This article is from WeChat official account:Huaxia Cornerstone e Insight (ID: chnstonewx) , author: Xia Jing Ming (China Stone Gemini management consulting firm co-founder and co-CEO), head Figure from: “an extraordinary honor” still
When our new business achieves a 0-1 breakthrough, it will develop rapidly and enter the second entrepreneurial stage. After the first success of the company, it will begin to consider how to achieve sustained success. I have written a book “Roadmap to Success in the Second Entrepreneurship and Transformation of Enterprises”, and Miao Zhaoguang and Teacher Wei Shi have collaborated in a book “Navigation of Enterprise Growth”, and both have detailed discussions on this issue.
1. What is the core competitiveness of an enterprise
1. Success is not by design
To talk about the 0-1 breakthrough of the enterprise’s second entrepreneurship, we must first understand the general law of enterprise development. Please look at the picture below.
The general law of enterprise development is that success is not by design. The success of an enterprise is often accidentally successful. First, I discovered an opportunity for growth, then had a more appropriate product or service, and a more correct competitive strategy, and then seized the opportunity to achieve revenue and profitability. But the company may not think so much at the beginning, just thinking about doing things, making money, supporting a family, and so on. Later, with the success of the entrepreneurship and the further expansion of the business, I suddenly realized that this matter could become a career, and I began to have a greater career ideal, and thus a new career pursuit.
So where is the new career pursuit reflected? It must be reflected inHow can it be called a career to build industrial competitiveness? The so-called business is sustainable development, to achieve ambitions, these are concentrated in the creation of industrial competitiveness or core competitiveness.
2. Core competitiveness reflects profitability and market position
The result of core competitiveness is profitability and market position. So what will the core competitiveness be? The core is embodied in three elements: first, brand; second, technology; third, a complex system of knowledge accumulation. Of course, there are other exclusive resources, such as certain licenses: the financial industry has financial licenses, mines have prospecting licenses, mining licenses… This kind of resource can also be called competitiveness, but it is not the fundamental way. Leave this factor aside for the time being. .
First of all, the brand must have a strong consumer mental status.
Brands boil down to having a strong consumer mental status. There are brands and no brands, a good brand and a bad brand are completely two concepts. Brands do not rely on advertising, but on the accumulation of time, relying on solid work, formed by the comprehensive strength of all aspects, and the barriers to replaceability are relatively high.
The second is technology, which requires long-term accumulation to form barriers.
For example, we used to hear similar sayings that first-rate companies do standards, second-rate companies do technology, and third-rate companies do products. I ask everyone, is the phrase “first-class companies set standards” right? During my consulting career, I have met many companies and told me that Mr. Xia, the national industry standard was formulated by us and we are now a super first-class company. This understanding is wrong. If you have participated in the formulation of industry standards and become a first-class enterprise, it would be too easy. Then our country doesn’t need to do anything else. If more companies are invited to participate in the design of industry standards, the super first-class companies can be wholesale.
How do you sum up this sentence about the standardization of super-first-class companies? It is summarized from Intel, Qualcomm, and Microsoft. What are their standards? It is technology, intellectual property rights, and the underlying technology and intellectual property rights. Intel’s CPU is the core of the entire computer. Its technological innovation is good, but other parts can’t keep up, forcing it to unite with many IT industry companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, etc., to create a new bus system, including the next variety of external The interface is unified to USB, and these are all technologies behind it.
Participating in the formulation of national industry standards may indeed be a good companyIndustry, but in a global perspective, are you really a superb company? This requires a big question mark. Therefore, companies do not set standards for the sake of standardization. Participating in standard setting is a matter of course. This is the real core competitiveness.
High-tech companies don’t have to think about things. Once they develop, they must accumulate technology and eventually form barriers.
The third is the system, a complex system of knowledge accumulation.
Complicated knowledge accumulation system has relatively high barriers.
For example, for a chain enterprise, its supply chain is a large system. It is not easy to build an efficient supply chain system. This is a high barrier and also a core competitiveness. For example, Huawei usually says that talent is not core competitiveness, but talent management is core competitiveness. Its human resources system has become a knowledge accumulation complex system. For example, his IPD system and ISC system are all knowledge accumulation complex systems. It is one of Huawei’s core competitiveness elements.
Why do many companies learn from Haier and Huawei, but always fail to learn? It is because Haier and Huawei have come out step by step after more than ten years, and it is not just a project. The enterprise is guided by efficiency and effect, continuously constructs, optimizes, and accumulates, and finally forms various operating systems of the enterprise.
3. Organizational ability is the core competitiveness
Everyone think about one more thing, how did these core competencies form?
