Liu Chuanzhi: To Be A Great Company

To be a great company requires ideals.

Without ideals, we can not bring our company to great goals. What is a great company? First of all, a company that has a long life and can run for a long time, a company that is good enough to shut down in a year will not wait for greatness; second, scale Big enough to be truly influential. Shareholder For investors, turnover, profit and so on. Finance The number is better; third, after having influence, the company will contribute to society, not just to make contributions to shareholders, such as promoting industrial upgrading through technological progress, promoting social progress through environmental protection, energy saving and various public welfare undertakings. Employees should not only have the right material treatment, work recognition and good working environment, but also realize that the company is contributing to the country and mankind.

Lenovo is 27 years old. When I first started Lenovo, I didn't know exactly how to run the company. I just wanted to reflect the value of life. By 1987 and 1988, when the company took a certain track, I had a bigger idea: becoming the biggest PC company in China. The vision put forward at that time was to run a long-term and large-scale high-tech enterprise. This goal was achieved before and after 2000. Lenovo's PC share in China has ranked first. Now, our vision is to be a trustworthy and respected international Invest-holding Company. With capital as a platform, we will create a number of leading enterprises through value creation and contribute to China's economy. This long-term goal is to make Lenovo a great company.

Ideal, but not idealized. To be a great company, it will be subject to some constraints, such as environment, policy, culture and so on. When determining goals, we must take these factors into account and not idealize them.

Inevitably, there will be setbacks in the process of moving towards a great company. Looking back, the biggest difficulty that Lenovo encountered was actually fighting against the environment. Competition in business is only a matter of whether the product is good or not, which is not difficult because it can be improved through continuous adjustment. It is very difficult to do something when the time is not ripe. Although all these things seem to be done, these things once they are related to the environment, priorities and even wrong judgments are another matter.

In the 80s of last century, opportunism prevailed, and many enterprises did anything to make money. At that time, we should follow the route of "trade and industry technology", and import and export and exchange foreign currencies in the process of early consignment. If we take advantage of the policy transformation space and earn foreign exchange balance, we can earn a lot of money. At that time, many similar companies originally wanted to make computers, but in order to make quick money, they simply went directly to "foreign exchange". Later, when the situation changed, they stepped on the "red line of policy". Even if we do not step on the line and enter the market economy, there will be little room for policy making, and such enterprises will not be able to survive.

The reason why we can stick to it is that no matter what others are like, we try our best to work towards our goal, and are determined to use our own technology to make our own brand computers. In retrospect, this is actually our company's principle of being a human being and doing things - to do what the business wants to do, not to be tempted by other things.

I use an egg to hatch chickens. The normal temperature for laying eggs is 39 degrees. When I founded Lenovo in 1984, I should say that the ambient temperature is 42 degrees. Only the eggs with strong vitality can hatch chickens. Today, the ambient temperature should be 39.5 degrees, or 39.5 degrees higher, but a large number of eggs can hatch chickens. In this sense, what the government should do is to reduce the ambient temperature by 42 degrees to 39 degrees. For these eggs, we should strive to improve our viability. In retrospect, the improvement of this ability is quite painful.

There are two core guiding principles that help Lenovo survive in a 42 degree environment: one is firm belief. I believe that China's reform can be successful, I want to run a long-term enterprise, and I will never seek short-term interests for myself and enterprises, thereby harming the fundamental interests of enterprises. We believe that we can do business well if we behave openly and conscientiously. In short, I want to run long distance instead of running sprints. Two, we should not make mistakes in reform, or we should not be victims of reform. Since I can't change the environment, I try to create a small environment for enterprises to survive. If the small environment can not be created, I will be patient and not make mistakes. Because once oneself or the enterprise that oneself leads, sacrifice good exploration is useless, it is not worth it.

Reaching the other side of the river is our goal. This is something everyone can see clearly. The difficulty is how to bridge, how to build a ship, or how to learn to swim quickly. Without swimming at all, he plunged into the water without any trouble. In addition to futile bubbles and funny humour, nothing came of it. Lenovo wants to do something, but to achieve great ideals through non idealized action.

To be a great company requires dedication.

There is an old Chinese saying that "easier said than done." Many good strategies can not be effectively implemented. The main reason is that the "team" is not well done. How to make your soldiers love to fight, how to make your soldiers fight, and how to make your soldiers fight effectively, is the three important point of bringing the troops into full play.

For ordinary employees, they should emphasize their sense of responsibility. The grass-roots cadres have no sense of responsibility, and the foundation is loose. Absolutely not. For middle-level cadres, besides their sense of responsibility, they should also emphasize their ambition and hope that the middle-level leaders will have a sense of initiative and greater importance. Besides the sense of responsibility and ambition, they should also have a dedication to the core, and regard their enterprises as their own lives, and regard them as a family business without family.

In Lenovo, comrades who aspire to fight for the cause of China's science and technology reform and strive for the cause of Lenovo, the young comrades who are ambitious, talented and willing to stand the test must be dedicated. When companies encounter difficulties and encounter risks, they will pay a high price. Some comrades may even be physically exhausted. In an era not understood by the society and people around us, we must endure the grievances and bear tremendous mental pressure when we struggle, so that we can unswervingly loyal to our cause. This requires Lenovo's cadres to be broad-minded and willing to work hard.

