Chapter 11 Chapter Two Corporate Culture Drives Growth

In the early days of entrepreneurial development, Huawei's culture was dominated by wolf nature.Wolf is a fearsome and ferocious animal. Few people would like to compare it with wolves, but Huawei calls itself a "wolf". Ren Zhengfei said: "To be an enterprise is to cultivate a group of wolves."He summed up the three characteristics of wolves: one is a keen sense of smell, the other is an indomitable and reckless offensive spirit, and the third is group struggle.These three points are the characteristics of wolves that succeed in fighting for survival, and when they are transferred to the competition of enterprises, they will also form incredible power, so enterprises need to be a bit wolfish in order to develop.Keenly aware of opponents' movements and market changes, you can seize opportunities and take the initiative.There will inevitably be setbacks in the process of competition, so if you want to win in the future, you must have the spirit of not being afraid of losing and the belief that you will never stop. In market competition, it is meaningless to retreat and wait.An enterprise is a collective organization, and its success is due to the efforts of everyone, so only the struggle of all can achieve the glory of the enterprise.

If today's Huawei is the invincible "Oriental Lion", then it was a lamb that could be eaten by wolves at any time at the beginning of its business. When Huawei was founded in Shenzhen in 1998, it mainly engaged in the agency business of program-controlled switches, and only started independent research and development in 2000.It can be said that Huawei was not the first company in my country to enter the communications field. Other companies that fought with it at that time have long since disappeared, but it has rapidly developed into a strong player in this field with aggressive momentum, relying on the wolf's tenacious ability to survive. .

Ren Zhengfei relied on his ability to seize opportunities, the spirit of hard work, as well as his foresight and superhuman courage to make the company take shape and develop rapidly.Ren Zhengfei's personal character, life experience, business philosophy and work style have profoundly affected the cultural atmosphere of Huawei's enterprise, forming the most original cultural gene of the enterprise. Some people say that Ren Zhengfei is a "military CEO" trained by the military camp. This title is actually very pertinent. After more than 10 years of training in the military camp, Ren Zhengfei always reflects the military style. In Huawei's handling and management It shows the character of a soldier who is vigorous and resolute and indomitable.Ren Zhengfei said: "If an army has no soul, the army may fall apart in an instant; while an army with a soul, even if it encounters temporary difficulties, may stand up again and once again show its power on the battlefield. For the enterprise The same goes for team building.”

In September 2006, Huawei's first three-level cadre reserve team training course was completed.Ren Zhengfei wrote on the certificate of completion: "Only those with the spirit of sacrifice can grow into generals; only those who insist on self-criticism for a long time will have a broad mind. Hard work will always be the connotation of Huawei's corporate culture." At the same time, Ren Zhengfei began to actively explore the transformation of Huawei's culture.The mentality of the coyote who is desperate and indomitable gradually changes into a mentality of a lion, gradually becoming open and confident.

In the "coyote" era, growth was Huawei's top priority, and the company's performance appraisal system put a lot of pressure on employees.As a "lion", the formulation of goals needs to be closer to reality, and requires business planning and scientific coordination.Therefore, the ideal state is that an enterprise should not only have the overall competitiveness of a lion, but also maintain the vitality of a coyote. A high-tech enterprise cannot be without culture, and only culture can support its sustainable development. Huawei's culture is a culture of struggle, which embodies the pursuit of excellence, continuous hard work, tacit teamwork, precise professional behavior, applause and honor The ordinary heart in front of you.

Huawei's corporate culture embodies the "Huawei Spirit".Corporate culture is Huawei's core competitiveness.Huawei's unique corporate culture can be summed up in a few words: unity, dedication, learning, innovation, benefit and fairness.Another characteristic of Huawei's corporate culture is to be practical.Corporate culture in Huawei is not just a slogan, but also a practical action. In this initial period, Huawei still had a "wolf culture", "result-oriented", "the bird that can't be burned is the phoenix", "the bench will sit on the bench for ten years", "don't let Lei Feng suffer", "success If we raise our glasses to celebrate, if we lose, we will try our best to save each other", "Serving customers is the only reason for our existence" and other well-known slogans.

These quotations and slogans of Ren Zhengfei have become the most effective way for Huawei, a group of coyotes, to expand their living space in a difficult environment.This "wolf-like" corporate culture has enabled Huawei to go through a legendary entrepreneurial period.But Ren Zhengfei doesn't like to put such a bright label on Huawei, at least he doesn't want to simply attribute Huawei's culture to "wolf culture".At that time, Ren Zhengfei, who was in the period from starting a business to developing and growing, had already bowed his head in hardship for several years. He wanted to make a phased summary of Huawei's past small wins and future development direction, but he was always in "chaos". In the middle, until the brewing and promulgation of the "Huawei Basic Law".

Why does Huawei continue to grow when multinational companies have the upper hand? Because Huawei has found the law of survival that has fought against powerful opponents like coyotes. In the prey competition law of "the weak eat the strong", no matter whether it is a lion or a leopard, they are very afraid of the desperate wolves and dare not take it lightly.Huawei is playing the role of a desperate wolf pack in the market competition, using various competitive methods to scare off the foreign lions and leopards.In just a few years, the number of wolves in this wolf pack has multiplied from a few hundred to tens of thousands, realizing the growth of the wolf pack, and actively foraging around the world, taking food from tigers.

Sales is Huawei's core business, and Huawei fully embodies its "wolf nature" in the sales process.The characteristic of wolves is that they are good at fighting in groups and attacking outwards with their overall strength.It has a frantic pursuit of victory and a relentless tolerance for failure.In the competition, Huawei's "weapon" is not necessarily the best, but it must be the most effective, so its competitiveness is rooted in its wolf nature. Huawei's technical R&D personnel also showed a wolfish nature of indomitable, scrambling, and hard work.They are diligent and hardworking in their work, not afraid of "sit on the bench for ten years", insist on "starting from the little things", and do not seek broad research problems, but require deep ones.Therefore, Huawei's technology is always leading the world, and this is a sharp weapon for technology products to seize the market.

Wolves also have a strong sense of crisis. The crisis theory in two articles written by Ren Zhengfei—"Huawei's Winter" and "Northern Spring" caused great shock in the industry. Thomas Peters and Robert Wortman Jr. studied the success factors of 43 outstanding companies in the United States, and found that there are always their own management styles behind the success, and it is their respective corporate cultures that determine these management styles.Corporate culture does not directly reflect competitiveness in the competition, it is expressed through other factors and acts on the operation and management of the enterprise.Recognizing its essential function, it is not difficult to understand why corporate culture can be used as the core competitiveness of an enterprise and can support the success of an excellent enterprise.With its corporate culture as its core competence, Huawei has created its own way of operating and achieved great success in the industry. Therefore, its corporate culture has received high attention from the society.

Ren Zhengfei led Huawei, a group of coyotes, and built Huawei from a little-known small company to a Fortune 500 company in just 22 years.Such success is thought-provoking. It is precisely because of such a "wolf culture" that Huawei has achieved success again and again.The "wolf culture" emphasized by Ren Zhengfei has also been deeply imprinted in the hearts of all Huawei employees and has become Huawei's symbolic culture.Due to Huawei's success, "wolf nature" has quickly become a culture and concept that Chinese companies and even Chinese society embrace and imitate.Although Ren Zhengfei has seldom mentioned "wolf nature" since 2005, and Huawei has also suffered from the sequelae of "wolf culture", the impact of "wolf culture" is far beyond comparison with ordinary cultural phenomena.