Reflections after reading the 20,000-word interview with Huawei (Gao Limei)

After reading the 20,000-word media interview record of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, I was shocked. The structure, mind, feelings of family and country, etc., reminded me of a sentence:

A gentleman is magnanimous, but a villain always has a close relationship.

From the entire interview, I have a deep personal experience with the three core ideas that run through the entire article: ?

This is Huawei’s strategic choice, and I will not go into details. Below I use ORID to select a few touch points to report my feelings after reading.

The exchange on independent innovation was very long, and reporters took turns asking questions. Finally, the issue of independent innovation was explained more clearly, and the word independent innovation was redefined. Why support independent innovation if it is a spirit; oppose it if it is an action. In fact, what Ren Zhengfei really opposes is "independent innovation" in the name of reinventing the wheel and paying patent fees to others. Mr. Ren believes that the main purpose of independent innovation is to be a loner. We want to have friends all over the world. We must learn from the most advanced countries, not harm our friends, and serve mankind together.

To put it more broadly, this is Huawei’s world view.

In the 42 conversations, Ren Zhengfei and reporters had many collisions of views on the term "independent innovation."

To put it simply, the reporter's point of view is that "independent innovation" should be done all from scratch so that it is completely one's own.

Ren Zhengfei’s point of view is to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. It is shared by cross-innovation. It should not be narrowly limited to yours or mine or it should be completely mine.

My biggest feeling after reading it is that this is a dialogue between two dimensions. Ren Zhengfei does not have the narrow concept of "I". He is very open and pragmatic and wants to unite greater forces to explore cutting-edge technology and then use it for me. There is a strong "I" in the reporters' point of view. This belongs to them and I cannot use it. If I use it, it is not true "independence" and it is not true "innovation". This view is still too narrow.

There is no conflict or contradiction between independent innovation and innovation based on predecessors. All innovations are based on previous innovations, and there is no closed independent innovation. There is no need for us to dwell on whether we are "autonomous." Over-emphasis on self-power is obviously too Quixote-like in today's world and is meaningless. Ren Zhengfei said that it is a spirit to encourage. Innovation is our core focus.

Huawei’s core mission is to connect. Buy as much as possible outside of the connection. Why buying is better? It’s obviously because you don’t want to cook by yourself today. Going out to buy a meal is the most cost-effective. Although it seems more economical to cook it yourself, it takes up your time, which is difficult to value. If you can earn money for two meals in this time, then obviously you should buy this meal instead of cooking it yourself. This is the so-called opportunity cost of innovation.

What should you do if you encounter a stuck neck? And, and you can avoid getting stuck. If the cost is too high, you have to do it yourself. In other words, unless forced, we will only use other people's inventions and creations as cheaply as possible. For non-main tasks, buy if you can, help if you can, and try to let others share some of your non-main tasks. This is to maintain its own ecological chain.

This is actually an issue of openness and ecosystem. Focus on your own advantages, jointly build an industrial chain ecosystem, and jointly prosper. It seems that reporters have a hard time understanding this ecosystem. The concept is very strange. Huawei has always talked more about openness and less about the word "ecology" that is popular in society. The core logic is the same.

True openness is to comply with the needs of the most core elements, rather than being me-centered. We can build laboratories wherever excellent scientists are, not necessarily to come to China. Wherever there are the best R&D and production export conditions, we can set up factories and produce them, and then export them to the world.

The logic of the ecosystem is to regard the interests of stakeholders as its own interests (such as the relationship with American suppliers mentioned in the interview. Why is the spare tire not turned into a regular member in advance, why is it not fully replaced? Ren Zhengfei has Showing the big picture, rather than acting on impulse), even owning the industry structure, taking care of its competitive followers and leaving room for them to survive (the issue of price reduction was discussed in the interview)

There is no contradiction between independent innovation and the creation of an ecosystem. Now the creation of Huawei's ecosystem has encountered a "visible hand", but this does not mean that we should all innovate independently in the future. It is not realistic in practice, and we cannot be narrow-minded. To grow, there are probably very few companies in China that have spare parts for core technologies like Huawei, which requires great wisdom.

