In organizational management, companies often encounter confusion: whose instructions should be followed, the president's or the consultant professor's? How should subordinates adapt to changes in leadership style? How can delegation be made more effective? How can incentives be more effective? How can decision-making and execution be connected? How can corporate plans ultimately become reality? Let's see how Chen Chunhua views these issues.
- The Difference Between Being a President and Being a Professor
The media often asks me: "What is the difference between being a president and being a professor?" My answer is very simple: a professor turns one sentence into eight sentences, making simple problems complex; a president does the opposite, turning eight sentences into one sentence, making complex problems simple. In fact, that's how I do it. Being a professor requires continuous in-depth analysis, seeking the underlying patterns and mechanisms behind things, so simple problems are often expanded and analyzed in detail, making them very complex.
A president's most important task is to achieve performance, which requires clear instructions that can be operated on, so complex problems need to be simplified to the point of being operable. What worries me now is that many managers have become professors. Because they have studied EMBA, they have many concepts, a lot of knowledge, and have learned to express themselves. If that's the case, it's truly worrying.
- Conceptual Ability is an Important Leadership Skill
Conceptual power is an important skill for leaders. If managers can simplify complex problems, members can execute effectively. In fact, whether a person can rise from the grassroots to the top depends on this conceptual skill, on whether they can simplify complex problems.
Mr. Deng Xiaoping became a leader with superhuman conceptual ability. He simplified many complex problems. He made such a big change in China after the Cultural Revolution. Against such a complex social background, he proposed the concept of reform and opening up, using "practice is the sole criterion for testing truth" to resolve all doubts, suspicions, and questions, reducing the complexity of Chinese society to a unified concept, achieving remarkable accomplishments. The issues of Hong Kong and Macau's return, the humiliation of 100 years of colonialism, were solved with the concept of "one country, two systems."
- Adapt to the Leader's Style Rather Than Change It
Fiedler believed that changing leadership style is much more difficult than changing environmental conditions. This insight has practical significance because many of us expect our superiors to be "approachable," "reasonable," or "decisive," or to be the ideal leader in every subordinate's mind.
But in reality, it's hard for superiors to match the leadership style you expect. In most cases, superiors have distinct style characteristics. As a result, we often hear subordinates' disappointment and complaints, or subordinates think they are unlucky not to have a leader who matches their expectations. If you think this way, you are truly wrong. Fiedler clearly tells us that leadership style is difficult to change; this is a basic fact. Even so, you can still achieve results because you can adjust environmental conditions to fit the leader's style.
There is no fixed optimal leadership style; any leadership form can be effective. The key is to adapt to the environmental situation, that is, different leadership styles should be adopted according to the leader's personality and the organizational environment they face. There is no "unique" best leadership style that suits any environment; a certain leadership style can only achieve the best results in a certain environment. Any leadership form can be effective; its effectiveness depends entirely on whether the environment is suitable.
We should know that leadership style or leadership approach is not the most important thing, because any leadership form can be effective. The most important thing is whether the leadership approach or style fits the environmental conditions. The effectiveness of a leadership form depends entirely on whether the environment is suitable, not on the leadership style itself.
So don't simply hope for leaders to change; in fact, they find it very difficult to change. Fiedler's theory gives us a good suggestion: respect the leader's style and try to adjust your relationship with him.
- How to Make Delegation More Effective
The key to delegation is that goal setting is not delegated. That is, in delegation, the use of resources, the choice of methods, and the arrangement of means to achieve goals can all be delegated. Only one thing cannot be delegated: the power to set goals. Whether delegation is effective depends on goal setting. If the power to set goals is also delegated, it will lead to failure to achieve goals and naturally lose control.
But in our daily management, we often make mistakes on this point. Many managers value the choice of resources, personnel, and work methods, but they take the power to set goals lightly. They think subordinates should determine goals based on actual conditions. But when delegation is done this way, goals cannot become the goals of organizational management, but rather the reason for subordinates and the organization to seek resources. Once this state is formed, management can no longer achieve goals. Many people think delegation causes problems, but the problem is actually here.
To ensure the effectiveness of delegation, we also need to pay attention to five situations: First, the larger the organization, the more delegation is needed. Second, the more important the task and decision, the less delegation is allowed. Third, the more complex the task, the more delegation is needed. Fourth, if subordinates do not trust each other, delegation cannot be done; that is, if the corporate culture is not good, everyone does not trust each other, undermines each other, and there are many speculators, delegation cannot be done. Fifth, if subordinates lack a sense of responsibility, delegation cannot be done.
- Managing Your Boss
Use time and resources wisely. For you, your boss's time and resources are what you need to strive for. The meaning of time is to allow information to flow smoothly and to feel each other's expectations. The best effect of time is to bring opportunities, a trustworthy opportunity. The most direct effect of the boss's resources is to provide help for your work. Every boss hopes to contribute to the company's work, but we often overlook this. Many managers are proud of solving problems independently and completing tasks on their own, but they don't realize that leveraging others might have better results.
Managing upward, simply put, is to cater to the boss's strengths and avoid the boss's weaknesses. You should constantly ask yourself: "How can I/my subordinates make the boss's work go more smoothly?"
