Cracking The Way To Acquire Talents

He said that leaders who really regard talent as one thing need to look for the best people in three directions and assess everyone's ability. The best 1% must be promoted in a big way, and the worst percentage must be taken away. We should be good at trying to hire people who are better than others in some aspects, so that the whole team will continue to improve.

The following is a summary of Dr. Li Kaifu's Views:

Whether in foreign enterprises, or in state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, talent is the most important. Many new businesses in twenty-first Century are completely different from the past. For example, a great worker and an ordinary worker in a factory may lose 30% or 50% of their productivity. But in a "Innovation workshop", a very powerful scientist or engineer can be ten times, one hundred times, one thousand times worse than an ordinary scientist or engineer. Because scientists have invented something, and no one else can invent it. Just like Edison invented the light bulb, others can not compare with him.

We should look for people in person.

A boss who attaches great importance to talents must have to put aside his racks and look for people, instead of saying, "recruitment is the work of the personnel department, and you should do it yourself". Any good boss at least put 20% of his time in recruitment. I have never been less than 20%. My former boss, Bill Gate, has never been less than 20%. For example, CEO of Google has to go through every person who will hire a company in person. The company of more than 20 thousand people may hire thousands of people a year, but everyone can see it in person. He can not even take part in the discussion of strategic mergers and acquisitions, but rather look at every resume. Why do we do this? Is it really because he can judge who should hire and who should not? No, more importantly, he thinks that as a leader, we should set an example, let the whole team know that hiring people is not so easy, and the company's talent standards are very high, so don't hire anyone. Although this procedure is slower, it conveys a message: to what extent does big boss attach importance to talents?

For example, some excellent people do not want to go to Microsoft. Bill Gate will lay down his body and spend a lot of time persuading these people to join the company. There used to be a very powerful person called Jim Ryan, who had good software in his hand and wanted to start his own company. Bill Gate himself met with him several times. He said, "well, if you want to see me, I can't help". Bill Gate said, "Microsoft is very good. Do you want to come to our company?" Jim said, "no, your product is the worst I've ever seen." How did Bill Gate answer? He was not the richest man at that time, but he was a genius. He had already appeared in the media: "Jim, you said our company's products were rotten, so you need to save us." Does he feel bad about his product? Not necessarily, he is trying to attract this talent. The two met several times and moved Jim. Finally, Jim came to Microsoft. {page_break}

When I was in Microsoft, I saw Bill Gate doing this, learning a lot and starting to do it himself. I remember when I joined Microsoft in 1998, I hoped to recruit a very good classmate. The first time he looked for him, he said, "no, I am in charge of IBM, responsible for the deep blue project, which is to beat chess." I said, "it's okay, just talking." he won't come. Second years to meet again, still a treat, or not. Another year, his "deep blue" defeated the world champion. I said yes, I can dig him this time. I said, "you have beaten the world champion, do you want to come to our side?" he said, "no, the company has projects." Another year later, IBM dissolved the deep blue plan. The company's team did not exist and everyone else did something else.

I think I can find him this time. I said, "you have knocked down the world champion and have no job. Can you always come?" "I haven't had a girlfriend yet," he said. "He was 40 years old." I said, "it doesn't matter. Hurry up. We can introduce a girlfriend to you in Beijing." He said, "I didn't hand it in, but I found it. My girlfriend is in California. I have to work in California." I said, "well, then you go to California." Next time I go to California to find him for dinner, he says, "I'm in love. I want to talk about it later." Finally, one day, he told me, "I'm going to get married. My wife is going to work in Beijing. Now I can come to you." At that time, I was no longer responsible for the Chinese area and transferred back to Microsoft headquarters. I said, "great, let's arrange it quickly." finally, Microsoft finally met such a person, five years, five meals, perseverance. Company leaders believe that such a genius, at the age of 40, did not have a girlfriend, so we must dig for it.

Do not think "I am CEO, I am the president, and he is just an engineer". As long as you are an important position or your team tells you that someone is great, you should spend more time persuading these people to join. I was persuaded to join in the three months before the Innovation workshop. Now it is not 100% time. I believe 20%-25% will still have it.

Try to hire a better person than yourself.

