The Mystery of Huawei Management

? In recent years, Huawei has been invincible in the international market. In 20 19, an amazing scene was staged to put the most powerful country in the world into a state of emergency. In 20 19, Huawei's performance in the third quarter was/kloc-0.08 billion RMB, with a year-on-year increase of 24.4% and a net profit of 8.7%. What is the secret of Huawei's management? From 1998, an enterprise with annual revenue of less than 9 billion yuan has grown into a world-class enterprise ranked 6 1 in the global fortune 500?

Deng Bin, who worked in Huawei for 1 1 year, used to be the planning consulting director and senior management consultant of Huawei China, one of the core pioneers of Huawei's enterprise planning consulting business, and the executive dean of Huawei Management Research Institute of Huayouhui. From the internal and external speeches of Huawei since it was founded 30 years ago, and from the mail of more than 10,000 words in the president's office/kloc-0, 36 most representative high-frequency management words of Huawei were selected and written as The Way of Huawei Management, which revealed Huawei's leading secrets from a brand-new perspective.

The most important thing for enterprises to build their own competition management system is to form "* * * same context" and "collaborative behavior". Huawei's advantage lies in its unique discourse system and behavior. In this way, it has effectively realized the "upper and lower desires" and made 6.5438+0.8 million people become a whole.

Huawei's continued success comes from two "Tao".

The first "Tao" is the insistence on the industry track. Huawei chose a long and wide "track", which is the main channel of "information and communication technology" as Ren said. It persisted for more than 30 years, insisting that hundreds of thousands of people stormed a city wall. The time effect is enormous. Time is Huawei's best friend, and which distant competitors are left behind by Huawei.

? Another "Tao" is Huawei's management. In short, it is "customer-centered and struggler-oriented". Customer-centered, solving the problem of value acquisition; It is common sense to solve the problem of value evaluation and value distribution based on strugglers, but only a few people can do it. In this regard, Huawei has not only done it, but also done it internally. For more than 30 years, it has acted according to this common sense, not being kidnapped by "genetic theory" and "fatalism", not being limited by past success, and always taking customer demand and insight into the market as a guide for future progress, so as not to let Lei Feng suffer, thus becoming the business card of China enterprises in the world.

How is Struggler-oriented reflected in Huawei's daily management?

"The first line calls for artillery fire" was first put forward by Ren in a speech at Huawei's British representative office in 2007, and has been repeatedly emphasized since then, becoming Huawei's management principle. At that time, the original words were: In order to better serve customers, we built a "command post" that could hear gunfire, and granted the power of planning, budget accounting and sales decision-making to the front line, so that people who could hear gunfire could make decisions. Whether to fight or not, the customer decides; How to fight depends on the front. The front commands the rear, not the rear commands the front.

In order to "let people who can hear the gunfire call for the gunfire", Ren has spent a lot of thoughts on Huawei's internal processes and organizational design, and has made amazing achievements for the industry.

First: the change of appellation

? Any requirement: Shenzhen headquarters can only be called "organ", not "headquarters". With the continuous growth of enterprises, some enterprises standing at the forefront of the industry will eventually become group enterprises. You will find that the person sitting at the group headquarters is full of pride. He will think that the decision-making power is at the headquarters, and people in the front line of the market can only listen to the headquarters and work hard outside. Once he has this idea, how can he have the spirit and desire to serve the front line? How does the group headquarters become a service-oriented headquarters? Ren believes that Huawei "has no mine at home" and all the value is created by customers. Only when everyone is willing to be close to front-line customers can Huawei have a sustainable development future. Therefore, the front line must have enough power, and the second line can only be an "organ" serving the front line. Second-line employees should not be arrogant, nor should they call themselves "headquarters" personnel, psychologically undermining the pride of the back end.

? In addition, Huawei has also put a lot of thought into the formalization of appellation. How formal is the appellation? Titles such as "Chairman", "General Manager", "President" and "Director" are highly formalized. Address forms such as "interface person", "supervisor", "manager", "person in charge" and "Commissioner" are less formal. If you pay attention, you will find that in many companies, the title of second-line personnel is more formal, while the title of first-line personnel is less formal, which leads to a phenomenon: the head of the first-line gold medal sales king returns to the second-line meeting, and when he meets President Li of the financial management department, he will unconsciously bend down and call "Hello, General Li". Why? Because "Director Wang" is lower than "Dean Li" in appellation, how can it hold water? At the same time, he has an idea in his heart: return to the second line as soon as possible as a supervisor, and don't impact the market in the first line. When the company forms such an atmosphere, everyone wants to step back. How can there be excellent talents in the front line? How can we make innovative achievements without excellent talents? The root of these problems lies in that our mechanism design is not aimed at charging or the future at all, but where the power lies, where the talents are.

