Notes on Tencent's Corporate Culture

Tencent has grown from an unknown small company to an industry giant in the past 20 years, and its achievements are obvious to all. What did Tencent grow up on? We try to understand how Tencent does it from the perspective of corporate culture, which can not only broaden our horizons, but also provide reference for our actual work.

This book was published on 20 18, and it has been two years now. Some things have changed, and Tencent culture has been updated to version 3.0. However, the history that happened really happened, so this book is a retrospective reading to understand the past and provide reference for the present and the future. The structure of the book roughly revolves around what Tencent's culture (mission and vision) is, how to stabilize the core culture, how to build culture, how to prevent it, and how to transform step by step. The last chapter is about how to treat the founder, which is also part of the culture, but in a smaller module alone.

This book is more like a kind of reading material for sharing stories, which can make a simple and rough understanding.

The first three chapters talk about Tencent's Tao (core values), mission and vision respectively. I think everyone is familiar with this thing. Since the development of the Internet industry, corporate culture has become the focus of attention. As for the culture of our company, how to build it is the key to scratching our heads.

In Tencent, there is a word that has been repeatedly mentioned, which is "user value". Tencent is a TO C enterprise, and it is its most distinctive feature to directly face users. Adhering to "user value" as the center is Tencent's core development strategy. Tencent's initial layout is to build an online life platform that can cover all aspects of people's material life and spiritual life. When many people study Tencent's core competitiveness, they find that the real foundation of its development is the strong user relationship twisted together through social networks.

What needs to be mentioned here is WeChat. This product has opened up the real relationship chain of mobile phones and the Internet relationship chain, and the core lies in the needs of users, providing more real possibility scenarios for users' daily life.

Since it is a matter for each user, Tencent has also summarized several working principles closely related to user needs.

In the process of product design, adhere to:

① Don't force users.

② Convenient operation

(3) The key points should be highlighted, and we should not deliberately cater to the younger age.

(4) light art, point to stop.

In addition to being responsible for the company's strategy, Ma also has a position-Chief Experience Officer. Think of yourself as the company's biggest product manager, think of yourself as a picky user, experience every product of the company seriously, and keep the perception of end users at all times.

In the process of product research:

The product manager must make a user survey of 10 every month, pay attention to the user blog of 100 and the user experience of 1000 with mobile phone feedback.

Of course, the current work scene has been adjusted, but the10/100/1000 rule of user experience can still be flexibly applied to the product manager's workflow.

In the process of product feedback:

Fast feedback to users. There are several examples in the book to illustrate the efficiency of Tencent's feedback to users. Even a small product will attract high-level attention and quickly provide solutions to deal with it in time.

Tencent's strategic goal has always been to "lay out one-stop online life". Indeed, after unremitting efforts, Tencent made a lot of money, but the environment at that time was that Tencent put almost all its products and services on the Internet to create a one-stop online life platform, but it also touched the interests of many people, and even set off a "horse-riding movement" on the Internet, even an increasingly noisy 3Q war. Tencent is in the center of public opinion and does not occupy any favorable comments. It was business. At this time, Tencent began to make a profound reflection with the help of external forces:

Talents can make enterprises bigger, organizations can make enterprises stronger, and culture can make enterprises grow.

As a leader of the industry, we should not be limited to our own development and profits, but also contribute to the ecological chain.

(3) Tencent used to be closed. Tencent is a big tree, and nothing grows under it. Now Tencent must be open.

After a series of reflections, Tencent upgraded its mission. Put forward "recreating a Tencent for partners". First, it must be open and enjoyable. Tencent's internal fund should provide capital support and all-round platform support for partners. Waist third-party partners have heard of complete platform integration solutions. Teng Tencent's priority in interests is to achieve partners first, and then to achieve itself, without infringing on the interests of users. After more than three years, the entire partner's valuation exceeded 200 billion, which was equivalent to the market value when Tencent proposed to open up, and it was also the re-creation of Tencent at that time.

From proprietary platform to open platform control, the biggest change in operating mode is the increase of partners between Tencent and users. In view of how to face this change, Tencent adopts the strategy of "open source control". Mission, from the beginning of "providing users with one-stop online life service" to the present "building a borderless and shared new Internet ecology". It indicates that it has been upgraded from only ensuring its own elite achievements to paying attention to the benign, healthy and sustainable development of the entire industrial ecological environment.