There are still some guidelines for recruiting people. I have worked in three companies apple, Microsoft, Google, have the same sentence, this sentence some people do not like to listen to, but the fact is so. This is the first class people who employ first class talents, and second rate people employ three talents. If you are a very powerful person - not that the whole person is first class, perhaps you have first-class management, first-class technology, first-class communication and so on, but such a first-class person is very confident and respected. He will not care about hiring other top class people, because "I have enough self trust to hire great people". Maybe he is very IQ, but it doesn't matter. I have more experience than him, and I have better skills than him. First class people are always confident because they are first class, so they will hire first rate people. But second rate people are not confident. Most managers are not first-class people. This is a fact. Non first-class people prefer to hire some people who are able to manage themselves. This is not only a worse experience than themselves, but is not as good as themselves. It is very obedient. It can be managed to die, so that he can do whatever he wants. When I ask him to jump up, he jumps high. But such a person messed up the company, and the company began to go downhill.

Microsoft, apple and Google believe these three companies. Of course, not every company has to do this. There may be different requirements in the factory. Maybe you just use it on the management team, maybe you don't need to apply to your company, but as a boss, you should remember this sentence. Because if you look at ten people who are more obedient and worse than you, they look after ten people who are worse than yourself, and then look at ten thousand worse people. When the company develops to ten thousand people, it will be finished. It is all very bad. How can your company do? So try to find some excellent people who are better than you in some aspects.

In addition, if a team has ten people, according to the size of the ability to sort roughly, when recruiting eleventh people, it does not mean that these eleventh people have tenth or not, if any, they can enter the team. The two is to make these eleventh people better than sixth, or even fifth. When hiring a new person, try to raise the average level of the team rather than drop it. If you do this, hire first class talents or be better than some of you, your team will be excellent, confident and cohesive.

Focus on the establishment of talent assessment system

If you really spend a lot of painstaking effort, spend 20% or 25% time to recruit talents as much as possible. Are these people enough after coming in? It's not enough. They need to make an assessment every year. In this respect, Microsoft has a very good talent evaluation system. Once I went back to headquarters. Gates said, "we haven't seen each other for seven months. What did you mention to me last time?" I was surprised that Microsoft had a talent assessment system. Every year, each department is sent to the company's TOP 0.5% list to form a piece of information. His secretary will put the 600 people's data at his bedside. Gates will read it every night before going to bed, and will remember it for second days. This is a good way to get people's hearts. And you will know who is the best person in the company.

When the company is bigger, senior managers will hide talents. Because selfish motives or other reasons do not want this person to be transferred away, they will find ways to hide talent and give him a raise. When the boss asks the manager, "who can replace you", he will not raise it. When other departments have vacancies, they will not turn him over. This is human nature. And big boss wants to understand this "human nature" will happen, so teach the team: the best person in the team does not belong to you, he belongs to me, belongs to the company, I can investigate him at any time. As a big boss, let your middle and top managers no longer have any chance to hide their team's talents. The best talents in the company belong to the company. This way, one or two people are not afraid, because other people can take over. This system is very good.

Of course, managerial personnel only talk about positive ones and negative ones, such as the last elimination system. In the company, we must give some warning to those who do not perform well. Chinese people are good at speaking good words to everyone, and everyone gets a lot of positive comments. This is not good. We must give everyone a very accurate feedback. Let them know that if something is not done well, something bad will happen to him. It is not necessarily dismissal, it may be a warning or a demotion.

What impressed me most was an experience in Microsoft. At that time, Bill Gate was on the stage, and one hundred company leaders were under the stage. He told us: "from today on, we can no longer tolerate people who live in company, or incompetent, or poor people, or lazy people. We need to highlight these people when we evaluate them. In addition to ABC rating, we should point out the worst 5% of people and point out opportunities for improvement. If we can't improve, we must go. After he finished speaking, everyone was surprised. So the one hundred people who originally held the meeting had only 95 people in the meeting next year. The leader's example set us deep in mind.

Leaders who really regard talents as one thing need to look for the best people in three corners of the world. We should evaluate each person, the best 1% or more. We should remember them well, reward them and improve them. Talents belong to the company's assets. The worst percentage is passed on to them with very severe information. If they are not good enough, they must leave. Human resources, or management and management of talents, I learned more in three companies and applied to my future work.