“He is like Don Quixote, riding a broken horse, holding a broken sword, he has been fighting the bureaucracy.”
Huawei has been on the cusp of this year. From the Meng Wanzhou incident, The US Department of Commerce banned U.S. companies from providing products to Huawei, and then the recent 251 storm.
Huawei has basically carried the impact from the United States. In addition to Huawei’s strong technical reserves, capital, and supply chain capabilities, Ren Zhengfei’s strategic vision is particularly critical. Huawei provides 10% of its core R & D and self-developed core technologies, including Kirin. Various chips including series. Ran Tao, former head of global recruitment of Huawei, said in an interview that starting in 2012, Ren Zhengfei was thinking about what to do if the United States does not supply products to Huawei one day, and then began to develop the Hongmeng system.
As for the 251 issue, there are still many doubts about it, and the whole truth is still unobservable, but no matter what, this year ’s crazy support from domestic people for Huawei has dramatically reversed the collective controversy, but it has confirmed Ren ’s vision . Huawei’s mobile phone sales have soared in China this year, or have the power of populism, but now they have been swallowed up in an unexpected way. As early as when domestic people enthusiastically supported Huawei, Ren Zhengfei publicly stated in multiple interviews: Don’t use public opinion. He said, “You must not incite populist wind.” “You cannot use populism, which is harmful to the country.”
Why can Ren Zhengfei always make such judgments?
Ran Tao believes that this is related to two reasons:
First, it has something to do with his 40-year-old entrepreneurship. He was not a graduate of a prestigious school, a private company came out and took the investor’s money directly to start a business, but he was fired by a state-owned enterprise at the age of 44 and had 2 million debts, starting from scratch. The most painful thing in life, the middle-aged entrepreneurship gathered a lot of understanding of human nature, understanding of crisis, is different from entrepreneurship in his 20s, so he will look a bit farther.
Second, he dealt with political figures and celebrities in the world very much, but he never made it public. For example, he often chats with Bill Gates and the British Prime Minister, so this year he said that in fact he often goes to Downing Street. Number ten. Under these backgrounds, he knows more about the direction of the world’s political economy and how to plan for the future.
Ren Zhengfei considers himself a thought leader, and he is full of such peaceful considerations in all stages of entrepreneurship.
Ran Tao gave an interesting comment on Ren Zhengfei: “ I think, especially in the later period of Huawei, he is more like a Don Quixote-like character. He is actually using himself This soberness of a person is always fighting against this bureaucracy of the company. Like Don Quixote, he is riding a broken horse and holding a broken sword to fight against the bureaucracy. “
Huawei issued a copy early last yearThe book is called Entropy Reduction, and its core is to discuss how to keep Huawei alive for a long time. Ren Zhengfei prefaced it. Ran Tao believes: “ This is the idea of Ren Zhengfei in the past 10 years, that is, how to make everyone not so easy to succeed, not so impulsive, not so happy, and become calm, aware of the problem, and then low-key can do things. So this US crackdown, President Ren said he was very grateful to Trump. From his heart, he believes that Huawei ’s biggest crisis is not the American blow, but the Huawei team is proud and complacent.
As one of the most successful companies in China today, what can Huawei do to improve management? Ran Tao believes that Huawei’s scale has been very large. After more than 20 years of construction of the institutional system, the company’s organization is relatively solid, and many things have become step by step. It will be difficult to attract outstanding talents. “29-year-old general , The 35-year-old marshal, will not appear now. “ And this is what Ren Zhengfei is worried about. Ren Zhengfei is thinking about how to explode the pyramid of human resources and how to promote outstanding talents so that talents in their 20s can stand out.
The clear head of the founder alone is not enough to make Huawei a company with annual revenue of 700 billion yuan. It also needs strong limbs to execute. This requires sound management and talent selection.
Ran Tao said in his new book “Huawei Gray Management” that Huawei pays attention to gray in selecting and employing people, has a clear banner on things, and is tolerant to people.
According to Ran Tao, Ren Zhengfei likes Li Yunlong in “Bright Sword” very much. He encourages employees to learn from him in Huawei, in order to inspire the cadres at the grassroots level to dare to fight and dare to brighten the sword. He said: “Masters at all levels must be selected from the main combat personnel in the main battle force, and Huawei’s cadre selection must be benchmarked by Li Yunlong and Zhao Gang.” Li Yunlong’s advantages and disadvantages are very It is clear and very capable of fighting, but often makes mistakes. This is an embodiment of gray in Huawei management.
