Chapter 12 Part 2: Confessions for the Ph.D. Examination——The Uneven Rate of Talent Value

Dear Teacher Xu: I am currently teaching in a university in Jiangsu, with the title of associate professor. Because I want to take a doctorate exam, I am now a visiting scholar at Fudan University, and I am preparing for the doctoral exam next semester.I'm a little lost now. I belong to the kind of people you mentioned who are in their 30s but don’t know what they are suitable for. I am very ashamed.Teaching in colleges and universities feels like I am retiring early, and the salary is mediocre. Moreover, my postgraduate degree is in business administration, so I have no practical experience in teaching, which is still a bit of a pity.

If I give up my Ph.D. and work in an enterprise, I have to give up teaching. I'm still not sure. But if you take three years to study for a doctorate, it is just to write a doctoral thesis.You also know about domestic doctors, so the price paid is very high, including family, children, and your own age.I got the national registered appraiser qualification four years ago, but I have never been in the industry and have little experience. It’s a pity that I still can’t do this if I’m a PhD student. I’m still hesitant about this issue. Of course, if I stay in a university, a doctorate should be more useful than not, at least it will be useful for evaluating professional titles in the future.Faced with these choices, I really don't know where the clues are?Don't know what to do?Therefore, I am a little confused now, please enlighten me in your busy schedule.

Confused, Associate Professor Dear Confused Associate Professor: Although your letter is brief, the questions you raise are actually not simple.Your confusion simply disappoints ordinary people!A 32-year-old associate professor is a successful model and role model, and an elite member of society, so why hesitate and be confused?Isn't this looking for a disease when you are not sick? The poem said: The professor doesn't know the feeling of sorrow, so he insists on sorrow for the doctoral examination! ... But I know your pain is universal.Your pain, on the surface, is that you are faced with several good choices, and you don’t know what to do best—university, enterprise?Doctoral professor, businessman manager?But in fact, deep in your heart, there is a sense of helplessness and distress about the "unequal rate of talent value" that currently exists in China.

In a society with normal development, or in a society that has gone through a transitional period of social development, such as Europe, America and Japan, when people choose a career, they may also have "enterprise" or "university", "business" or "politics". ", "Academic" or "Application" is a dilemma and confusion.However, there, the value of talents has basically entered into the law of "average profit rate of talents".If you go to a company, your salary may be relatively high, but with the added risk and pressure, some people would rather choose a university; in a university, although the freedom of spirit and the tranquility of life are incomparable to a company, some people are more willing to take risks in the market. My unlimited ambition and ambition for wealth.

In these developed countries, regardless of whether they work in the government, enterprises, or academic institutions, the income of people with the same education and the same age is basically average.Of course, wages vary in different places, but there is absolutely no such strange and unfair "unequal rate of talent profit" that is unique to China, a rapidly developing society. Well, let me give a definition to the term I invented: what is "unequal rate of talent profit"?Simply put, the uneven profit rate of talents is the inequality and imbalance in the compensation system that exists systematically among the Chinese government, academic institutions, state-owned enterprises, foreign enterprises, and private enterprises.

According to my old man's Marxist theory at the middle school level, there is an "average rate of profit" in a capitalist society (that is, in a market economy)-free competition makes the profit rates of all walks of life in the market tend to be even.If an industry has huge profits, everyone joins in, and as a result, the huge profits decrease; in an industry with thin profits, there are fewer people involved in it, so the small profits gradually increase... The invisible hand is adjusting the economic interests of the society.This is the so-called "average rate of profit".

Since the profit of capital has an average rate, then the profit of the most core capital in the market economy—“talent”, that is, the value of talent, should obviously also have an average rate.Because the biggest cost and profit in economic behavior are related to talents.Therefore, the average profit rate of talents is actually an established law in developed market economies. What's more, talents in developed countries circulate freely among governments, enterprises, schools, and regions, compete with each other, and are constantly competing for comparison.Therefore, whether it is a government, a university, or an enterprise, in order to retain talents in "remote" areas, it is necessary to constantly seek the best balance between the price (salary) and value (treatment, including non-material factors) of talents. The emergence of this balance point is the realization of the "average rate of talent profit".