Management is a practical job. For work results, the boss's support and guidance are very important. To gain the boss's support, subordinates' respect and maintenance of the boss are particularly important. You must truly understand and appreciate your boss, and never fail to appreciate your boss. Many of my young students don't understand this. They always think they are more capable than their boss, have read more, know more, have better English, and are more computer-savvy.
In such cases, I tell them: You should know that being able to take on greater responsibility is more important than the abilities you have. Abilities can help us take on responsibility, but above ability there is a more important factor: trust. From the perspective of trust, your boss must surpass you. It is precisely because they can gain trust that, even if they may not be as capable as you, they get the higher position, not you.
- The Essence and Measures of Motivation
The design of incentives is very important. Many times, most managers think that the most important thing about incentive measures is to meet employees' needs. Theoretically, there seems to be no mistake, but in fact, if you arrange incentive measures based on meeting employee needs, you will find it very difficult. On the one hand, each employee has different needs; on the other hand, it is difficult to understand employees' true needs.
Therefore, the best way is to design incentive measures based on importance and visibility. In the application of incentives, we should remember that whether incentive measures are effective depends only on importance, visibility, and a sense of fairness, not on the degree to which each person's needs are met. As my little test showed, many people judge based on their own need for money and make incorrect choices. If you judge based on needs, incentives are hard to be effective. You must judge based on the characteristics of the incentive measures.
The Olympics is an excellent example. Compared to all sports events, the Olympics has a unique status. For every athlete, they regard winning a medal at the Olympics as a lifelong pursuit. Because the Olympics links athletes' medals to the most important things in the most visible way. Athletes who win medals see the national flag raised, hear the national anthem played, and it spreads to every corner of the world. At that moment, the importance and visibility of a lifetime are highlighted.
In fact, for people at a low level, a relatively small amount of money can have an incentive effect, while for people at a high level, a lot of money is needed to achieve an incentive effect. For some people, both monetary and spiritual incentives are needed.
- The Purpose of Decision-Making is Execution
Many people often ask me how to ensure decisions are correct. I almost cannot answer this question. If our purpose is to seek the correctness of decisions, we have already deviated from the direction of decision-making. Decision-making is for execution, not for pursuing correctness. Or rather, the correctness of a decision does not refer to the decision itself but to the result of the decision being executed.
When we judge whether a company's decision is right or wrong, we often do not look at the decision itself, but at whether the decision can ultimately be executed and achieve the decision's effect. In fact, for decision-making, the key is whether the decision-maker can ensure execution is in place when making the decision, and whether they persist until the decision result is achieved. So people often say that managers ultimately compete in willpower, not in right or wrong. Whoever can hold on to the end, whoever can survive to the end, is probably right.
When making any decision, the first thing is not to judge whether to do it, but to judge whether you can find someone to do it. When Jack Welch led GE's rapid growth, a large part of the growth was achieved through mergers and acquisitions. GE is also one of the companies with the highest success rate in M&A, and the key success factor was: finding the manager to implement the acquisition and letting that manager participate in the entire process from the beginning of understanding the situation. Therefore, before making a decision, first determine who will execute it, and then start the decision-making process.
On the contrary, we almost never judge who will do it, but first finalize the decision and then consider who is suitable to do it. Once the decision is made, the people arranged to execute it have to spend a lot of time understanding and digesting the decision. More people may evaluate the decision rather than execute it. Once implementation is not ideal, they start replacing the executor or changing the decision. This is precisely the main reason why decisions are not implemented properly. The fundamental mistake is to separate decision-making from problem-solving, but decision-making itself is problem-solving.
- Group Decision-Making is Not the Best Decision
For group decision-making, the most common problem is: can you get the best decision? If you start group decision-making with this goal, there will be a big deviation, because group decision-making is definitely not the best decision. It is a compromise that considers multiple factors, so it is impossible to require group decision-making to achieve the best effect. The greatest function of group decision-making is to control risk, not to come up with the best plan.
For major decisions, controlling risk is even more important. Especially when a company has reached a certain scale, controlling risk becomes the main decision choice, because at this time, any wrong choice may be fatal and irreversible. When a company is small, one person can make decisions, and the company can adjust relatively quickly. But when the company grows, each decision affects too many resources, and there is less room for adjustment.
- How to Ensure the Effectiveness of Plans
First, managers' attitude towards plans is very important. Therefore, when issuing and confirming plans, please arrange a very formal way. Do not be simple or too casual, but solemn and formal. Formally signing the target responsibility letter will give managers a formal understanding, and they will treat the plan seriously and comply with it.
Second, do not use original methods to solve problems. Why do plans fail? Mainly because when the external environment changes, people still use original methods to solve problems. If they continue to use original methods, they will find the plan ineffective—because the correctness of the plan conflicts with the environment. If managers still use original methods to solve problems, problems will definitely arise.
Third, you must win the support of your superiors. The prerequisite for a plan to be realized is that superiors support subordinates in implementing the plan. The realization of the plan requires resources, and only superiors can solve the problem of resource allocation. Therefore, obtaining the support of superiors is a condition for ensuring the realization of the plan, and it is also a source of plan effectiveness.
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