Chapter 6 Chapter 3 Centralized Management·Qin

After the Warring States Period, new organizations emerged.The Qin eradicated the six countries to unify the world, and a new "company" system emerged. There are no longer branch companies, but special commissioners are used to execute headquarters orders.Qin Shihuang also called himself the Mandate of Heaven, but there was no prime minister in Qin Shihuang's Mandate of Heaven, and he was dictatorial over everything; his prime ministers, like Li Si, only acted as secretary-general for him, adhering to his will and giving orders.So this is a very strange organization, only the chairman, but no general manager.According to Qin Shihuang's idea, the destiny was given to him and his descendants, so this structure was quickly broken.

There is an episode in history about Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Shihuang.Li Si and Han Fei were good friends, and Han Fei was an outstanding figure in the legal family. Li Si was afraid that Han Fei's talent would be appreciated by the first emperor and would squeeze him out of his seat, so he framed and imprisoned Han Fei, but presented Han Fei's book to the first emperor.This is the worst behavior for a business operator. When the opinions are sent up, the talents are beaten down, thinking that they can monopolize the high position; in the end, Li Si also died in the execution ground.

But Li Si still did something meaningful.Qin Shihuang unified China and destroyed other countries at the same time.At that time, all countries had quite experienced and capable personnel.It is like a big company merging more than ten hostile and competing companies. The big company holds all the markets and all the equity in its own hands, but it does not accept the talents that the merged company has cultivated and trained.At that time, Li Si gave Qin Shihuang a memorial "Book of Remonstrance and Chasing Guests".He said that the state of Qin expelled the guests who came to visit Qin from abroad, and the sages invited from other countries. The utensils and the music they listen to are all collected from places other than Qin. Why are the most useful talents rejected thousands of miles away?Because of Li Si's memorial, Qin State no longer gave up the talents of other countries at that time.A large part of the reason why the six countries were defeated by Qin was that Qin was able to make good use of the talents of other countries, while other countries could not use each other's talents.

Therefore, a big and courageous company should be able to recruit talented people, and it cannot just draw a boundary line mechanically. In particular, it should not use "loyalty" as the only criterion for selecting talents.Because people who like to obey often only find obedient and flattering mediocrity, and let go of capable and backbone people.Such a country or company will not get the most useful people to help it carry out the most effective things.It is useless to have an organization and laws but no one to enforce them.The first-class people execute in the way of the first-class people; the second-class people execute in the way of the second-class people; the third-class people execute in the way of the third-class people.Entrusting three people to perform the same thing may result in profits ranging from surplus to no profit to loss.Li Si did many things that should not be done in his life, but his "Book of Remonstrance and Chasing Guests" really helped Qin State a lot.

Qin abolished feudalism, and there was no need to enfeoff princes. In other words, shareholders should not eat capital.The emperor's sons and relatives of the emperor should not divide up the emperor's land and people.To use an analogy, shareholders can receive dividends, but shareholders should not divide the branch or the overall operation.The establishment of prefectures and counties in the Qin Dynasty meant that instead of setting up branches, offices and agents were set up to be directly responsible to the central government. The achievements of local officials were all reported directly to the central government.The transition from feudalism to the system of prefectures and counties is the result of the wisdom of many people since the pre-Qin period in China, after several generations of hard work and thinking.In the era of Qin Shihuang, Li Si did the final finishing work.

The restructuring of the Qin Dynasty was of great significance to the structure of the Chinese dynasty and had a long-lasting impact.Since then, China no longer has a system of enfeoffment.Localities directly under the central government must also have levels. China has a vast territory and must have two levels of counties and counties, which is today's two levels of provinces and counties.At the time of Qin Shihuang, there were more than forty counties and thousands of counties in the whole country.At the same time, there is a supervisory agency, and the central government dispatches a censor to supervise and assess the work.Under the authoritarian rule of Qin Shihuang, everyone was his aide, and no one was the real CEO.The state power of the Qin Dynasty was strong, but the life of the Qin Dynasty was very short, because all decisions had to be made by Qin Shihuang alone.After he died, the person next to him, Zhao Gao, an eunuch, pretended to be his will, and issued the most important order, ordering the prince to commit suicide and changing Qin Shihuang's youngest son to be emperor. Acted by Zhao Gao.In other words, the power of the chairman was usurped by his close ministers.Under that structure, there is no CEO to balance the monarchy, and there is no unit to check and balance the monarchy. The center of power can act arbitrarily, and those who hide behind the throne can control the entire country.Power was concentrated, and those in power lacked legal status, and it was difficult to effectively control the entire national system. The country could not operate well, and the world was in chaos, and the Qin Dynasty collapsed.

From the situation of the Qin Dynasty, we can learn a lesson: no matter how good the structure is, if the person who operates the streamlined organization only takes the will of one person as his will, and lacks checks and balances, the efficiency of the organization will be greatly reduced.It is as if we have spent a large sum of money to purchase a set of computers, but the people who operate them cannot understand the use of software and hardware, and the smartest computers cannot function.In the history of the world, this kind of thing emerges endlessly and happens constantly.Many large companies also have one-person classes.The Chinese have a large Wang An company in the United States, which is run by Wang An alone.Wang An left and the company was over.Wang An's company is someone else's company now, and there is only the word "Wang An" left, and nothing else.There are also ready-made examples of this situation in the business circles in Taiwan.