Why the West is more innovative

This article is a record of Professor Shao Zhixing's share of the Internet + Annual conference in Central Europe on March 21.

I am glad to return to this familiar podium (applause). I want to talk about things that seem far away from the money, very far, in fact, really understand, you will find that it is close to the money, because I want to talk about things, is the core of everything: people! So just listen to the red envelopes, the room is very anxious to go back to make money, it is not easy to make money (laughter), because they ignore this most important core.

In 1969, when the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized experts to criticize Einstein's theory of relativity, a few things happened in the world. One thing is July 21, the Apollo on the moon. The other thing is October 29, 1969, the Internet was born. On this day, a computer at Stanford University was connected to a computer in Los Angeles University of California, marking the official birth of the Internet. How old is the Internet? Let's count it all. 46 years old, and Lei, and Faye Wong the same age (laughter). You have not also 1969 years, then you and the Internet is generally big.

Looking back at the history of Western civilization

Today Central Europe also has the critique Newton Mechanics, also is a wonderful flower (laughter), but we do not go to speak. To really understand the Internet, you have to go back to world history. In the late Middle Ages, a series of events took place in the Western world, from the Renaissance to the reformation of religion, the great maritime movement, the Enlightenment, to the scientific revolution, the industrial Revolution and the bourgeois revolution, which changed the West and changed the world. In the process, leading the trend, the first is the United Kingdom, then the U.S. All the countries of the world, either ex-or later, or active or passive, must join in the political, economic and cultural globalization movement they have created, and there is no way.

But a lot of people are not satisfied with it, not only we Chinese people hold the strength to engage in the Chinese model, Russia has to engage in Russian mode, Germany also to engage in German mode, but the most qualified to engage in different models of who? Is France. France then had a famous figure Labo Etienne called, "Ah, Frances!" You should not go to the role model, you have to set an example! "So they're going to be on all fronts, fight with the British, with the Americans." In philosophy, the British and Americans speak of empiricism, positivism, induction, the French, the Germans must speak of rationalism, Romanticism, deduction; in politics, Britain was "the hand of the King" in the 1688, but the Frenchman engaged in "I am the country", and later became the so-called "public intention" of Rousseau, representing the fundamental interests of the people. , if you disobey, you are the traitor, you are going to the guillotine. Economic development, the British and American emphasis on market competition, emphasizing the stock market, the European emphasis on government regulation, the emphasis on employee welfare, so far, you go to Germany to expel a worker, you have to prepare 50 to 1 million euros. What's the result?

In fact, the wise men of the French had already concluded that Tocqueville was the representative. He said, do not in vain to do with them, or down-to-earth, conscientiously learn the experience of Britain and the United States, there is no other way, mankind has only one road since ancient times. So Tocqueville said, "the gradual development of equality is a matter of necessity and Providence." The main characteristic of this development is that it is universal and enduring, that it is free from human obstruction every moment, and that all things and all people are helping it to move forward. This, his ancestor Voltaire in 1733 actually also said, in the "philosophy of communication" he called, "French Na, don't worry, coconut tree will always mature, as long as you first to the coconut species down!" ”。 Everyone on the Internet to search, there is a famous book called "Voltaire's Coconut," that is the meaning.

With an open society, there is innovation.

What can the Anglo-American be so invincible, not far from the session, set off this burst of frenzy, sweeping the world? What the hell are they on? I tried to sum up one of the simplest frameworks and get here to share with you. It is a triangular structure, the lower right corner is a market economy, from Adam Smith's "invisible hand" to Walras's "general Equilibrium Theory" to Coase's "transaction Expense School", to Hayek's "spontaneous order", to the expansion of human cooperation order, to Fama's "efficient market hypothesis" (just won the Nobel Prize), The emphasis is on the requirements of competition. When there is no competition, when the economy is depressed.

In the lower left corner, the emphasis is on tolerance of conflict, so it is a country's blessing that there are differences, controversies and different opinions. Machiavelli said that noise is the guardian of Freedom, a place where everyone is quiet, very peaceful, very harmonious, indicating that the place is basically hopeless.

The most important thing is the so-called "dynamic religion" above this horn, if you don't like the word religion, you can say dynamic ideology, get rid of the word. This is the most essential feature of an open society, what does it mean? In the 1932, there was a philosopher in France called Bergson--you see, I quote all French scholars, because the French see it most clearly--he found that there is a society that can satisfy the human inner change, the desire for novelty, which is called Open society. Later Popper wrote a famous book called Open Society and its enemies, and Douglas, founder of Neo-institutional economics, has done a lot of insightful research on this issue.