For example, for technology, if you don’t have a good R&D team, you have not formed a good R&D echelon, you have not formed a good R&D management system, and you have not formed a good R&D incentive mechanism, you have not formed a good R&D team. Can the core competitiveness of technology be formed through the goal management mechanism of the development strategy and strategy decoding? In terms of branding, if there are no good talents and talent echelon in marketing, R&D, and production, there is no good mechanism, no good management system, to support each link to do a good job, keep improving, and be able to form a strong Is it a competitive brand? Another example is the knowledge accumulation complex system. If there is no good echelon of talents and good mechanism, how can we encourage everyone to accumulate, optimize, and advance continuously to form a powerful management and operation system? Obviously, what is behind the formation of core competitiveness? It is organizational ability! This is why it is said that organizational capability is the only way for an enterprise to achieve excellence and sustainable development. Therefore, we must build core competitiveness, form industrial competitiveness, and realize career ideals and sustainable development. Behind it is organizational ability!
Two, constitute the most The core strength is “talent echelon”
What exactly is organizational capacity? I have summarized a model (see picture below):
The composition of organizational capability consists of four parts: one is the talent team; the second is the management mechanism; the third is the organizational system; the fourth is the corporate culture.
There are many people who talk about organizational skills. You can’t say that others are wrong, your own is right, everyone has everyone’s perspective, so what is my perspective? I’m talking from the perspective of “building” organizational capabilities-which components are included in organizational capabilities. If this is clear, we will know how to build.
Then why are these four components?
I use a piece of vernacular to explain the logic of these four parts. No matter what the organizational ability is, there must be people first, and people are the most critical; after people come, how to make them motivated? This is the management mechanism; after motivated, do you work on an efficient platform or on a Inefficient platform work, this is the organizational system; whether it is the people, the management mechanism, or the organizational system, what are the orientations, concepts and principles behind it, this is the corporate culture. The four parts of organizational ability I talked about is such a logic, a closed loop.
Next, I will clarify these parts again.
1. The core ability is “talent echelon”
First of all, everything depends on people. For example, the system is formulated by people, and the executors of the system are also people. We have often heard that for a hundred yearsEnterprises rely on the system, and after listening to them, they will go back to work on the system. What they do is “higher” than people. There are few useful ones, and they even kidnapped the company. It’s not that the system is not important, but some words tend to lead people. Rockefeller once said a famous saying, “You take everything from me, as long as you keep the team, I will return you a company like this in half a year.” It can be seen that “people” are the core element of organizational capabilities. It seems that no outstanding entrepreneurs say, “Take everything away, as long as you keep the system and procedures for me, and I will return your business in half a year.” No one said that.
But when we only talk about “talents”, talents have not yet been organized. Only “talents have formed an echelon” is the organization of talents realized. Why do you say this?
For example, we often rely on capable people, and problems with capable people will have a great destructive effect on the organization. This is also a “talent”, but we often have such problems, that is, we have not achieved organization. And the impact is too great. But after we formed a talent echelon, this problem was solved. Someone had a problem, and there were seven or eight guns to replace. This is what I often say, without the talent echelon mechanism, it will fail. If you want to change a person, it is not easy to change. With the talent echelon, the organization can achieve self-renewal.
That’s why the first component of organizational capability is “talent echelon” instead of “talent”. The talent echelon is the key to forming a self-reliant metabolism without relying on people. If it is just talents, talents have not been transformed into organizational capabilities; if it is a talent echelon, then the element of “talents” has formed organizational capabilities.
2. “Win a battle, fight a big battle” depends on management mechanism
The core of the management mechanism is the decision-making mechanism, target management mechanism, decentralization mechanism, and distribution mechanism. After having people, how to stimulate motivation, continue to struggle, and win battles is mainly driven by the management mechanism.
3. Create a “capability camp” through the organizational system
The organizational system is not the organizational structure we usually talk about, but a routine and a system must be formed in each part of the organizational structure. In this way, the so-called “iron-fought battalion and running soldiers” is formed, and a The ability of the organization to camp. It includes structure, process, operation specification, methodology, knowledge accumulation and so on. For example, the IPD system we often hear, the “routine” of the research and development system has been formed, as well as the ISC system, cadre management system, financial management system, capital management system, and so on. Wen’sConstruction.
Of course, those companies that are struggling with how to grow, first face strategic issues. Although there are also organizational capabilities, organizational capabilities are best built during the business development period and when the career prospects are clear. At this time, build organizational capabilities to better support strategic development.
The core proposition of the second entrepreneurship period is the gap between strategic development and organizational capabilities, but at this stage, organizational capabilities are built (management building), It is a very tangled and chaotic process. Why is this happening? Because the success of most companies is not well designed, management is often driven by development, and there is a lag period.
