The great, see the truth in failure.
Editor’s note: This article href=”https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DpFL8srT8KCdnDihsCMplw”> “notes Man” from the micro-channel public number , Author: Ma smooth.
The great, see the truth in failure.
Editor’s note: This article href=”https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DpFL8srT8KCdnDihsCMplw”> “notes Man” from the micro-channel public number , Author: Ma smooth.
Open dialogue can only add progress; you can discover the origin by connecting deeply. The “Deep Dialogue” column attempts to draw a new business map belonging to the era of the Industrial Internet in an in-depth interview.
Today, we use the most easy-to-understand words to recognize the “leadership” science, so that it is no longer difficult to know ourselves, cultivate ourselves, and change ourselves.
Part of the content of this article is from an interview with Liu Lan, founder and chief counselor of Zhengdao Leadership Center.
Most people have misunderstandings about leadership. They either feel that only leaders need to think about leadership, or they think that learning leadership is just for leadership. Neither is right.
Although some leaders have high weight, they do not understand the team at all; some ordinary employees, although they do not have positions, can become “key people” in the team. It can be seen that leadership is not exclusive to anyone.
In other words, not everyone can be a leader, but everyone can have leadership.
So the question is, what exactly is leadership?
This is an era of change. This is an era of transformative problems. So, of course, this is also an era in which everyone must exercise leadership.
Many founders of enterprises have asked Liu Lan, “I took a lot of leadership classes, read a lot of leadership books, but what exactly is leadership, I still don’t know.”
In eight words, Liu Lan answered their question: Leadership is to mobilize the team to solve difficult problems.
It is worth noting that mobilizing the team is not mobilizing subordinates. All the personnel you can use and mobilize are your team. To better mobilize the team, we must keep close contact with the masses.
When you are in close contact with the masses, ask others: “What do you think?”
Marriott Jr., the second CEO of Marriott International Group, said: “The four most important words in leadership are What do youthink? “Translated into Chinese is also these 4 words-” What do you think? “
What do you think of it?
When you are communicating with family, friends, and partners, or with colleagues and superiors, if you often use the four words “what do you think” to ask their opinions (not necessarily these four words) , But must reflect the attitude of asking for opinions), then the effect of communication will be better.
Liu Lan gave lectures to many MBA students at the HSBC Business School of Peking University. Most of the students are middle managers in their 30s. Their children are very young. “What do you think” is used to educate children, especially useful.
Every child has their own ideas. In the past, parents always ordered communication. Children were easy to resist, and when parents talked to their children with a questioning attitude of “what do you think”, children are more acceptable.
Actually, it ’s not just children, it ’s the case for anyone, and they do n’t easily agree with the ideas that others impose on themselves. Therefore, any person-to-person communication must maintain this open attitude.
So, the first connotation of “what do you think” is: open communication.
“What do you think?” is a question, and questioning is the most important ability in leadership. In the book “Lesson Compulsory Leadership”, Liu Lan mentioned ten aspects of leadership practice, and five of the ten exercises are asking questions.
Edga Schain, a well-known American management scholar and “father of corporate culture”, published a book in his later years called “Humble Questioning”, which illustrates the importance of questioning ability.
Edga Schain believes that there are three essences in asking questions-
First, be humble.
Do not think that your point of view is necessarily the standard answer, do not think that you have all the knowledge, and do not ask others to admit that you are right, this is modest. Only modest people know how to ask questions.
Second, stay curious.
A person who thinks he doesn’t know everything, so he can be curious about what others are saying. This is a knowledgeable attitude, an open state, and a growth mindset.
Third, build relationships.
When you ask questions to others, you are sending a signal that others can teach you something, that they can interact with you and build relationships with you.
For example, in an organization, subordinates sometimes do not want to tell all the information they know to their superiors. Only when the superiors sincerely indicate that they want to listen to their employees’ opinions, employees are more willing to tell their superiors more information. As employees and their supervisors become more aware of each other, they gradually become more trustful.
Liu Lan also said, “If you want me to choose one of the most important leadership skills, I will choose the ability to ask questions.”
—— To sum up, the two connotations of “what do you think” are aimed at keeping close contact with the masses to better mobilize the team to solve difficult problems.
Before you solve a problem, you must make a cognitive preparation, that is: the premise of solving the problem = failure + reflection.
