Chapter 65 You can't learn Haidilao!

When lecturing on the case of Haidilao, I was asked two questions the most. One is: Compared with chain stores like McDonald’s, Haidilao is more governed by people. How far can Haidilao’s management method go?My answer is, I don't know.But Haidilao has been alive for 16 years. I just want to dig out why Haidilao is so outstanding. The second question is: Can we learn from Haidilao?My answer is, you can't learn.Because business management is not a science, but an art.Just like the reason that it is impossible for everyone who learns the piano to become a piano master! The following is an article I published in 2008 that caused a lot of controversy.After writing the Haidilao book, I firmly believe that management is not a scientific point of view, so I revised it and published it again.

Is management science or art?This was originally a debate in the academic circles, but now it has attracted the attention of more and more business people. It is not without reason that business people pay attention to this debate.If management is scientific, companies should recruit more MBAs and let them take on heavy responsibilities, because they specialize in management; when companies face major decisions and problems, they should also listen to the opinions of consulting companies, because most of the employees of consulting companies are MBA graduates. On the contrary, if management is an art, the enterprise should follow the principle of "it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice"; when the enterprise is sick, don't believe in the so-called external brain—consulting companies can cure your illness , because the success of any artist mainly depends on his own talent and hard work, and has little to do with others.

In fact, this debate arose only when universities offered management courses.Although there was enterprise management in the past, there was no such debate, because the managers all changed their careers from other professions to do management.The common sense at that time was: How can a profession that anyone can pursue can be science? However, when enterprises became larger and management became more and more complex, and schools began to teach management, some people suggested that management is a science, and the debate began. Although I have an MBA degree, I agree that management is an art.There are two reasons: First, until today, most of the business managers in the world have not studied management background, especially those excellent managers who are famous: Welch, Bill Gates, Kazuo Inamori, Wang Shi, Ren Zhengfei, Ma Yun... None of them have a management degree.On the other hand, those who are engaged in scientific occupations, such as doctors, engineers, pharmacists, mathematics teachers... cannot work without professional education.Therefore, if doctors, engineers, pharmacists, and mathematics teachers are in the sciences, management should be something different from science.

Second, qualified doctors can treat patients of different races, qualified engineers can work in different projects, and math teachers can teach mathematics in both China and the United States.But the manager can't!Welch can't manage Chinese companies, and Wang Shi can't manage Jack Ma's company.Therefore, management is a profession in which knowledge, experience and technology cannot be verified repeatedly, even on the same person.Such a profession is certainly not science, because science must be something that can be verified repeatedly. Not only is management not a natural science, it is also fundamentally different from social science majors such as accounting and lawyers.The professional education of accountants and lawyers is necessary for their occupations; management is not. So far, human management practice has proved that no professional education can make a person a manager.Management is a profession in which all roads lead to Rome.Everyone from a farmer to a scientist can become an excellent manager. On the contrary, graduates majoring in management—MBA—may not be able to become managers.

What is science?Science must be something reproducible.Science is something that can use mathematics, logic and experiments to repeatedly prove causality. For example, l+1 must be equal to 2, and the combination of acid and alkali must form salt.If any counterexample can be found to prove that 1+l is not equal to 2, this principle is wrong. What is art?Art is something that cannot repeatedly prove causality with mathematics, logic, and experiments, but it cannot prove that there is no such thing!This is what is called unprovable and unfalsifiable.For art: l+1 is sometimes equal to 2, sometimes it is not equal to 2.For example, balance can produce beauty, but unbalance can also bring beauty; a symphony that relies on a unified command can move people, and jazz music that is played freely by musicians can also make people crazy.

Therefore, from the perspective of the difference between science and art, management should be more like art.For example, some enterprises use management methods and tools such as Six Sigma, Balanced Scoring Method, ERP and SAP to be effective, while some enterprises do not work at all.Although the Toyota Motor Plant opened its doors to competitors, the American auto industry could hardly learn such a simple Toyota production management method after 30 years.Why?Because automobile manufacturing is science, but the management of automobile manufacturing is art.Art has its element of talent, and there are things that cannot be repeated or imitated!For example, do you have Zhang Yong's "credulity" personality?Your subordinate was cheated out of 3 million yuan, do you have the air of being really angry?This is why you can't learn Haidilao, and it's also why the American auto industry can't learn Japanese auto production management methods.This is the same reason that different painters use the same brush, canvas and paint to paint the same thing, but the painting effect is completely different.

Management should be an art major, and managers are artists like painters, singers, writers, and directors.For an artist, talent and practice are always more important than knowledge and theory.It is precisely because of this that the deaf Beethoven can create peerless music, and Zhang Yong, who has never read an MBA, can create a Haidilao that can be learned by business schools.This is the same reason that writers often do not study literature, and actors, painters, and musicians do not necessarily have to receive formal art education.Therefore, managers should be artists! It must be weird to describe managers as artists, because it is difficult to connect managers who wear suits and tie all day long with those artists who wear long hair and go wild.However, their differences are only superficial, the so-called similarity in spirit and dissimilarity in shape. In fact, managers and artists must be unique in their bones.How can you outperform the competition without innovation? !If you don’t believe me, please carefully draw a picture of the excellent managers we are familiar with. They must have some commonalities. For example, they must be more willing to innovate than ordinary people, and their behavior is more decisive; they are not only more self-disciplined, but also more able to take risks; Sensitive to people and things, even a little paranoid and so on.

