Leadership in the classics of Chinese culture 3: Confucius' "Way of the King" thought and modern business management
In the "Confucius' Family Words", Confucius lamented that the people who are now in power are not the same as those who are in power, and that they are not the same as those who are in power. In this article, Confucius lamented that those in power nowadays, their management concept is too low and they don't know the Way of the King. Zeng Zi then asked: Teacher, what is the way of the king?
Confucius said, "The way of the king" is "the way of the king", which can be summarized in eight words, "internal cultivation of the seven teachings, the external three to."
The so-called "three to" refers to "to the ritual not let the world rule, to the reward is not fee and the world's soldiers say, to the music without sound and the world's people and."
1, the "seven teachings" to a small point, that is, the leader to lead by example; to a large point, is the construction of corporate culture.
In the 100 years since the Industrial Revolution, economists have been particularly interested in exploring the nature of economic growth. The central question they had to answer was, what exactly drives economic growth? Some have given a "three-stage theory": a capital determinist stage, a technological determinist stage, and a human capitalist stage.
As the economy changes, so does the focus of managers. The capital determinism stage pays more attention to the scale effect and capital operation, the technological determinism stage pays more attention to innovation, and now the human capitalism stage pays more attention to the people who innovate, not only individual people, but also more importantly, the system composed of the crowd.
If you have raised tropical fish, you know that just stare at the fish can not, the fish tank is more important than the fish, if the water is not good, and then the beautiful fish can not live long.
The enterprise is also a big fishbowl, corporate culture is water. Modern managers must shift more attention to the water above.
Leaders leading by example is an important means of building corporate culture, i.e., regulating the corporate ecosystem. Confucius asked leaders to practice the seven behaviors (respect for the elderly, respect for the teeth, happy to give, pro-hypocrisy, good morals, evil greed, honesty), in order to rebuild the social culture and mainstream values of order, dedication, still virtuous, harmony, civilization, honesty, in order to cure the social chaos of the rites of passage and music. It feels like the Eight Honors and Eight Shames :)
Confucianism has always emphasized the construction of culture, reminding the highest leaders to focus on the environment, committed to the improvement of the whole system level, rather than personally doing a specific thing. The same is true for Taoism, where the core of the solution is to "do nothing", not to do nothing, but not to mess around, and to do less to control specific matters and more to improve the system level. context). The difference between Confucianism and Taoism is that Confucianism has a more positive attitude towards systemic improvement (control in context), while Taoism emphasizes more on conforming to the wisdom of the system and following the logic of the system's own evolution (context in context).
In the previous post, we mentioned that we should not trivialize the Confucian concept of "ruling by virtue". The "virtue" of ruling the country by virtue is not the moral character of the leader, but a kind of systemic awareness and systemic thinking. Individual moral qualities are small virtues/private virtues, while systemic awareness and systemic thinking are big virtues/public virtues.
King Wuling of Zhao implemented the "HU" (胡服骑射), and he himself took the lead in wearing the "HU" (胡服) and practicing riding and shooting. In the opinion of the people at that time, how could the Chinese nation wear Hu clothing, which was not in line with the mainstream values. Therefore, the nobles were against it. In their eyes, riding and shooting in hu clothes was never a noble behavior. But King Wuling of Zhao insisted on the reform without wavering, and gave up his private virtues in favor of public virtues, which was precisely his eloquence.
More than seven hundred years later, history played itself out in reverse. The Northern Wei dynasty Xiaowen emperor Tuoba Hong felt that the Chinese system represents the future, decided to reform the old system of Xianbei, fully Sinicized, and took the lead in wearing Chinese clothes, speaking Chinese, using Chinese characters, but also changed his family name "Tuoba" to the Chinese surname "Yuan". At that time, this also aroused the general opposition of the Xianbei nobles, who practiced the mainstream values of the Xianbei, and it was impossible for them to agree that wearing Chinese clothes and speaking Chinese was a noble act. But like King Zhao Wuling, Yuan Hong looked at the larger system rather than the individual's small behavior. They were both excellent leaders, and they were truly "ruling the country by virtue".