Most people think that failure is a bad thing. But Liu Lan said, “If you don’t make a big mistake, you will be mediocre.”
The “Ten Leadership Cultivations” mentioned by Liu Lan in “Leadership Compulsory Course”, one of them is “Learn from failure.” This sentence can be understood from two dimensions.
First of all, success is often a trap that makes people addicted to doing what they do best.
In management, Maslow said a famous saying: If you only use a hammer, then you will treat all problems as nails. This means that when you do one thing well, you will refuse to challenge doing something else because you are afraid of failure. So don’t want to do anything else, just do what’s right, this will definitely cause your limitations.
It’s like a person who is very good at producing wheels for carriages, so he only produces wheels, so he ignores one thing: one day, everyone will not even need carriages, and they will never need wheels.
The environment is not static, especially in today’s VUCA era. If a person only believes in his past successful experiences, then he cannot be very successful. Such a person may be able to achieve little things, but he will still face failure in the future.
Second, realize that all successes are temporary, and what we have to do is to constantly learn from failures.
Liu Lan said, “The great people do not fail, but they are good at recognizing failure.”
Ren Zhengfei has always emphasized that don’t be afraid to make mistakes and don’t be afraid to fail. He mentioned in many speeches: “For those cadres who have neither made mistakes nor improved, they can be removed on the spot.
Contemporary philosopher Daniel Dennett also said, “Making mistakes is not just an opportunity to learn. In a sense, it is also the only opportunity for people to learn or truly innovate.”
Ren Zhengfei started Huawei when he couldn’t find a job. Before going back to Hangzhou to set up Alibaba, Ma Yun also experienced countless sufferings; Jobs was even fired by Apple. They all experienced huge failures before finally becoming outstanding.
Failure and mistakes are a normal state, and individual strength is very small, so we must cultivate ourselves and learn from failure.
The market is changing, technology is changing, and consumer demand is changing. Only individuals and organizations that are good at learning from failure can make continuous progress.And evolution.
The former CEO of Procter & Gamble, Lafley, said, “I see my failures as a gift. Unless you look at them like this, you will not be able to learn from failures and you will not be better-yours. The company will not be better. “
When you have a more rational understanding of failure, you need to start reflecting. The meaning of reflection is to think about how to act, think about how to recover quickly after failure, and re-enter the challenge.
When you reflect, ask yourself, “What am I changing? What have I learned from failure?” Because the nature of reflection is “rethinking thinking.”
Rethinking is thinking again about your original thoughts. The ancients once said “think twice before you move”, that is, you must first reflect on your wrong thinking, or reflect on the ideas that have just emerged but are not mature, and then act and execute.
In this process, you must separate yourself from the scene of thinking, and examine your thoughts from a passerby perspective. It’s more like “the primordial spirit comes out”, observe yourself, question yourself, and examine yourself.
To do this, try Drucker’s “feedback analysis” technique.
Drucker said that whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down the results you expect, and compare the actual results with your expectations after 9 or 12 months. It’s feedback analysis.
The advantage of doing this is that you plan your expected goals in advance, and when you think about it in the future, you can better isolate it and conduct self-examination from the whole context.
Of course, there is a more efficient way to reflect, which is to reflect on the experience of others. To reflect on others’ failures is to watch others take a sip, and then, through your own reflection, you will grow wise.
But no matter what kind of reflection, the essence is for our better practice in the future, so reflection must guide practice.
This means that we must reflect on real life and finally apply it to real life to better solve difficult problems. If you just reflect and don’t act, then in the end, nothing will happen.
Whether it is close contact with the masses, learning from failure, or reflection, these abilities are one of the exercises of leadership.
Cultivating leadership is not just for mobilizing teams to solve difficult problems. In fact, it is also for us to know ourselves. Only when we know ourselves can we have a clear direction in exerting leadership and we can exert leadership more firmly.
Most people, especially young people, feel that they don’t have special skills, don’t have special passions, or even have no advantages.
Drucker also found that after he lectured to many managers,Ask them to go back and write a paper explaining what they are good at, but none of these managers can figure out what they are good at.
If we are in school, we need comprehensive development, but in life and in organizations, comprehensive development is impossible. Everyone must find their own expertise.
