Good corporate culture: people talk too little (1)

Midea is an enterprise that doesn't like to talk about corporate culture.

However, when people who leave the United States communicate with each other, they especially like to talk about the corporate culture of the United States.

As a consultant, I also found that many enterprises have good strategies, wide markets, good products and no shortage of talents, but they are still slow to move and their development is hindered. A big reason is often blocked by the invisible wall of corporate culture.

Let me share a beautiful corporate culture, hoping to help you.

— 1—

Not much malicious words.

Let's start with the most famous advertising words of Haier, Gree and Midea.

Haier, always sincere.

Gree, master the core technology.

Both companies take their own enterprises as the main body and put them at the forefront.

But beauty is "life can be better", putting your own business last.

Beautiful people are low-key from top to bottom.

This low-key approach, even to do an advertisement, has to hide itself behind the back. As for publicly betting with others, going live on the front desk, and even using yourself as a boot screen, this kind of thing is hard for American leaders to happen. Because these are incompatible with American corporate culture.

No matter how tall American officials sum up American corporate culture, as I have worked in the United States for 17 years, I always feel that the most vivid description is these five words: there are not many malicious words.

—2—

Be cruel

The outside world sees beauty and thinks it is a quiet enterprise.

But people in the industry know best that Midea is a company that is always tossing, tossing organizations, tossing people, tossing products and tossing business ... like a perpetual motion machine, it never stops.

Be hard on yourself.

Beauty not only loves to toss, but also harms herself.

In terms of organizational change, it can be divided into eight stages, more than 500 times, the largest and the second most frequent, surpassing most enterprises. (For details, please click the link to read "How does beauty make organizational changes?" ? 》)

In terms of personnel adjustment, "no one can't move, but also move boldly."

For example, in the reform in 20 12 years, 25,000 managers were laid off 1000, of which cadres were reduced by 50%, and the total number of employees dropped from 20 1 1 96,000 to 108000 for four consecutive years.

With regard to the treatment of relatives, founder He Xiangjian asked his children to leave the United States 20 years ago, and even the most ordinary employees were not allowed to take up their posts. From the top of the group to the grass-roots team, it is necessary to thoroughly clean up all kinds of kinship, and there is no cronyism between workers or executives.

In the reward and punishment assessment, if you exceed the target and get double or even higher bonuses, if you fail to reach the lower limit of the target, you will get nothing. For some major business or management mistakes, cadres at all levels will be publicly notified, and the amount of punishment will be as high as one million or even directly dismissed.

There are many similar things.

It is this kind of practice that dares to be cruel to oneself that has always maintained the organizational vitality of beauty.

It's really hard to be hard on yourself.

Be cruel to things

At the beginning of the 20th century, Haier, TCL, Changhong and many other domestic home appliance manufacturers began to enter the field of mobile phones, and soon occupied half of the country.

Just in 2000, Midea achieved sales of over 10 billion yuan and set up an electronic company internally, so many executives strongly advocated entering the mobile phone industry, because the market and profit of mobile phones are much larger than that of household appliances. But He Xiangjian asked two questions at the internal meeting:

"Does anyone in our team understand mobile phone technology?"

"Is our own home electricity ready?"

Of course, the answer is no. Without your own skills and team, it is difficult to make a difference.

Mobile phones and home appliances are completely two kinds of products, and Midea makes durable consumer goods rather than fashionable consumer goods.

So 20 years ago, when major home appliance manufacturers entered the mobile phone in succession, Midea remained unmoved.

Not only does it not enter the field of mobile phones, but even in the field of black electricity, beauty has never been touched.

This kind of malice to things lies in knowing the boundaries of one's abilities and not crossing them when facing great temptations.

However, in the related fields of white goods manufacturing, Midea does not hesitate, dares to quickly smash resources, constantly expands mergers and acquisitions, and challenges industry leaders in various fields.

In air conditioning and Gree, microwave oven and Galanz, soymilk machine and Jiuyang, market wars have been launched one after another. And is called "public enemy of home appliances" by the industry.

At the same time, looking at the history of beauty, it is also a history of mergers and acquisitions in the field of white goods manufacturing to some extent. I will list some of them:

Since entering the air conditioning industry, 1997 acquired Wuhu Ricoh Air Conditioning, 1998 acquired Toshiba Wan Jiale, in 2004 acquired Chongqing General Motors, and on 20 16 acquired Clivet.

Enter the microwave oven industry, 200 1, and acquire Sanyo Magnetron Factory in Japan.

Entered the refrigerator industry, and acquired Valin and Hefei Rongshida in 2004.

Entered the washing machine industry and acquired Little Swan in 2008.

Enter the lighting industry, 20 10, and acquire Guiya, Jiangxi.

Entering the era of intelligent manufacturing, 29.2 billion acquired KUKA, Israeli Gao Chuang and 740 million acquired Kangxinneng.

Of course, on the road of rapid expansion, Midea has made many mistakes, but it dares to buy and sell:

200 1, sell "Louis Shang" and quit e-commerce.

In 2009, we sold Yunnan Bus and Sanxiang Bus and withdrew from the bus field.

In 20 12, 7,000 mu of factory land and equipment will be sold, and low-end capacity expansion will no longer be carried out.

20 13, Qingjiang motor, solar water heater, yuba, etc. It was sold, and the non-profit non-main business field withdrew.

These sold industries are mistakes that the United States dares to face and examples of constant self-denial.

