Chapter 20 Who should Chinese companies learn from?

We should face a basic reality, which is the gap between China's excellent enterprises and world-class enterprises, not only at the strategic level, but also overall! I don't know if Chinese entrepreneurs are clearly aware that the real challenge to the WTO lies in "internationalized rules and world-class operations"—this kind of challenge is fatal. When I was studying at the Business School of Columbia University in the United States, I participated in the competitiveness research of hundreds of multinational companies in 12 countries around the world.During the research period, the standard of American National Enterprise Quality Award was used for reference, and an evaluation system for enterprise development level was established from six aspects:1.Strategic planning; 2.Performance management; 3.Corporate culture; 4.5. Company management control;Marketing; 6.Leadership and Teams.On this basis, I have done some research in light of the specific conditions of Chinese companies.

Chinese enterprises focus on "authoritative strategy", while world-class companies focus on system and culture. At present, Chinese entrepreneurs are divided into two camps: one is the camp of market politicians centered on "authoritative strategy", and the other is the camp of strategic managers centered on "system and culture". What is a strategic manager?Seizing opportunities is strategy, but persistence is management. The two are an organic unity and cannot be separated.So far, almost all outstanding entrepreneurs in China have been produced under the "dual-track system" of planning and market.In the "market" environment, they understand the competitive strategy that the bosses of the state-owned gold industry do not understand, but after the aftertaste of the "plan", they need to understand "politics".Therefore, I call the current group of entrepreneurs who are calling the shots on the stage "market politicians."

Entering the WTO will mark the end of Chinese entrepreneurs relying on power to manage enterprises, and it will also be the beginning of relying on systems and discovering intelligence to manage enterprises. Chinese companies manage their employees now, and world-class companies manage their future. Performance management can be summed up in two sentences: first, how do you use employees' abilities to achieve corporate goals; second, how do you evaluate employees' contributions to the company, and then what do you use to give back to employees?These are two aspects that are both contradictory and unified.

The practice of world-class enterprises is to obtain the future of the company by investing in the future of employees.To this end, world-class companies have conducted a lot of training for their employees, encouraged team spirit, and promoted corporate culture. These measures are all aimed at strengthening employees' confidence in themselves and the future of the company, and bringing out their abilities through expectation management. The problem existing in many enterprises in China is that they only pay attention to short-term results, pay attention to the short-term performance of people, and do not pay much attention to the development of capabilities.When you get short-term judgments from entrepreneurs, you choose short-term behavior, and your short-term behavior prompts entrepreneurs to judge you in a more short-sighted way.This makes entrepreneurs and employees more and more short-sighted, and finally fall into a vicious circle.When things are going well, the two sides live in peace, but when things are not going well, the conflict between the two sides will intensify, and even evolve into a conflict between the "tyrant" and the "mob".

Chinese enterprises unite employees with performance, and world-class companies unite employees with culture. The essence of corporate culture is: What does the company use to unite people?There are three elements that an enterprise uses to unite people's hearts: vision, core values ​​and strategic goals. The vision of many Chinese companies often becomes the grand ambition of the entrepreneur. The great vision is just a tool and accessory to realize the entrepreneur's personal ambition, rather than the common pursuit of all employees. In quite a few Chinese companies, core values ​​are just means.Some entrepreneurs often talk about touching words such as "people-oriented" and "consumer is God", but once the interests are at hand, all benevolence, justice and morality will stand aside.Why do we generally feel that there is a crisis of integrity in the business world?In essence, it is a win-win relationship between the gold industry, employees and consumers that utilizes relationships rather than symbiosis.And "utilization" will only bring a general feeling of being cheated and frustrated, which in turn will lead to a moral crisis in the entire business community.

When it comes to the selection and formulation of strategic goals of enterprises, many Chinese entrepreneurs cannot get rid of the "get rich mentality". This is manifested as: Countless people rapidly expand their scale by spending money on technology and equipment, while those who are willing to spend time and energy to study the laws of the industry and analyze the value chain of an industry are rare. Chinese enterprises use talented people to manage and control their companies, while world-class companies use process management to control their companies. Most of the control of Chinese enterprises on the company is completed by people, rather than through the system and process system.Such a result will inevitably produce a princely economy.This kind of management and control method can achieve quantitative expansion in the short term, but cannot achieve qualitative improvement.

First of all, speaking of the princely economy as a whole, once the enterprise grows bigger, there will be resource sharing problems, which will cause overall diseconomy.Secondly, the risk is extremely high, and the management depends entirely on people. The boss must spend more effort to appease these people, otherwise these people may stand on another hill.Thirdly, it cannot cultivate employees' sense of professionalism, because only by following the procedures and procedures can they have a sense of professionalism. The management and control of a world-class enterprise is carried out through the process.For example, in human resources, from recruitment to training to promotion, everyone will have very clear expectations, and they all know very well that what they do will be rewarded and what they will be punished. This is what cultivates professionalism.

Chinese companies take advantage of the childishness of consumers, and world-class companies promote the maturity of consumers. Zhang Ruimin once said, "Treat yourselves like walking on thin ice".The implication of this sentence is that the reason why we can obtain wealth is because we can provide value to consumers.If we want to truly grasp consumers, we must keep awe-inspiring and constantly understand and ponder them like we are pursuing the truth. But our gold industry experts have no sense of reverence for consumers in their bones. They think that they can use tricks to get consumers, so they will use exaggerated advertisements and painstaking "promises" to please consumers. Gain sales growth.

On the contrary, all world-class companies are committed to cultivating a mature market, committed to growing together with consumers, and even helping consumers to become more rational and mature.All world-class companies operate intensively on two value chains: one is the consumer value chain and the other is the business value chain.What the consumer value chain talks about is that consumer value is not a point, but a continuous chain. Brands, advertisements, and services are all ways to satisfy consumer value.The business value chain is about the efficiency of the operation process. When a company is competing, it does not use a certain point, but uses the entire process to form a system to provide value to consumers.

Chinese companies emphasize being a smart person, while world-class companies emphasize doing things seriously. Many Chinese entrepreneurs have a deep imperial complex in their bones and a strong desire to dominate. They like to study "the art of controlling people" and "be good at being a teacher". "Leadership" in their hearts means "controlling". Of course, it is not fair for us to blame all the reasons on entrepreneurs.From the perspective of cultural tradition, the biggest problem of Chinese enterprises is that people have not learned to be "led".In the enterprise, the only person who is not led is the chairman. Others must not only lead others, but also be led.At this time, you will find that we often use the "leadership" method to "be led": I obey you now, not because I admit that my level is worse than yours, but because your power is greater than mine, so I will do what you like .When I have power, I will "lead" you again.

The consequences of blindly accommodating power will lead to the indulgence of human nature to power, and as a result, enterprises have evolved into political organizations. What world-class companies emphasize is principle-centered leadership, which is cooperation based on equal rights and obligations.What they have built is a strong leadership team that is not dependent on any one individual, and top management spends time regularly engaging with employees, customers, and other key players.They emphasize building a systemic capability from planning to performance.In this system, it is the team rather than the individual that becomes the core support of the core competence of the enterprise.