Now the leaders are the same, we watch the news broadcasts, often see the leaders go to the village, and the people in need of sympathy, and care about the community building, as if they are some insignificant small things. From the management point of view, the work of the big leaders is to set the direction, set the strategy, specific things to authorize subordinates to do it is not finished? In fact, the truth is not so simple, they are in the "moral rule" it.
In today's words, Confucianism's "rule by virtue" refers to the core values as the fulcrum, with the leader's words and deeds as the leverage to promote the whole system to the expected direction of evolution. So what does the big system that Confucianism maintains with all its heart look like? There is a Confucian term for this, and it is called "rites and music".
Ritual is structure, system, system, process. Music is collaboration, flexibility, harmony, and joy. Ritual is the rational part of the ecosystem of human society, and music is the emotional part of the ecosystem. Ritual and music are two sides of the same coin. Ritual and music constitute the complete governance system of Confucianism.
Confucianism's "ritual" includes "law", but it is not the same as "law". For example, judges wear robes and gowns to court, and the British go even further, wearing wigs. Can't a T-shirt be worn to judge a case? Not really, robes and wigs show the "etiquette" of the components, compared with the "law", "etiquette" and more emotional, softer. To govern an animal like man, law alone will not work, it is too cold. That is why Confucius said, "the guide to the government, and the police, the people are free of shame; guide to virtue, and the police, there is a shame and the grid."
The modern society is more in favor of the law, the element of etiquette is weakened. So now people often feel that there is no taste of the New Year, festivals are basically vulgarized for eating, drinking and having fun, more wedding wedding, solemn and sacred flavor of the child is gone, I am afraid that these phenomena are not a good thing.
Music is used to further harmonize the rituals and laws, music calls for emotion, soothes the emotions, eases the confrontation, promotes the connection, everyone has an intuitive feeling, we will not say more.
You may wonder, can music rule? Yes, it can! First of all, we have to clarify that music does not only mean music, but also dance and poetry, more accurately, should be called "music and dance", you can recall the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, which is typical of music.
The square dance is the music of the masses. Imagine how square dancing dissolves the excess energy of the masses of people who have had enough to eat and drink, thus promoting harmony in the neighborhood and maintaining a stable and united political situation, and then recall what some of the activities before the square dancing caused the whole society to jump around, and you will know that the powerful force of "ruling the country with music".
Is there any trace of "music" in the business? I'm guessing you're thinking of the annual meeting, yes! In addition to the annual meeting, there are a lot of seemingly unrelated to business activities. This shows that the idea of restraining people's hearts and minds through "rituals and music" has penetrated into the marrow of our bones.
The ancients also noted that in any group, the leader has much more influence than the ordinary members. In fact, from the point of view of group relations, the leader's behavior is an expression of the group's dynamics, and cannot simply be regarded as the leader's personal behavior. In this sense, the leader's behavior is a manipulative variable of the system and no longer belongs to the individual leader. Imagine that a celebrity has a hard time having a private life, and you'll get the idea. The leader is the "star" of the group, and the influence of this example is natural, whether you are mindless or mindful. That's why Confucius said, "If you are upright, you don't follow orders; if you are not upright, you don't follow orders". The path to leadership excellence is to move from unconscious to conscious influence.
In this way, the theory of Confucianism is no longer like the old, it still has practical significance for our modern work and life.
2. Confucianism constructs the ecosystem model of group relations with the two dimensions of ritual and music, and thus defines the two control variables of ritual and music that drive the evolution of the system. and music, the two controlling variables that drive the evolution of the system. The Duke of Zhou's ritual and music system was a genius management revolution. After nearly 500 years of operation, this management system finally became obsolete (the ritual and music system collapsed), and so all the sages rose up and contributed their own solutions. Confucianism's solution is the most concise and easy to understand: we have a ready-made benchmark ah, back to the old days can not be. The return to the past is not really the past, in fact, the Confucian re-creation, there is a special term in Chinese culture to describe this technique is called "to the ancient system".