To become a great company, we need to set up an excellent management team dedicated to dedication. We call it a "team leader". The key to team building is to make the top leaders of Lenovo establish their dedication and take Lenovo's career as his own career. Through such rules and culture, senior leaders can work together and efficiently. First, a good team should work together. Such as Lenovo spin off, IBM merger and acquisition, if not unified thinking, unanimous decision, these things can not be done. A big business should make fewer mistakes and make concerted efforts. The second is to enhance the prestige of management. In a team, if only the first hand wants to be clear, others will not respond or follow up, so it will be difficult to promote. While maintaining prestige, we must not lose control of the leaders. When the leader takes a long time, he will have some inertia, and it is very important for the leaders to exert their strength.

When a team is elected, if the talents can not be both, the people who enter the team must be moral. The main virtue we talk about is whether we can put the interests of enterprises first. Enterprises must not tolerate sects. When changing teams, we should put problems on the table. This is an important principle of Lenovo. Some business leaders often consider their feelings when choosing successors, and consider whether they are good for themselves. When a team is replaced, only those who take the interests of the enterprise as the first person can enter the team. Whether a successor takes a business as a career is a key criterion. He should not only consider how the enterprise surviving and developing at present, but also consider how to make the enterprise develop for a long time.

Team members must be excellent business leaders. Besides being enterprising, they must have the following characteristics: first, pursue, have ideals and aspirations. The higher the ideal level is, the more likely it is to become a big business. I think Ren Zhengfei, Zhang Ruimin, including younger Ma Yun (column), all have a higher pursuit of pure wealth. Second, we must have the foresight to formulate strategies and the ability to discern people and talents. I attribute them to learning ability. These abilities are not born, or learn from books, or learn from practice, especially in the transitional period of China's economic system. Third, we must be able to withstand setbacks and not to give up our goals in the difficult times, not to be tempted by other things, to move forward resolutely, and to have the spirit of fighting repeatedly and defeats like Zeng Guofan.

In order to achieve our pursuit of great companies, Lenovo requires the backbone employees of all levels to become engines, not gears. The pursuit of CEO is a big engine, and the managers of all departments are synchronous small engines. Department managers do not operate passively, but give full play to their intelligence. In this process, mental encouragement is very important. We should not just talk about dedication but not encouragement. Spiritual encouragement is multifaceted. It is necessary to provide a stage for competent backbone employees, give them the opportunity to fully display their talents, ensure their consistency in their responsibilities, rights and interests, understand the relationship between their work and overall work, what their responsibilities are and what rights they have.

Lenovo has a good material incentive mechanism for employees, especially for key employees. We have an Employee Stock Ownership Association, which will have a 35% stake in Lenovo. The employees had no shares. When I started the company in 1984, the Academy of Sciences invested 200 thousand yuan. The representative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has 100% of Lenovo's stock. Later, we worked together with the shareholders, and it took 8 years to transform the shareholding system, which made the entrepreneurs and key employees 35% of the shares. This is a great incentive for our entrepreneurs and the backbone employees of the company. It is difficult to transform state-owned enterprises without reform, and incentive mechanism is the main problem.

A great company needs to be created.

Great companies are the pioneer of the industry and need to start a new path. But this innovation is not to make innovations, but to do different things in different periods according to the actual needs of the development of enterprises.

Lenovo's innovation path has gone through three stages: trade technology, internationalization and investment. This is a process of discipline.

Before I founded Lenovo, I was a technician in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1984, the Chinese Academy of Sciences gave me 200 thousand yuan as an investment, and I brought 10 people to start their own business. We had two difficulties at that time. First, there is no money, 200 thousand yuan investment in less than two months to be cheated 140 thousand; two is that we are all a group of nerds, do not understand the market nor understand management. So we set ourselves a development route called "trade technology", with the aim of learning to trade first. In the process of acting as agents for IBM, AST, HP and TOSHIBA, we gradually learned to understand the market, learn to manage, and accumulate funds. With these bases, we can develop our own brand, have our own design and production, and then gradually carry out technological innovation. This is "work" and "skill".

In 2001, the development speed of Lenovo Group slowed down obviously. Lenovo is developing synchronously with China's IT industry. China's IT industry was in a period of super high-speed development in 1990s. It was natural for a country with a PC product ranking to become the second largest country in world PC sales. However, Lenovo's board of directors and management have a strong demand for development, and have the ambition to become a world-class enterprise. To this end, in 2004, we started the international journey and bought the IBM global PC business.

After the spin off of Lenovo in 2000, we accumulated experience and experience of making an enterprise grow from small to large, and also had brand and capital, so it is very suitable for investment business. So we set up a Lenovo investment and started venture capital. In 2003, we saw that there might be some new opportunities for the reform of state-owned enterprises, and we set up a Hongyi investment for private equity funds. Now, the development of the two investment companies is very good, and they have taken the leading position in the industry. We also have more regular understanding of investment, forming a complete set of methods that take value creation as the core. With the core competitiveness, we have further adjusted the shareholding structure of Lenovo holdings, and introduced a new shareholder of private enterprises, which is more market-oriented and more dynamic. Lenovo Holdings has opened up a direct investment business to further develop Lenovo's core assets and move towards our vision.

To be a great company is to run long distances rather than sprints. Now we are far from our target, and there may be more storms behind us. As long as we stick to our goals and step by step, we will get closer and closer to our vision.