In a class on "Effective Management", Professor Chen Chunhua, a professor at the School of Business Administration of South China University of Technology and vice president of Xinhuadu Business School, gave many examples of how to get out of the misunderstanding of management common sense and make management effective. Let's take the two most commonly used words "organization" and "management" as examples to share with you Professor Chen Chunhua's views and methods.
Do you really know what an organization is?
The first common-sense misunderstanding of management is the specious understanding of the concept of "organization".
For example, modern people increasingly agree with the weight of happiness and emotion in life, but the satisfaction of these two needs is either the wrong organization or that all organizations should take this as their purpose. For another example, the equality of all people in an organization emphasizes equality of opportunity, but it is often mistaken for equality of status. For another example, career planning advocates that individuals should improve their irreplaceability in the organization, but the working mode of the organization-division of labor, with its powerful ability compensation mechanism, will obviously weaken their irreplaceable dreams. The real irreplaceability lies in the irreplaceability of personal soft power, including teamwork, interpersonal relationship and so on.
This is part of the content left in the class notes after listening to Professor Chen Chunhua's "Common Sense of Organization". To trace back to the source of these fallacies, we should start with understanding the definition of "organization".
You might as well recall your understanding of the concept of "organization" first: when you mention the word "organization", what comes to your mind first? In Professor Chen Chunhua's class, some people answered "team partners", such as colleagues, regardless of gender or age; Some people think of "leaders", such as bosses, whether they are their own bosses or indirect bosses.
This is actually an understanding of the organization. But a really thorough, simple and vivid summary, the simple definition of "organization" has long given the answer.
Professor Chen Chunhua condensed the organization into one sentence: "An organization is a combination of people who make systematic efforts to accomplish specific goals." First of all, it shows that the organization must be an entity, a group of people who coordinate each other's behavior and make systematic combination, and the focus of the organization is people; Secondly, the working method of the organization is division of labor, and the organization exists for the purpose.
This kind of interpretation seems simple, but it is in this layer of decomposition that practice has gone into a misunderstanding.
There are formal organizations and informal organizations, the former such as enterprises and families. The latter is like a circle of friends, a spontaneous activity group. The core of formal organization includes three elements: power, responsibility and goal. Because power, responsibility and goal all mean pressure, individuals will be uncomfortable in formal organizations, which conflicts with their desire to stay happy.
In other words, personal hobbies, interests and emotional satisfaction will be the source of happiness, but the power, responsibility and goals contained in the organization are likely to be contrary to them, and the pressure they produce is also opposite to the happy mood. Therefore, although happiness is very important, it is not required to be the first in all places.
For example, some enterprise organizations claim that "the enterprise is home" and call on employees to regard the enterprise as their home, but in fact, this does not conform to the characteristics of enterprise organizations. Although the family is also a formal organization with a standardized contract and a certain division of labor, the two are completely different. In an enterprise organization, it must be clear who is in charge, how to divide responsibilities and what goals to achieve. As for emotional satisfaction and personal interest, it can be achieved through family organization.
In real life, many individuals are unhappy because they want to seek emotional satisfaction, develop personal interests and safeguard personal interests in enterprise organizations, but in the family, they insist on who has the final say, define the division of labor and set the phased goal of buying a house and a car. In fact, this is the mistake of core differences among different organizations, and there is no difference in management methods.
Although formal organizations can also use informal management methods, the informal management methods of enterprise organizations and family organizations are definitely different because of their different rights, responsibilities and goals. In other words, the informal management of enterprise organizations begins with personal hobbies, while the informal management of family organizations is based on emotional satisfaction, which may maximize their respective interests.
The second key to the meaning of "organization"-the focus of the organization is people, does not mean that many enterprise organizations are so-called "people-oriented" at present.
Because many companies claim that employees are fundamental, the actual situation is that leaders pay attention to whether customers are happy or not, and employees pay attention to whether leaders are happy or not. Based on the organization's emphasis on people, the real "people-oriented" should be that employees pay attention to customers, leaders pay attention to employees, and enterprise organizations pay attention to leaders.
This is precisely determined by the objectives of the organization. Organizational goals require that the starting point of work must meet the needs of the corresponding population, and the chain of demand is exactly enterprise-leader-employee-customer. From the perspective of internal management of the organization, it also determines that we should pay attention to those who take on greater responsibilities and make more contributions to meeting the needs.
