From the training of Eight Tools for Effective Managers, I got a preliminary understanding of Mr. Ren, the president of Huawei, and then I was lucky enough to read Mr. Ren's Winter in Huawei. Maybe it's personal values. I am deeply touched by a passage by Mr. Ren in Winter of Huawei: "I have been thinking about failure every day for ten years, turning a blind eye to success, with no sense of honor and pride, only a sense of crisis. Maybe that's why I can live for ten years. We should all think about how to survive together, maybe for a long time. The day of failure will surely come, and everyone should be prepared for it. This is my unshakable view, and this is the law of history. " I have been savoring this article repeatedly these days. Only by reading it carefully can I understand the true meaning of management revealed by Ren from the plain words.
Spring of 2003. The smell of spring is everywhere. Huawei, a primary market selling third-rate products, has developed from a small exchange agent with a registered capital of 20,000 yuan to a banner of national industry with total assets of tens of billions, but it has not felt the warmth of spring at all. After the head of Huawei predicted "Huawei's winter", this winter finally chose to come in a spring season.
This winter is a long one for Huawei, with no end in sight. Someone commented: "Ren has a keen feeling about the coming of winter in Huawei, but he doesn't know why winter will come;" He knows that spring will come, but he can only prepare cotton-padded clothes and doesn't know how to create spring. "
It's very cold in winter, even if you wear thick cotton-padded clothes, you will still feel the biting cold wind. This winter is still the case for Huawei.
On June 5438+1 October1day, 2003, a former Huawei employee revealed that Huawei had laid off employees on a large scale. "It is estimated that thousands of people have been laid off this year, of which marketers account for about 20%. This includes Huawei's encouragement to leave and start businesses, such as some capable middle managers; Some were also brushed off by the' last elimination system'; A considerable part of them took the initiative when the situation was not good. "
On June 24th, 2003, at 65438, Cisco announced that it would sue Huawei for illegally infringing its intellectual property rights. In June this year, the U.S. District Court of Texas issued an injunction to Huawei to stop using Cisco software and training materials. So far, this lawsuit is still in a tug-of-war.
In May 2003, Ping Liu, a former senior employee of Huawei, took his former employer to court, exposing Huawei's most secret internal employee stock ownership to the public. The once proud "full shareholding system" is facing legal review, and Huawei's development foundation is also facing a shaky crisis. Recently, a news that a former Huawei employee was arrested by the procuratorate for allegedly infringing Huawei's trade secrets has also attracted much attention in the industry, and Huawei has once again fallen into a situation of being questioned.
Why did Huawei, which once created "myth" and "miracle", enter the cold winter in a short time, and when did the long cold winter end? What has become a stumbling block to prevent Huawei from returning to "spring"?
The dilemma of successors
Such as the godfather "Vito? Coleon's style is low-key, and he never appears in the camera. Ren is such a well-known boss who changed from a small factory owner with a registered capital of 20,000 yuan to a real godfather in the field of telecom equipment manufacturing in China after 15.
People know little about his life experience. The only simple information comes from his work My Father and Mother. He was born in a rural education family with seven brothers and sisters. He was transferred from a unit in Sichuan to Shenzhen on 1982. After working in Nanyou for two years, I opened an electronics subsidiary and was cheated. He was forced to create Huawei without a job.
He is an inspiring boss, with a wide range of knowledge, familiar with Mao Xuan, articulate and eloquent. In fact, his articles published in internal magazines have become required reading for many other employees, and he has become the undisputed spiritual godfather of Huawei. In the battle of shopping malls, he was loyal, brave, sharp-eyed and determined, but not aggressive. Compared with most people of the same magnitude, he is more generous, kind and warm. Under the leadership of such a commander-in-chief, Huawei won the first place among the top 100 electronic profits in China. As an old employee of Huawei said, "Ren is more and more equivalent to Huawei, and Huawei is more and more equivalent to Ren".
But this is obviously not what 59-year-old Ren wants to hear and see, but he is keen on studying futurology and has not given the outside world a general outline of Huawei's future personnel composition. The problem of Huawei's successor is obviously a very mysterious problem, and it may also be an important problem that puzzles Huawei's future development. Like Frost &; Sullivan, general manager of China, said: "No one can take up the post and establish such prestige in Huawei."