People in this society believe that the only way to be faithful to God is to embrace new changes and new ideas in an open manner. The Anglo-American society is the one who never finds new changes or new things. So is jobs, and now the musk. You think Musk is playing Tesla, he's still doing space X, he's going to Mars to colonize the colony, and he's going to build a super loop train, almost completely vacuum, and launch the train like a bullet. This kind of people in Anglo-American society, endless. Just like everyone had a log bridge, he was there to bridge the bridge, the only solution is to follow him with the earthquake, unless you have a larger volume, to shock him down. This is the logic behind the entire Anglo-American society, and I would like to make this most important point clear to everyone.

The middle of these three things is the rule consciousness, because the dynamic religion, the parliamentary politics, the market economy all need very clear, very strict, very deep rule consciousness, therefore Wellington said that the Waterloo battle was won at Eton School playground. All you know about sports, basketball, football, tennis, and so on, basically all the rules of the game made by the British or the Americans, and all the political, economic and cultural fields you know are basically the rules set by the Anglo-American. I say casually, why should the school put on winter vacation, summer vacation? Winter vacation does not say that summer vacation because of European summer climate is particularly comfortable, so he will take the summer vacation time, and we Chinese people comfortable summer? Is Shanghai's summer vacation comfortable (laughter)? Uncomfortable! May comfortable, October comfortable, but we are forced to follow others in winter vacation, summer vacation, this is very helpless and helpless things.

Nothing is authority except the rule. The concepts highlighted in the book "Out of Control": individual, spontaneous, community, self-organizing, non-linear, unbalanced, swarm intelligence, collective action, bottom-up and so on, all of these concepts hit the target, the opponents of the attack is a word-authority, is to combat the high, Top-down, The kind of person or institution that holds the truth. By the way, "runaway" this book, the title of the translation is wrong, not "runaway", but "out of the control" (out of controls), so you are more and more confused (laughter, applause), right? The media people love to play these things, the people are confused, his purpose is achieved. Unlike our academic, we should make the complex things simple, to the subtle things to speak large, he is to you back.

How can you hold on to so many innovations? Theoretically speaking, the left side of this progressive innovation, the intensity is often not enough, the right side of the radical innovation, often can not be asked, so, the real most operable innovation is the middle of the construction of innovation. What is constructive innovation? In fact, it is very simple, we often say in the life of those words: Mix and match, sweetbread, Stew, cross, cross-border, brain hole open (laughter). What is the nature of it? is actually a word--connection. Not only the people, but the micro-letter is the connection between people, and I emphasize the different concepts, different functions, the connection between different things, it is the essence of innovation.

Why does innovation always start in the West, and why does modern science originate in the West? You go to Chen Fangzheng Teacher's class, to buy Chen Fangzheng teacher's This five hundred or six hundred-page book ("Inheritance and Rebellion"), the last found is nine words: multiple-source, heterogeneity, fracture. The land of Europe, there is a map in your head, there are many islands, inland Sea, peninsula, there is an Alpine, the Pyrenees, so it naturally formed a variety of geographical environment, multi-ethnic, multicultural combination, so there is a plurality, heterogeneity and fracture. Where are the most diverse, heterogeneous and fractured? On the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the ancient Greek civilization began there. And the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the most has the diversity, heterogeneity, fracture is where? Is Israel.

You travel to Israel, from Jerusalem all the way down the slide, slide to the lowest place on earth, sea level below 400 meters of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea to the north, probably Bai kilometers, you will find a water clear clear freshwater lake, like our Jiangnan. Do not close your mouth, continue to go north for dozens of kilometers, you will find a snow-capped mountains, Hermon, is a ski resort, this is Israel. So it actually belongs to the so-called "vertical islands", the islands are easy to have pluralism, but because of the difference in altitude, geographical conditions, it will also form the so-called vertical islands. This is Israel's multicultural background, so Israel is the capital of innovation, there are important reasons for this.

The great power civilization represented by China is just another extreme. We are in a very long period of time, within the great geographical range to maintain consistency, so far also every day to emphasize unity, unity, unity, in this case, how to innovate? It will only generate the Swarm, swarm to O2O, and swarm into subversive innovation (laughter).

Why the Renaissance originated in Florence, because the American family earned money, the best in Europe, poets, philosophers, artists, architects, all invited to Florence, and then the chemical reaction, the formation of the Renaissance. Until now, Italians have been eating the legacy of their ancestors. Why the best luxury is always Italian, because Italy is the birthplace of the Renaissance, it is so simple, it is human civilization to walk in the underground tunnel to find the first beam, so far, still illuminating their descendants.

Understanding innovation from Structural cave theory

My PhD tutor, Ronald Burt, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a book called Structural Cave Theory, which is to help us find the creative point. Very simple, connect different crowd, culture, thought, connection point, call structure hole. It's as simple as that, but it's a Shenthomo.