Based on this logic, it is easy to infer that the person with the most important position in the organization should be the person with the greatest responsibility. Therefore, everyone in an organization has unequal status. The so-called "everyone is equal" means that everyone is equal before opportunities (opportunities are ultimately affected by status, because resource allocation and opportunity flow are often linked to status), and people's status is inevitably unequal.
Another meaning of the organization: the working mode of the organization is division of labor, and the organization exists for goals, that is, systematic efforts under the premise of clear goals are likely to be more complicated and "obscure" in practice, and more enterprises will fall into misunderstanding unconsciously.
Look at the working method of division of labor first. It is the key to the sustainable operation of enterprises, because it can compensate individuals for their abilities based on organizational structure, cooperation mechanism and system, so that incompetent people can be competent, and enterprise organizations will not stop immediately because there are no individuals.
Professor Chen Chunhua took his management practice in Liuhe Group as an example and said, "I remember that when I led this enterprise into an annual income of 5 billion, the general manager of the division had already done half of it. Before they left, they talked to me and said that some competitors wanted to steal their past, and the salary was much better than here. They don't want to leave the company, but they also cherish this brand-new opportunity. I have no objection to their leaving. Some managers asked me why I didn't try my best to keep them. I asked,' Can we treat their competitors in the same way?' My questioner said no, so I told him,' Everyone wants to pursue better development. If you can't give others the same good treatment, why keep others? So, I didn't stay. On the contrary, I encourage them to do it and hope that they will do it well. After they leave, although they will leave me six vacancies, and it is very likely that I can't find a suitable candidate to replace them at the moment, the vacant positions can allow me to provide more people with promotion channels and room for promotion. I can let two people take over one person, 12 people take over these six people. There is no problem for them to cooperate to complete the task, and the overall cost will not increase too much. At the same time, people who are promoted will get great encouragement and give hope to others. "
This is the working method and logic of the organization, and it also profoundly affects that "the organization exists for the purpose". From this perspective, it is not people who rank first in organizational content, but organizational goals.
This requires-organizational goals must be effective. Only when an organization sets its own effective goals can it attract followers and followers. To ensure the effective formulation of goals, it is inseparable from the correct understanding of their own products, markets and services, as well as the ability to organize resources integration.
Professor Chen Chunhua took Haidilao, the protagonist of a famous enterprise case, as an example. He said: "When Haidilao entered the Beijing market, after carefully analyzing the characteristics of this market, it was found that Beijing was particularly lacking in' service spirit' because people here were generally' keen on big things and didn't care about small things', and the work of serving others, such as serving tea and pouring water, was regarded as a trivial matter that lacked a sense of accomplishment and was hard to look at. Therefore, Haidilao clearly stated that its business goal is to win services, so it is not easy to recruit waiters in Beijing, because it is not easy to cultivate waiters' service awareness. At the same time, Haidilao is not worried about letting guests queue up at their doorstep, because they also provide manicure and game waiting period services, and queuing has become more links to enjoy full services and gain more added value. "
Do you really know what management is?
The general understanding of "management" is that management is a process of allocating human, material, financial and information resources through planning, organization, command, coordination and control, so as to achieve organizational goals efficiently. Comparatively speaking, Professor Chen Chunhua's definition of "management" is simpler: management is a working process to achieve the same goal through the resources of employees and other institutions.
Simple decomposition: managers, as decision makers, should let employees know what is most important and make the activities of employees and institutions more effective; Management has rules to follow and is a process. There is no right or wrong, only good or bad, high or low, that is, facing facts and solving problems. Management is only responsible for performance, and management is "in charge" rather than "in charge"; As a distribution, management should let front-line employees get and use resources.
Compared with the organization, management is a complicated process, and there are no fewer common-sense misunderstandings than the organization's precision instruments, because if the organization is a precision instrument, then management is undoubtedly the realization process that the instruments cannot operate efficiently. Especially in the enterprise organizations in China, the common-sense misunderstanding of management is also quite characteristic of China.