Like all artists, the manager's talent is also important.Without talent, no matter how hard a manager works, he cannot manage an enterprise well.We often hear people say: So-and-so is a genius organizer, but they are actually talking about the talent of managers.This thing is difficult to learn, because it has both DNA components and life experiences after coming out of the mother's womb.For example, have you read the Western philosophy books that Zhang Yong read when he was 14 years old? Is management an art or a science?Most people would surely agree that management is both a science and an art.I originally agreed with this statement.But after nine years of teaching management in school, my views on this issue have changed.I now feel that this statement, although acceptable to most people, is the most slippery and useless statement.Because all majors in the world are a combination of art and science, that is to say, science majors also have art components, and art majors also have scientific components.For example, Einstein, the master of science, would not have discovered the theory of relativity if he had no superhuman imagination and only relied on mathematics and logic.It is precisely because of this that colleagues called him: "A great artist in the field of science!" Another example, a surgeon not only needs professional training, but also talent!In the same way, all art majors also have scientific components. Even the art of pure deception—magic, must use scientific methods to become the best!

Therefore, to distinguish whether a major is science or art is actually based on the proportion of science and art; if the proportion of science is large, it is science, otherwise it is art. In fact, in the vast universe, everything is in balance.But balance is by no means a simple one-half, not a golden mean; any balance has a focus, and the focus determines the essence of things.So to say that management is both a science and an art says nothing.Because, it does not allow managers to focus! The artistic component of enterprise management is large, which determines the nature of management as art, but it does not mean that management has no scientific component, nor does it mean that scientific management is useless, but in management, the scientific component does not play as big a role as the artistic component. .For example, everyone needs a sense of fairness and a sense of accomplishment, so the personnel compensation system must reflect more work, more pay, otherwise, employees will not work hard. This is the science of management.But knowing this commonality of people and those scientific salary systems and management methods is not very helpful to managers, because every manager is faced with: how to make the specific group of employees in their company feel fair and valuable? sense of accomplishment.This is what art is about.It is because Zhang Yong has solved the problem of fairness and sense of accomplishment of Haidilao’s workforce mainly composed of migrant workers better than his peers, which makes Haidilao a hot pot restaurant that makes his peers spend money to eat.

The fundamental reason why management is an art is that management is ultimately about managing people, and there is no management without people.But people are not standard parts. Zhang San is different from Li Si. Employees of state-owned enterprises are different from employees of private enterprises. The only child of the "post-80s" is also different from their parents. Urban employees and migrant workers have different feelings about fairness. It may be the same, and the sense of accomplishment of American employees and Chinese employees is definitely different. Although people have the same commonality, it is precisely their particularity that makes people different. This is the principle of "similar in nature, but far apart in habits".It is these different people that make up different companies. Therefore, there are no two identical people in the world, and there are no two identical companies in the world; therefore, management is always specific!

Management guru Drucker said: "Management is the art of practice." What is the art of practice?That is, practice is always ahead of knowledge—if you don’t manage a company, you will never know what business management is (no matter what kind of management degree you have); if you don’t manage this company yourself, you will never know what this business management is (no matter what kind of management degree you have). How successfully you have managed other businesses before).Actions are always more important than knowledge—only through continuous attempts to correct deviations—"crossing the river by feeling the stones"—can the knowledge and skills of managing a specific enterprise become mature and perfect.This is the reason why Haidilao's cadres who are not highly educated and young, but started as waiters, are like fish in water in Haidilao, but they are not effective after being poached.In fact, the collective employment practice of the world's top 500 companies also proves this truth: the success rate of CEOs promoted internally is much higher than that of airborne CEOs. IKEA's customer integration, Wal-Mart's hypermarkets and Southwest Airlines' low-price strategy have been taught in business schools all over the world for many years, but who learned it? !Why?Because it is someone else's art, and art has originality, and imitation alone cannot succeed.Sun Tzu's Art of War said: "Everyone knows the shape of my victory, but Mo knows the shape of my victory" (others only see my winning methods, but don't know how I obtained them). The process of obtaining these methods is equally important, because after an enterprise masters an effective method, its special execution ability is also formed. What others have learned is only the method, but they have not learned its execution ability-the execution ability cannot be learned!This is the fundamental reason why so many hot pot colleagues can't learn Haidilao!Their team does not have the executive ability of cadres like Yang Xiaoli, Yuan Huaqiang, Xie Ying, and Lin Yi. Therefore, if managers do not know that the essence of management is art, their attention will inevitably be distracted.This is an inevitable detour for academics and managers who believe that management is a science.Because they believe that since management is a science, they need to find people who specialize in management and consulting companies to help them formulate the "most advanced and best" business strategies and management methods, so that the company can be managed well.As a result, these managers poached external brains with high salaries and invited consulting companies. As a result, without exception, they spent a lot of money and took detours. Finally, they realized that management cannot be bought, taught, or learned. Management must It is necessary for managers to realize it by themselves in practice.In a word, the disease of one's own enterprise can only be cured by oneself.