In addition, can’t advance management and construction. Small businesses can’t do too complicated management. Just like a small boat, if you want to build a big ship system, it will not work. But after the development, you It’s still a boat system, so it won’t work. However, the transformation from a small boat system to a large ship system is actually the construction of the entire system, and the transition from a small boat system to a large ship system is also required during high-speed operation. At this time, there are systemic defects and systemic chaos. Companies often feel confused, tangled, and to no avail.
For example, many companies come to us for management consulting to learn from Huawei. I often make two points.
The first point is that you don’t need to learn Huawei. Everyone is very strange, and I will ask, is there any difference between when you started your business and Huawei’s “customer-centric, struggling-oriented, continuous hard work”? Everyone thinks, yes, we did this when we started our business, we did a good job, and we did this when we started our business, which is no different from Huawei. I said, yes, it is to return to entrepreneurial spirit and rekindle entrepreneurial passion.
The second point is that we have to learn from Huawei again. Why do you say that? Let’s look at a phenomenon, why after Huawei has grown bigger, it can still achieve “customer-centric, struggling-oriented, and continuous hard work”, although Huawei will also have problems. However, after many of our companies have grown larger, they have lost or greatly weakened the excellent “customer-centric, struggling-oriented, and continuous hard work” when they started their business. The advantages of the business.
Why is this? From these two points, I extend to talk about three key issues that usually arise when companies build their organizational capabilities during the second entrepreneurial period.
1. Orientation question
OrganizationThe first universal problem of force building is the phenomenon of “professional correctness and wrong orientation”.
What is the orientation of organizational capacity building? “Service growth, inspire struggle, emergence of generals, guard the bottom line”, these are the four major orientations of our organizational capacity building (management building). But we often see that many management measures and management actions seem to have beautiful changes and beautiful words, but they seem to forget that we are doing management to achieve these goals. In other words, they look professional, but actually have no effect.
On the one hand, enterprises need to strengthen management and management construction. On the other hand, we must return to common sense and orientation to judge whether these “professionals” are used correctly. I often cite an example. During the Jinggangshan period, our party established the Red Army University. The Red Army University was similar to the training work of enterprises. Then, how was the training done in that period? The three main contents are training on how to shoot guns, training on how to raise money, and training on how to do publicity and agitation. Obviously, this kind of training is oriented towards “serving for victory”.
2. Essential question
The second problem that often arises in organizational capacity building is the failure to truly understand the essence of management methods. If the essence is not thoroughly understood, “professional correctness and essential error” will occur.
For example, performance management often has two dislocations. The first misalignment is the misalignment between employee performance and company performance. The employee appraisal is more than 90 points, but the company’s performance is declining, even revenue is declining, or despite rapid development, many key problems that it wants to solve have not been resolved. Why is there a misalignment between employee performance and company performance? Is the method we chose wrong? KPI was changed to a balanced scorecard, and the balanced scorecard was changed to an OKR. In fact, I think these tools are essentially the same. The strategic map of the balanced scorecard is a company-level OKR.
So, what is the essential reason behind this problem? It’s “The assessment is not what you want”. If the assessment is what you want, for example, I want revenue growth, and the performance of employees is very good, indicating that revenue growth has been achieved; I want to improve competitiveness, and employee assessment is excellent, then it shows that our competitiveness has been improved I want to solve some key problems. The key problems are evaluated. The outstanding performance of employees means that these key problems have been solved.
How to do the assessment is what you wantWhat about? The fundamental is to do a good job of goal management-what battle do I want to fight? What are the key areas to win the war, and what are the problems in these key areas? How to solve these key problems? What should we do, to what extent, who will do it, etc.? Only when we understand this, we will have a correct basis for what we want to assess.
Many companies leave performance management to the human resources department, and let the human resources department do it, but what is really important is that from top to bottom, starting from the commander-in-chief, all levels of commanders and fighters must do a good job in target management— —Think clearly about what battle to fight and how to win? What to do to win, to what extent, who will do it, and then process supervision, support, problem solving, etc. This itself is the performance management process.
But here comes the problem again. I also understand the truth. I also know the goal management. That’s how we do it. Why doesn’t it work? What is the essence behind this? We must do a good job in goal management, and the core is to have generals who have the ability to win battles. We don’t even know what battles to fight and how to win them. How can we do well in goal management? Without the business ability to win battles, you don’t even know how to start. Although the form is correct, you don’t know what questions to ask, you may not be able to judge the information other people say, and you don’t know how to make decisions when making decisions.