On this issue, compared with Lenovo, which is also one of the top 100 electronics companies in China, Huawei is obviously behind. In 200 1 year, 57-year-old Liu Chuanzhi handed over the baton to 38-year-old Yang, and retired from the background to complete the handover of high-level power. However, the 59-year-old Ren still has no obvious successor. Generally speaking, it takes several years or even decades to train a qualified enterprise successor. Even in a large company known for its steadiness, the late succession plan often brings unnecessary internal friction and turmoil to the company. Obviously, the issue of successors has indeed become an important dilemma for Huawei.
But in Huawei now, the topic of successors is very sensitive and evasive. A few days ago, the reporter mentioned the problem of Huawei's senior successors, and the answer was: "Every employee can be a successor. According to the provisions of Huawei's Basic Law, Huawei's successors are natural leaders from employees and cadres at all levels who struggle collectively. " The successor here is in a broad sense-it is not that the top leader steps down to produce a successor, but that this alternating behavior will happen at every moment, every thing, every post and every process. Everyone's post is watched. If you can't do it, others will leave-this is called "full succession system". It is this change in concept that makes the original simple high-level substitution more complicated, unusual and confusing. According to the statement that Huawei's successors come from within the enterprise, although Huawei currently has more than 1500 employees with doctoral and undergraduate master's degrees, accounting for more than 70% of the total number of employees, most of them are technical marketers, and management talents with far-reaching strategic vision and excellent management skills are rare.
Although Ren is aware of this problem, he often says: "Huawei will introduce gamma globulin" (gamma globulin is also called immunoglobulin, and the human body will produce specific immunity by inoculating specific antigen substances into the body). What he wants to express is that Huawei will keep its internal mechanism alive by introducing external talents. However, many observers believe that despite the awareness of introducing foreign talents, it is difficult for Huawei entrepreneurs to accept the "airborne soldiers" who enjoy the success of the outside world because of the cultural influence of Huawei's "collective struggle", and Huawei's future successors will eventually come from within Huawei.
Taking stock of Huawei's current senior management, it is difficult to find a very suitable successor. In Huawei's senior management echelon, he was deeply impressed by the outside world, and Sun is currently the chairman. She has presided over marketing, human resources, overseas development, high-level training, etc. at Huawei. She has studied Harvard EMBA and has a gentle, delicate and balanced management style. However, as early as 1999, Huawei was criticized by the outside world for its loan problems and marketing methods. Huawei insiders felt that Sun's style was more suitable for the company. At one time, Ji Ping, the chief financial officer of Huawei, was also a popular candidate. Although she played a very important role in Huawei's entrepreneurship and development, she is a lady after all, and she doesn't understand the technology and telecommunications market, and she rarely contacts the outside world, so it is difficult to take over her position. In addition, Zheng Baoyong, executive vice president in charge of human resources, Hong Tianfeng, executive vice president in charge of supply chain management, R&D director, Fei Min, and market director are also possible candidates, but they don't know much about them and don't fully have the required strategic vision.
A telecom expert who knows Ren well said that Ren appreciates people with the same personality as him, who are smart, straightforward and a little paranoid, with obvious advantages and disadvantages. But he will try to pick a person with strategic vision and no obvious advantages and disadvantages to take over. It is said that Ren Zheng Fei appreciates a famous saying in clausewitz's On War: "In the dark, let out the glimmer of life and lead the team to victory." He explained that when the war is in a mess, what is the role of senior generals? Is to shimmer with yourself and lead the team forward in the invisible darkness; Just like Danko in Greek mythology, he took out his heart and burned it, illuminating the way forward for future generations. Perhaps the same is true of any successor who wants to choose for himself, but when and where will this person appear? Obviously, this is an unpredictable problem.
Huawei's "winter" still has no end in sight. For this long winter, Ren, who has reached retirement age, seems to have no good way to create "spring". Perhaps the arrival of the successor can change Ren's position in his mind. Although this is unpredictable, on that day, Huawei may have hope to get out of the "cold winter".
Cultural dilemma
The problem of Huawei's successor has become a difficult problem and confusion for Ren and even Huawei as a whole. The deeper reason lies in Huawei's unique corporate culture.
