Private Enterprise Internal Management Research / Pan Wenfu For bosses, how to manage and employ people is a more complex issue than how to make money, and it is a required course for bosses, especially when managing the world's most complex people—the Chinese. In this regard, almost every boss has their own philosophy of employing people. Of course, the formation and evolution of each boss's employment philosophy is combined with factors such as the boss's own experience, personality, lessons learned, and thinking habits, gradually developing with unique characteristics and merits. However, from a common perspective, the vast majority of bosses want employees with these traits: Loyalty, strong ability, stability, high self-discipline, discipline, team spirit, enthusiasm and initiative, ambition... These are the traits that bosses always hope to see in their employees. If an employee could possess all these traits simultaneously, they would be a perfect employee, and having such employees under your command would surely form a perfect and invincible team. But from a realistic standpoint, this is an impossible task. Looking around the world, it seems no enterprise has ever had such a group of perfect employees. Even though it's not practically possible, bosses still actively strive to continuously reform their employees, for example, through corporate culture, management systems, management strategies, and other means, gradually guiding or even forcing employees to achieve the state the boss expects. In fact, so-called employee management is about reforming employees according to the boss's set goals. However, when after a lot of reform efforts, employees still cannot reach the state the boss hopes for, the simplest solution is to bring in new employees, including some high-priced professional managers. If these professional managers also cannot be reformed to the boss's desired state, then replace them with new professional managers—this is what has created the huge domestic professional manager trading market. The bigger the boss, the more energy they spend on managing and employing people, constantly thinking about how to manage people more effectively, constantly pondering the various problems that arise in employee management, constantly introducing new strategies for managing and employing people, constantly resolving employees' resistance to reform efforts, and even constantly balancing the various problems that arise among employees. In short, bosses spend so much energy trying by all means to reform employees into the employees they want—that is, the conventional good employees with positive traits such as loyalty and high self-discipline—and then effectively use these employees. Actually, the fundamental purpose of reforming employees is for use, not for the sake of reforming employees. However, the author believes that some bosses have two misconceptions on this issue. The first misconception is to reform employees from the perspective of reforming people, believing that one must first reform the person, from the employee's thoughts to skills, all must be reformed. Moreover, the reform of the employee's thoughts may even be prioritized over the improvement and enhancement of skills. This is also why many bosses insist on looking at thoughts first before employing someone. Second, bosses believe that employees with those positive traits are good employees. Whether they reform them themselves or recruit and integrate them, as long as these good employees are gathered under their command, why worry about business development? Bosses like good employees and believe that these good employees are compatible with themselves and the enterprise, and when integrated, they can effectively promote the development of the enterprise. On this issue, the author has two points of view, which I will write here for discussion with everyone. First, since reforming people is for employing people, why not look at employee management from the perspective of employment? That is, first determine what this employee is actually used for, and then consider which aspects need reform, rather than reforming all employees into good employees with both good character and learning, and then assigning them. Second, regarding employees' strengths, the aforementioned loyalty, enthusiasm, initiative, etc., are all strengths. On the surface, an employee who accumulates multiple strengths is naturally a good employee. However, the essence of a so-called good employee is not about the employee's own characteristics or what positive traits they possess, but rather the degree of match between the employee and their position. Furthermore, it is whether the employee's characteristics match the job's features (not just the match with the enterprise and the boss). That is to say, there are actually no good or bad employees, only suitable or unsuitable employees. Here I will specifically discuss my own management philosophy. I have three concepts for employing people: 1. People cannot be mutually understood, nor can they be reformed. Because most Chinese people, in their bones, do not accept others' superiority, and they all want to reform others. How could they easily accept others' reform of themselves? Since this is the national character, why go against the pressure and difficulties? Why not think about employment issues in reverse based on this characteristic? At the same time, never expect employees to understand the boss. There is no such thing as mutual understanding between people. Even between friends, acquaintances, and relatives, mutual understanding is often impossible, let alone between employees who inherently have opposing interests. What we currently call understanding is at best just understanding (knowing). Only 100% understanding is true understanding. Who dares to say they have 100% understanding of another person? 2. My employment has three steps: first, use the employee's flaws; second, characteristics; third, strengths. The reason for this order is simple: employees' flaws are the easiest to identify. When doing things, one should naturally start from the simple part, so start with the employee's flaws. If you can overcome the aversion to employees' flaws and look at them purely from a rational perspective, you will quickly discover that these so-called flaws actually match well with certain job characteristics. For example, an employee who likes to chat online during work hours can be assigned to handle online communication with customers; an employee who likes to browse the internet during work hours can be responsible for searching network information; an employee who speaks bluntly and can choke people with a single sentence can be responsible for collecting accounts receivable, continuously choking those who owe us money; a stingy employee can be responsible for office supplies management; and those who like to stir up trouble and try to take advantage of the company can be arranged to go to competitor companies... In short, every employee has value. There are no bad employees, only bosses who don't know how to arrange. Of course, if the boss carries an emotion of aversion, dissatisfaction, or complaint toward employees' flaws, or always thinks about how to reform employees and remove these flaws, then naturally it will be impossible to rationally analyze the match between employees' flaws and certain job positions. Moreover, employees' flaws will appear bigger and bigger in the boss's eyes, until the boss decides to fire the employee with too many flaws. Next, move to the employee's characteristics. These characteristics are not those positive traits, but some purely distinctive features. For example, rich associative ability, good speaking voice, liking to drive, liking to dress up—these characteristics can also find matching job positions in the company. On the basis of using employees' flaws and characteristics well, the boss will naturally develop some positive impressions of employees, and only then will they like a certain employee to some extent. The key point is here: only when the boss likes a certain employee can they discover the employee's strengths. How to use these strengths, I won't elaborate much. 3. Absolutely do not retain employees. Good employees all bosses want to keep, but I firmly do not retain them. Use employees for at most three years, then send them away. The logic is simple: retaining people is for using people, but there are three problems. First, the cost and output ratio of retention. Generally speaking, the longer an employee stays, the higher the personnel cost, and their creativity actually declines. Second, Chinese people working for others have a "springboard" mentality—they look at the grass on the other side as greener, constantly comparing their own pay and rewards with others, and thinking about how to jump to a better company. Since employees have this idea, I will help you achieve it, and I will genuinely help you change jobs. The equivalent condition is that before you leave, you must finish your current work well. Third, people are not retained, but their thoughts and skills must be retained. Every position and every job in the company has a detailed instruction manual, which is continuously improved. Every employee continuously contributes their innovations and experiences, which are compiled into various manuals. That is to say, it doesn't matter if employees leave; some excellent and effective technical methods are left behind, making it easy for new employees to take over. In summary, since it is impossible to recruit perfect employees, start with the existing employees, use these existing employees well, starting from using their flaws, and gradually deepen. I suggest trying to recruit fewer new people from outside, for three reasons: First, recruiting new people, especially high-salary professional managers, is a denial of existing employees. Second, recruiting new employees treats the symptoms but not the root cause, and instead further leads the boss to not explore the potential of existing employees. Third, the internal friction between new and old employees often far exceeds the value brought by new employees. Last point: There are no stupid employees, only stupid bosses who don't know how to use people. The author is a private business owner, having operated a family distributor company for many years, and concurrently served as business manager and trainer in several production enterprises. Research direction is internal management of small and medium-sized private enterprises, with main topics including personnel management, cost control, management backend construction, and military veterans entering private enterprises. 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