So what is the ideal system in Confucianism? Confucius's answer is "three to", that is, "to the rites do not allow the world to rule, to the reward is not costly and the world's soldiers say, to the music without sound and the world's people and."
"To the rites do not allow, to the reward does not cost, to the music without sound" read is not very much the flavor of the "Tao Te Ching", which is also a side corroboration of Confucius by the influence of Laozi. In fact, in the era of Confucius, Confucianism and Taoism are not separate.
As we said earlier, ritual is the structure, the system, the system, the process. "A "supreme rite" is an extremely superior structure/system/system/process. Confucius pointed out that one of the characteristics is "not letting go". The most important rite is not to be allowed. We know that in a traditional pyramid structure, individual competitiveness has to be limited to a certain extent, otherwise the system will be disorganized and performance will decline, and this is the culture of "letting". All the pyramid structure of the enterprise, consciously or unconsciously advocate the spirit of "let", to put it bluntly is to encourage employees to work more, less competition, more cooperation, less competition.
And in the very smart system structure, everyone can play their own intelligence, do not have to worry about crossing the line and harming others, the individual greatly play intelligence naturally in line with the interests of the system as a whole, and therefore do not need to "let" this kind of lubrication and braking mechanism.
So, what's the big deal? What kind of architecture is this? Let's take a look at the evolution of organizational structures over the millennia.
Frederic Leloux, in his book Reinventing the Organization: The Creation of Evolutionary Organizations, color-coded organizational evolution.
The first to emerge was the red organization, whose fundamental rule was to maintain organizational integrity by enforcing overwhelming personal power through fear and obedience. This type of organization is highly reactive and very short-sighted. Examples of today's red organizations include the mafia, street gangs, and others.
The Agricultural Revolution, which created sedentary farmers, also gave rise to amber organizations, or bureaucracies. They are characterized by a strict hierarchy of orders that organizes and directs all aspects of social activity. Compared to red organizations, bureaucracies dramatically improved the ability of organizations to plan and execute over the long term, allowing complex undertakings to be realized. Current examples of amber organizations are the Catholic Church, the military, and most government organizations.
The next evolution in organizational life was brought about by the Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to the Orange organization. The Orange organization retained the pyramidal hierarchy as its basic structure, but followers were given more autonomy in the way they fulfilled management directives. Consistent with the industrial worldview, Orange organizations are viewed as machines that need to be manipulated and controlled by their leaders. As a result, employees of these organizations may still feel lackluster and numb and rigid, even if they have a modicum of freedom in performing their tasks. Multinational corporations are today's examples of orange organizations.
With the advent of the knowledge economy, organizational leaders began to feel uneasy about hierarchical power structures, and the Green Organization was born. Green organizations emphasize the importance of empowerment and are committed to a bottom-up process where all voices are heard and agreed upon. Although green organizations focus on creating a strong human culture, hierarchy still exists because the idea of empowerment is premised on the leader's right to choose whether or not to empower. As long as the leader chooses to empower, they are green; however, if they are replaced with a strong leader who is a personal hero, these organizations quickly change back to orange.
Throughout the course of human civilization, the previous four models have had one **** in common: the boss. From the first tribal leaders to the modern day Chief Executive Officer (CEO), power has always been exercised through "control". Most of us can't imagine how an organization would work if no one was in control - that's why each of the four previous models has some form of top-down hierarchy. Even in the empowerment structure of a green organization, the person in charge must delegate the power they hold in their hands in order for empowerment to work.
Is it possible to create an organizational structure that doesn't require being empowered, so that everyone's full potential can be realized? Because everyone is inherently powerful. The answer is the Teal organization.
The Teal organization is a revolutionary new management model. It operates on the premise that organizations are organic beings that function more like complex adaptive systems than machines. As a result, this form of organization is flexible and fluidly structured as a partnership, while the work is done through self-managed teams. In the Cyan organization, there is no middle management, very few headquarters staff, and very few rules or control mechanisms. Instead of reporting to a particular supervisor, people are accountable to the rest of the team to achieve the same goals of the self-organization***.