According to the description in Huawei's Basic Law, Huawei culture is Huawei's core values: "Pursuit: world-class leading enterprises in the field of electronic information, sustainable development; Employees: High-quality employees are the most important wealth, and work together; Technology: opening and cooperation on the basis of independent development of core technologies; Spirit: dedication, innovation, unity and entrepreneurship; Culture: resources will be exhausted, only culture will be endless; Responsibility: make unremitting efforts for the industry to serve the country and rejuvenating the country through science and education. " This basic law is the cornerstone and leading factor of corporate culture.
Observers have long pointed out that the core of Huawei's corporate culture actually reflects the most profound character and militarized style of any soldier. In the process of Huawei's development, Ren was particularly alert to the crisis, and his management concept was slightly "bloody". He thought that being an enterprise was to develop a group of wolves. Because wolves have three characteristics to survive: first, a keen sense of smell; Second, the indomitable and selfless offensive spirit; The third is group struggle. Ren is still a bit "cunning". He is not satisfied with being just like a wolf, but requires that every department of Huawei should have a messy organizational plan, which includes both attacking wolves and calculating embarrassment. It is these fierce corporate cultures that make Huawei a "hyena" that even multinational giants can't sleep well.
Huawei's militarized management is also reflected in its deliberately low-key attitude towards the outside world and the media. Since Ren Zai 1987 founded Huawei, he has not been interviewed by the media. What people see is Huawei in the telecom equipment manufacturing market, and all kinds of comments about Ren and Huawei are mostly the result of analysis and speculation. However, it is undeniable that Ren's military style has always been the core pusher of Huawei's silence. Ren Zheng Fei not only refused to respond to outside criticism, but also did not allow Huawei employees to go out and argue with others. As the top leader of Huawei, Ren pays attention to "equality between officers and men". Even the top leaders of Huawei don't have a special car. They have to queue up for meals and medical treatment in the company and pay the same fee.
The military style is even more vivid in Huawei's management. According to reports, at the beginning of the business, every employee of Huawei had a mat under his desk, just like a camp bed in the army. In addition to lunch break, employees work overtime at night and sleep more. This practice was later called "mat culture" by Huawei people. It is the first duty of soldiers to obey orders. Huawei once held a meeting of 6,000 people in Shenzhen Gymnasium, demanding to keep the venue quiet and tidy. During these four hours, there were no pagers or cell phone rings. After the meeting, there was no garbage left on the floor of the venue, which was very clean.
Some employees who left Huawei pointed out that Ren's character permeates Huawei's basic law. At the beginning of the Basic Law of Huawei, the second core value is described as follows: "In order to make Huawei a world-class equipment supplier, we will never enter the information service industry. Through independent market pressure transmission, the internal mechanism will always be activated. " Within Huawei, Ren also gave a speech entitled "Enterprises can't wear red dancing shoes". In Ren's eyes, although red dancing shoes are very attractive, just like the profits other than telecom products, enterprises can't get rid of them when they wear them, and they can only dance under their drive until they die. Therefore, Ren warned his subordinates to withstand the temptation of lucrative profits in other fields, not to wear red dancing shoes, but to be an honest "plowman". In addition, Huawei's principle of "ruling the country by sages" that "important decisions at the top level are made by sages rather than others, and the truth is often in the hands of a few people" can actually be traced back to the military management system. Huawei's "truth" is Ren's decision.
This "hyena culture", militarized management and dictatorial style have really created Huawei's entrepreneurial period. Because he was faced with fierce competition from multinational giants at that time, Ren himself was not a professional and did not have the core technology, but what he showed in front of him was a vast market. There is no choice: "We are a group of hungry wolves, and we can only survive if the wolves break out."
However, with the growth of Huawei and the saturation of domestic communication market, the environment for Huawei to implement "wolf culture" has changed, while Ren and his Huawei still maintain his militarized style and "wolf culture".