Huawei's design of appellation: for the same position, the first line is half a level to one level higher than the second line by default; The formalization of front-line personnel titles is generally high, while that of second-line personnel titles is generally low. It is rumored in the industry that Huawei has a lot of "total". How did this happen? The head of the first-line regional joint meeting is the general manager, the head of the regional department is the general manager, the business representatives of various countries are the general manager, and the person in charge of customers, product solutions, services and channels is also the general manager. Huawei is working hard to improve the formalization of the professional titles of front-line personnel. The title of second-line personnel is relatively simple, and the most typical title is "Minister". If you hear that one of Huawei's back-end executives is called "Minister" in Shenzhen Bantian Base or Dongguan Songshan Lake Base, please don't underestimate him. He may manage 5000 people or even tens of thousands of people, but he only has the title of "minister".

After this design, an interesting phenomenon appears: at Huawei's market conference every year, those "managers" in the front line will return to Huawei's base to meet with the "ministers" in the second line. For example, when Mr. Chen from West Africa meets Mr. Zhao from the spare parts management department, Mr. Zhao will consciously bend down and say "Hello, Mr. Chen". Mr. Chen also feels good about himself. He feels he has a place in this company. After returning to the front line, he will say to the employees: "The company is still very good to us when we go back to the base for the meeting. Many people in our family depend on us for food and support. Everyone can work harder and work harder. " This is the psychological hint of the degree of formalization of appellation. Of course, Ren doesn't play virtual games. When the real money "divides the cake", it will really tilt towards the front-line employees and will not let the front-line employees suffer. In this way, the situation of "those who work hard get it, and those who work hard get it" will be formed. We can learn one thing from it: an excellent organization must ensure that the best people are willing to go to the front line at the mechanism level. I thought about the management of school proofreaders and teachers. Excellent teachers often become managers, and many teachers who have been awarded senior titles don't want to stand on the front-line podium. This is a common phenomenon.

Second: the direction of Huawei's process change.

Huawei believes that process change must start with customers, pay attention to the front line and start from the front line. Process change must be based on front-line cadres with successful business practice experience, supplemented by process experts, focusing on the main business processes and starting from the front line of business operation, and changing the flow direction of the process from "push" to "pull" so that the front line has sufficient motivation. Many companies in the industry are doing process execution, with the focus on "pushing". Ren believes that "pushing" will produce many phenomena. He said: "The goal of Huawei's management organization is process organization construction. Establish a process-based organization and operation system that combines push and pull and focuses on pull. In the past, the organizational operation mechanism was a' push' mechanism, and now it is necessary to gradually change to a' pull' mechanism. When pushing, the powerful engine of the authority of the headquarters is pushing, some useless processes, posts that have not contributed, and it is unclear. When pulling, if you see which rope is not stressed, cut it off, and subtract the departments and personnel connected with this rope together, and all of them will belong to the reserve team. In this case, the organizational efficiency will be greatly improved. " What a vivid metaphor! What is the essence of process management? It is the relationship between people and things. The same force, the direction of the force is different, the result is different.

? Third: about "empowerment"

A case that best reflects Huawei's understanding of "empowerment" is that the organization gives a young employee with a rank of 13 the power to "call" a government cadre with a rank of 2 1. What is the concept of 13? In Huawei, a graduate student who entered Huawei through campus recruitment has worked for one year without making any mistakes, and the rank can be set to13 by default (12 and below is called the operation post), which is the starting salary rank of Huawei knowledge workers. What is the concept of 2 1? This is a very high rank in Huawei. Without continuous outstanding contributions to Huawei and experience in 16 ~ 18, it is difficult to reach this level. And a 13 "kid" can call an unknown 2 1 cadre in the office in the middle of the night because he needs project resources, and the other party has to answer, which is the "empowerment" of the organization at the mechanism level.

