Chapter 27 Specimen Value of Entrepreneur Articles

Since the spring of this year, I have been busy editing this anthology of articles on Chinese entrepreneurs over the past two decades, "President's Discussion". "The problems of an era will be solved by iron and blood, not by speeches or motions." This is the famous saying of Bismarck, the "iron and blood prime minister".It is generally believed that he is a stubborn and supreme force, but they do not know that he is also familiar with the way of turning clouds and rain with moving words.We do not doubt the motives of business managers when writing these articles, but after reading thousands of texts that are more like their indoctrination and dissemination of their own ideas to the insiders of the company, there will be some aesthetic fatigue.Fortunately, I can still find nearly a hundred articles that have life and personality, and revolve around humanities and feelings. Although there is still some distance from the number and quality that my friends and I expected, it is finally possible. Let's finish this idea that seems a bit too ideal.

"For life, twenty years is the time of one generation. For business researchers, twenty years is an indicator year." This is the editor of this book who is "fanatic" and addicted to the study of Chinese enterprises One Wu Xiaobo often emphasizes. Over the past two decades, with the gradual transformation of Chinese society into a real commercial society, the role and influence of enterprises in social life have become more and more significant.Creating a large number of local companies with strong comprehensive strength and core competitiveness, similar to IBM and GE, will become an important vision of Chinese society in the 21st century.

But the reality is often unsatisfactory.Although the Chinese economy is often referred to as a growth miracle, the overall status of Chinese companies is still not optimistic.The lives of Chinese enterprises, especially the majority of private enterprises, are very short.According to some studies, the average lifespan of private enterprises in China is only 3 to 5 years, and a large number of private enterprises go into decline after a short period of glory, and even more do not even survive the start-up period, and die halfway.Such a short lifespan is directly related to the backward management of Chinese enterprises, and is inseparable from the flaws in values ​​and methodology of the leaders of enterprises.

In the past few years, with the rapid increase in economics and management books, many entrepreneurs have been able to talk about "far-sighted strategic goals", "long-term mission of giving back to society" and "core values ​​of cohesive employees".But in actual practice, there are not many managers who can embody all these ideas. As successful explorers in China's economic reform and market transformation phase, Chinese entrepreneurs have dual attributes of angels and devils.On the one hand, they are obviously the bravest and shrewdest of that generation, and they have met the best opportunities. They have grasped the tide of social change, increased productivity, and created a lot of social wealth; on the other hand, they Among them, quite a number of people have expansion instincts that they may not be able to fully control themselves. They often rely on their familiarity with the rules of the business game, take advantage of loopholes in social rules, and use technical means in the gray area to expand their wealth as much as possible.

In fact, business is competition, which can dig out the best things in us, but sometimes it can also make the ugliness of human beings inflated in an instant.Every great entrepreneur has broken certain rules in some way. Sometimes the breaking of the rules has accelerated the progress of the world, and more often, it has also caused new social injustices. "Someone asked me: What's the secret to your success? My answer is: I know I don't have the secret, I know I don't know something. One of my basic understandings is: Almost nothing in this world is perfect, and all The concept of everything has its inherent flaws, and I try to find these gaps or weaknesses.” This passage is George Soros’s self-report, and it is also applicable to describe current entrepreneurs.

The third part of "Star Wars Prequel", "Revenge of the Sith", is the darkest and heaviest of the six films in the Star Wars series.Because in this one, the balance of the galaxy empire is finally broken, and the dark forces have the upper hand.Anakin Skywalker, after many Star Wars fans waited for more than 20 years, lived up to expectations and turned to darkness. Western movies like to use such elements. The dark forces are everywhere to lure a person's heart. For example, Anakin was cultivated and raised by the light forces, but he only needs a little lie and a gentle push. In the middle of consciousness, he began to break away from the control of light.

At the same time, the current enterprise has grown to a dizzying level. Bill Gates alone has more wealth than the sum of 40% of the personal income of the richest American in the world. The luminaries gathered at Burt's ranch in Sun Valley, Idaho, control more corporate wealth than the gross national product of every country in the world after the top seven.Modern scholars believe that these Sun Valley party guests are not so much the masters of the business game, but rather their companies are playing the game.The economic power and far-reaching political power of these huge enterprises are combined, and they use their extraordinary achievements to engrave the value orientation of commercial society in people's collective consciousness.

Although Chinese entrepreneurs have not yet achieved such an ability to control resources, their impact on public life is obviously spreading at an imperceptible but rapid speed.Under such circumstances, their thinking and precipitation of humanities and history have become extremely valuable specimens for research. Li Ka-shing's speeches to students at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business once or twice a year have become a brand.Last year, under the theme of "The Art of Dedication", he used the context of modern people to analyze a successful person in Chinese history: "Fan Li has no diary, no memoirs; only records of his actions, so it is impossible to analyze his mentality. He has gone through hardships to assist Goujian in restoring the country, and he has seen through Goujian's inhuman and unrighteous character. He established the system, but was afraid of the system; He is ambitious, but he is tired of social debate and irrationality; he has achieved greatness, but he wants to deeply understand that the strongest and most destructive emotion in the world is jealousy. Why does Fan Li have such passive resistance (non-participation itself is a kind of resistance) )?"

Is the character of Fan Li he summed up similar to the group of people whose names appear on the Hu Ji or Fu Ji rich list that we often see today? Of course, I don't intend to exaggerate whether all entrepreneurs will do anything for their own interests.In fact, when many companies enter their 10, 15, or even 20-year anniversary, they are busy summarizing their experiences and lessons, publishing corporate monographs or CEOs, and are willing to fight for respected companies and corporate citizens. A title that no one knew five years ago or ten years ago.I believe that these seemingly blunt and clumsy efforts are more than just trying to grab a little media attention.In essence, these companies that can survive and develop well already have a sense of crisis and understand that in the foreseeable future, companies need these elements to maintain longer-term development.

This helps us understand why Liu Chuanzhi, Zhang Ruimin, Wang Shi and other names often appear in important positions in the financial media, and why some corporate practices and management ideas that they say seem to be similar are often used by managers in different fields. mentioned.Because the business community needs successful business cases and positive character samples.In a sense, these entrepreneurs are the symbols of their contemporaries’ accumulated experience and a concrete spiritual manifestation. Of course, Li Ka-shing also praised Franklin's 13 life creeds in his speech - temperance, silence, order, determination, thrift, diligence, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.

I don't know if Li Ka-shing has achieved this, but I appreciate his expectations: "The progress of today's business society depends not only on personal courage, hard work and persistence, but more importantly, the honesty and generosity needed to build a community, so as to create A fairer and more just society." Hopefully more entrepreneurs will be able to do the same.