The deliberate low-key makes Huawei employees highly nervous and dare not disclose any information to the outside world. An old employee who has left Huawei described it this way. "Today, Huawei is more like a militarized organization. It is an enterprise full of crisis and preventive psychology. It carefully maintains its only advantage, as if any tone will lead to death. " To outsiders, Huawei is an impenetrable high-walled compound; Everyone in Huawei knows that there are many high-voltage lines in the hospital, and you will die when you press the button. The employee also said that in Huawei, anyone who hides in the spotlight of the media like an invisible person is trained to be deaf and dumb. Even those who leave Huawei are mostly under some kind of mental control and keep their mouths shut.
Ren's "sage governance" has also become a difficult problem for Huawei's development. Ren, who calls himself a "sharp knife dragon", has become a unique corporate culture of Huawei. At Huawei, set an example and do one thing every month to delete personal calls from the mobile phone bill one by one. There is no special car, it catches up with the work car, and if there is no car, it takes a taxi. Huawei's cultural formation is largely a demonstration effect of boss's behavior. It is this effect that makes Huawei's culture more like the result of arbitrary power. From the basic law of Huawei, survival is the last word of the enterprise, how long can Huawei's red flag last, Huawei's winter, the spring day in the north, to meeting challenges, practicing internal strength and welcoming the arrival of spring, every stage of Huawei's development is full of the concept of Ren and his military demeanor. When studying Huawei, experts and scholars found that being Zheng Fei is always an unavoidable threshold. They can easily draw a classic conclusion: "A good company can't achieve rapid growth without a good entrepreneur, but a good company can't achieve sustainable development through entrepreneurial ability. The driving force for the sustainable development of enterprises lies in the system and culture. " As for the conclusion that "there is no Huawei without any post", it is obvious that Huawei's culture is confusing.
Huawei's positioning of "not wearing red dancing shoes" has aroused ridicule from the outside world and is also its own loss in reality. In the business development in recent years, Huawei's ideas and practices seem to have fallen behind. From 65438 to 0999, Huawei organized the research on wireless local telephone technology, but at that time, Huawei executives thought that this technology had no future and finally withdrew the related research. However, in 2000, when Zhejiang Yuhang Telecommunications Bureau took the lead in transforming wireless local telephone technology into PHS network, the latter developed out of control. Huawei, which has always been known for its vision, has lost this development opportunity. ZTE, Huawei's rival in the same city, can share the market with UT Starcom. In 200 1 year, the sales of PHS reached 2.396 billion yuan, and the profit accounted for 25.74% of the total profit of that year. At this point, Huawei has regretted it. On the other hand, in the research and development of 3G, Huawei is betting on WCDMA, a continuation product of GMS. However, Unicom finally adopted CDMA network to transition to 3G, which led to Huawei's failure in two rounds of Unicom's CDMA bidding, while ZTE won the bid twice and got orders of at least one billion yuan. The loss of these excellent opportunities is obviously closely related to Huawei's corporate culture of "putting eggs in one basket".
In addition, cultural brainwashing, an important way for Huawei to maintain its own culture, has gradually been questioned. Huawei recruits a large number of college graduates every year. When they arrived at Huawei, the first hurdle they had to pass was "cultural brainwashing". Let these newcomers naturally accept that everything they have done for the growth of market sales is normal, including "unscrupulous" opponents. Regarding the influence of outsiders on Huawei culture, Ren said: "Most employees of Huawei have received higher education, and it is easy to form their own thoughts and opinions. If their understanding is not unified, there may be many wrong orientations and management contradictions. " So he paid great attention to "cultural assimilation", and he asserted that "since culture can be instilled, personality can be transformed." The compulsory indoctrination of culture needs relevant institutional guarantee. Ren Zheng Fei has an iron law in his heart: "People who don't agree with Huawei culture can't enter intermediate positions." Although a consultant of Huawei explained to reporters that Huawei's management system is not perfect, this culture has essentially played a role in filling the loopholes. However, some employees who have left Huawei believe that this "cultural unification" system essentially obliterates employees' personality and is not good for Huawei's development.
Looking at Huawei's culture, cultural measures such as power dictatorship, closed management and cultural unification, which were very effective in the early stage of entrepreneurship, did not seem to meet the requirements when the enterprise developed steadily. This cultural confusion seems to be more obvious in Huawei's winter.
Difficulties in motivation
The unique incentive mechanism has always made Huawei people proud.
