for eight years, it is not enough to threaten consumption.This kind of stability is not conducive to forcing enterprises to make up their minds to carry out reforms. Although they have abolished the seniority system, lifetime employment system, and strengthened performance appraisal, Japanese companies are now beginning to reorganize internally, reorganize the structure, and gradually shrink from a large company that does everything to several major fields, and then these major fields Financial independence, common brand, clear accounting goals, etc.? ? ? , but the inertia of concepts and culture makes this change effort less effective. Japanese companies have also begun to implement employee stock ownership systems to activate and promote competition between employees and companies.Japanese law originally did not allow employees to hold shares, but Japanese companies did not take strong actions to improve their fundamental competitiveness.Treat the symptoms but not the root cause, deep-seated problems still exist, and you will not get out of it after suffering. Because Japan has always been more stable, resulting in the age of business operators, the decision-making process is too cautious.Many important decisions must be passed unanimously. If a few people cannot pass, they have to do work, and sometimes even delay if they cannot make it through. The safety of this kind of decision-making hinders the timeliness of decision-making.An overly democratic decision-making system is not necessarily good. Compared with other Asian countries, Japanese companies are more internationalized, but when they summarize the reasons for their failure, they still say that they are not internationalized.Think about how far behind the internationalization of Huawei is compared with Panasonic and NEC. What can we be blindly proud of?The internationalization of Asian companies is inherently difficult. After decades of isolation, my country's development in just two decades is not enough to support internationalization.The pace of Huawei's internationalization is even more difficult. Just because a large number of foreign employees cannot read Chinese documents, and a large number of domestic employees have not passed the English level, it is enough to see how difficult Huawei's internationalization is.If these difficulties are not overcome, Huawei may also be short-lived. The Japanese government decided to deal with bad debts and buy 33 trillion yen of debts from banks before 2003.Implement small government, establish decentralization, carry out tax reform, reduce income tax, and increase consumption tax. Implement education reform, change the past average education law, adopt a classified education policy that teaches students according to their aptitude, develop human potential, and improve young people's creativity.Reform the social security system and introduce the American social security system.Strengthen IT construction, promote industrialization with informatization, and lay the foundation for further reform of the enterprise. Someone compares an enterprise to a ship, and Matsushita Electric Works compares its own enterprise to a ship in a sea of ​​ice.In Matsushita Electric Works, we can see a poster everywhere, no matter in the office, in the meeting room, or on the wall of the passage. On the painting is a giant ship that is about to hit an iceberg. You are the only one who owns this boat." His sense of crisis is evident.In Huawei, is our awareness of winter so strong?Is it passed on to the grassroots?Is everyone taking action? Huawei is not yet in the winter position. At the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, we can earnestly learn from others, accelerate the overall improvement of work efficiency, improve the rationality and effectiveness of the process, lay off unnecessary organizations, streamline redundant employees, and strengthen Staff self-training and quality improvement.Be prepared for danger in times of peace, maybe before winter comes, we have already made padded jackets. Huawei grew up in the fastest growing period of the global information industry, especially in China's transformation from a backward network to a world-class advanced network. In the big trend of rapid development, Huawei is like a leaf, fortunately falling on the big boat of this trend. The big ship has drifted with the tide until today, and has not experienced the test of crises such as stormy seas, floods, and levee collapses.Therefore, Huawei's success should be due to its opportunities rather than its quality and skills. What is success?It is the real success that is like those companies in Japan who can survive after a narrow escape.Huawei didn't succeed, it just grew. Huawei has experienced too long a period of peace, and too many officials were promoted during peacetime, which may constitute a disaster for us. The "Titanic" also sailed out of the sea amidst cheers. Many of our employees are blindly proud. They are like frogs in a well, seeing that we accidentally lead Western companies in some products, and they think that our company is already world-class.They don't know the connotation of world-renowned companies, the development trend of the world, and the potential achievements that others are unwilling to announce.Huawei is very young, naive, and immature in this regard. The imbalance of Huawei's organizational structure is an inefficient operating structure, just like how much a bottle of water depends on the shortest piece of wood. The imbalance is the bottleneck of the process.For example: Our company was in a state of hunger and cold when it was first established, and we were waiting for the rice to cook.It is correct to attach great importance to R & D and marketing in the early stage to quickly adapt to the market.Can't survive, where's the scientific management?However, with the passing of the initial stage of entrepreneurship, this bias has not changed to a scientific and reasonable one, because most of the cadres who are promoted to the top level come from R&D and marketing cadres. Make the strong sector stronger and the weak sector weaker, forming a bottleneck.Sometimes some high-level cadres accused the plan and budget of being inaccurate, cost accounting and control not included in the project, accounting by product, layer, region, and item in the accounting books were not done well, and the cash flow was not up to the advanced level... But if our value evaluation system cannot make the company's organization balanced, these departments lack excellent cadres, and it will be impossible to achieve simultaneous progress.If it doesn't improve, if you improve yourself, will the whole report be fine?God knows.This kind of partiality does not change, and Huawei's progress is empty talk. Due to Huawei's short-term success, the temporary treatment of employees is relatively high, which has produced many cadres who are wise and safe.They ask for instructions on everything, rigidly and dogmatically implement the leader's speech, for fear of losing their black hat and becoming an obstacle to the responsibility system.The system of responsibility to people and the system of responsibility to things are two fundamental (different) systems, and the system of responsibility to people is a convergent system.The responsibility system is based on the process and authorization, as well as effective monitoring, so that the people who understand the most have the power to deal with the problem, and it is an expanded management system.But now Huawei's high and middle-level cadres are consciously or unconsciously accustomed to the system of accountability to people, making it difficult to implement process-based IT management. Professional, standardized, form-based and template-based management are still lacking.Huawei is a group of Tuba roads who came out of the green gauze tent, and they are still accustomed to the working method of burying mines and erecting a blockhouse.I am not used to professional, tabular, templated, and standardized management.There are still a lot of duplication of labor and overlapping management, which is the root cause of inefficiency.I have seen the work of the secretary in Hong Kong, and the work is done in an orderly manner in a short time, but we still have to fumble and fumble, and we do not know whether it is qualified or not, and we have a small meeting to review. You see, this is a high cost.To quickly realize IT management, the quality of our cadres must be greatly improved. The obstacles to the implementation of IT mainly come from within the company, from the loss of power of senior and middle-level cadres due to electronic flow management.Have we correctly understood that the life and death of a company must come from the progress of the management system?This kind of progress is fast, correct, end-to-end, point-to-point, and removes many intermediate links.Facing a large number of high and middle-level cadres being laid off with the implementation of IT (management), are we ready?In order to keep the hat and scepter, is it possible not to implement e-commerce?The key is that we have to convince our competitors not to use it. Everyone does it manually?I don't think it can be done.Thousands of sails pass by the side of the sunken boat. If we don't move forward, we will surely die. I don’t know how many days and nights it will take to figure out the problems of Huawei... But as long as we keep finding problems, exploring, criticizing ourselves, and building and improving, there will always be a way out.Just as Panasonic Electric Works stated that only its own employees can save the sunken ship in the ice sea, only Huawei's own employees can save Huawei.There has never been any savior, and there is no fairy emperor. It is up to us to create a better tomorrow. Winter will always pass, and spring will surely come.We took advantage of the winter to recharge our batteries and strengthen internal transformation. Together with Japanese companies, we will survive this severe winter.We will surely usher in the melting of the remaining snow and the gurgling streams, and Huawei's spring will surely come.