Ren Zhengfei also advocates learning from Li Hongzhang internally, learning his mind, structure and role. According to Ran Tao, “Is Li Hongzhang willing to sign the Maguan Treaty? Unwilling, but when the national calamity comes to the fore, someone will have to face it and resolve it.” However, Li Hongzhang is rather controversial and has not spread to the outside world. Ran Tao believes: “For the cadres who can assume the successor of the enterprise in the future from the middle to the grassroots level, in fact, they need to have this kind of mind, pattern, and responsibility.”
In fact, in business management, the difference between Li Yunlong and Li Hongzhang is the difference between a general and a marshal. Ran Tao gave an example. When Huawei started the area reform in 2008, Ren Zhengfei said that the areaWhat is the difference between a marshal and a general when the president is a marshal? The general marches forward to win. The marshal knows to retreat, knows tolerance, and knows to give up. If a person does not know how to give up, he cannot be a handsome. The general marches forward.
In addition to recruiting excellent talents, Huawei will also exchange money for growth time in management. According to Ran Tao, Huawei has spent 30 billion consulting fees over the past 20 years, learning advanced management methods from others around the world, and building Huawei into a process organization.
Secondly, as a huge enterprise, Huawei also has to establish a good strategic execution system to ensure accurate guidance. Huawei uses a business-leading model when learning strategic tools. In strategy formulation, start with market research to see where the market ’s entire opportunity lies. You cannot build your car behind closed doors. Secondly, look at the strategic intent. What the company wants to do is really a lot of market opportunities. We have to choose and give up, so we must choose and give up. Third, it depends on your own advantages. The market has a good opportunity. Then you have to answer a question. Where is your unique competitiveness?
In the implementation of the strategic direction, on the one hand, we must focus. Huawei does not touch things other than communications. “ You see that real estate makes more money, and financial makes more money. Huawei does not do it. Just do the communication honestly and make it to the extreme. In fact, some friends still directly buy operators abroad, but Huawei will never touch these. “
On the other hand, You need to be patient with the execution of the strategic direction. Ran Tao introduced a case in which CBG led by Yu Chengdong made his own brand in 2012, and no longer did OEM for the operator. It did not start to sell until Mate 7 in 2014. These products were not successful in the previous two years, but Huawei resisted Under tremendous pressure to keep going. “ In fact, who can stick to this strategy for two years, some bosses may give you two months connected is great, but Huawei can give such great patience, Let Yu Chengdong try and make mistakes for two or three years, and finally broke through a blood path. “
After the strategy is clear, business design must be carried out. The success factors must be designed around the strategic goals, and the key tasks related to each other must be listed. Specific to each level of the organization, it is necessary to establish The performance of employees, the decomposition of a large strategic goal to each person, the whole process will be very complicated. Ran Tao introduced that Huawei will spend a long time doing this every year. It can take 4 months in 12 months, but once it is set, it will be executed for 8 months with high efficiency. The end result is actually very good.
To motivate employees to execute efficiently,Employees have different incentives. A basic principle is to share good money and not to make big pots. Ran Tao said: “Huawei has spent more than 20 years in management to continuously adjust the distribution system. So what is the core point? It is necessary to let those who do well get 10 times as much money as those who do not, or even Bad people, I do n’t pay him. This looks contrary to human nature, because people are unwilling to face conflicts, but for success, it is to build an excellent team, in order to achieve good performance, these must be People are different from others. “
For senior cadres, the incentives for money are not very effective. They often have financial freedom and are apt to lose momentum. Ran Tao introduced in “Huawei Gray Management” that Huawei’s approach is that senior cadres must have a sense of mission and have the value of contributing to the world’s industries. Before the crisis broke out this year, Ren Zhengfei was very low-key in front of the media. He would leave these opportunities to the heads of business units and establish their sense of industry mission. For example, Huawei’s consumer business CEO Yu Chengdong, he plays the role of the entire Huawei mobile phone spokesperson.
Image from Huawei