This is a real case ▼ A professional manager worked at a company for three years, turned the tide, and achieved remarkable results. Just as he was full of ambition and ready to make a big push, the boss replaced him without any warning. He felt wronged and thought the boss was unreasonable and incomprehensible. Have you seen this phenomenon around you? Let's first discuss why Yue Fei was killed. Since the Song Dynasty, it has been said that Yue Fei was a loyal and patriotic minister who died unjustly. From a management perspective, his dismissal was not unjust at all; in fact, it was within reason. Yue Fei was killed because he made four fatal mistakes: 1. He constantly advocated 'recovering lost territory and welcoming back the two emperors.' The two emperors were the current emperor's father and elder brother, both former emperors. If they were brought back, where would the current emperor stand? Would he step down and become Prince Kang again? 2. He disobeyed the emperor's orders. When ordered to withdraw from Zhuxian Town, he was reluctant and only withdrew after twelve gold plaques. 3. A military officer interfered in state affairs. Since Zhao Kuangyin, the Song Dynasty had a rule: military officers must not interfere in state affairs. But Yue Fei suggested in court that the emperor appoint a crown prince early. At that time, the emperor had no sons, so who would be the crown prince? He really brought up a sensitive topic. 4. He treated the army as his own. It was called the Yue Family Army. This violated the emperor's taboo. The army of the Great Song was the emperor's private army, so there could only be an imperial army, not a Yue Family Army. If we treat the Song Dynasty as a company, the emperor as the boss, and Yue Fei as a professional manager, Yue Fei's performance was outstanding, yet he was still killed. The professional manager who was fired made even more serious mistakes than Yue Fei, so from a management perspective, his dismissal was not unjust; in fact, it was within reason. Professional managers who are fired despite good performance usually make the following common mistakes: Not positioning themselves correctly 1. Frequently overstepping boundaries A. Overstepping in decision-making. I am familiar with the company he worked for; the boss delegated a lot of authority. But delegation does not mean the boss cannot inquire about marketing work. He often said, 'This is my responsibility, I have the final say.' The company had rules requiring approval from higher levels for personnel appointments and off-budget expenses. The marketing center was always his one-man show: who to hire, who to fire, who to promote, who to demote, and how to spend expenses. He never followed the rules and never consulted the boss. A certain manager had poor performance for a long time and should have been eliminated according to the last-place elimination rule. The boss repeatedly suggested he dismiss that manager, but because the manager was a close friend, he protected him and refused to eliminate him. When performance was poor, the boss tolerated it, but when the business trend changed, do you think the boss would continue to tolerate it? B. Overstepping in occasions. The boss of this company valued talent. When he first joined, the boss let him sit in the seat of honor at meals. At first he declined, but later, because of his good performance, he took the seat of honor without hesitation. When traveling with the boss, the boss booked a suite for him and a standard room for himself. At first he declined, but later he took it for granted. Whenever there was media interviews, he always rushed to the front to speak on behalf of the company. Over time, outsiders knew him but not the boss. 2. Frequently mispositioning A. Arrogant and acting like a local tyrant. The boss delegated the marketing center to him, and he thought it was his own. He became arrogant, overshadowed the boss, and disobeyed commands. Or he pretended to obey but secretly undermined, engaging in 'subversive' activities. He often said in meetings: 'The boss doesn't understand marketing; marketing must listen to me. Whoever doesn't listen to me can get out.' B. Frequently publicly denying the boss's decisions or refusing to implement major resolutions made at management meetings. This company used a democratic centralism approach for major matters. Executives spoke freely, and the boss made the final decision. This professional manager was a marketing expert, but that didn't mean he was proficient in everything. The problem was that when the boss made decisions in areas he was unfamiliar with, he would always deny the boss in front of everyone. He saved face, but the boss's authority was eroded. The boss was technical, good at product development and production management. The past poor performance was due to neglecting marketing. There was strong complementarity between them. His strength was market expansion and team building; his weakness was system construction. This was directly related to his lack of experience in large companies. After a year and a half of rapid growth, the company hit a growth ceiling. The most critical issue was that sales increased but losses worsened. So the senior management meeting decided to bring in a consulting firm. They paid millions in consulting fees. The consulting firm diagnosed the reasons for slowing sales growth and losses and proposed targeted solutions. But this professional manager refused to implement the consulting firm's plan, not only for himself but also for the marketing department. This is like a family member being sick, unable to cure them yourself, and when a hospital expert prescribes medicine, you refuse to let the patient take it. Ask yourself: If you were the boss, would you continue to use such a person? In the workplace: Before the boss makes a decision, you can express your views and suggestions. Once the decision is made, you only need to do one thing: execute! 