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We have found that most middle managers, once promoted to senior executives, tend to linger or even regress over the long term, finding it difficult to continue breaking through.
Why is it so hard for executives to break through? First, they all have rich experience, but this experience often turns them into narrow empiricists. After succeeding in one area, they think they are omnipotent. When they find that experience doesn't work in another area, they easily swing to the opposite extreme, even denying experience altogether. Therefore, it's easy for executives to change jobs, but hard to break through after changing jobs, and even harder to break through after changing industries. Second, even current executives in Chinese companies, whether highly educated or not, generally lack a deep foundation in economic and management theory, or even if they have theoretical grounding, the gap between theory and practical application is hard to bridge. As a result, some highly educated professional managers who initially occupy advantageous positions often become bookish dogmatists: they are always right when commenting on others, but they just can't do it themselves.
Empiricism and dogmatism are the two extremes among Chinese corporate executives.
Our study of executive development aims to find a middle ground, enabling those with theoretical grounding to master methods and those with experience to grasp the underlying principles.
Anything that cannot be integrated is a virus—this is an important theory we propose. Single-faceted cultivation is useful, but without systematic development, if various problems lack a unified set of values and methodology, serious issues will arise.
Having experience and methods, but lacking perspective (格局), makes it hard for a career to break through. Therefore, we believe the key to breakthrough for Chinese corporate executives is perspective. As long as you are engaged in business operations, regardless of your position, the required perspective is the same. What is perspective? Some think it's realm, vision, courage, and professionalism, but we believe this leads people into an uncontrollable, ethereal state, which is not advisable.
What is Perspective?
First, perspective is the boundary of thinking. The farther your perspective, the farther your thoughts and actions can reach. For a sales department manager, is the boundary of thinking the sales department, the marketing system, the entire company, or even the entire industry? That is the boundary of thinking. We advocate viewing the enterprise from the industry's standpoint, and the industry from the nation's standpoint—this is a breakthrough in thinking perspective. Those professional managers who constantly clash between departments might be right on specific issues, but when placed within a broader perspective, things may look different.
Second, perspective is the level of thinking. Thinking from the boss's perspective, acting from the employee's perspective—this is the level of thinking. At the grassroots level, you only think about grassroots issues; at the middle level, you only think about middle-level issues; always staying at one level is also a problem of perspective.
Finally, perspective is the angle of thinking. Grassroots issues, viewed from a senior level, may be strategic issues; senior-level issues, viewed from the grassroots, may be tactical issues.
Having ability but no promotion; having merit but no reward. Many professional managers suffer from this, possibly due to a lack of perspective. If professional manager development were summarized in one sentence, it would be: at the level of thought cultivation, have perspective; at the level of methods, have professionalism and experience.
Professional and method cultivation will be emphasized even without being told, as it involves daily work; but perspective cultivation, without guidance from a master, may never be realized in a lifetime. Therefore, we advocate cultivating perspective first, then ability. Of course, for novices, it can be done in reverse.
How to Cultivate Perspective
To cultivate the perspective of professional managers, we provide eight aspects of cognition.
- Cognition of Environmental Change. When the environment changes, everything must change. The question is: do we see the surface or the essence of environmental change? Do we see bubbles or the trend of environmental change? Do we see the favorable side or the harmful side?
The terror of environmental change lies in: looking forward, it's slow; looking back, it's fast. Yearly changes are small; changes over 30 years are huge.
Cognition of Marketing. Even seasoned marketing professionals need to re-understand marketing. Because traditional marketing lacks two key points: creating value and realizing value. In the past, sales volume was value; there was only manufacturing, not creation. Now, without creation, marketing loses its value.
Cognition of Market Cycles. Product cycles, corporate cycles, industry cycles, economic cycles—scholars who study these patterns have become masters. Cycles have patterns, patterns can be grasped, and cycles repeat. Grasping cycle patterns not only helps prevent risks but also seizes opportunities. Mastering cycle patterns allows for early prediction and early layout. To outsiders, it seems like Zhuge Liang reincarnated.