By 20 14, with the continuous development of the internet, the internet environment has also undergone tremendous changes. At this point, after repositioning, Tencent decided to become the connector of the Internet:

① Multi-scene and multi-level docking to develop industrial layout.

② "pan-entertainment" layout

③ Intelligent Fusion of Life Internet with Borderless Connection

In this situation, Tencent put forward a new mission:

The Internet will be more closely linked with the needs of users.

② Mobile Internet will be extended to more industries.

③ Mobile Internet entrepreneurship needs more innovation.

Ma said that Tencent is gradually exploring an open and interconnected ecology. The ultimate goal is to establish borderless intelligence between people, hardware and cloud, and graft people, people and equipment, people and services to an open ecological center, which will bring the distance between the Internet world and even the world industries closer.

This vision of a "respectable Internet enterprise" is the result of brainstorming among employees. . Since 2005, it has run through Tencent's overall business thinking.

A prose writer is quoted in the book as saying, "Many, many histories can cultivate a little tradition, and many, many traditions can cultivate a little culture." The culture of an enterprise must be the values and codes of conduct precipitated in the long-term development process, and it is by no means a set of things fabricated out of thin air. Therefore, in the process of doing corporate culture, we should not be rigid, we should not put forward culture for the sake of putting forward culture, but do it for the sake of doing it.

To become the most respected Internet company, we must have this high sense of social responsibility. Tencent also pays special attention to its commitment to social responsibility. 20 10 established a professional corporate social responsibility, which is responsible for the implementation of corporate social responsibility strategy. Put forward three dimensions of corporate social responsibility:

① User dimension to meet the needs of users to the greatest extent.

② Enterprise's own dimension: Abide by laws and regulations, create jobs, pay taxes according to law, and undertake necessary obligations to users, employees, shareholders and society.

③ Social dimension, returning to society, paying attention to public welfare and maintaining the industrial environment.

In fact, this piece is essentially linked to all the work of human resources. The book is explained through recruitment and training.

(1) In recruitment, selecting people is more important than cultivating people.

The choice of personality is very important. You should be honest, earnest, cooperative and innovative. We must conform to Tencent's values in order to better maintain Tencent's youth and creativity.

② Training: Cloning Tencent gene.

Tencent has established a training system and Tencent University. Emphasize autonomous learning. The company established a knowledge management platform, emphasizing SNS (social networking site service) interactive learning, so most of the lecturers of Tencent University with more than 800 people were promoted by insiders, forming Tencent's own "knowledge base".

(3) Culturally, tolerance has a temperature.

An enterprise is not an abstract individual, but a concrete entity. Among them, man is the most active and revolutionary factor. With the development of Tencent, more and more people join in, and more young people born after 1980s join in. The intersection of various cultures is very obvious. In 2006, Grandma's family and Tencent set up a team culture management committee to advocate corporate values, with the guidance and promotion of the top brass and the active participation of employees. At that time, the "Xue Rui Plan" was also escalating, and finally formed a corporate culture of resolutely handling major violations and being open and inclusive in other aspects.

Tencent also launched a "housing plan" to solve the housing problem, investing 654.38 billion yuan in three years to provide interest-free loans for employees who buy houses for the first time. This is undoubtedly a centering agent for the vast number of young people in Shenzhen, and they can shine in Tencent with confidence.

At the same time, the author also mentioned that corporate culture and corporate strategy are mutually restricted, influenced and promoted. It is an ideal state that corporate culture is in harmony with strategy. When the strategy changes, the best policy is to update the corporate culture in time and maintain the core values.

The sense of ritual in life that we often mention now is to make today different from any other day. To some extent, it is the performance of impressive memories, which can improve people's happiness. For enterprises, the sense of ceremony can also be said to be the construction of corporate culture.

In this book, the author mentioned two aspects of the performance of ritual sense, one is corporate cultural activities, the other is direct communication; From my understanding, direct communication is also a sense of ceremony, which is far-fetched, so I won't mention it here. Second, corporate culture activities, the author thinks that what is different from formal work is informal corporate culture.

Regarding the role of corporate cultural activities, the author mentioned three points:

(1) has guiding and radiating functions.

(2) It can stimulate and cultivate.

③ It has communication and debugging functions.