3. Not reporting or seeking approval The best management is: even if you are a thousand miles away, your all-seeing eye is everywhere. Leaders care about results but also want to know the process. A boss who delegates often says: 'You handle it, I trust you!' But that doesn't mean the boss doesn't want to know anything. The most frightening thing in management is loss of control. Only when the process is under control can the results be predicted. A sensible subordinate, no matter how much authority is delegated, will always seek approval and report frequently. A foolish professional manager often says: 'The boss said this is my responsibility, no need to report or seek approval.' And he really doesn't report or seek approval. If performance is good and he doesn't report, the boss can accept it. But if performance is poor and he doesn't report, isn't that asking for trouble? In the workplace: Lack of a sense of position leads to losing your job. All bosses like employees who act according to their role and behave with integrity. Forming cliques and challenging the boss A boss can accept religion in the company but absolutely cannot tolerate factions. Many professional managers, after achieving certain results and influence under the boss's delegation, become inflated, thinking they are better than the boss and that they are the pillar of the company. They think the company can do without the boss but not without them. But when they calm down, they realize two realities: 1. They feel they have given a lot but the rewards are not proportional. The boss seems to do nothing but gets the most. 2. The company ultimately is still controlled by the boss. So they start to scheme how to use the boss's money to build their own team and achieve their own control. The formation of cliques begins. When they think their team is ready, they start to challenge the boss, often hinting or directly saying: 'Boss, it's not that I disagree with this plan, it's that the whole team disagrees.' 'Boss, if you don't meet my conditions, I'll resign, and not just me, the whole team will leave.' Such professional managers not only lack professional ethics but also don't understand human nature. Do you really think many people will follow you if you resign? There may be some who follow out of loyalty, but they lose professional ethics. If you rebel against the boss today, someone will rebel against you tomorrow. In the workplace, professional ethics are always more valuable than personal loyalty. In the workplace, either become the boss's person, become the boss, or get out and be unemployed. In the workplace, no boss can tolerate a professional manager forming cliques and opposing him. Only focusing on sales volume, not creating profit What is marketing for? To create profitable sales! If you take a salary and don't create sales, you're a scoundrel! If you take a salary and only create sales without profit, you're also a scoundrel! Many marketing directors often say: 'I'm responsible for sales; whether the company makes money is the boss's problem.' So a phenomenon appears: the director always asks the boss to make better products, nicer packaging, lower prices, and bigger promotions. Sales go up, but the more sold, the more losses. I once served a company that had been losing money for a long time. After diagnosis, we found that the product quality was good, but the gross margin was low, and it lost money at the factory gate. The boss was in pain and wanted change. The team developed a competitive high-margin product, and the boss had high hopes for it. But the director said: 'It's too expensive, how can we sell it? How can a small company like ours sell such an expensive product?' So he resisted promoting this product in words and actions. You know the result: the boss, unable to tolerate it, fired him, formed a new team to promote the high-margin product, and three years later the company became the category leader with annual sales of 1 billion yuan. What can drive a company's healthy development is profitable sales. Not making money in business is a crime; not creating profit in marketing is a scoundrel. Important things said three times: The boss cares not about sales volume, but about profitable sales. Poor self-discipline A common rule in the workplace: the higher the position, the stronger the self-discipline. But some professional managers have worse self-discipline as they rise. Some don't follow attendance rules, often late or leaving early, and find excuses: 'Coming to work on time every day doesn't help achieve sales targets.' Some often 'eat, take, demand, and extort' from distributors and subordinates. When on market research, they call ahead: 'Book a room for me.' The money is either paid by the distributor or the subordinate. They never pay for meals, waiting for distributors or subordinates to pay. Some exploit loopholes to over-claim accommodation and entertainment expenses. Even more outrageous: a director takes a high salary and travel allowances but does side jobs, not only for himself but also for the marketing staff under him. Leading a team is about setting the tone. If the leader lacks self-discipline, the subordinates won't have it either. A team with poor self-discipline cannot have a good corporate reputation. Self-discipline is the best way to build trust. The stronger your self-discipline, the more trust your leader has in you. The worse your self-discipline, the fewer opportunities you have. Taking advantage and fooling the company are chronic suicide. In the workplace, it's about who is more foolish; those with petty cleverness die the fastest. Taking credit and shifting blame, not daring to take responsibility If sales grow, they rush to take credit with the boss, talking about their plans, effective management, resources used, and the price paid to achieve the results. The most unacceptable is when a professional manager competes with subordinates for credit. As long as there is a highlight in the department, all credit goes to them. If there is a mistake, it's all the subordinates' fault. As a professional manager, the most basic professional quality is to dare to take responsibility. Taking responsibility has three meanings: A. A real