Five factors that help young people grow up quickly

It may sound impossible for a young person who has just graduated to manage a restaurant. However, Wangpin Catering Group is doing this internally. Due to the lack of management, Wangpin Group has implemented a "Young Lion Plan" since 2011, recruiting fresh graduates from key universities. After more than half a year of training and internship, they become store managers or deputy store managers. Wangpin Group found that the young people who stayed showed high management qualities. Jing Runtian, a professor at Antai School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, spent two years conducting in-depth research on these young managers and found that five factors played an important role in their personal growth and adaptation. He summarized these five factors in an article in Management Horizons magazine.

The first factor is mental toughness. The article said that people who participate in army military training are generally deeply impressed by military training, not only because military training is very difficult, but also because of the psychological impact of deprivative socialization strategies on people. Management scientist Edgar Schein believes that in many industries where status and income are relatively low and people lack interest, managers will use "deprivative socialization strategies" to deny their ideas and personality when new people integrate. , so that the knowledge or experience needed by the organization can be reconstructed in them.

The same is true for catering companies. Graduates who participate in the "Young Lion Program" usually undergo five days of "devil training". The training content includes going to the street to do research, serving dishes, cleaning toilets, etc. These are basic jobs in the catering industry, and every training is rigorous. For example, there are strict regulations on movements, postures, and steps when carrying a plate, and no mistakes can be made; the toilet must be brushed to the point where you can kiss it. Some people find it difficult to accept this test and choose to boycott or quit, while those who remain are those who are truly mentally resilient. Such people can break through their own psychological limits and look at the customers they will serve and the colleagues they will manage from a new perspective. Mental toughness also allows them to survive better in real environments after training.

The second factor is to face challenges head on. How do people behave when faced with new challenges? Psychological research shows that people will be divided into two types at this time, namely learning orientation and performance orientation. Learning-oriented people will regard practice as an opportunity to learn, while performance-oriented people will focus on proving or demonstrating their abilities. They tend to avoid challenges and always want to prove that they are perfect. On the contrary, only by correctly understanding challenges and being learning-oriented can we discover opportunities for learning and growth in practice and be willing to take on greater risks. And this attitude is very valuable for a newly graduated college student.

The third factor is active experimentation. This statement was put forward by psychologist David Cooper, who believed that active experimentation is an important part of learning from experience. Specifically, before managers assign a challenging task to their subordinates, they should make it clear to them that they will try at least two different experiments during the process. Experimentation can be a new approach, a new attitude or a new way of thinking.

The key to active experimentation is to actively seek feedback. A graduate who participated in the "Young Lion Project" said that she would communicate with two subordinates every month to ask them about their impressions and Perceptions of management and confusion encountered. For example, at the beginning, this graduate was not good at "tasting dishes", so she collected information about common Western dishes and tried her best to understand the raw materials and taste of various dishes, and what they looked like when made. of. In the end, she was promoted to store manager in just a year and a half, and her subordinates also trusted her.

The fourth factor is to learn to reflect. The U.S. military has a practice of reflecting on and summarizing experiences and lessons, called "post-action review." Graduates participating in the "Young Lion Program" have little experience, and it is very important for them to "reflect afterward" after each day's training. Reflection is a process by which a person improves himself, and reflection is usually caused by problems, especially negative ones.

Reflection has two important links: one is how to extract general understanding from specific problems and discover blind spots in one’s own concepts or understanding; second is how to return from general understanding to specific scenarios and propose solutions. problem action. Research shows that people differ greatly when it comes to reflection, refinement, and action. For example, when managing a store, one problem these graduates often encounter is asking for leave.

Some people can only solve problems on a case-by-case basis, and it is difficult to ensure the fairness of leave; while some people quickly find the principles and tips and develop more effective management measures.

The fifth factor is emotional regulation. In the process of establishing authority, leaders are full of anxiety and uncertainty. They will encounter challenges at any time and will inevitably become depressed or lose control. At this time, the ability to regulate emotions is very important. Psychologist Ethan Cross and his colleagues have found that people will show two different tendencies at this time: they may be self-immersed or they may be self-detached. Self-immersed people will put themselves back into the situation and recreate the event from the perspective of the person involved; self-detachment means that the individual can observe himself at the time from the perspective of a bystander and view himself objectively. Research shows that self-detachment not only relieves negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, and anger, but also allows people to make fewer mistakes and make reasonable inferences more easily.

This situation also appears in the diaries of graduates who participated in the "Young Lion Project". When many people encounter negative emotions, they often refer to themselves in the third person to divert attention. point, they often use this kind of dialogue to encourage themselves and put forward higher requirements for themselves.

The above are five factors that are helpful for the growth of young people. I hope they can inspire you.