I continue to say that Israel, in addition to the geographical diversity of Israel, there are several heavy structural caves. Metaphorically, it is the junction of Europe, Asia, Africa, is a structural hole, it is the origin of all monotheistic, Christianity and Islam are developed from the Jewish here, this is also a structural hole; and one of the most terrible structural caves, when the Jews came from all over the world to this tiny place in Israel, They bring about the various, diverse cultures, knowledge and ideas of all parts of the world, and this creates the wonders of today's innovation in Israel, which is at the national level.

At the company level, any platform company is playing with a structural hole. Apple's innovation is not the most important touch function, but that apps, this side of countless people design apps, this side of countless people to apply apps, he occupies the structure of the hole.

Personal level of the structure of the hole, I give you the most familiar person-Ma Yun. How many layers of structural holes does Ma Yun have? Think carefully. First of all, MA Yun Foreign language good. It's all Indian cattle, every time you open a Davos or something, are Indians in that talk, now we finally have Ma Yun such a good English speaker (laughter), so he can combine east and West culture, this has the first heavy; and second, Ma Yun from the center of Chinese manufacturing-Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Social status is not too high, often in the street fighting, so he connected the Chinese manufacturing and the outside world, and the third heavy, Ma Yun is an English teacher, he does not understand technology, how can he become a High-tech companies? Do you know where the third heavy structure hole is? What's the name of the first school where Ma Yun teaches? Hangzhou University of Electronic, his students are all understand the computer (laughter, applause), understand? This is the triple structure hole, has made him today's glorious.

The original Chinese understand the structure of the hole is useless, why? Because China is a one of the earth, one of the circle, one of the closed crowd. You said I'm going to do structure hole, no one to ignore you, people think you are quite suspicious, what do you want to do? But in the internet age, there is the dividend of the connection, you find that you can find ways of finding a combination between the two big people, and then create your profits, just a lot of examples of the room is a classic example. So "Internet +" is what means, in fact, is the mouse + cement, is one thing, is to put two of the original irrelevant things together. Of course, this process is very difficult, it takes a lot of thought, and it takes a lot of hard work.

The organization must return to the root of man

In this age of the Internet, organizations have a special place. As you know, I've been lecturing in Central Europe for almost 10 years, talking about this intelligent organization. The general idea is that now you have to pay three of a salary to the young people who are willing to work for you. The first is the salary of wealth, the second is the salary of ability, and the third is the salary of value. You have to have three salary, people will work for you. This is the intelligent organization, before the primary organization, before the original organization, they can not achieve this effect. The original organization simulation of the organization object is the family, the primary organization simulates the object is the army, but the intelligence organization simulates the object is what? I tell you the truth, China's thousands of years of history there is no such thing, the only a bit like, in the contemporary history, modern history is what? Is the Communist Party (laughter), the original Chinese history does not have this kind of thing. Therefore, the original organization to look at people as a horse, the primary organization of people as a machine, when the can look, intelligent organization to people as people look, it is back to the fundamental people.

This theory unfolds can speak four days, here I give everybody is to build a shelf. I speak this theory, should say, have bright spot. When I returned home, Vanke asked me to speak a few times, then Alibaba to return to and fro I said nearly 10 times, each time I must tell the same thing (laughter), so from the top to 200 hands, 300 hands, basically have heard my class, but also the only this. I teach three hundred or four hundred students every year in Central Europe, and my books sell three thousand or four thousand copies a year, at most, so sometimes I doubt myself, sometimes I think, maybe my theory is a little biased. Perhaps the Chinese people are like Jackie Chan said, is "VIP tube" (laughter, applause)? But then I didn't worry at all, why? Because I found my Wraith legion.

What is my Wraith Legion? is the Internet. Because the values of the Internet age are exactly the same as what I call the intelligent organization, is "equality", "participation", "sharing", the younger generation even further demand "autonomy", "control", "meaning", Ma said the biological organization and I speak of the intelligent organization, actually is one thing.

The new normal of leadership in the Internet age

In this era, it would be absurd if you were to manage your business with the rank, order, control of a large industry, or the way in which the primary organization was buying the human. Organizations to change, first of all, you have to change, as managers, the boss to change. The past can rely on the position, rely on professional accumulation, rely on power, can only rely on leadership, can rely on personal influence. You say my 40% stake, I am the boss, useless, when to take the equity vote, the company basically also almost fall apart. You can only rely on leadership.

I often say a word, shining white silver behind is a steel-like team, the steel-like team behind the boss gold-like character. 100 people can see white white silver, like just Geng said to pay, Zengxi talk room A lot, everyone's eyes are wide open (laughter). But of the 100, only 10 saw a steel-like team, and only one of the 10 men could see the gold-like character of the eldest. This gold-like character is not purely moral, it is sociological, it is psychological, it is difficult to be difficult.