The fierceness of beautiful women's work is not only reflected in their daring to try and invest boldly, but also in recognizing the boundaries and shortcomings of their abilities, daring to admit their mistakes and correct them in time.

Hit hard. Looks tough enough. But it takes more courage to resist temptation and admit mistakes.

Others are cruel.

The others here refer to Midea's suppliers and distributors.

There is an enterprise in Zhongshan, which is not too large, with annual sales of hundreds of millions. The business owner once said to me when he saw it: "Fortunately, he was a beautiful supplier at the beginning." .

I said, "Midea demands a lot from suppliers. It's amazing that you can do it."

He said, "Beauty is hard enough for us. Quality, delivery and price are stricter year by year, and many colleagues gave up later. " But after several years of persistence, business with other customers is going well now. We can't make much money by beautiful women, but our ability to make money has improved a lot. "

Midea's cruelty to suppliers is reflected in high standards and strict requirements in all aspects.

Many of my colleagues have this experience, often staying in the supplier company for several nights in a row, forcing the supplier to deliver the goods. The boss of the supplier always says that beautiful people are pushed too hard and can only be driven out first. Other companies are not so tight, so they fall behind.

For dealer customers, the "malicious" body is now determined.

Midea has made many channel changes and customer adjustments, and it also involves the most direct interests of many dealers, but it can still be resolutely implemented.

Of course, the process is thrilling.

For example, the widely circulated "smashing BMW" incident. 1997 Fang Hongbo drastically adjusted its dealers, and its BMW was smashed because it touched the interests of many local dealers. But he let people pull the car to the door of the headquarters and show it to everyone publicly, just to show the dealers the determination to change.

clam

Cruel people don't talk much, and so do beautiful women.

Nothing to the media.

I used to work in the office of the group president. At that time, the most common complaint I heard was the colleague in charge of external publicity. It is said that other enterprises often have various interviews and reports, but the beauty is that all leaders are unwilling to face the media and constantly refuse interviews with various media newspapers.

Another time, a colleague left the United States more than ten years ago and went to CBN. He called me and told me about the recent situation in America. Later, he published our conversation in the newspaper the next day without my consent. Although it doesn't involve any trade secrets, I subconsciously know that I will definitely be criticized by the leaders, and it is expected.

After staying in America for a long time, everyone is avoiding the media.

Midea didn't set such a high-profile goal like many companies before entering the world's top 500.

After Midea entered the top 500 in the world, it didn't do much publicity. I first learned that it was through a few friends circle sent by insiders of the United States.

In 20 18, Midea celebrated its 50th anniversary. I didn't go to luxury five-star hotels, nor did I engage in outdoor celebrations where tens of thousands of people gathered. There are neither several hours of live programs nor celebrity coffee drainage activities, just like an internal birthday party.

Wait, countless.

I don't talk much to my peers.

When chatting with me, my friends sometimes can't help asking me, "Dong Mingzhu is cursing beautiful women again. Why doesn't the beauty respond? " . Like most beautiful people, I gave a wry smile first, and then replied, "She can say whatever she wants." .

Beauty has always used the way of "not fighting back, not swearing back", because as I said before, beauty is hard enough for herself and constantly changes her life inside, so she doesn't care what she says outside.

External criticism will only make the internal work harder.

Therefore, we can't see any response from founder He Xiangjian to Dong Mingzhu, and Fang Hongbo only publicly responded once because of problems involving product patents and technicians, and never responded again.

The fiercest is the battle between Midea's microwave oven and Grands. At that time, market competition came and went, and "price war", "patent war", "promotion war" and even "war of words" were constantly staged. Seeing this situation, when He Laoshi gave a meeting to the microwave oven division, he repeatedly asked for "speak less and do more, be low-key and pragmatic" and "don't speak ill of others and do your own thing".

For various trade associations, Midea rarely participates, and even if it does, it is often the following people who make specific things, and the top leaders basically don't show up. So many times, I was named by the leaders of industry associations and asked what level of people in the United States participated.

I won't say much about what's inside

Beauty is not only to the media, to peers, to outsiders of the association, but also to the inner beauty.

There are few knowledge meetings, coordination meetings and communication meetings, but there are more analysis meetings, project meetings and special meetings.

Internal meetings are also straight to the results, and external reasons are not allowed to be explained. Even the PPT of a formal meeting stipulates the number of pages.

Insider communication is also a concluding opening remark. The first sentence that is said most often is "Is it done?" I seldom talk about gossip about stars or my parents. If I have something to say, I'll leave when I'm done.

So many people say that the culture of beauty is to cultivate culture. From this point of view, it is also very appropriate in action and language.

The internal workflow setting can also fully reflect this "few words and few words" feature.

The daily approval process node can only be a three-person node or a five-person node, and too many people are not allowed to participate in the approval.

And the approval is required to be completed within 4 hours, regardless of day and night, holidays, business trips at home and abroad.

This is very surprising for a customer who does process optimization.

last words

A good corporate culture is a kind of unobtrusive culture, but it is still water.

This kind of culture with few malicious words can often get things done well.

The reason why people are cruel is that they are cruel to themselves and dare to change all aspects of their lives. As Fang Hongbo said, "Beauty is undeniable".

Beautiful women work hard, don't defend their own correctness, don't care too much about other people's opinions, and only do their own thing wholeheartedly.

Only in this way can we be strict with suppliers and firm with distributors.

Not saying much is an inevitable manifestation of cruelty. Beauty always keeps a low profile to the media, peers and the interior.

Beauty said why such a corporate culture of "few people say hard work" was formed?

We will discuss it in the next article.