It is said that during World War II, the German military classified people into four types: the clever and lazy could be officers, the clever and diligent could be staff officers; the stupid and lazy could be soldiers, while the stupid and diligent should be dismissed. Although this saying is somewhat biased, it highlights the management philosophy and principles of employing people in an efficient team. A team may indeed contain these four types of people, and since a team is composed of individuals, the key issue to study and solve is how to stimulate and cultivate the potential of each member, turning them into valuable "talent" for the enterprise. Sima Guang, a famous minister of the Northern Song Dynasty and author of "Zizhi Tongjian," said, "A great craftsman has no discarded materials; each size has its use." This echoes the words of Yang Yuchun, a famous general of the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty: "Use people's strengths, and there is no one who cannot be used; use people's weaknesses, and there is no one who can be used." (Yang Yuchun used deaf people as guards, mute people as intelligence officers, and lame people as artillerymen.) These ideas provide a similar approach to team management: teach according to aptitude and use people's strengths. Therefore, the most important responsibility of a manager is to cultivate the talent needed by the team, just as the Chinese culture scholar Zhai Hongshen said: "Leadership is about being a leader and mentor; the value of a leader lies in turning followers into leaders." So how do we cultivate talent and build an efficient team? To lead a team well, three elements are indispensable: First, systems: Systems are the rules that all team members uniformly follow. They promote consistency within the team and ensure orderly work. Second, work standards: Work standards are both the basis for business operations and a guide for work, preventing arbitrariness and deviation. Third, team combat effectiveness: Combat effectiveness may be intangible, but it is crucial. It is reflected in courage to forge ahead, optimism and confidence, fearlessness of difficulties, and willingness to take responsibility. The prerequisite for a team to have combat effectiveness is that the internal motivation of the group is stimulated. Without this, no matter how sufficient resources, strong capabilities, strict systems, or correct direction, victory is not guaranteed. This combat effectiveness is similar to the "Bright Sword" spirit advocated by Li Yunlong. Looking at any army with strong combat effectiveness, it is under the inspiration of a belief that it preserves and inherits a spiritual tradition. This tradition is a character, a temperament. With this tradition, it is like injecting a soul into the army. No matter how time passes or personnel change, the spirit can endure, and thus there is "Wherever the sword points, all are invincible." Below, I will elaborate on this from three aspects.
1. Aligning Goals, i.e., Unifying Thought People without goals are helping others achieve their goals. People who do not prepare are preparing for failure; people who do not plan are planning to fail. From the achievements of Shantui Construction Machinery and Shantui Machinery in 2010, I realized that "unifying thought" is not empty talk; it is the direction of action. Problems determined by ideology are the hardest to change. The more invisible things are, the more they reflect the level of an enterprise; this is corporate culture. As long as the parties' thoughts are not unified, their awareness is not up to par (not proactive, not willing to work), and assessment is not in place, even the best measures will not be executed well. "Unifying thought" is not just a slogan; it is a guarantee of not retreating or hesitating when encountering problems, and it is the greatest guarantee for improving execution. Therefore, to lead a team well, we must first closely combine departmental goals with company (organization) goals and practically implement them to each team member. That is, all employees of Ruichi must decompose their work around the central goal of breaking through 500 units (qualified products) per day and achieving an annual output of 4.6 billion yuan, and execute it without doubt. Managers at all levels must decompose, publicize, inspect, and handle this layer by layer. Only in this way can we form a joint force, and only in this way can we concentrate everyone's energy and passion to move forward together. A team without goals is just a group of stragglers; management without goals is like "a monk chanting scriptures—just getting by!" 2. Stimulating Human Potential Internal motivation refers to a person's inner potential. Once this potential is mobilized, it manifests as optimism, energy, proactive thinking, and perseverance. If one's IQ is normal, everyone can rely on internal motivation to achieve excellence, or even approach brilliance, thereby accomplishing a career. For a team, the exertion of group internal motivation can enable the organization to achieve seemingly unattainable goals. To stimulate internal motivation, both subjective and objective factors are needed, but the decisive factor is the former. Excellent people often can overcome themselves, unaffected by favorable or unfavorable circumstances, and can actively learn and think in any environment, calmly handle various difficulties, and continuously create brilliant achievements. Objective factors play a promoting role; a person's potential can be stimulated by the external environment, events, groups, or other people. Objective factors are not decisive, but they should not be underestimated. Many people's transformations and progress benefit from the promotion of objective factors. Based on this, when managers cultivate subordinates and stimulate their potential, they should:
- Be good at respecting: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Managers should learn to respect their subordinates, enthusiastically help them, offer praise, and proactively care about their work and life. For example, when a subordinate has a birthday, call on (institutionalize) the whole team to send blessing cards or other gifts, so that everyone in the team can feel a sense of belonging and love...