In the interview, Ren Zhengfei mentioned that only by truly opening up, investing in basic science, and supporting scientists can we achieve breakthrough technological innovation and applications. At the same time, it was mentioned that in terms of learning how to collaborate with scientists around the world, Huawei carefully studied the "Bayh-Dole Act" of the United States, and then strictly followed the "Bayh-Dole Act" to establish extensive collaboration with cutting-edge universities and scientists around the world. This laid the foundation for some important research and development by Huawei.

Enlightenment to us: Innovation must also be conducted with an open mind and based on the proven and effective experience of predecessors in order to obtain the greatest benefits. Of course, fit is the best.

From our corporate culture, we can appreciate the company's openness and belief in the ecosystem.

In the past six months, we have focused more on exploring directions and straightening out internal basic processes. Whether it is an individual or a company, reflection is still too closed.

Innovation lies in the mechanism. The platform is currently about how to organize and empower and implement the creation of "Amoeba-style" small teams. There is a lot of detailed work to be done and a lot to learn from the outside world.

Innovation requires an open vision. Without openness, one would just sit back and look at the sky and be self-righteous. To be open and innovative, team members need to learn more and connect with the outside world.

The regular meeting time of each department on the platform will be increased by half an hour on Monday morning to learn the same content (mainly management). After the study, each department will hold regular meetings separately, and at the same time, each amoeba group will be promoted to carry out activities; A topic will be shared during tea time every 2 weeks on Thursdays from 3-5pm.

The second is to create more communication atmosphere in the company environment: round tables and Thursday afternoon tea

The third is to create conditions to lead the team to learn more from outside companies and find ways to change the current situation A lot of time is devoted to daily routine work.

Ren Zhengfei: There are too many, I can’t explain them clearly. The budget and manpower establishment of "primary tires" and "spare tires" are allocated to them together. In the past, the budget allocation was mainly for "primary tires", but now it is mainly for "spare tires". I can’t figure out how specific it is... As for the speech on the "spare tire" plan, the president's office emails are all public. I don't remember when he started talking about it, but he said it repeatedly, but society didn't pay attention to it. . Now that the United States is attacking us, the term "spare tire" has been taken seriously.

1. Having a spare tire requires strategic wisdom, but also persistence. The reporter asked good questions. It is easy to say that a spare tire or a rainy day is planned. It takes great wisdom to truly see it and be willing to invest overwhelmingly in preparation. Be brave. You must know that all preparations may be in vain, and there may be no confrontation, just a hug on the top of the mountain. What are you going to do? Nothing to do! It’s a good thing to prepare for nothing! It’s a good thing if nothing happens! The meaning of preparation is to be able to catch it if something goes wrong. Don’t worry about ten thousand, just be afraid of what happens! It's a good thing if nothing happens if something goes wrong.

All preparations may be in vain, so if you buy a ticket and buy insurance at the beginning, if nothing happens, some people will stop buying it. This is human nature. I kept saying that the wolf is coming, but the wolf never came, so I relaxed. Persistence requires great wisdom and courage. Be prepared from the start!

2. The use of spare tires in methodology - is this spare tire only needed by Huawei? Apparently not. In fact, in daily life, we always need to prepare something for various emergencies.

The core mission of a spare tire is: in extreme circumstances, it can play a role in preventing risks and maintaining the normal operation of families, businesses and even countries at critical moments. Anyone who has a sense of risk may need to prepare some spare tires from multiple angles. For example: when your key cash flow is interrupted, your family can't continue to cook, and your capital chain will not be cut off by fixed expenses. This requires a spare tire. So what is a spare tire? In the field of investment: It is not the way to invest all your assets and make a big gamble, but you need to have a backup plan in extreme situations. For example, gold in asset allocation plays a similar role. For example: Buffett always holds a considerable amount of cash. What is the role of this cash? Spare tire function.

From a strategic perspective, does Leyuan need to consider having a spare tire? Does the construction of the supply chain need to be prepared for a rainy day? Do we need to have some backup considerations in product development (especially if we want to take the lead)? The reserve of talents is also a backup plan. It is now a big shortcoming for the company, and it is also an issue that needs to be considered by me.