While there are no bosses in a Cyan organization, it is not the same as a leaderless business. In fact, cyan organizations have more leaders than similar organizations that take a hierarchical approach to management. In his book, Leroux mentions an example of a cyan organization - Morning Star - the world's largest tomato processor. Chris Rufer, the company's founder, notes that everyone at Morning Star is a leader because everyone is accountable for the resources he or she needs to get the job done and to motivate his or her coworkers to achieve the company's mission.
As you may have noticed, the Cyan Organization is Internet+, decentralized, flat, and a modernized form of the "no one is left behind" philosophy. In such an organization, everyone is a manager, everyone gives full play to his or her creativity in a context of interdependence, and everyone consciously follows a natural structure that best suits the way value is created, so there's no need to "let".
The Cyan Revolution is upon us, and you see traces of it all the time, especially in startups and micro and small businesses. Basic business units in large companies are also being cyanized, such as Agile teams (Scrum Teams). There are also large companies that are actively deconstructing themselves and making cyanization attempts, such as Haier. Haier claims that there are only three types of people within the group: platform owners, small and micro owners, and creators, all of which have cyanization.
The future is here, it just hasn't caught on yet.
3, to reward not fee, the purpose of reward is to incentivize, in the pyramid structure, incentive is a headache. There is an Internet big brother said, resignation is just two reasons: less money to give, the heart aggrieved. This is incisive, but how to solve the problem? Money is a bottomless pit, and the heart can not catch (thoughts of change), these two things can be a big cost. How can we not spend it?
For example, you opened a small store, business is good, so you decided to open another. You have good luck, the company expanded rapidly, press can not be pressed, so you hired someone to take care of. Gradually, your worries are no longer specific business, but how to motivate your staff, expect them to do their best as you do.
The processing of wages and bonuses are very costly method, managers want employees to have the spirit of ownership, and the wage earners always feel that he has to pay more, and complained that you give less. Wonderful in the "master" on the words, the more companies advocate the spirit of ownership, the more implied that the staff is not the master, really do not need to shout slogans, incentives to the problem also disappeared, are masters, who inspired who ah.
Recently I looked at the example of 7-11, very inspiring. 7-11 has a lot of husband and wife stores, 7-11 and the store first to establish the principle of distribution: there is a guaranteed profit (equivalent to wages), beyond the part of about 50-50 (equivalent to a bonus). You can do more to take, can not do less to take, do a bad job we will close.
Of course, 7-11 is not a handful, after all, we are the master, are doing things in partnership. 7-11 a **** more than 2,500 political commissars struggling in the front line, a political commissar can manage 7-8 stores, decision-making power in the hands of the store owner, the daily work of the political commissars is training, consulting and counseling, the 7-11 business philosophy, technology, methodology, and experience to the front-line operators, which is the Internet economy is often referred to as empowerment. The Internet economy is often referred to as empowerment.
So 7-11 transformed into a platform (supply chain management + innovation), and a training and consulting company, not just a retail company.
The example of 7-11 teaches us that rewarding an employee with the value he creates on his own can be done without fees. Create more and take more, create less and take less, everyone is an entrepreneur, the company is just a platform. Essentially the employment relationship into a partnership, employees are no longer a kind of capital (human capital), but to restore the status of people (investors, partners).
You will say, this is a good idea, but how to measure the value created by employees? In the traditional pyramid structure, it is very difficult to measure. Measuring the value created by the team may be easier, but measuring the value created by the individual is almost impossible, which is why traditional performance management is difficult to work.
In what kind of structure can we practice the concept of "rewarding"? As you may have guessed, the structure of the Ritual. Reward is a natural characteristic of the Ritual, and reward can only occur within the structure of the Ritual.
Earlier, we said that after Haier's reform, there are only three types of people within the enterprise: platform owners, small micro owners and creators. In the 2015 World Internet Industry Conference, Zhang Ruimin told us such a short story: Haier has a startup team 1 month did not earn money, placed in front of the team in charge of the road there are only two, one is to remove it, the loss is counted as their own, and the second is to think that it is still able to do, from home to take the money to the team to open the salary. In the end, the person in charge of the family took 200,000 yuan, and signed an IOU with the team, such as performance to do up but also to return him.