Unfortunately, in China's initial stage of market economy society, all social strata are in the process of rapid change and transformation, and the essence of change and transformation is to adjust their unreasonable interest relations related to all aspects of society, " The "average rate of capital profit" has not yet been formed, and the monopoly of government and businessmen and power rent-seeking have caused huge injustice.In the field of talents, the asymmetry of the talent value measurement system is even more serious.In other words, the "unequal rate of talent profit" is an objective reality in China, a serious problem, and the root cause of the unbalanced mentality of all sectors of society.

The existence of this phenomenon may be temporary.But for today's strugglers, its reality is subversive.Because it subverts people's psychological balance of doing what they want to do, and makes Chinese intellectuals who are already under the pressure of social injustice feel that the market is so unfair. This is an era in which different systems coexist, different values ​​co-exist, and different ideas resonate.Differences in systems, values, and ideas lead to unequal common values ​​of talents.In many private schools across the country, teachers’ remuneration for a day’s class may often exceed a month’s salary for teachers in government-run schools; many brave people who have left the government or government-run institutions and entered enterprises, private enterprises, and foreign companies have a month’s salary. The income may often exceed the annual salary of traditional employers!

In China, where multiple economic forms and multiple employment relationships coexist, the "unequal rate of profit for talents" is becoming a serious problem, stimulating and shaking the spiritual world of many intellectuals who are originally at ease and peaceful, making them work in a simple way. In front of the arithmetic, I lost my psychological balance! In the 1980s, the dry laughter that mocked others for "going into the sea" has not disappeared from the ears. A new generation of people rising in the era of market economy and knowledge economy in the 21st century has returned from a long voyage with amazing wealth!Woo - woo - woo, this is the call of wealth, this is the song of value, this is the glory of status - woo, woo, woo - many people actually blow the horn of victory to the highest hall of the national government , as a representative of the emerging social class, at the National People's Congress of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, sit on an equal footing with the leaders of the party and the country, toast to each other, discuss great plans together, and become a generation of arrogance in this new era!