For example, business leaders in China often admire "smart" employees. In other words, employees who can deeply understand leaders' intentions and accurately guess their thoughts are often favored in the workplace in China, and are regarded as a combination of high IQ and high EQ. For another example, organizations or human resources management always care about those employees who make comments and fidget, and the assessment indicators focus on the effect (such as attendance, enthusiasm for activities) and attitude, rather than efficiency and ability. For another example, the goals of management and operation are misplaced. In the pursuit of small profits but quick turnover, the management emphasizes process transformation rather than scale and cost control. In the process of establishing a successful service, management pays attention to scale and cost control, not the most simplified process. In brand management, the management controls the cost instead of strengthening the quality.
Our managers often think that subordinates should know what to do after accumulating experience after working in their posts for so many years. Or, some managers think, "My subordinates have been following me for many years. Doesn't he understand my temper and thoughts?" What's more, some subordinates will feel that this is the trust or test of the leader without clear instructions? If you ask again, you will either live up to the expectations of the leaders, or you will look stupid. It's really hard to say.
But in fact, these are all ideas that lead to the difficulty of management effect, and also ideas and behaviors that seriously damage management efficiency. In the position of managers, it is necessary to make clear that managers are decision makers, that is, to let subordinates know what is the most important.
For example, Professor Chen Chunhua said, "There is a popular story in the consulting industry. A consultant went to a company, and the boss said happily,' You came at the right time to help me train my employees, because they are as stupid as pigs and they can't understand anything I say'. Next, the consultant went to train the staff, but the staff said to the consultant,' Go train our boss, what he said is all bird language, and we can't understand it at all.' "
What is said here is almost the real situation of many enterprises: bosses and employees can't get along at all. Managers sometimes like to make things complicated to show their uniqueness and depth, but managers have to make decisions and let everyone implement them. If you don't analyze and clearly arrange what your subordinates do, the result can only be that everyone completes the task with their own understanding of the work, enthusiasm for the enterprise and understanding of their own responsibilities, and the result is difficult to unify and meet the standards.
An employee is about to leave his job, and the human resources manager quickly asks him why he left his job, because of salary or position. But this is often useless. For those who decide to leave, telling the truth can't do any good. It may be said that people will not accept it at all, and they may accept it, but they think that they will not enjoy the benefits if they leave. So almost all the reasons for leaving are not real reasons for leaving. This is a regular summary of human resource management.
However, this does not mean that there is no need for exit interviews or exit surveys, nor does it mean that in order to reduce employee turnover, more attention should be paid to those who often express their opinions and ask for promotion and salary increase. On the contrary, it reminds managers to pay attention to listening to others and reflect from time to time: Are employees who work silently and pay silently ignored?
Accordingly, there is a law in management science: management is a process, which is to solve problems in front of facts and evaluate problems with results. There is no right or wrong in management, only good or bad, high or low. The key point is to attract a group of people with organized goals and make them willing to get together and make a result.
Good management must only be responsible for performance and ensure that front-line employees have resources available. If the balance of management is tilted in the three elements of effort and credit, attitude and ability, morality and talent, then a good management process should always tilt towards the latter. Pay attention to people who contribute to the organization and have the ability, because contribution and ability are more effective for organizational performance.
For example, some employees stayed in the organization for 30 years and finally said to themselves, "Although I didn't contribute, I devoted my life to it"; Some employees go to work on time every day, strictly abide by the company's rules and regulations, and often undertake logistics services when cooperating with colleagues. In a word, their attitude is absolutely good, but their working ability is average and they can't take on heavy responsibilities. As a manager, it is obviously difficult for you to agree with such a management effect.
Some people will question, between ability and morality, what is the priority of ability? Just like this metaphor: people with ability and morality are first-class products, those without ability and morality are waste products, those with ability and morality are dangerous goods, and those without ability and morality are at best defective products. The reality is that it is often difficult to get first-class products and unwilling to accept waste products. Between dangerous goods and defective products, should good management choose dangerous goods
Professor Chen Chunhua said: "The balance between virtue and talent should be inclined to the former only in two cases: one is to pay attention to the quality of candidates in the recruitment process; The second is that when promoted, according to Peter's principle, individuals in the organization are always promoted to incompetent positions, so the premise of * * * is based on moral investigation. "
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Good management is also reflected in always serving business tasks, and there will be no dislocation between management and business objectives mentioned above. In addition, it can clearly distribute power, interests and responsibilities, which will affect the healthy and sustainable operation of enterprises. The ideal situation of management is that the personal goals of the organization and employees are combined into one, which is inseparable from management to make up for the shortcomings of the organization, that is, to pay attention to human nature.