Take an example of organizational management ——
Collins, after writing “Everlasting Foundation,” organized another team and began to study whether there is a long-term mediocre company. Finally, he can change himself and become outstanding? To this end, he set two standards:
The criterion of “long-term mediocrity” is that the performance for at least 15 consecutive years is equal to or slightly lower than the average market level;
The criterion for “becoming outstanding” is to remain at least three times the market average for at least 15 consecutive years, rather than a fleeting one.
After studying 1,435 companies, Collins found only 11 companies that met both of these criteria. Some of these 11 companies have always been specialized companies, while others have been diversified companies, but before they achieved a leap from mediocrity to excellence, they all transformed into specialized companies.
In other words, only a specialized company can change from mediocrity to excellence.
For their success, Collins summed up six secrets, one of which is-“the tricyclic theory”.
Because you want to become professional, you can only do one main business, and these companies can choose their main business because they all asked themselves three questions-
First, what business do we have to be the best in the world?
Second, what are we most passionate about?
Third, what drives our economic engine best? That is: what is the most profitable?
Collins said that these companies list two or three answers under each question. The answer that overlaps with the last three is the main business that they should choose. Collins called this decision-making method the “tricyclic theory.”
Liu Lan believes that the “three ring theory” is equally applicable to personal development. Individuals who want to move from mediocrity to excellence must also choose the “main business” for their lives. We also have to ask ourselves three questions:
First, what is my specialty?
Second, what is my passion?
Third, what is my chance?
Former U.S. President Clinton decided to join politics at the age of 16. He did not know what the “three-ring theory” was, but according to his memoir records, his decision-making process at that time was very similar to the form of the “three-ring theory”.
He considered three career directions: music, medicine, and politics. He loves music and is good at music and thinks he has a chance to succeed; he loves medicine and is good at medicine and thinks he can be a good doctor; but he feels that in music and medicine,He is far from being the top talent. He loves politics best, and he is also good at politics. He thinks he can have a chance even if he is of ordinary origin.
Politics is at the crossroads of his third ring, so he established his vision of life at the age of 16: to be a statesman. He marched on this vision and eventually became the President of the United States.
When you know yourself through the “three ring theory”, you need to pay attention to 3 points-
First, don’t take skills as good.
Excelled in a whole set of abilities based on deep thinking, not superficial skills. Drucker also worked in journalism and did quite well, but only management is his deep expertise.
Second, don’t take interest as a passion.
Passion is not simply a taste of interest, but that when you do something, you can feel happy and willing to do it for a lifetime.
Third, don’t chase small opportunities, but chase big opportunities.
Chasing small opportunities refers to chasing short-term benefits, which is very unreliable and easy to change. For example, relying on a relative to get a job and relying on relationships to gain personal reputation; while chasing a big opportunity is to choose long-term benefits. Focus on future mega trends.
Business strategy asks trends in the next 5-10 years, and life vision asks at least trends in the next 15-20 years.
In planning our vision for life, we should not ask what benefits we can gain from this opportunity, but instead ask what value the society needs most and what value it can provide to society.
We must know ourselves so that we can grasp life autonomously and move from mediocrity to excellence.
Leadership is a science that everyone must learn, and a science that everyone can learn.
When Ren Zhengfei, Ma Yun, Ma Huateng, Zhang Xiaolong, Steve Jobs and others were desperate, their rational cognition failed, and they reflected, persevered, and re-challenged again and again, their sweat flashed the glory of leadership. However, at this time, they show leadership, not just for leadership, but just to survive, or even to hang on.
Some people think that leadership is thick black, which is also wrong. Leadership is beautiful. The process of cultivating and exerting leadership is a journey of seeking truth, goodness, beauty, and difficulty.
To be truth-seeking is to bravely face difficult problems and not escape;
To seek goodness is not to solve your own problems with leadership, but to solve collective problems, make the society and the world a better place, make yourself successful may be a hero, and success with a group of people is definitely a leader;
Purchase beauty means from mediocrity to excellence, never plagiarism and copying, but creatively solve problems;
Pursuing difficulties is because the three characteristics of seeking truth, seeking goodness, and seeking beauty determine that leadership must be difficult, but we still have to advance with difficulty.
It is this journey of leadership practice that allows us to live through mediocrity and drive to excellence.