Cognition of Strategy. Don't think strategy is only the business of bosses and senior executives; strategy is a perspective for viewing problems. The best is to achieve strategic leadership; at the very least, you must keep pace with market cycle changes. Only on this basis can there be so-called competitive strategy. In fact, "strategy" is the most overused and worst-executed management concept in Chinese enterprises.
Cognition of Corporate Mission. Just as not everyone can achieve excellence, not all enterprises can become big and strong. Although it's impossible for all to become industry leaders, as long as they operate properly, all enterprises can survive well. This should be the common pursuit of all enterprises.
Chinese people and Chinese enterprises love to have a sense of mission. This sense of mission sometimes makes results diverge from expectations. We propose the concept of enterprise operational levels, hoping to help enterprises recognize their position, be pragmatic, stick to their role, and not overreach.
Cognition of Opportunities. When the typhoon comes, if you're not standing in the wind, the opportunity doesn't belong to you. Chinese enterprises lacking resources, or professional managers without resources, without opportunities, development is like going against heaven. Market opportunities, promotion opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities—many people less capable than you have achieved transcendence by seizing opportunities.
Cognition of the Boss. How far you can go depends on who you walk with. Even as wise as Zhuge Liang, he still couldn't support the incompetent Ah Dou. Professional managers face the issues of choosing a boss, getting along with the boss, and even changing the boss. All because the boss is the owner and distributor of resources.
Cognition of Senior Executives. Knowing oneself is harder than knowing the environment and others. We believe that if bosses and senior executives of Chinese enterprises do not first reflect on themselves and systematically improve their operational capabilities, most enterprises, whether small or medium-sized or leading, will find it hard to emerge from the downturn.
It is particularly important to emphasize that the senior executives mentioned in this article include both professional managers and bosses who are in the midst of operations—those who hold and decide the fate of the enterprise. This is because the separation of ownership and management in Chinese enterprises is still very low overall; the capital class still holds absolute control in the management of Chinese enterprises. Short-term operational performance may be determined by the professional manager class, but the fate of the enterprise still rests with the boss class.
In the past, we seemed to have always stood on the opposite side of the marketing mainstream. When Chinese marketing faced numerous doubts and denials, marked by our "Chinese-style Marketing," we have been researching, refining, and advocating factors with Chinese characteristics, and have been committed to the study of marketing and management with Chinese characteristics.
In the era of catching up in Chinese marketing, China caught up. In the era of surpassing in Chinese marketing, China must strive to surpass. Of course, this requires solid foundation and cultivation.
After riding the coattails of China's huge market opportunities for over 30 years and achieving achievements of varying sizes, Chinese corporate executives and bosses must now show their true skills—over 30 years, compared with multinational companies, Chinese enterprises, apart from constructively imitating multinationals based on Chinese and world market needs, focusing on manufacturing, have not created any unique value of their own in marketing. This is not to deny the great achievements of Chinese enterprises, nor to say that Chinese enterprises have done anything wrong; it is just to illustrate that Chinese enterprises should make fundamental changes based on environmental changes.
The essential feature of the new normal in the Chinese market is that there are no more free rides. Executives and bosses must rely on themselves and firmly begin to find their own path. This path is one of independent thinking and independent innovation. Otherwise, current senior managers will inevitably fail, and bosses will either flee or return to "before liberation."
We might as well view it this way: today's economic difficulties in China are a touchstone—true gold should withstand the test of fire; it is also a whetstone—if an enterprise can grind itself out, it becomes a treasured sword; if not, it becomes scrap iron. (This article is adapted from the preface of the new book "Perspective: Development for Chinese Corporate Executives" by Jin Huanmin and Liu Chunxiong. The book will be published by Publishing House of Electronics Industry around the Spring Festival of 2015.)
This article was published in the Management Edition of "Sales & Marketing" magazine, Issue 01, 2015.
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