A worker engaged in simple labor actually has few choices—it is nothing more than a "difficult" wandering in the labor market between a monthly salary of 500 yuan that is close to home and a monthly salary of 600 yuan that is far from home.But a knowledge employee engaged in complicated labor is different. He may only be worth 1,000 RMB a month in one place, but he may be worth 10,000 RMB in another place.The value of talent, that is, the profit of talent, can generally appreciate ten times or even higher overnight. Academia, government and enterprises, the three major fields of intellectual employment, have an astonishing imbalance of talent profits: government agencies have the thinnest salary and worst treatment, but power, privilege and prominent status make many people want to stop; academic research institutions, Although the wages are always so low, there is plenty of free time, relative spiritual space, and the possibility of earning extra money by part-time and part-time jobs, so people are angry at the colorful world outside while still being in love with their own teaching and research departments; foreign companies with the highest income Enterprises, private enterprises or self-created enterprises are the sexiest places, the most seductive places, and the most crowded paradise in this era. However, the risks of enterprises, the pressure of operation, the "dirtyness" of shopping malls, and the interpersonal relationships that money will inevitably bring The complexity of the traditional intellectuals often forms a blunt and painful challenge to the traditional values, personality psychology, and quality combination. The Chinese government is raising the wages of its employees.The treatment of university professors is not as good as that of a cram school teacher, and Chinese universities do not want to continue.When advanced productive forces have entered certain areas of Chinese education and have demonstrated their powerful functions in terms of the benefits and rewards of talents, our universities will have to find a way to retain world-class talents on the road of change without causing them The pay and benefits system that led to university bankruptcy: "School of Management, Fudan University, looking for talents from all over the world: the dean's salary is 1 million RMB!" "Peking University's Guanghua School of Management seeks talents from the world: the annual salary of the project leader is 500,000 RMB!" "The director of a certain project at Nanjing University, with an annual salary of 200,000 RMB!" Such reports are no longer news.Professors whose salaries exceed 100,000 are no longer exciting at all.What is even more exciting is that the in-depth reforms in the economic field increasingly reflect the strength of the truth that science and knowledge are productive forces. Researchers in the traditional sense of the university are more and more involved in the economic tide. When I climbed to the shore in the water, my trouser pockets were already full of crabs, fish and shrimps distributed from entrepreneurs!Those who don't like real things have money; those who don't like money have real things.I know a management consulting professor. After completing a consulting project for Qingdao No. 2 Rubber Factory (condom production), there are ultra-thin products at home that even his grandson may not be able to use up!I said that the grandson is definitely not enough, and he insisted that no matter how much the grandson is like a grandfather, it is impossible for the grandson to have such a high usage rate! The story of Chen Zhangliang, which I have always admired very much, is actually the first crisp sound of this iceberg bursting: it announces that intellectuals can finally create wealth with their own wisdom.The country finally recognizes and admits that the wealth created by intellectuals is the reward they should have! In essence, a university is not a place to do business to make money but to engage in academic thinking.However, for many majors that focus on social practice, such as business administration, if you don't get involved in business consulting, you are simply not a person with a sense of social responsibility.Professor Wang Xuan, who owns Founder shares, can you say that he is not a great scholar-scientist?Harvard University's law, management, and even education departments charge so much for their training courses that it is unimaginable (short training courses of a few weeks often charge 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. dollars). Therefore, the professors of this era, taking your associate professor as a classic example, face multiple mental and physical tortures: 1. According to the uneven profit rate of talents actually existing in Chinese society, the average salary of university professors (there is also a huge civil servant team) has not reached the level it should be.Compared with their comparable income groups, they must be psychologically unbalanced. 2. However, one of the characteristics of the times in Chinese society is that it has become a fashion for university professors to earn money part-time and participate in business activities.It is said that the professors of the law and economics departments of Peking University are very rich. Many law professors have owned their own law firms at the same time or have successively owned their own law firms. At the same time or after they became professors, they became famous lawyers and millionaires.The Biology Department of Peking University, since the time of Chen Zhangliang, has been emphasizing how their scientific research has created wealth in the market and increased bonuses!In other words, within Chinese universities, profit imbalance is also a serious problem. 3. The inertia of the system, the inertia of the individual, the psychological barrier, the limitation of ability, the temptation of money, the pleasure of nobleness...all are tormenting our university teachers...this is also a characteristic of the times. So, there will be your letter, and there will be your troubles. Facing this era, what should you do?Do you want to study for a Ph.D., engage in management, do asset appraisal, or stay in a university and do research on management theory?Let me analyze your personal specific dilemma and the reasons for this dilemma: 1. After you finished your MBA, you should have joined a company instead of choosing a university.Abandoning business and studying is the source of all your pain. MBA is destined to enter the enterprise, but you stay in the school by accident.Don't tell me it's caused by "allocation".In fact, it must be your own choice.If you really have the urge to start a business and the determination to make money, who can restrain you from running into the enterprise these days!The value concept of emphasizing business and emphasizing learning determines your life choices at that time.Today, this value concept still tortures you.You are in a dilemma between the enterprise and the university, and you are hesitant.You have to know that your problem is a mentality problem and a confusion of values. If I were you, I might write a letter to Xu Xiaoping with my left hand, and type a resignation report to the head of the department with my right hand. Then, holding a resume in both hands, I would go to find a job in a company that needs my services! 