man takes responsibility for his actions. B. Face difficulties and problems, take responsibility, proactively clean up the mess, and avoid worsening the situation. C. The boss hired me to solve problems. There is a type of professional manager who, when performance is poor, blames others; when encountering problems, either blames others or plays the good cop while making the boss the bad cop. They push all the unpleasant tasks to the boss and take all the benefits for themselves. Such professional managers are not worth keeping. In the workplace: The boss pays you to solve problems and create results, not to listen to your explanations. The more explanations, the worse the work. Not recognizing the boss or the company's business philosophy Why take the position if you don't recognize the boss and his business philosophy? Because the platform is good and the salary is attractive. This type of professional manager is like someone eating from the pot but ready to smash it with a stone. Not recognizing the company means not recognizing its culture, strategy, and tactics. Not recognizing the boss means not recognizing his business philosophy and management. Signs of not recognizing the company: publicly or privately attacking and defaming the company's strategy and culture, thinking they are flawed. Signs of not recognizing the boss: often speaking ill of the boss behind his back, spreading gossip, and defaming him. 'The boss is so incompetent, how did he become the boss? He must have had incredible luck.' 'The boss is having an affair with so-and-so.' 'The boss has water in his head to make such a decision!'... Have you seen such people around you? Using the salary paid by the boss to defame and attack the boss and the company is selling your soul! Employees around the boss can be divided into three levels: core, close, and loose. The loose layer are passers-by; the close layer receive material rewards; the core layer identify with the company and the boss, share hardships, integrate into the company, and strive for a common goal with the boss for life. In the workplace: If you're not family, you don't enter the door. Are you one of us? If you don't share the same goals, you don't work together. If you don't identify with the company and the boss, why would the boss use you? In the workplace, only when you identify with the company will the company identify with you. Bosses only trust loyal employees who 'sell their lives' to the company. If you keep your work in mind, the boss will keep your income and promotion in mind. If you always protect the image of the company and the boss, always think about how to create more value for the company, and stand with the boss in the same trench no matter what setbacks the company faces, you are a person who highly identifies with the company. Lack of gratitude Gratitude has two dimensions: A. Gratitude to the boss. B. Gratitude to the company. For a professional manager, every boss is your talent scout. He discovered you and gave you the opportunity. Secondly, every excellent professional manager is excellent because the boss supports you. If the boss supports you, it's hard not to achieve results. If the boss doesn't support you, no matter how capable you are, you can't accomplish anything. So professional managers must be grateful to all their bosses. No matter how good an actor is, without a stage they can't become a star. Rolls-Royce is valuable, and the screws on a Rolls-Royce are also valuable, but if a screw falls on the road, it's garbage. Without a stage, a person can't do anything. So you must be grateful to the company. Once a professional manager was unemployed for over a year. After finally passing the initial and final interviews, just as he was about to celebrate, the HR department informed him that the boss had found a more suitable candidate. It turned out that HR conducts due diligence on executive candidates, and he failed the professional ethics check, which was a one-vote veto. In his previous job as marketing director for three years, when he couldn't push the company forward, the boss changed his position without reducing his salary. He felt humiliated and resigned. His actions after resignation completely destroyed his career. He did two things that professional managers should never do after leaving: 1. He reported the company to the labor bureau for not signing a labor contract and demanded compensation. 2. He instigated old clients to betray the company. Even if the partnership ends, the relationship should remain, but he turned his former employer into an enemy. He didn't win the lawsuit and lost his future. If you were the boss, would you use such a person? Think about Lü Bu in the Three Kingdoms: he was so talented, why did Cao Cao kill him without hesitation? Everyone has learned the story of the farmer and the snake, but many people become the poisonous snake without knowing it. In the workplace: Make gratitude a habit, and thank all those who have helped you in words and actions. Over time, more and more people will help you. In the workplace: Those who don't know gratitude have no future and no money. The workplace is like a tree full of monkeys: looking up, all you see are butts; looking down, all you see are smiles. If you want to see more smiles and fewer butts, you need to climb up. This process first requires gaining the boss's trust. Without trust, you will never enter the core layer of the company and never share in the company's operating results. A professional manager must first be professional. Managers who don't adhere to professional bottom lines and ethics are pseudo-professional managers, with no future or money. Professional managers must always remember: The boss wants results and also a sense of security. The boss likes employees who act according to their role and behave with integrity. The boss likes managers who are self-disciplined, grateful, identify with the company, and dare to take responsibility. Source: Win Marketing (ID: yingxiaoli888) Click Read Original to see more about the 4th FMCG + Internet Conference... -END-