When it comes to the core competitiveness of a company, some companies are execution, some are technology, and some are business models. Unlike many companies, Ali’s greatest core competitiveness is values, mission, and vision.
Working under the same values will greatly improve the management effect of the enterprise. The author of this article is a senior manager of Ali, let’s see what his views on this.
A company of ten people, a company of one hundred people, a company of five hundred people, a company of one thousand people, and a company of ten thousand people all have completely different ways of bringing them together. When there are ten people, only the rule of man may be needed, and the friendship between brothers can be used as a bond to bring it together. Once there are a hundred people, you must start to talk about management and the legal system. To a company of 10,000 people, it is necessary to talk about the corporate culture and values, otherwise the company's organization may collapse at any time.
Mission and vision are definitely not just slogans. They must play a vital role in guiding the way at the moment of life and death. For example, what money should be made, what should not be made, when disagreements arise, it depends on the mission and vision. This is not a slogan used to fool yourself and others. Values are the same, which can guide us when we face choices. When tens of thousands of people converge on common values to do things, it will bring two obvious benefits: one is that the cost of communication is reduced, and the views on a problem are basically the same; the other is that management costs are reduced, and the bottom-up is lower. It’s possible to do things.
Clear goals
The first is "clear goals".
This seems to be a cliché, but in fact, the goals set by many people are false and not clear at all.
Clear goals have two meanings. One is that the team’s goals must be very clear; the other is that the performance goals set for employees must be very clear. What is clarity? Energetic is called clarity.
When I was working in my early years, there was a saying in the entire security industry that security work seemed to be impossible to quantify. We will do a lot of things, but when the attack will happen is still elusive. At the time, we thought this was a difficult problem to solve. The inability to quantify also caused many of our bosses to fail to see the effect, and it was painful.
But now it seems that security work can still be quantified, and we must be responsible for the final results — vulnerabilities and security incidents. With such key indicators, we will drive all of our products, solutions, operating systems and technological innovations.
The key indicators of the Alibaba Technical Support Department are well defined. When Zhenfei talked to us about his work ideas, he said that the indicator he set back then was to find the core element: when the order or transaction volume drops by 10%, the number of minutes affected (if I remember correctly, it is probably Such a meaning). Then use this indicator to motivate everyone and all departments to do things, including people in other departments.
All work must have the most critical points, which must be quantifiable. If it cannot be quantified, either the explanation is not critical enough, the key is not grasped, or the explanation is not clear.
Similarly, I believe that most employees’ performance goals are not clear enough, and many people’s goals are qualitative rather than quantitative. For example, the goal is "what has been done", and there is no quantitative assessment standard. There are problems in this kind of thing. Either there is a lot of water and want to get through, or it is busy in the wrong direction until the problem is not solved. What hurts the employees the most is that in the end they can't prove that his performance is better than others.
In fact, a simple question can judge whether the employee’s performance goal setting is clear: Does the employee know that after he has done something, he “definitely” will be able to get an “exceeding expectations” evaluation or promotion?
If the answer is not available, it means that the employee’s performance goal setting is not clear enough.
The goals are not set clearly, and the strength of the team does not necessarily lead to the right direction, so I think this is the first thing that managers need to do when leading the team.
Clear responsibilities
Let's talk about "clear responsibilities".
Responsibilities clearly refer to the responsibility to be clear to the individual, and there must be an "accountability system."
Once I had a meeting with Donghui, who is in charge of Alibaba Cloud's products, when Donghui talked about a problem, he said sharply, "If you know this thing at the end of the year, who will be beaten 3.25 (failed) ), you may know who to look for".
Someone should be responsible for any matter, and there should be no gray areas. This accountability must be focused. It cannot be accountable to two people, but only one person. Once there are two people responsible for this, in the end it will be unclear who is responsible, and there will be grey areas. This is not to say that each KPI can only be memorized by one person. In actual work, it is common for many people to memorize a KPI, especially after the target is decomposed. What I'm talking about here is that in the end, someone must be responsible for it. If you want to decapitate, you will be the first to kill him.
I think how to set up an organizational structure is very particular. It's not a matter of playing a family. If I have a good relationship with you, I will make you an official. One of the most important purposes of the establishment of the organizational structure is to establish an "accountability system." If you attach great importance to one thing, it should be reflected in the organizational structure. Separate departments and clear reporting relationships are set up. This is truly important.
Responsibilities are clear is to find a person who can decapitate for everything. If you can’t find it, the responsibilities are not clear enough.
Rewards and punishments are clear
When the responsibilities are clarified, what follows is "rewards and punishments are clear," and those who should be killed must be able to kill.
Don't think that it is easy to distinguish rewards and punishments, and it will be very difficult for most people. A qualified manager should at least have employees, and those who have never had anyone can't talk about a qualified manager. At this point, I even sometimes feel that Ali’s performance management tools are still too soft.
Short-term protection is a very bad behavior. Don’t look at the protagonist’s very domineering short-sighted behavior in many YY novels. You will learn to think that if you do this, your subordinates will appreciate you. The consequence of protecting shortcomings is that there is no distinction between right and wrong, allowing employees to see that the company's system is unfair and that it is nepotism.
So no matter how close you are, you should never be merciless when you want to kill (May I ask if you are a brother who has been with you for many years, is he cruel?). Conversely, even if it is someone who doesn't like it anymore, as long as they really make achievements, they must be rewarded again. The system that can achieve this must be transparent, and must be based on "clear goals" and "clear responsibilities." It is clear at a glance who does well and who does not do well.
Once I gave a very good and hard-working employee 3.25. Afterwards, I told him: "You did work very hard and did a lot of things before, but the results did not achieve the desired results, so only I can give you 3.25. You have just started to lead the team, and you must judge your subordinates by this standard in the future."
In a mature company, there shouldn't be "diligence and hard work", everything should be result-oriented. In the same way, we should not engage in small gangs, and we should not talk about "who is who owns". In personal relationships, you can have close relationships, but you can't talk about friendship at work. Doing a company is not to make anyone happy, but to make things happen.
Beyond Bole
In the end, things are done by people. If no one is there, don't do anything great. So I put "Beyond Bole" to the last sentence of the sixteen-character mantra.
Everyone should have heard Jobs's exposition about "recruit only first-class talents", and everyone understands this truth. The first-class talents are here, what else can't be done? But what I want to add is that the ability to attract top-notch talent is a manifestation of management ability. In many cases, salary alone cannot attract first-class talents, and first-class talents can get high salaries wherever they go.
Some time ago, an old friend of mine told me that what he admired me most was that I was always able to attract a group of the best people to the team at different times. The security organization "Phantom" established when I was in college was like this. Later, Ali did the same and asked how I did it?
I blushed proudly at first, then pondered for a while, and answered him: "First I have to have a big dream, and then let others believe in this dream." This is the only answer I can think of.
Managers must be good at being good at Bole, knowing people for good use, and putting the right people in the right place. The blood of the team must flow, not static.
"Beyond Bole" is actually the last one of Ali's latest values. It also refers to the cultivation of talents to help them grow. For managers, they must be good at using "management levers" to train their D (subordinates who report directly) so that they can be alone, rather than exhausting themselves. The manager who exhausts himself must not be a successful manager.
"Clear goals, clear responsibilities, clear rewards and punishments, surpassing Bole" are the most basic qualities that managers need to have in my summary. If they fail to do so, there will be more or less problems within the organization, so let’s talk about them. Operational capacity. If some entrepreneurs can understand and do this from the beginning, I think the success rate of entrepreneurship may be much greater.
Source: Entrepreneur Staff