Any excellent company has a unique corporate culture, and some cultures are embodied in the company's "internal slang". Huawei is no exception. It also has its own "internal slang". Someone once selected the "internal slang" with the most Huawei characteristics in the "voice community" of Huawei intranet, and finally the sentence "Welcome to the conference" won the most votes. Because Huawei people do business all over the world, the front-end and back-end communication can only be carried out through overseas conference calls. "Welcome to the conference" is the first sentence of Huawei conference call. After listening to this sentence, Huawei people almost have long ears. Many conference calls on Huawei's front line often don't have enough time to inform you in advance. When you receive a phone number of "0755-28780808" or something similar, you will know that there is going to be a meeting. After the answer, the first sentence reported by the conference system is this sentence, and then you enter your Huawei job number, and the front-line conference convener will explain to you which regional department the project needs help. Huawei's conference call is very interesting. There are usually three people at the beginning of a conference call. Two hours later, the conference call is over, and there may be 12 people online. Why? The first line asks your department for help. You said that only part of the resources can be provided, and other resources need the cooperation of a certain department. Therefore, the convener of the first-line meeting will also "pull online" the person in charge of the department you mentioned, and determine the resources now. Speaking of which, it's not over yet. What's more, at the end of the conference call, the "little boy" at the front line 13 level will say, "Thank you for your support. I'll write a summary later and copy it to you. When I return to the department tomorrow morning, I will implement resources. " In Huawei, there is an unwritten rule: meeting minutes have legal effect, and emails are orders. In many companies in the industry, as long as the chairman does not sign, it is difficult to implement the meeting minutes. At Huawei, Ren said, "I don't know how many resources are suitable for the front line. I can only let the person who can hear the gunshots shout the gunshots, because he is closest to the customer. Everyone listens to him first and chooses to trust him first. When I found that I was wasting ammunition after the resumption, I could' settle accounts after autumn' and sum up my experience. " Who gave such an order to the young employees at 13 level? It's division!

? In recent years, Huawei has put forward a decision to move forward, so that people who can hear the sound of gunfire can call for the sound of gunfire, constantly sum up and recover, which has strongly supported Huawei's rapid expansion in the world. So, what are the key words that best embody the "customer-centric" business philosophy? Heaven, earth, road and shoes. Industry is the ground, customers are the sky, strategy is the way to choose between heaven and earth, and organization is the shoes on your feet. Start a business between heaven and earth, put on a pair of shoes that fit, and gallop on the road of your choice.

What industry is it? Industry is the land, the soil under your feet. Interlaced like a mountain, you can do well in this industry, but not in another industry. Similarly, if you run into a wall in another industry, you may be at home in another industry. The black land in the northeast is suitable for growing soybeans, and the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River are suitable for growing rice. It is against the laws of nature not to know our soil. Whether we can grow or not depends first on whether the industry we are in gives us opportunities.

What is the customer? Customers are the sky. As the "land" of the industry, it determines whether we can grow, and as the "sky" of customers, it determines how much we can grow. If an enterprise wants to survive, it must first know the world. We used to emphasize knowing ourselves and ourselves, but now knowing ourselves and ourselves is not enough. Understanding nature and the earth is particularly important. This is the premise, and heaven and earth are our business environment.

When we know everything, we know that the real driving force is the opportunity of the industry and the needs of customers. Then we must make a business choice. There are many opportunities in the industry and many customers' needs, so you must choose the one that suits your ability. The activity of "choice" is actually a term we often hear-strategy. For large enterprises, the focus of strategic choice is what not to do. Because there are too many opportunities for large enterprises to come to it, if they don't choose, they will be distracted. In this case, large enterprises must take the initiative to exclude some opportunities. For example, Huawei often "says no" to many opportunities, such as real estate, financial investment, and large-scale integration projects that compete with partners, and it resolutely chooses not to do it.

? When we choose between "heaven" and "earth", that is, when we have our own strategy, we will innovate through our business model, make some attempts, have a strategy, and then build a team-organization structure. Organizational structure and enterprise strategy are two ends of the seesaw and must be dynamically matched. When the organizational structure is higher than the enterprise strategy, the organizational efficiency will be lower, and the money given to the enterprise by external customers will be consumed in internal management; When the organizational structure is lower than the enterprise strategy and the organizational efficiency can't support the rapid development of business, the customer will think that the enterprise can't achieve future success, and he won't dare to hand over important things to the enterprise. Therefore, organization is a dynamic process. From industry, to customers, to strategy, to organization, are the four key words of a Huawei strategy.