How to improve your leadership, my theory is more simple than any theory, you want to self-management, you have to accept the first, to self-acceptance, first to self-awareness, you have to know who you are. In the simplest language, if you want to play the strengths of others, you have to admit that this is not my strengths, this is my shortcomings, you want to admit their shortcomings, you have to recognize their shortcomings. It is extremely difficult to recognise one's own shortcomings, said Thales, the first Greek philosopher, and what is the hardest thing about life? is to know yourself. What do you know about yourself? Know your own weaknesses. How many private entrepreneurs, how many of the number one in the process do not know how many layers of skin, ah, all sorts of uneasy, embarrassed, fear, finally is to admit their shortcomings. Only by acknowledging your own shortcomings can you develop the strengths of others, and there is no other way. Our EMBA graduation, all feel very powerful, I also understand the marketing, research and development is also good, human resources are experts, such companies generally speaking, the end will be big trouble, because you do not respect the professional field of others.

Why the Chinese are so not easy to develop self-awareness, because we Chinese special this survival background. As you know, self-awareness is a very advanced thing. Gorilla to look in the mirror, you have a little white on its nose, the gorilla will not touch his nose, it to touch where? It is to touch the mirror, it always feel that someone else's white nose, always feel that it is someone else's fault, it does not feel that it is their own fault. Because of the outer, middle, and inner layers of China, it is very difficult for us to develop self awareness.

What is the reason for the outer layer, Chinese politics Needless to say, say a set of do, this situation everyone numb, want to survive in this environment, must be pleased with the anger does not form in color, must be deep, must be thick, long time, he forgot himself what is the idea of (laughter). People like me who are outspoken and evil must be the first to be killed. This is very subtle, we have a little social experience know that with the system to deal with a lot of words, know what I mean.

The second level, Chinese culture is a hierarchical culture, whenever a fierce person, will be surrounded by a siege, surrounded by a packed, all the information and out of the information will be filtered out, so the boss is in fact completely in a kind of personnel not awake state, finally came tumbling down. You think the people who surround you have nothing to do? No, they're going to surround the next one. This is not my word, it is Lu Xun's words. His last comment is that this is why China's fierce people are changing, China's things have not changed too much, why? Because the siege has not changed. So can not find ego, ego expands, lose common heart, very normal.

Plus the inner layer, more subtle. Westerners have priests, have their own psychological counselors, really do not, get a self-help group. The Chinese have nothing, only one way to find a friend to drink (laughter). But as your socioeconomic status gradually improved, you found that when a child's friends, as long as a little dignity, will slowly away from you, posted up, usually with ulterior motives (laughter). So where are you going to solve your mental problems, so one by one, to tell the truth, the problem is very serious, I will not say more.

Can not find the ego, talk about what leadership, talk about what team building, talk about what enterprise management? So Hesse said, "For everyone, there is only one true duty: To find yourself, and then stick to it in your heart, and never cease." All the other roads are incomplete, the way people escape, the cowardly return to the expectations of the masses, the drift of the crowd, the fear of the heart. "The person you fear most is yourself.

Our ancestors said the same very good, "people have a chicken dog is known to ask, there is reassurance and do not know." "Your heart, beginner, hair lost, you do not know to find, so" the knowledge of the road without him, to rest assured. "Wang Yangming said better," everyone has a fixed plate needle, the root of the total heart. But laugh in the past upside down see, branches and leaves outside to find. ”

What is called "WU", the left is a "heart", the right is a "I", find my heart, find my heart, you Will "enlightenment." Do not be misled by these popular things outside, if it is not your inner world the most want of things, do not go chasing. So I do a workshop in a sense is to help you find yourself first, then develop the team, then the corporate culture. What O2O Ah, what the Internet transformation, has become a minutiae (laughter, applause). To be honest, I started from the people, from the philosophy, I see the problem.

By the way, we know that the workshop is a platform for public welfare, and now, like Yaw, Jiafen, Huang and Hongtian, Daniel has been exposed to this platform because of its public nature. Our whole logic is also a mix of logic, English is called Motivate Beyond boundaries (cross border leadership), this is our slogan. You see what this logo is, logo is an archery person, is a Chinese Confucian thought: benevolence such as shooting, hair and not, do not blame wins, amending. It's also a sign of a mix.

The era of change is like a rotating disk, if you are on the edge of the disk, you will find faster and faster, faster, and inadvertently may be thrown down. It means you don't dig deep enough to go to the center, you go to the center, you go to the axis, do you see how things have changed so fast? No change. There is no essential change in human nature, organization law and business logic. If you think the world is changing fast, it is because you are impetuous, that is why, because you are on the edge of the disk, so be sure to go to the middle, find its core, find its source.

The more noisy the outside world, the more we have to calm down and listen to our inner voice. This is all I have to share today, thank you (applause).

Xiao Xing |, the founder of the workshop, the dean of the Chinese College of George Washington University, and the distinguished Visiting Professor of innovative leadership at HSBC Business School, PKU
The article for the author independent opinion, does not represent the tiger smelling net stand