Tao Te Ching and Wuwei Management

Chapter 62 5 "Using Dao to assist others", team spirit does not mean absolute obedience

A gentleman should not try to be strong, and an entrepreneur should not force his subordinates.

He who assists the master with the way does not strengthen the world with soldiers. —— "Tao Te Ching" Chapter 30

Using "Tao" to assist the monarch should not rely on military strength to be strong in the world.Similarly, to control the company with corporate culture, one should not rely on authority to force subordinates to obey.Teamwork is becoming more and more important in modern enterprises, but don't equate team spirit with absolute obedience, let alone copy the military thinking machine into enterprise management.The reason why there is a corporate culture is to replace hard discipline with soft rules in order to achieve a better incentive effect.

Many of our managers are very envious of the Japanese team spirit of absolute obedience. They envy them one command and one action, without too many personal opinions and disputes. different voices.Which leader would not like stupid loyal and absolutely loyal employees?But this model must have its fatal weakness.Too strong a sense of obedience drowns too many personal opinions. If a decision is made, the consequences will be unimaginable and difficult to deal with.

Compared with the extreme loyalty of the Japanese, our Chinese managers certainly don't like the American management model.If you talk about loyalty with Americans, they will definitely find it ridiculous.Americans are never loyal to the company. When they ask the company for leave to go to another company for an interview, they will directly tell the company: "If I pass the interview, I will change jobs, and if I fail, I will come back." I believe that no Chinese dares to be frank with If the boss said such things, it is estimated that either the boss was blown up, or the employee was fired immediately.If you ask an American, will he be loyal to his boss?He will tell you that it is impossible.Americans are only loyal to the work they do, to their profession.Not to mention that the loyalty of ordinary employees is relatively low, even the president may leave suddenly.If this kind of thing happened in a Chinese enterprise, it would definitely cause confusion.But not in the United States, because when the turnover of personnel is relatively frequent, it is impossible for them to focus on people, but to be highly scientific and use things to form an organization.

The Japanese team is highly consistent, but the American team always has two different voices in everyone.The good thing is that when they cannot reach a consensus, they will make decisions based on the principle that the minority obeys the majority.After the voting is over, although everyone will not give up their original ideas, they will strictly follow the resolution to implement it.Whether it is the stupid loyalty of the Japanese or the individualism of the Americans, they are two extremes, and neither extreme is suitable for the Chinese character.With the development of globalization, the concepts and behaviors of Chinese people have gradually entered a stage of inclusive and rational regression from the initial impetuousness.Any kind of extreme management will get a corresponding rejection consequence.

In fact, these two extreme management methods are the Spartacus spirit representing absolute discipline and the Athens spirit representing freedom and democracy that were more popular some time ago.Those who advocate the Spartacus spirit are generally blue-blooded entrepreneurs with military backgrounds, advocating subordinates to obey orders as the most important thing.In the initial stage of the enterprise, due to the small number of people and the simple management content, it may have a very good management effect.However, the high degree of uniformity in employee behavior conceals differences in ideology and analysis.When middle-level managers rise, this kind of disagreement will gradually decentralize with power, leading to confusion in management thinking.At the same time, too much emphasis on discipline will directly lead to long-term suppression of human nature. Once this kind of person's inner needs come into contact with the colorful world, this kind of discipline will be converted.Too much freedom and democracy may lead to extravagance, laxity, and blind decision-making. There are many wrong military decisions in Athens under the direction of civilian politics.

Combining the advantages and disadvantages of these two management models, the bosses don't have to envy the blue blood spirit of the Japanese who are absolutely obedient, and the employees don't have to praise the freedom and democracy of Athens.All management is aimed at promoting the benign development of the enterprise as the ultimate goal.The best choice for an enterprise is to seek a stable balance between the two, integrate the spirit of Spartacus and Athens, orderly but not rigid, loyal rather than foolish, and on the basis of adhering to principles and disciplines, According to the needs of individual employees, individual differences are tolerated, and on this basis, flexible response and multi-management.

Decision-making needs to understand different information and make effective judgments on different situations in business operations, but it is impossible for any decision-maker to grasp all the information and resources, so decision-makers must pay attention to the opinions of others.The ancients said: "Listen to both sides, you will be bright, and listen to only one side, you will be dark." Decision-makers should actively listen to the opinions of their subordinates, which will help them understand things comprehensively and objectively, and make correct decisions.

Kodak's "suggestion box" system is a typical case of "listen and you will be wise". This system has been implemented since 1898 and has been used until now.Anyone in the company, no matter white-collar or blue-collar, can write down their opinions on a certain link or overall strategic improvement of the company and put them in the suggestion box.The company assigns a dedicated manager to handle these recommendations.Adopted proposal, if it saves the company money, the company will withdraw 15% of the savings in the first two years as a bonus; if it leads to a new product launch, the bonus is 3% of the sales in the first year; if not adopted , will also receive a written explanation letter from the company.Suggestions are recorded in my assessment form as one of the basis for promotion.

The first person to suggest to the company was an ordinary worker. His suggestion was that someone should always be responsible for cleaning the glass in the film room.He was awarded $20 for this suggestion.Over the past 100 years since the establishment of the suggestion box, the company has adopted more than 70 suggestions from employees and paid out bonuses of up to 2 million US dollars.These suggestions have reduced a lot of expensive and laborious paperwork, updated huge equipment, and plugged countless work loopholes.

After entering the 20s, Kodak employees suggested to the company more actively. In 80 and 1983, more than one-third of employees made suggestions. The company saved $1984 million in funds by adopting employee suggestions, and paid $1 million in bonuses to employees who made suggestions.Kodak's achievements in setting up the "suggestion box" have attracted many companies in the United States.At present, quite a few companies have followed Kodak's example and set up a suggestion box to absorb employees' opinions and improve their management.

From a management point of view, decision makers can fully listen to the opinions of all parties, especially the opposing opinions of subordinates, which can unite subordinates who have different opinions, win the respect and trust of subordinates, and improve the cohesion of the organization.Effective managers encourage subordinates to come up with different ideas.At the same time, he will insist that when subordinates come up with ideas, they will carefully consider how to use practice to identify these ideas.

(End of this chapter)