An unwritten rule is in place to ensure that every member of your team can say in front of their own face, “Hannis, in your opinion your idea is particularly stupid.”

In the newly published book Essentials, he reveals the five principles of leadership and the five tools for shaping leadership. According to Hennes, many elites, no matter how high their weight, ultimately fail to lead their own institutions. He devoted his life to a “leadership journey” and it was time to share his experience with the world.

The following is an interview with John Hannes from the China Europe Business Review.

China-Europe Business Review (hereinafter referred to as CBR): reviewing the other two major events of this century, namely the “September 11” event and the financial crisis in 2008, the international community at that time, especially between major powers Consensus has been formed and action has been kept consistent, so that the crisis has been dealt with better. Has the epidemic exposed the world’s leadership crisis?

John Hannes: The most important thing is that we must work together to survive the crisis faced by all mankind, and do not isolate any country. Organizations like the World Health Organization need to play a more important role than ever before. This will not be the last disaster, it is probably just the prelude to the disaster. This time we are obviously not fully prepared.

CBR: In February 2018, you succeeded Eric Schmidt and officially became the third chairman of Alphabet. Does Google have plans to return to China?

John Hannes: Not currently, but there may be changes in the future, it is not easy to say exactly when. After all, everyone is trapped in the new crown epidemic at this moment. In the coming year, this will become the most important issue for us to think about.

CBR: What is the innovation ecology within Google? How does Google maintain continuous innovation?

John Hannes: Eric Schmidt said that Google should encourage innovation like Stanford University. Young people can find corresponding mentors for any good ideas. They promote the landing from creativity to product. To maintain a constant flow of innovation, it depends first of all on the kind of people Google hires, whether this group of people is passionate about creating new things, and second, to provide them with a good atmosphere, which is the so-called innovation ecology.

CBR: Facebook, Google’s exposure to the data breach scandal, and the story of Elizabeth Holmes’ “Blood to Gold”, is there a leadership crisis in Silicon Valley today?

John

  • Do you want to do this in your heart?

  • Do you recognize this thing or this person enough and need to take action for it?

  • Does this matter meet your organization’s mission?

  • If so, does your organization have the resources to help with this matter?

  • If not, can you solve it yourself without using organizational resources?

  • Handling this matter will undoubtedly take up resources that you or your organization can use for other matters. After fully understanding this, how much effort are you willing to pay for this matter?

  • If you decide to take action, can you design an influential and sustainable operation implementation plan for this request?

By asking yourself this series of questions, you can understand your values ​​more deeply, understand what your colleagues and organization can do, and understand issues that may affect your group and a wider range of people.

The speeches of Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates at the graduation ceremony of Stanford University in 2014 were the best talks I have ever heard of. Bill’s speech started from a data and technology perspective, and the theme was to find ways to solve global public health problems, such as using a global positioning system to track vaccine injections to ensure that it covered every village. On the same topic, Melinda’s speech started from a personal perspective. For example, she held the hand of a dying AIDS patient in an Indian hospital. Bill and Melinda are vivid expressions of the combination of reason and empathy.

03Both empathy and fairness

Generally speaking, my team wants me to show empathy on two levels: one is the private level, which usually involves health-related issues, and the other is related to the family. In both cases, I share the same philosophy with everyone: health and family matter most. Sometimes this idea will temporarily affect the productivity of the team, which requires other team members to work harder to fill the vacancy, but in the long run, in the 16 years of leading Stanford University, this ideaNo regrets.

I treat my employees as responsible and capable adults who are authorized to manage their time-they are free to decide when to go to work and when to leave. Because for me, the most important thing is that they have completed their work. But unfortunately, sometimes some people take advantage of this policy-they have not completed their work and become a drag on the team. I told them that if such an incident occurs once, it can be forgiven, after all, everyone will make mistakes-I emphasize empathy here; but if such incidents occur frequently, then I will consider empathy based on fairness. , These people will be punished.

*****

I often feel that our empathy is about to face serious challenges. The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has upended traditional employment and employment relationships. Robots and self-driving cars will replace manual laborers and drivers. Legal affairs automation AI systems and office automation AI systems will replace lawyer assistants and administrative assistants. We may see that more and more people will be under the pressure of long-term unemployment or insufficient employment opportunities.

We need to realize that the transformation of the job market driven by revolutionary technological innovation may lead to temporary unemployment, but this does not mean that the affected individuals can no longer be employed. We must consider jobs that did not exist before and jobs that could not be replaced by smart computers. As leaders, we now need to start preparing for this work. The nature of human nature, emotional connections and humanistic care are all things that only humans can bring but robots and applications cannot.