2. You said that you are "in your 30s, but you don't know what you are suitable for".In fact, what you are suitable for, my old man knows at a glance: Are you suitable for business management, business consulting, and asset evaluation!You have an MBA degree, you have a certificate of asset appraisal, you are an associate professor in the management department, and you are an outstanding and rare expert in this field!Entrepreneurs are rare animals.Even if you don't have the rare qualities of entrepreneurs, you can at least cooperate with entrepreneurs and become the rare human brains around those rare animals!Combine what you have learned over 30 years with business management practice!Education must be combined with productive labour.Mao Zedong said so in the 1960s, but you don't know!Backwards. It is the historical responsibility and obligation of intellectuals in this era to commercialize knowledge, marketize ideas, and monetize theory.Start with you, start with me, start with your major, and start with resigning tomorrow! 3. You have obtained the qualification of a registered appraiser, but "have never engaged in this job".Refusing to apply for qualifications is the same as refusing to engage in management after finishing your MBA. It is a reckless behavior and a tendency to self-abuse.But I think it's still not a big problem - you can start all over again!If you have no experience, do it today, even if it is full of loopholes, but today's embarrassment is tomorrow's maturity, and today's failure is tomorrow's success.None of the early international students had the experience of serving as a waiter when they went abroad, but everyone learned to work part-time by scaring away the boss's guests and completed their studies.Why can't you!Action, not thinking, is also the call of this age. 4. Do you want to be an associate professor?If you go on like this according to the current way of thinking, the pain you feel as an associate professor may be exactly twice as strong when you get through to a full professor!Because at that time, the "unequal rate of talent value" that unfortunately exists in this era may be more serious in you.You have made countless wrong choices, and now, when you are faced with the second choice in life, you are still reluctant to part with this degree and title.And this kind of value will keep you further and further away from the life you really desire. The reason is simple. People who follow the professional title system are pursuing recognition within the system, and stand on the weak side of the "uneven rate of talent profit" system.The value judgment standard within the system is actually a kind of unfairness to talents-because the most concentrated manifestation of the "unequal profit rate of talents" is the remuneration given to intellectuals by academic institutions within the system. 5. Do you still want to take a doctoral degree? "If you stay in college, it should be more useful to read a doctorate than not to read it, at least it will be useful to get a professional title in the future."Is the doctoral examination just for future job title evaluation?Please, I would vehemently disagree if that was the case.Because what you reveal here is the worship of the "professional title", not the pursuit of the valuable things that "doctor" symbolizes.You lack passion for business, but it seems that you are not interested in academics either. In fact, there is no question of which is better than the doctor and its symbolic academic research, and the MBA and its symbolic management practice.They are not the difference between rice and millet, they are the relationship between apples and oranges - when oranges are red, apples will also be sweet.Whether it is engaged in academics or management, it has its own value law and its unique reason for existence.Even in the era of uneven talent profits in China, in fact, both can get the same value.The question is not whether you should take a doctorate, the question is why you should take a doctorate! If you want to take a doctorate exam, your idea should be: through the doctoral exam, further study Chinese and foreign management ideas and theories, choose a topic that you are really interested in, and spend a lifetime doing in-depth research, teaching, writing papers, publishing books, making reports, participating in Davost Forum (just don’t accompany Mou Zhong, a liar), and visit Boao Economic Summit (if you see Long Yongtu, please pay tribute to him on my behalf).When I am willing, I will provide some management consulting services to enterprises. When I am not willing, I will seriously study ancient and modern Chinese and foreign management ideas and theories in my own home, and follow the academic path, as a scholar, to advance for the maturity of Chinese management science! In fact, if you do this, your financial income will not be too small.Contributing fees and course remuneration are long running water, and corporate lectures are raining money.Because of your academic reputation, you may be invited by several large companies to be an independent director, with a generous fee-this is a vocabulary I learned from Hong Kong people, it seems to refer to the director's fee-come back Counting, the income of a board of directors may exceed a year's basic salary!Ah, the uneven profit rate of talents can be smashed in one fell swoop through one's own hard work! Zhu Qingsheng, a well-known professor at Peking University (the author of "A Mountain in Painted Red Guilin" and "Nineteen Zha"), once said to me personally: When a scholar reaches a certain height in academics, he will have the highest wealth needed in life. : The highest wealth is not money and material, but the spiritual realization of the highest meaning of life.I understand his words very deeply.At that time, as an old man who walked out of academics after leaving Peking University, and entered the market after entering New Oriental, I wished I could find a hole to drill down to the bottom.Because I know that the realization of a person's spirit is the real richness and real happiness, and the real realization of himself--I feel my own paleness! Sorry, I am not promoting a paradoxical thought.Advocating money for a while, advocating spirit for a while.You can read the first "Princess of Denmark" in "Tuqiong Dialogue" to know my real thoughts. My real thought is: we pursue the spirit, but do not despise wealth; we pursue wealth, but do not abandon the spirit.Some people will become the world's number one in wealth creation, but they will also become peerless in their spiritual pursuits—for example, Soros who founded the "Open Society" research institutes around the world, Li Ka-shing who founded Shantou University and Oriental Business School, donated Bill Gates, who funded human beings to conquer cancer and AIDS with 10 billion U.S. dollars-if he donated 200 million (U.S. dollars) to help us conquer SARS, I would like him even more. What I advocate is the significance of a person's life, the value of struggle, the major issues of life and world outlook, and the question of what a person should pursue in his limited life. The uneven profit rate of talents may exist objectively, but the real victims are those friends who cannot see opportunities, profits, money, or even see money, and are unwilling to run, struggle, and work hard for it them.Are you such a friend?Do not accept this hat! Choice determines fate.What determines our choice is not character, but values.My letter, from beginning to end until now, is only about values.As an associate professor of management, a senior intellectual standing at the forefront of the commodity economy actually has a clear understanding of what value to choose. Your colleague, Xu Xiaoping