Let’s take a closer look at a phenomenon that has occurred in many small and medium-sized enterprises to understand that the ability to win a battle is the key to good goal management. We usually hear people say that after the boss gets the MBA, he will kill the company when he goes back. This sentence is a bit serious, but it is common for the boss to carry out “correct blind management” according to the theory. For example, we often hear that a company must delegate power to a certain degree. If it does not delegate power, it cannot stimulate employees’ motivation, and its subordinates cannot grow. The chairman should play more golf and so on. Is this kind of remarks right? We have seen that some companies are really good after decentralization, but some companies are a mess after decentralization. What is the essence behind this?
If a company lacks a general who can win a battle, the boss is one of the few generals who can win a battle. In this case, according to what others have said, he has to delegate power and go to play golf. In the end, what battle will everyone fight? , I don’t understand how to win the battle, how to break down the task, how to take the responsibility, and it will only be a mess in the end. Therefore, we must understand “generals who have the ability to win battles” in order to do right management by objectives.
In the absence of such generals, the top leaders must go deep to help everyone figure out what battles to fight and how to win them. This is not about not delegating power. The problem is not about delegating power. It is that the leader must be patient when organizing everyone to win the war. Do not give answers directly. Do not do many things that subordinates do by themselves, but do Constantly “question”-let the bigThink at home and let everyone participate in responsibility. Only in this way can goal management be done correctly and can win the battle. At the same time, it is also training the team.
So, in reality, the management problems we think are often simply attributed to not finding the right management tools or management models. In fact, it is not a real problem. To understand the real problems, on the one hand, we must deeply understand the actual situation, on the other hand, we must understand the essence behind these management methodologies. For example, the example cited above “a key to performance appraisal is to assess what you want-to do a good job in target management-to do a good job in target management, the key is to have the business ability to win battles”, understand these essentials Only by law can we not be kidnapped by theories, models, and moves, can we truly solve problems, and build organizational capacity correctly.
3. Oriented system consistency issues
The first problem is orientation. It is relatively easy to conform to the orientation in terms of a certain thing and a certain point, but it is very difficult for the entire management system to be able to conform to the orientation we advocate. One of the biggest problems we face when building organizational capabilities is the consistency of the oriented system.
For example, is it easy to inspire struggle? I’ll talk about an example later. You will find it too easy when you hear it, but why are few companies able to do it? It seems difficult again. It sounds easy to achieve a direction from one point, but why is it difficult? It is because the management system is complex, and it is difficult for each system to coordinate in order to achieve the guidance.
In 2002, I had a meal with a little brother from Huawei. This little brother is from Anhui, very smart and hardworking. He said, I have no future in Huawei. I was surprised at the time that such a smart and hardworking person has no future in an organization. It must be that this organization has no future, not that people have no future. But Huawei has a future, so I think it is an impetuous problem. I patted his shoulder like a big brother and said, “My brother, you have to be practical, as you are smart and hardworking, you must have a future, you want to The future must be that Huawei has no future. But this brother seriously said that I have no future in Huawei. I was surprised and asked him why? He just said one sentence-Huawei sent me to Africa this year and I didn’t. In Huawei, you will not go and respect your choice, but the chances of promotion and equity will not matter to you.
From this case, is it easy to inspire struggle? Very simple, just encourage struggle. All the incentive mechanisms are as simple as that. But how many companies can do it? So it is not simple. Because I’m talking about one point, I’m talking about this, but the coordination of various systems is troublesome.It’s a little thing. There are many examples of this. For example, the deputy cannot be promoted after the top leader is killed, the subordinates are not satisfied with the team, they want to be transferred, and will be demoted, etc. This is to encourage everyone to unite and win the battle. In all aspects of management and construction, we must always follow and implement the correct orientation. This is not easy. Because the company is complicated: R&D system, supply chain system, human resource system, etc., each has its own management method, everyone has a head, everyone has a thought, how can everyone be able to follow the correct orientation? This is a difficult problem.
Oriented system consistency is the biggest problem in organizational capacity building. So I have to talk more about how to solve this problem.
Go back to the question I mentioned earlier-many people will ask why companies can be the same as Huawei when they are young, and have the same orientation. For example, when starting a business, they are customer-centric and work hard. Struggle, and can’t do it when the company is big? Where is this problem?
Because when the company was young, the orientation all came down to the boss, the boss is the biggest marketing manager, the biggest product manager, the biggest supply chain leader, and the biggest human resources leader, so orientation comes naturally when the company is young The ones are unified. However, after the organization has grown, various systems have become complicated. Marketing systems, R&D systems, supply chain systems, etc., are all in charge of each. It is difficult for everyone to agree on their ideas and languages. It is not possible to boil down to the boss, and there are many The boss can’t understand things clearly, can’t figure it out, or hasn’t figured it out. This is the reason for the oriented system consistency problem.
This article is from WeChat official account:Huaxia Cornerstone e Insight (ID: chnstonewx), author: Xia Jing Ming (China Stone Gemini management consulting firm co-founder and co-CEO)