Why is character more important than talent?

“I rank character first among all qualities of talents, surpassing wisdom, innovation, emotional intelligence, passion, etc. I think that if there is a problem with a person’s character, this person is not worth it. A company should consider hiring him!" Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, President of Innovation Works, said in response to reporters' questions about social abilities. Indeed, if a person's character is problematic, no matter how talented he is, what's the use?

A person with good character but low talent may not be able to make much contribution to society. He may be mediocre or unknown, but at least he can be recognized by society and respected by people. But a person with high talent but poor moral character will cause harm to society if he has talent but does not use it in a proper way and instead takes a wrong path. This kind of "talent" is not necessary. This is what people often say: "If you have poor talent, you are a defective product, and if you have a bad character, you are a waste product, or even a drug."

“Talents can be trained, but if talents lack character, they will cause greater trouble than mediocrity. Therefore, when companies select talents, no matter how talented they are, they would rather not choose if they lack character.” Citibank District said Yan Taisheng, Vice President of Human Resources.

Many experts participated in the recruitment of a multinational company, and all of them were confident and full of hope for the future; but in the end, the only spot was taken by a laid-off worker because the company's written examination question was the last question. The last question was actually very simple: "Can you please tell me the secret of your previous company?" Everyone was talking about it, but he only answered with four words: "No comment." As a result, he was admitted. . Maybe his talent is not the best among all, but he has a good character that the company can trust.

Confucius said: "Ji is not called strength, but virtue." The ancients also used "talent is better than virtue, virtue is better than talent" as the standard for distinguishing "villains" and "gentlemen". Historically, any ruler's criterion for selecting talents is "morality first, talent second", that is, "character first, talent second." It can be seen that character is more important than talent, which has always been a fact.

Fred Busch, former president and CEO of Texas Instruments, pointed out in the article "How We Select Senior Executives" that TI has ten necessary conditions when selecting senior executives, such as the spirit of risk-taking , profitability, innovation ability, etc., but "integrity" definitely ranks at the top of the list.

No matter how strict the corporate management system is, once people with defective moral character are hired, it is like a depth bomb in the organization that may explode at any time.

In 1995, Li Sen, a 28-year-old futures trader at the Singapore branch of Barings Bank, engaged in improper trading by cheating in less than three years. The 232-year-old British bank Barings collapsed and was finally acquired by the Dutch ING Group for a symbolic price of 1 pound.

As a Western proverb goes: "Good ethics are the way to do business." Corporate competition is not just a competition of strategy, technology and innovation. The key to the final winner is often in the hands of moral character.

After the multinational enterprise IBM transformed into a service-oriented high-tech company, it found that especially in business competition that provides intangible services, the factors that influence customers' final decisions are often word-of-mouth and trustworthiness, and IBM people have long-term The accumulated brand image becomes the finishing touch.

Among the nine employment standards set by IBM, five are related to moral character, including the ability to be "responsible, enthusiastic, self-motivated, trustworthy and teamwork". There is an unwritten rule within IBM's human resources department. It will never hire a supervisor who "leads people to change jobs en masse" because of "moral flaws." It will also never hire talents who come to join the company with resources from the previous company because "today you stole If you come over with something from your old employer, you can’t guarantee that you won’t steal something from IBM tomorrow.”

McLaine pointed out in the book “The Responsible Manager” that companies that value moral character are exempt from this. The risk of litigation and the requirement for high ethical standards also help improve performance, as customers become more loyal because they identify with the company's image, and employees become more productive.

Jingrui Company, which has been established for more than half a century, is a manufacturer of crude oil development equipment. Even though Taiwan and mainland China currently have the technology to produce such equipment, production costs have continued to rise in the past two decades. , but Jingrui Company still insists on not raising prices in order to improve production efficiency and maintain sufficient profits. Therefore, the product market share can reach more than 50% of the global market.

The secret of Jingrui Company’s success lies in the corporate character training plan promoted by Chairman He Tingao since 1992.

At the beginning, in order to find out why the production efficiency could not be improved, he videotaped the operation of the entire factory and found that many employees disappeared from the camera. It turned out that some people spent a lot of time looking around for tools. Someone sneaks off for a coffee break. Later, he decided to emphasize to employees the importance of good character traits such as orderliness, initiative, and responsibility through character education and training. The morale of the employees was subtly boosted, and the original time to install the machine was shortened from six to eight hours. With only twenty-seven minutes, the competitiveness is greatly improved.

Not only that, Jingrui Company also emphasizes the social responsibility that enterprises should fulfill.

When the oil industry was in recession, Jingrui introduced employees to other companies for temporary resettlement, or encouraged them to work as volunteers in the city government, and then used a fund set up with employee salaries to pay the difference in salary to replace capital. As a result, employees' loyalty to the company has increased, and it has also won the reputation of a "character company".

“If a company is compared to a big tree, then character is like the roots. If the roots begin to rot, no matter how big or lush the tree is, it is foreseeable that the tree will eventually wither.” Chen Dingchuan, the chairman of Yongguang Chemical, who has the tenth birthday, took the lead in introducing character education from the United States seven years ago, laying the foundation for "family-oriented management". "Even if the recruitment and salary conditions are not comparable to those of large companies such as TSMC, outstanding talents are willing to come in.

”