To understand Huawei's strategy, there is also a keyword "main channel", which is one of the most frequently used words in Huawei's management documents, emails and speeches. What is Huawei's "main channel"? Why does Ren emphasize the "main channel" so much?

Huawei's industry is called ICT industry for short, information and communication technology in English and "information and communication technology industry" in Chinese. The core element of this industry is information. Companies in this industry provide many innovative solutions around the whole process of information generation, transmission, conversion, storage and use. But because this industry is very big and the technology changes very quickly, it is very remarkable for each company to do one of the links well. The flow of information is much like water flow, which needs to be managed and channeled, otherwise it is easy to flood information. Huawei chose to conquer the "big information flow" as its main business, and used a proper term in the field of water conservancy engineering to describe this work, that is, "main channel".

? Huawei advocates that high-quality resources should be tilted to the needs of high-quality customers, and people in the main channels should be affirmed and their value should be evaluated reasonably. For the water and vortex flowing to the edge, the value required to be created is greater than the cost, and the resources of the main channel cannot be occupied. Any company's business is based on a hypothesis. Huawei's business vision is that in the future information society, the pipeline of information flow will become infinitely thick, just like the Pacific Ocean, not just Poyang Lake. Huawei believes that "big information flow" will be a big opportunity, and the window of opportunity has been opened to Huawei. Huawei can't lose its way and lose big opportunities because of its greed for small profits and immediate interests. As long as Huawei takes the initiative to focus, continuously support the pipeline and stay at the forefront of the industry, there will be great opportunities in the next few decades. This is the "main channel" chosen by Huawei. Ren is convinced of this. He encouraged employees: "The main channel for Huawei to enter is like a black land in the northeast of the information society, allowing thousands of enterprises to grow corn, soybeans and sorghum ... The space in this industry is large enough for us to work hard in this life. Don't easily shift this strategic goal and don't consume strategic competitiveness on non-strategic opportunities. Moreover, with the further development of the times, the requirements for ICT infrastructure will become very complicated, difficult and challenging, which requires the lifelong struggle of thousands of outstanding talents in Qian Qian. Huawei has 1.8 million employees. After 30 years of hard paddling, Huawei has finally rowed this big ship to the starting line of the information age, and there are not many big ships on this starting line. Why don't we continue to work hard and make great contributions to human society in the information field? "

If a word "T" is used to describe Huawei's business, "|" stands for "main channel", which is continuous deepening and concentration; "-"stands for "non-main channel" and is a supporting business. It is possible to set up non-main channel business to make the main channel business develop more rapidly, or it is possible to set up non-main channel business to block and interfere with competitors. For the main channel business, the focus of Huawei's investment is to pursue the sustainability and long-term return of development and give it more strategic patience. Non-main channel business must take profit as the center, and its profitability must exceed that of main channel business. Only in this way can Huawei be allowed to develop non-main channel business, and only in this way can Huawei ensure the better development of main channel business. In ICT industry, opportunities are everywhere. Ren is worried that employees will occupy the strategic competitive resources of the main channel and miss the great opportunity of the times because they are chasing the petty profits of the non-main channel business. Therefore, he repeatedly emphasized the investment in the main channel business, improved Huawei's ability in the main channel, and opened the gap with its competitors on the main channel.

? Of course, Huawei's main channel is also expanding with the changes of the times. For example, before 20 12, Huawei's terminal business was not Huawei's main channel business, but now it is. In addition, when people climb Mount Everest, it becomes more and more difficult to climb it. It will be more and more difficult for enterprises to innovate in the main channels, and they need to accumulate wealth and make little progress. Huawei has made continuous technological breakthroughs in the past 30 years, and it needs to be able to withstand loneliness in the future.

Ren is a humorous person, and his explanation of the main channel is very interesting. On April 9th, 20 14, he talked with Huawei Brazil Representative Office and Pakistan Supply Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and said, "What are the main channels? What is irreplaceable by others and can be copied and used in large quantities is called the main channel. After you customized it for others, you didn't copy it. When you sold it, it didn't sell at a high price, and the maintenance price behind it was not mentioned. This is not the main channel! "

? From this book, I understand that Huawei's epic success comes from two ways. The source of enterprise vitality is in the first line. Only when outstanding talents are willing to go to first-line enterprises can they have unlimited development momentum. Efficient enterprise operation is worth learning from all walks of life.