Tao Te Ching and Wuwei Management

Chapter 72 4 "Knowing Honor and Keeping Disgrace", Smart Leaders Know How to Humility and Self-examination

Jiang Hai is Jiang Hai because he is good at dealing with subordinates, and leaders are leaders because they know how to be humble.

Know its glory, keep its disgrace, be the valley of the world - "Tao Te Ching" Chapter 28
"The reason why Jianghai can be the king of all valleys is because of his goodness." The lower the posture, the greater the ability to gather.Laozi uses this metaphor to describe the importance of humility and introspection to people.Looking at the great men and celebrities since ancient times, you will find that: the higher the status, the more timid and cautious; the greater the achievement, the more trembling; Respect others; the greater the power, the wider the heart.

Self-humility and self-examination are essential for self-cultivation of every leader.A good leader is not limited to professionals in a specific department or field, but must be able to participate in various specialized departments or professional fields.This requires leaders to put aside their dependence on power, knowledge, and honor, and to know how to bend oneself, abandon learning and wait for knowledge, and be open-minded, so that the invisible can control the visible, and the weak can control the strong.This is the artistic realm of inaction management.

Ren Zhengfei is a leader who makes continuous progress for the company by constantly denying himself.

Mao Zedong once emphasized the importance of self-criticism. He said: "Whether there is serious self-criticism is one of the significant signs that distinguish us from other political parties." He used self-criticism as an ideological weapon and a means of transformation. He is a learning model of Mao Zedong Thought. He told his subordinates that they must have the concept of progress in self-criticism.

Regarding the necessity of self-criticism, Ren Zhengfei said in his article "Why Self-Criticism":
"Huawei is still a young company. Although it is full of vitality and passion, it is also full of childishness and arrogance. Huawei's management is not standardized. Only constant self-criticism can make Huawei mature as soon as possible. Huawei does not criticize for the sake of criticism. Criticism is not for comprehensive negation, but for optimization and construction. The overall goal is to lead to the improvement of the company's overall core competitiveness.

"In the era of ten times the rapid change of the IT industry, the only constant in this world is change. If Huawei hesitates, it will lose a thousand miles. If it is self-styled and refuses criticism, it will not only be behind by a thousand miles. Enterprises can choose to save face. To fail, to die, you can also choose to lose face, lose your mistakes, and catch up. To live, you can only transcend; to transcend, you must first transcend yourself; the necessary condition for transcendence is to eliminate all mistakes in time, and first of all, you must dare to criticize yourself The ancients said: "Three people must have my teacher." Among these three people, one of them is a competitor, the other is a customer who dares to criticize Huawei's equipment problems; if you are more modest, the other is a subordinate who dares to speak out , colleagues who sincerely criticize, and leaders who are strict with requirements. As long as you truly behave like a corporal, there are no mistakes that cannot be corrected.”

Huawei's rapid growth is actually a process of constant self-criticism.Ren Zhengfei said:

"Without long-term and continuous self-criticism, Huawei's manufacturing platform will not improve the quality to 20PPM. Chinese people have always been undisciplined, free, imaginative, restless, and like to try and innovate, and they are unwilling to engage in boring, day-to-day Repeated work, unwilling to accept the constraints of processes and regulations, it is difficult to treat the process and quality professionally; cannot face the assembly line calmly and seriously like a nun facing the green light, repeating thousands of times a day, the same time after time Boring action. Without self-criticism and overcoming the bad habits of the Chinese, Huawei cannot make products to the same high level as the international level, or even surpass its peers. Huawei struggles with itself and adapts itself to the Japanese and Germans. The working method has laid a good foundation for the company to occupy the market. Without this high-quality international standard, Huawei would not have survived to this day."

In an article titled "Huawei's Winter" published in 2000, Ren Zhengfei also emphasized the importance of self-criticism. He said: "Huawei advocates self-criticism, but not mutual criticism. If the criticism is too strong, it will easily cause Contradictions between teams. And when they criticize themselves, people will not force themselves against themselves, but will show mercy. Even a light beating with a feather duster is better than no beating. After a few more years of beating, it will be hardened into steel .”

As the saying goes, "Be strict with yourself and be lenient with others."Ren Zhengfei asked his subordinates to criticize themselves, which not only improved cohesion but also avoided mistakes, and the company achieved rapid development as a result.Ren Zhengfei is a man of great wisdom. He understands that wealth cannot be obtained only by commercial means, but also by lofty thinking and resourcefulness.The former may get small money, but the latter gets big wealth.Every person who dreams of being rich should always reflect on himself on the road of struggle, and remove obstacles that hinder progress, so that the road to wealth will become smoother.

In view of the turbulent social atmosphere at that time, Lao Tzu warned that leaders should be like valleys, be non-competitive, tolerant and humble.In the process of understanding the "Tao", following the "Tao" and practicing the "Tao", leaders must maintain internal and external consistency, use the light of wisdom to deal with external situations, internally reflect on themselves, control greed, and return to inner clarity territory.That way, you won't do yourself any harm.Leaders should "know the male and guard the female". "Keeping the female" means to be quiet, stay in the back, and keep soft. It means that the leader should live in the most appropriate place and establish a grasp of the overall situation.

(End of this chapter)