In Tencent, this kind of corporate cultural activities can be described as a dime a dozen, forming a variety of internal cultural forms, attracting all employees to actively participate. Many of them have become unique festival activities for Tencent people. Such as workers' congress, Tencent culture day, fun sports meeting, Q song Q charm and so on.

When an enterprise develops to a certain extent, it is prone to various large-scale enterprise diseases such as bloated institutions and overstaffed people. How to grasp this mature process, pay attention to every link, control the risk impact and enhance the immunity of enterprises is very important. The author expounds the following points, but they are basically general, so you can have a brief understanding. In fact, on the whole, this chapter is all about the evolution of the crisis.

① Be prepared for danger in times of peace.

Many enterprises that we can name have been ruthlessly left behind by the market at a certain stage of development. They may lack crisis awareness, may fail to keep up with management, may ignore product quality and may lack innovation. Enterprises must always maintain a sense of crisis if they want to develop in the long run. In the "crisis", it must observe its internal management and explore innovative business in the future, so as not to be swept away by the torrent of the times. Regarding the positive role of crisis, the author quoted a story of deer and wolf, revealing that only with a sense of crisis and urgency can we survive better, and the group without danger is the greatest danger.

(2) keep awe.

External industry risks. The world has been changing, and many innovations have emerged from time to time. Even the preferences of each generation of young people are different. Enterprises must always pay attention to industry trends and user needs.

③ Imitation.

Make a decision before you move. It is not appropriate to put this in the chapter on preventing success syndrome, but it is very important to know how to seize the opportunity.

(4) Trembling and quick iteration.

Rapid iteration is a product research and development concept, which is based on real-time feedback from users and updated quickly, making products closer to users' needs and with strong timeliness. To achieve rapid iteration, there is an important supporting facility, namely agile management, which makes the team have super cooperation ability and a sense of accomplishment and trust in solving problems with the cooperation of members.

⑤ Actively embrace change.

The article mentioned Tencent's three self-revolutions: the first time was the improvement of execution, when the team reached a certain level, the management had to keep up. This time, Tencent began to change its management mode, adjust its organizational structure, and solve problems in an institutionalized and scientific way; The second time, from big to small, the organizational structure was adjusted again, and the meta-business department system was changed to business department system, aiming at regaining the entrepreneurial passion of small companies; The third time to deal with the mobile internet, by gathering internal resources, with other internal business departments. Adjustment of interest relationship and external resource relationship, and then develop WeChat business department.

⑥ Face the internal competition.

I gave three examples, WeChat and Hand Q, Watermark Camera and Creative Camera, QQ Online Shopping, Yixun.com and Paipai.

It is mentioned in the book that Tencent's cultural transformation is particularly urgent after the 3Q War. The public does not pay for Tencent's proposal that "360 buttoned bodyguards threaten the safety of Tencent QQ users, and the two are incompatible from now on". After that, Tencent also conducted a series of reflections, including a cultural diagnosis meeting, which was held on the West Lake (I found that people always like to go to the lake to hold this kind of life-and-death meeting). After the meeting, Tencent made up its mind to change from "closed door" to "a good start". Corporate culture has been comprehensively upgraded.

① Values have changed from "honesty, responsibility, cooperation and innovation" to "honesty, access, cooperation and innovation". Only one word has been changed, and the word "due diligence" has been changed to "enterprising", which is intended to express that when the company develops into a platform and open company, the responsibilities of employees in each position are more important than before, and just due diligence is not enough.

② The mission evolved from 1.0 era to 2.0 era. The era of 1.0 is to ensure commercial achievements, and the era of mission 2.0 is to continuously improve the ecology.

The content is not much, in short, as follows:

① The founder of Tencent, five people are basically classmates of Shenzhen University. Horses have the highest proportion of shares. In addition to horses, they are responsible for a module by function. This five-person team has also grown a little, and everyone's ability is relatively balanced, maintaining good teamwork.

② Face up to the departure of the founder. When the company develops to a certain extent, both the company level and the founder's own career direction may change. We should face up to this change, do a good job of handover and manage it properly. Organizations can still develop in an orderly and healthy way.

Follow up:

1. There are several small cases at the back of each chapter of this book, so I won't introduce them here. Interested friends can go and have a look.

This book is still relatively old, and many contents have been changed. Tencent's culture has also entered the 3.0 era. Interested friends can pay attention to Tencent culture number.