- Be good at listening: Managers should often seriously listen to subordinates' opinions and ideas, and be good at positive guidance. They should make friends with subordinates, understand their plans for personal development through communication, do their best to meet their needs, listen to their frustrations, and be a confidant. When subordinates feel uncertain about their work and future, proactively comfort and guide them, helping them eliminate worries and pressure...
- Be good at delegating: Under clear goal requirements, managers should give subordinates the ability and authority to do things and be responsible for results. However, delegation requires monitoring. When subordinates lack professional knowledge and business ability, managers should teach by words and deeds to improve their ability to operate and manage the market...
- Be good at motivating: Motivation is power. Motivation can be induced by profit or fear of harm, but the most powerful motivation is changing one's mindset. The key to a person's continuous growth is "changing state" (constantly adjusting one's mindset and changing negative states). Focus on results; attention is fact. Be good at guiding subordinates to concentrate their thoughts and attention on a bright future (results).
- Set benchmarks: In a team, members' qualities and abilities vary. Managers should not only help the "short board" members with weak abilities and poor performance to improve the overall team performance, but also focus on cultivating subordinates with outstanding comprehensive performance in work results and learning awareness, setting them as benchmarks. Introduce and promote their excellent achievements and successful experiences in meetings to boost the team's morale.
- Create a learning atmosphere: The most important thing in learning is to calm down and remove impatience. If a person cannot calm down, where is wisdom? Decisions made in anxiety are often wrong. A leader who is unwilling to grow has no future. Chairman Mao, as great as he was, still had his secretary read to him in the last 24 hours of his life, spending his final hours learning. Deng Xiaoping said, "Live to learn, learn until old age," and "If you can improve yourself in a day, do so each day, and keep improving." Be a new person. In short, managers' cultivation of subordinates and stimulation of their potential varies with people's different perceptions of the connotation and extension of success. It depends on people's values, affects the quality of life, and reveals people's realm. There are many factors affecting success, which can be divided into subjective and objective factors. So, what kind of people are likely to succeed? Perhaps influenced by my father's idea of "poor life, not afraid of death," I believe that under the same conditions, those who know how to summarize, can summarize, and will summarize; know how to innovate, can innovate, and will innovate; know how to strive, can strive, and will strive are more likely to succeed. That is, those who can "summarize well," "dare to try new things," "are willing to fight," "always make things difficult for themselves," "are hard on themselves," and "do things they don't like as if they like them." To borrow a popular saying in the education field to illustrate the manifestation of stimulating internal motivation: the process of changing from "I am asked to learn" to "I want to learn" is the process of stimulating internal motivation.
3. Stimulating Team Potential A team is composed of people. To stimulate the team's internal motivation, we must first focus on each member within the team. This places high demands on managers, but there are ideas and paths to follow.
- Managers must have enthusiasm: To inspire others' enthusiasm, you must have it yourself. The manager's enthusiasm is confidence, giving team members strength and confidence at all times; the manager's enthusiasm is a lighthouse, setting an example and guiding direction, infecting team members with enthusiasm; the manager's enthusiasm is also a torch, using it to ignite the team's fighting spirit.
- Managers must ignite conscience: Conscience is truth and humanity. It is manifested in equality and respect, fairness and justice, and the exploration of the principles of things, doing the right things and doing things right.
- Managers must dare to take responsibility: "Heroes often appear in groups, not as individuals." Achievements belong to the team, but responsibility should be borne by oneself. Let every member boldly charge forward, because there is always an umbrella overhead to shield them from strong light.
- Managers must "treat people differently": Each member has different personalities, strengths, abilities, and values. To achieve consistency in concepts and ideas, we should "teach according to aptitude" under the premise of understanding and respect, treating different people with different methods, not one-size-fits-all. This is hard work, but very effective. The greatest power in the world is the power of change. After Kazuo Inamori, Japan's "God of Management," took over as chairman and CEO of Japan Airlines, he turned the company around to profitability within half a year through reform. When he talked about this on CCTV's "Dialogue" program, he said that he wanted Japan Airlines to become a company worthy of trust and reliability in the eyes of employees. From this, I felt warmth and magnanimity, which is also a manifestation of his consistent advocacy of "respect for heaven and love for people." This awareness itself is also an important way and method to stimulate team internal motivation. Stupid people are those who excellently learn things that don't need to be learned and excellently complete things that don't need to be done. The biggest cost for enterprises is untrained employees. Let's encourage each other! This platform will soon organize distributor friends who are interested in transforming to B2B platform e-commerce to visit and study B2B platforms. Inspection enterprise model introduction: Organizational form
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