In Haier's context, the team leader is called the platform master, and the entrepreneurial team is the small micro master. The platform is to provide resources and services for small and micro entrepreneurial team, the former employees are transformed into creators, to the team is no longer paid by Haier, to rely on their own value from the market to get, Haier called "user pay".
There are many other examples like this, such as Hantoo Clothes "to product team as the core of the whole operation system of single product". Each product team of up to three people: a designer, a responsible product page promotion, and a responsible for the organization of the supply chain. All public **** resources and public **** platform are centered around the group to serve. After the three-person team determines the goal, the company's finance will be in the name of this team into the start-up capital, the team can run. All the next actions, styles, prices, quantities, discounts, promotions, are determined by the group itself. Each group is almost a small company.
The company's assessment of the group and the distribution of bonuses are based on the performance of the accounting, accounting is transparent, which is to take the value created by the team to "reward" them, so there is no question of "fee".
The group will continue to fission into more groups in the process, and there are new people joining the group, through this organizational model, HANDOYOSHE has cultivated a large number of product development and operation personnel with business thinking, and formed a strong operation organization.
The enterprise platformization + internal entrepreneurship mechanism fundamentally solves the problem of incentives. Everyone is working for themselves, making external incentives unnecessary.
Therefore, the most important reward is not the "reward" from the manager, but the effect of introducing the market-oriented mechanism into the enterprise. "The new organizational structures that are coming are described from different perspectives: "to the gift" and "to the reward.
4. As we said before, if you look carefully, you can see many traces of "joy" in the enterprise, such as the annual meeting. So what is "music" for? The Book of Rites. The Book of Music says, "Music is the movement of the heart." "Poetry expresses its will, song its voice, and dance its face. All three are rooted in the heart, and then music and qi follow. Therefore, the depth of feeling and civilization, gas and the transformation of God, and smooth accumulation in the Yinghua hair outside, the only music can not be forged."
Joy is through the heart, difficult to fake. In ancient times, those in power knew how to understand people's hearts by picking the wind; and how to regulate people's hearts by making rites and music. "The first thing I'd like to say is that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I think I'm going to be able to do it. In a nutshell, the role of music is to communicate and connect people's hearts.
"The most important music" is the "sound of the heart", the music of the heart, the mission of life, the meaning of life, so no sound but loud.
Some people say that there are three realms of work, the most common is Job, the next level is Career, and the next level is Calling, which is the realm of "most joyful".
Individuals can achieve Calling in any structure. If you want to enter the realm of bliss as a whole, you have to go to the Cyan organization. In the Cyan organization, the mission of the individual and the mission of the organization are integrated, and the meaning of the organization's existence is first and foremost for the well-being of all its members, while creating value for customers is only a means of survival.
In the book Driving Force, author Daniel Pink defines Driving Force 3.0, which is a set of principles for the organization.
In the book Drive, author Daniel Pink defines the three elements of Drive 3.0 as: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Among them, autonomy describes self-organization and a sense of autonomy, corresponding to "to the gift"; mastery is the guarantee of value creation, corresponding to "to the reward".
Where autonomy describes self-organization and a sense of autonomy, corresponding to the word "ritual"; mastery is the guarantee of value creation, corresponding to the word "reward"; and purpose emphasizes the motivational role of meaning, corresponding to the word "joy.
From this point of view, to ritual, to reward, to music are cause and effect of each other, a trinity.
You may think I'm talking out of my ass here, and that I'm taking Mr. Kong's words out of context! I'm also so skeptical of myself, so the relevant paragraph directly excerpted down, let's figure it out together.
From this passage, we can see that the support for Confucius's proposal of the Three Principles lies in maximizing the talents of the world, which, in today's language, means giving full play to the potential of each individual. It is just that in Confucius' design, the realization of this ideal depends on the emergence of a sage king who is the most benevolent, the most knowledgeable, and the most enlightened. However, more than 2,000 years have passed, and we have not waited for the sage king, but instead, in the era of decentralization, we seem to see the light of day.