Cultural incentives played an important role in the initial stage of Huawei's venture. Article 6 of Chapter 1 of Huawei's Basic Law clearly states: "Resources will be exhausted, and only culture will be endless. All industrial products are created by human wisdom. Huawei has no natural resources to rely on. Only by digging out the big oil fields, forests and coal mines in people's minds can spirit be transformed into matter, and material civilization is conducive to consolidating spiritual civilization. We adhere to the policy of promoting material civilization with spiritual civilization. The culture here includes not only knowledge, technology, management and emotion ... but also all intangible factors that promote the development of productive forces. " Because of his profound understanding of culture, Ren, like all entrepreneurs who are familiar with Mao Xuan, regards enterprise management not only as a battle, but also as a cultural revolution. He created personal authority with his excellent speeches and sensational words. Ren set a goal for Huawei people: Huawei will become a world-class enterprise one day, and Huawei will make unremitting efforts to this end. As a result, the ups and downs of Huawei are all due to the boss's personal authority and quotations. An old Huawei employee working in Nortel recalled: "At that time, in that atmosphere, we felt that everything the boss said was very reasonable, just like being brainwashed. Besides, we were very young then. We entered Huawei as soon as we left school, and we were very passionate. At first, we accepted Huawei's culture. We were very busy at work and often worked overtime. We didn't have time to think about it. " This kind of spiritual encouragement is the driving force for Huawei's rapid development in the early stage of its development.
After Huawei gradually grew, it handed over the fashionable weapon of modern business "employee stock ownership" to employees. The power of this weapon is enough for employees to rush to the front with passion. As a result, Huawei employees with high pressure, high salary and high load are immersed in the infinite yearning for a better future. Ren's My Mom and Dad moved many employees to tears, which is a mobilization order for Ren to go to the front line.
Both spiritual encouragement and employee stock ownership have brought rapid development to Huawei. With godfather-like persistence and perseverance, Ren trained a group of fierce hyenas, constantly encroaching on the territory around the lion. Ren said to the wolves behind him: if you take the land around the lion, you will have your own share-this is the driving force for Huawei to initially implement full shareholding. However, when more and more positions were captured, hyenas vaguely found that they did not actually get the promised territory. More and more hyenas are becoming confused.
Ping Liu, a veteran entrepreneur who has worked at Huawei for ten years, put his former boss in the dock. The object of this lawsuit is the equity of employees in Huawei, which is the first equity dispute case about Huawei so far. Huawei's shareholding structure, which has been shrouded in mystery for a long time, has since been torn off the tip of the iceberg, and Huawei's incentive mechanism has been questioned for the first time.
Liu Ping, the protagonist of this lawsuit, has made great contributions to Huawei's technological innovation and product development. 1Feb. 993, Liu entered Huawei, starting as a software engineer and deputy chief engineer of the switching business department, and gradually became the technical core figure of the company. 1995, Huawei began to enter the field of data communication, and served as the leader of the data communication project group established at that time. Since then, Liu Yishou has established Huawei's earliest R&D center-Beijing Research Institute. Huawei's best-selling products, such as C & ampCO8STP, QUIDWAY80 10 access server, QUIDWAY series routers, Ethernet switches and terminal products, are all produced by Beijing Research Institute, with General Manager Liu as the general manager, and Huawei has thus established a complete data communication product chain. On June 5438+ 10, 2002, Liu Yihua resigned as the vice president of R&D department, and at the same time demanded to realize the company's equity that he had purchased with performance and bonus for many years. According to the number of 3.54 million shares held by Liu in 1999, Huawei withdrew its shares at the ratio of 1: 1, and the cash settled for Liu was 3.54 million yuan. After accepting Huawei's "audit" for half a year, it got back 3.54 million yuan. But he can't accept such a distribution plan. The reason is that in the past 10 years, Huawei's registered capital has increased from 70.05 million yuan to 3.2 billion yuan, and its total assets have reached nearly/kloc-0.0 billion dollars (according to the valuation of Huawei by Goldman Sachs in 2000), but the 3.54 million shares that Liu bought at the price of one yuan per share in these years have not gained any appreciation-just like other colleagues who bought the company's shares. According to the Employee Stock Ownership Regulations of Shenzhen Company, "the equity held by employees who have been transferred, retired or died after holding shares for three years or less shall be calculated according to the book net assets of the corresponding equity at the end of last year". When Liu left, Huawei's net assets per share were 3.28 yuan. Based on this, he thinks he should get a stock return of more than120,000 yuan, including the dividend of190,000 yuan in 2006. Ping Liu felt that his rights and interests were not respected. Besides, Ping Liu is not the only one who is dissatisfied with this. A group of "hyenas" in the early days of starting a business began to be restless.