Methodology tells us that we must have emergency plans for everything. For example, the production quality problem of Xiaoguozhi in the early stage was very hard for the production department, but what impressed me deeply was that during the product verification period, we only had to wait, wait for the result to see whether it worked or not, and if it didn’t work, we would continue to find a way to solve it. If it worked, everything would be OK; We have no other contingency plans. In daily management and control, we also need to promote this change in the team's thinking. Everything is done in advance, and failure in advance will lead to failure

R&D system In addition to improving our R&D leadership level, this trip to the Americas is actually also A backup preparation in the supply chain

OR Huawei’s human resources management philosophy has a lot to learn from, and the 20,000-word interview record contains a lot about talent management:

Ren Zhengfei : In fact, more Huawei employees have resigned than current employees. How did they get out? Going out voluntarily is also going out. If any business is not doing well, it is the responsibility of the chief executive, not the employees. Employees also have many skills in the process of progress. When we lay off departments, we must give employees a way out. ...Now many departments are also downsizing, and then most of the surplus personnel will be transferred to the main strategic attack forces, and only a small number of mediocrities will be persuaded to quit. This is a structural adjustment now. Laying off departments does not mean laying off employees.

Ren Zhengfei: People come first. If everything is lost, what cannot be lost is "people". People's quality, skills, and confidence are very important - save land and lose people. All the land is lost; everyone who survives loses their land, but everyone and the earth survive.

Ren Zhengfei: In the Xinsheng community, even if a post criticizes the company, it will not be blocked. Instead, the human resources department will have to see how the scolding is. If the scolding is correct, an investigation will begin. Let's look at his performance in the past three years. If his performance is also very good, he will be transferred to the company secretariat to help deal with some specific problems, train him, and exercise him. In other words, he will be given a "bath" at the General Staff Headquarters. Opportunity, put him down in half a year. These seeds will become leaders sooner or later

- Some people will become leaders sooner or later. These "seeds" all have unruly characteristics

Ren Zhengfei: Western companies take a longer-term view than we do when it comes to talent competition. If they find you are a talent, they will go to their company for an internship and someone will train you. This is not our concept of finding a job after graduating from university. We have expanded the window of opportunity to compete with American companies for talent, but our capabilities are not enough. We will send offers to outstanding college students from all over the world starting from their sophomore year. These kids are super smart

- The real competition for talent is not at graduation

They inspire us a lot

Believe in the potential of employees: We usually think that someone Employees, certain types of employees are only suitable for certain types of work. Changing positions will lead to a waste of human resources. This kind of understanding is actually very superficial. People have very strong learning ability and adaptability. 1. Label others less; 2. Acknowledge the labels others label you less - it will be easier this way.

People in my own system who have been struggling all year round don’t believe that if they want to land high-paying jobs here and there, they will ultimately pay for it with the company’s profits. Internal growth space and job rotation plans can be implemented more often.

Discover and cultivate talents through multiple channels: We currently lack ways to discover talents, and we also lack opportunities for talents to perform. At present, there seems to be only one channel: performance. This will also cause our talent echelon construction to stay more in slogans

To use talents, we need to employ people's strengths and innovate various mechanisms at the same time. For example, Huawei's coffee shop is contracted by employees. We really need to try more in the future.

D

Judging from the company's current situation, the construction of talent echelon and incentive mechanism have become increasingly prominent issues. Personnel are facing transformation and ability improvement, and personnel are mainly recruited from outside, resulting in recruitment pressure and heavy tasks. Next, we need to work hard in two aspects:

First, recruit the right people

Second, establish a reserve talent pool, and establish a training mechanism for those on the list: training, providing conferences and exhibitions , training and other comprehensive opportunities, and at the same time establishing a mentor system; currently we focus most of our energy on senior managers and above, and we need to expand the scope of echelon building in the future.

OR

Ren Zhengfei: I think that if Huawei has a philosophy, it is "customer-centric and creating value for customers." Because the money is in the client's pocket, there are three ways to get it. First, robbery, which is a crime; second, stealing is not an option, and you will have to stay in the police station for two or three days before being released; third, the client is willing to give the money To give you money, you must provide good goods and provide him with the services he needs. So, this is the secret.

ID

There are the most customer-centric studies and corresponding books on Huawei in the society. Leyuan follows the strategy to provide the best juice products and has been working hard. Taking the customer as the center involves a lot of changes in internal mechanisms and process settings. I personally recommend strengthening the setting or emphasis on customer service, improving the ability to handle quality incidents and service consultations, unifying the service caliber, and changing the current passive situation. .