I have done Management in the United States and management in China. I find it difficult to manage Chinese employees because of different values. In the United States, it is more about promoting business values. The relationship between managers and employees is a kind of business relationship. In China, people are pursuing a kind of human nature. Chinese enterprises lack a standardized management system, which requires standards and platforms. However, it is still difficult for many Chinese enterprises to achieve this.
I once proposed the "4 + 1" Core Competitiveness statement, of which "4" includes: Brand, technology, market and capital, and the key "1" is "Company Management ". If a company lacks a good management team, it cannot turn the previous four factors into the final core competitiveness of the company. Taking capital as an example, many Chinese enterprises do not know the purpose of listing, so they leave after making money. Listing is actually to obtain a platform and to continuously raise funds for the company's sustainable development. Listing is not the ultimate goal for enterprises. After a few years of listing in China, the company's account is paralyzed, that is, the goal is not clear. I once said: at present, the top 100 private enterprises in China will only have 20 companies in a few years, and the elimination of such enterprises will surely be ruined in management.
Chinese personalization
Management is a complicated task. Chinese management is different from western management. Standardization is the biggest problem facing Chinese enterprises today. Chinese enterprises are too personalized in management. However, it is not enough to have a basic management philosophy in China and some personalization is required, this is due to Chinese culture. What the Chinese are most afraid of is being touched. If you are touched by him, then he will go through the fire for you. This is the Chinese character.
In the United States, you do not need to touch employees, as long as you pay by contract; in China, people are pursuing more than money, but also feeling. Therefore, the company's leaders need to provide this feeling to their employees-making them feel that they are very important in the company.
When I was the president of Microsoft China, I had an unwritten rule that anyone who worked at Microsoft would have to go through my interview. At that time, many people did not quite understand that it was a waste of time for the CEO to do so. In fact, my intention is to allow all employees who enter Microsoft to feel the company's attention through interviews. On one occasion, I had a meeting in the United States, and a job in China was in urgent need of recruitment, so an employee "escaped" my interview and went directly to Microsoft. He is doing well in the next trial period. But a few months later, he came to me and asked me to interview him again. The reason is: when employees joke with each other, they like to joke with him, because he didn't pass my interview, he just slipped in, similar to "Informal Army ". I told him: he is already competent and does not need an interview, but he insisted. Finally, I satisfied his wish. The interview made him feel purely Microsoft.
A very important holiday in China is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Most Chinese companies buy moon cakes for their employees on this day. At this time, they often face an embarrassing situation: sending only moon cakes, employees will think that they are not creative; without sending moon cakes, employees will complain that the company is inhuman. So should the company send moon cakes? It should be sent! Because at least employees will not complain! The key is that the company should consider how to send moon cakes.
At that time, Microsoft did one thing: we asked employees to provide two addresses-the addresses they wanted to deliver the moon cakes, and then the company helped them deliver the moon cakes to their destination. At the same time, the company will attach a small card to these moon cakes. There are two paragraphs on the card. The first paragraph is to express gratitude; the second paragraph is to describe our company, the main expression is: "Our company is the best company in the world, especially our branch is the best in Microsoft's global branch. The best employees in the world are in our company, we are very proud, so we also hope that you will feel very proud to be friends or family members of our employees!"
This practice has proved effective. Many employees provide addresses such as parents, past classmates, teachers, and even colleagues. After receiving the card, many parents are very proud to even pack it and tell their friends and family that their children are the best companies in the world; at the same time, they will also call their children to let them cherish the opportunity at Microsoft. This is an effect that is good at using various resources.
During my tenure as president of Microsoft in China, I interviewed more than 2500 people and almost became "excellent". Later, I almost turned into an inertial action: When I saw a person, I had the impulse to interview. If someone stays in front of me for about 2 minutes, I can determine what kind of work he is suitable. However, during the interview, I usually give the other party 10 minutes. In fact, I can make a conclusion within 2-3 minutes, and the rest of the time is completely "people-oriented, after all, we must respect the subject. Finally, I sum up my interview experience into three questions. If the subject answers a correct question, he can get a job. If yes, his salary is 100% higher than that of others, to answer the three correct questions, he can open his own salary. The interviewer can use all resources to answer the questions. During interviews, most companies need to mine the interviewer's ability to observe, analyze problems, communicate with others, and integrate resources.
Make others great
What is the core of corporate culture? What is its ultimate goal? That is to make every employee of the company love the company. A few days ago, I saw a survey report on Sina, and I felt a little sad. Only 16% of people love their company from the heart, and 72% do not like their company very much. 76% of people said they were waiting to leave their company one day. Taking this investigation as a reference, we must consider the centripetal force of Chinese enterprises? What is the driving force behind the subsequent development of Chinese enterprises? What is the problem? Some people say it is a mechanism problem. For example, the mechanism of state-owned enterprises is not so flexible. I disagree. The Mechanism is created by people, and more importantly, the corporate culture.
From a literal perspective, almost all corporate cultures are concentrated in several words-people-oriented, scientific and technological innovation, diligence, integrity, and so on. But in fact, most Chinese companies are somewhat superficial in cultivating corporate culture, mainly embodied in slogans.
When I transferred my work from Microsoft Shanghai to Microsoft Beijing, the atmosphere of the Beijing Branch was not very good. This was mainly based on the Shanghai branch. At that time, the staff satisfaction of the Shanghai branch was very high within Microsoft, while that of the Beijing Branch was very low. When I arrived in Beijing, the first thing I did was to convene a meeting of all secretaries! Why? Because secretaries play a very important role in a company, they are often the creators and efficient disseminators of internal information within the company. At the meeting, I sent a message that secretaries are very important and I need to rely on them. And explain what I need to do next with their assistance. Naturally, I gain their recognition and loyalty. At the same time, my ideas after the meeting quickly reached the company's senior executives, and the efficiency of the Secretary's communication in this aspect was indeed very high.
The biggest internal problem of foreign companies is that enterprises adopt a elimination system internally. Therefore, there is a competitive relationship between employees and employees, and teamwork has become a challenge. Theoretically, this seems to be an insurmountable loop.
One of my attempts was to instill an idea inside-"make others great ". After the idea is put forward, I need to develop some measures to strengthen the idea. First, all employees should select 20 "the best employees in the company". The purpose of this method is: people tend to select those who have helped themselves, so the selected employees, I have done a good job in helping other employees. Secondly, I announced that those who have not been named "excellent employees" will not be able to enjoy all kinds of promotion opportunities. The role of this step is to enable those who initially did not care about the selection of "excellent employees" to have the impulse to win the award. After one year, in the following employee satisfaction survey, Beijing ranked second from the last in Asia to the most satisfied company in the world. However, the Headquarters has considered more hard indicators, that is, performance issues. In that year, Beijing's performance also increased significantly, which shows that these practices are effective.
(The author is president of Shanghai Shanda Network Development Co., Ltd. and former president of Microsoft China Company)