As early as 2000, when Li Yinan, Huawei's youngest and most promising "young marshal", left Huawei to set up his own business, the fact that his net worth should exceed 100 million was broken by only10 million, and Huawei's entrepreneurs had no taste in their hearts. They gradually realized that although the development of Huawei is a myth, there is no mythical wealth distribution after the myth.
An old employee said, "In the ten years of Huawei, what burned in the blood was the enthusiasm and enthusiasm ignited by the boss. In that atmosphere, we become very simple, except work is work, and always believe that what the boss says to us will count. The boss asked us to buy shares, and he said it very well, even mentioning the possible listing in the future. In that atmosphere, there is almost no doubt. Most of the old employees in the start-up period believe that the equity accumulated every year will eventually become a considerable wealth with the development of the company, and this dream will be shattered until they finally leave. This way of cashing has hurt many entrepreneurs, and also hurt other employees of Huawei, affecting the enthusiasm of Huawei employees.
It is undeniable that the employee stock ownership at that time enhanced the cohesion of Huawei in its founding period, and made tens of thousands of Huawei employees devote all their youth and enthusiasm, creating a miracle of business war. Now that the "world" has been won, employee stock ownership and entrepreneurial veterans seem to be the biggest obstacle to Huawei's key leap, and they have also torn a crack in Huawei's new and old employees.
In 1998-2000, when Huawei's performance soared, Huawei's stock incentive mechanism was fascinating. Especially in 2000, the company's sales jumped from 1999 to1200 million, nearly doubling! The enthusiasm inspired by full shareholding also reached its peak in that year, with a dividend of 70%. However, Huawei's growth began to slow down after 200 1. In 200 1 year, Huawei's sales reached 25.5 billion, only increasing by 16% over the previous year. At the same time, the option incentive mechanism advocated by Huawei has begun to face new challenges.
When Huawei's incentive mechanism was strongly impacted, Huawei was planning a new employee stock ownership plan. The specific operation method is: Huawei will take out 65.438 billion shares and sell them to the core backbone of the company at the price of 2.74 yuan per share, with an average subscription amount of 65.438 billion shares per person. Among them, 15% is contributed by the employees themselves, and the rest is guaranteed by Huawei, who borrows money from the bank in his own name. The company promises that Huawei will go public three years later, and the subscribed shares can be cashed year after year. In this regard, some analysts believe that Huawei's move is obviously to retain the "backbone", but this distribution method does not seem to stimulate the enthusiasm of all employees. In Huawei, ordinary newcomers have no equity when they come in. Moreover, as a former Huawei executive commented, historical equity puts Huawei in a dilemma: employees who are still inside Huawei hold huge stocks, but in fact this part of historical equity affects Huawei's innovation; On the other hand, the core cadres who maintain high morale feel less and less room to play, and some people have the intention of cashing in high stocks in time and going out to start a business. In addition, for Huawei employees, the premise of being included in this huge shareholding plan is that Huawei is listed, but Huawei's listing is already in a fog. Some Huawei people said that Huawei's listing has several concerns for Huawei: the risk of being acquired; Operations that restrict employees' shareholding; The danger of firing old employees.
When the biting cold wind hit Huawei through the thick cotton-padded clothes, the incentive mechanism, which has always been regarded as the first enterprise in China, was tested as never before, and the way of "full shareholding" gradually faded. What kind of incentive mechanism does Huawei choose to regain its motivation, spend the cold winter as soon as possible and welcome the arrival of spring?
The succession problem, rigid management and culture, and faded incentive mechanism all surfaced in this "winter" of Huawei, which became a stumbling block to the arrival of "Huawei Spring". Perhaps when these problems are finally solved, Huawei's spring will come.