Tao Te Ching and Wuwei Management

Chapter 65 3 "Staying Quiet": Considerately, Don't Make Hasty Decisions

Reaching the extreme of emptiness and keeping quiet——Chapter 16 of "Tao Te Ching"

There are dangers ahead, and decisions must be made with caution.

"Keep quiet" is a common proposition in ancient Chinese philosophy, and it was first put forward by Lao Tzu.Laozi attaches great importance to the role of tranquility in social and political life and life cultivation, and persuades the world to "bring emptiness" and "keep tranquility". There are similar words in the "Tao Te Ching": "I like to be quiet, but the people will be upright", "If you don't want to be quiet, the world will be upright".It means that if the ruler can maintain an open mind and a quiet mind, and not be disturbed by greed and deception, the people will be natural and simple, and the society can move toward stability.

For entrepreneurs, "keep quiet" means resisting all kinds of external temptations when making decisions, and judging the situation calmly and objectively. Only in this way can the risks brought by blind decision-making to the enterprise be avoided.Someone suggested that entrepreneurs should have ideals, but they should not be idealized.It is exactly the truth of "keep quiet".

In the corporate world, some entrepreneurs are gamblers who dare to take big risks.They are very similar to Xiang Yu, with heroic romantic feelings, which can give people a very happy feeling.But the final result of "slaying himself in Wujiang" is something that no one wants to see.There is a big difference between heroism and reality.It is not wise to take a big leap forward.

Participants at an entrepreneurship seminar concluded that "successful people all share one trait—one unique trait: They are not 'risk takers.' They are always trying to determine the nature of the risk." , and minimize the risk. Otherwise, none of us will be successful.” Drucker fully agrees with this point of view, he believes that innovation is of course risky.But getting into a car and driving to the supermarket to buy bread is just as risky.All economic activity is by definition "high risk" activity.Protecting the gains of the past is riskier than creating the future.Innovators can succeed only when they determine the nature of risks and define the scope of risks, and only when they systematically analyze the sources of innovation opportunities, identify opportunities and utilize them.

Successful innovators are conservative, and must be conservative.And, generally speaking, most of us have a misunderstanding about innovation, that is, innovation can only be achieved by breaking the old.In fact, the so-called new products are really completely new. After all, there are only a few of them. Even if some products are advertised as big innovations and innovations, most of them are actually improvements and innovations from existing fields.Therefore, although it only increases the added value of old products, it will still be favored by consumers.Moreover, change is risky, and change is not blind.Drucker believes that if an enterprise wants to make itself a pioneer of change, it must establish internal and external continuity, and more importantly, it must maintain a balance between change and continuity so that the speed of change, etc. Stability within the enterprise.In order to maintain the stability within the organization and the success rate of changes, every improvement and innovation of the enterprise must be tested on a small scale, which cannot be replaced by market research and research institutes.

Drucker's attitude of prudent change is strikingly similar to Liu Chuanzhi's attitude in running a company.Liu Chuanzhi has a vivid description of his style of doing things: "You have to look at it first, and then try it after you look at it. One step, two steps, three steps, step firmly, and step firmly again. Every time you take a step, raise your head carefully. Looking from a distance and looking around, I feel that this is a big step, so I turn back and step on it until I finally see a solid loess road, and run away..."

With this style of doing things, Lenovo has lost many opportunities, but it has also avoided the risk of overturning many times, such as the real estate boom and the stock boom. Lenovo is unmoved and concentrates on making its own computer.

Excellent leaders and decision makers will never launch corporate changes rashly. They always analyze the reality calmly. After proposing feasible plans, they will always take a cautious or gradual approach to "exploring the water". Instead of blindly launching a revolution.However, the leaders of many enterprises often engage in "great leap forward" in the process of change, which has caused serious consequences.The example of the collapse of Shida Company in the "reform" is worthy of vigilance for entrepreneurs.

Shida Company is a well-known enterprise in the domestic IT industry in the 20s. In July 90, by chance, Ye Long, who was the president of Shida at that time, met an expert from McKinsey Consulting Company. status quo.After the investigation, the senior executives of Shida decided to do a 1998 million consulting project: to establish a high-performance marketing system and to carry out a comprehensive reform of Shida's previous management structure.

McKinsey's plan is to disband the former subsidiary system of the group and integrate marketing, sales and production at the group level.Each of the three senior vice presidents of the group is responsible for one piece.The reform and reorganization plan changed Shida's traditional marketing model, with a special emphasis on resource sharing.Shida executives are eager to change, and decided to do it in one step.

On January 1999, 1, McKinsey's reform and reorganization plan began to be implemented, and the "thousands of people changed jobs" action was carried out.However, there was a problem with Setia's information delivery system: the old system stopped working, and the new system was not yet built and kept breaking down.As a result, from January to March, the executives of Shida couldn't even grasp the basic market data.At that time, Lenovo and Founder had already started to cut prices, but Shida did not, resulting in a sharp drop in Shida's sales.However, one salesman in the marketing department originally only sold one product; after the integration, one salesman will sell all Shida's products.This kind of sales skills needs time to learn and master. Shida people can't adapt to this reform for a while, and the internal management is in chaos.The new management system had a relatively large negative impact on the Group's operations, which directly led to a decline in operating performance. In June 1, the management reorganization change plan officially failed.President Ye Long had no choice but to take the blame and resign.

When making any change, managers must think that the speed of change is directly proportional to the risk.The failure of Shida lies in the fact that there is a gap between the old and new systems, the new has not yet been established, and the old has completely collapsed.Organizations are bound to collapse.This kind of great leap forward change is more terrifying than no change.

Finding compatibility with the environment is the basis for entrepreneurs to realize their ideals and goals.If an entrepreneur has no ideals but no understanding of the reality and the environment, then the enterprise is likely to die before it takes shape.An entrepreneur who is too idealistic often makes the growth path of the enterprise full of thorns.Only by "resulting in emptiness and keeping quiet", calm down and weigh repeatedly can we make a decision that is beneficial to the development of the enterprise.

(End of this chapter)