Cao Yiming: Bold authorization with "principles"

Eco is very low-key in China, but it is very famous in the Netherlands, where its headquarters is located. This 20-year-old manufacturer of management software for SMEs has nearly 200,000 customers in hundreds of countries. In 2004, it was selected as "the largest ERP company in the small and medium-sized enterprise market" in Europe by IDC. In China, Yi Ke, which entered in 1998, also began to show a strong growth momentum. In 2002 and 2003, the number of customers and the increase in turnover both exceeded 100% in a row.

In the eyes of Yiming Cao, President of e-Co Asia Pacific, good performance is the result of giving full play to the enthusiasm of employees. He especially emphasized "bold authorization", because he himself grew up in "authorization", and he used this method to train Zhou Xiaoling, general manager of China, and Zhou Xiaoling used this method to train his subordinates.

However, the implementation of "bold authorization" in the company must have a foundation, that is, Yike is a company with "principles". This "principle" is: have a clear strategy, fully encourage employees, treat employees with integrity, In this way, the spirit of "ownership" is cultivated among the employees.

I heard that at Yike, it is very fast to make a management decision, and it does not need to be reported at every level?

We advocate flat management: as few steps as possible for a management decision, the sooner the better. You don't know if a decision is right or wrong until it's been made and implemented. Therefore, managers must fully believe in the ability of the management who make decisions in that area, and do not impose their own methods on others. We use the fastest method to make management decisions and avoid cumbersome management layers. We believe that it is enough for a management decision to be made by two people, and we do not believe that more people should be involved in decision-making in a risk-averse way. At Yike, if you are a manager, you should have that responsibility.

A lot of companies emphasize empowerment, but not much can really be done in practice. Can Yike really do bold authorization?

Let me give my own example. 8 years ago, I joined E-Tech in Malaysia after graduating from university, when I was just an ordinary technician. Because of my hard work, I was soon sent to Hong Kong to participate in the formation of a new company. From an ordinary technician to the person in charge of the technical department to the person in charge of the entire Hong Kong region, this process was completed in just two years. occurred within. Immediately after 1998, E-Co entered mainland China, and I began to be responsible for the establishment of this side. In this process, the company gave me enough rights.

I also made mistakes during this, and this mistake was "expensive" and cost the company, but what moved me was that my boss at the time just asked me: "What did you learn from it?" Understand the situation Then he said: "Don't do it again in the future."---It's over. This moved me very much.

I am also very impressed with the appointment process of Zhou Xiaoling, general manager of China. I remember discussing with my boss in the Netherlands at that time. He only asked me one question: "Do you think she can do it?" I simply replied: " She can." In this way, Zhou Xiaoling, who had almost no management background, finally became the general manager of China.

Can you elaborate on this example?

Zhou Xiaoling first worked in finance at Yike, and two years later, she proposed to switch to sales. I believe she can do well, so I support her to do it, and the results are very good. I also found that she has management skills, and after 3 months, I made a bold decision - let her be the sales manager, and she will sign all the documents that need to be signed in China. At that time, there was no general manager in China. Six months later, I asked her to represent China at various conferences in the Asia-Pacific region. We know that she is not strong enough, but we did not send her assistants or other high-level leaders to guide her, but let her exercise fully, so she grew up quickly. But she still refused to accept the position of general manager of China, because she was afraid that she would not be able to do well. Later, I thought of a way and said to her: "You always rely on that position (sales manager) and let others want to be promoted. What to do with the job!" She finally accepted the position, and it turned out that she did a good job.

There is a danger of abusing rights in authorization. What mechanisms are in place to restrict rights?

We don't let a manager play by himself, our management framework is fixed, you can't have too many out of bounds.

But on this core skeleton, you can add a lot of blood, flesh, clothes, and you can do all kinds of makeup. This is the right of managers. In addition, we believe that managers are not absolute monarchs, and any employee has the right to stand up and say what should not happen in a functional area. This is a multi-faceted management. We want to cultivate "ownership", how to achieve the sense of ownership? Our approach is to encourage employees to try different jobs; provide opportunities for employees to experience more professional experiences; fully trust them and allow them to grow.

In this atmosphere, our employees have become imaginative, have the courage to try different positions and discover their talents. There is a marketer in China who suddenly proposed to do sales one day. It is logically difficult, but Zhou Xiaoling said to him: "I'm not afraid that you will lose potential customers and make a bad list. I'll give you three months. time, and if you feel confident, I'll give you a formal job change." This person is now a very good salesman.

In fact, what impresses customers the most is the sincerity and sincerity of employees to their company and products. Your sincerity is far greater than your eloquence.

What else can be done to create "ownership"?

The most important thing is that the company must have principles. It can't do this today and do that tomorrow. Let employees know that the company has a very clear strategy.

I think that eCo is a very unique company in this regard. For example, Yike has a strong philosophy: never invest in other industries, only focus on the ERP industry. In fact, there are many investment points and many opportunities to make money, including renting such an expensive office in China. In fact, it was completely possible to buy it at that time. But it's a tough road for companies to focus on their products. The benefits of this strategy may not be visible at the time, but they will definitely show up in the future, especially when the industry encounters difficulties. It can be seen that in the two IT shocks, when other companies rose and fell, Yike's performance rose steadily.

It is also because of this behavior that we are not moved by the temptations around us that the more than 60 companies we have opened in the past 20 years have never been closed. We can fire an employee if he doesn't perform well, but we don't make someone who's working hard for the company suddenly lose their direction. None of our companies around the world have ever fired their employees for their own mistakes.

It is also very important that the company must be trustworthy to its employees. Yi Ke's policy is to start evaluating employees at the end of June every year to decide whether to give him a raise. But in China, the decision to raise wages for one year was made in October. We think the company's policy should be to raise salary from July, because of our delay to October, so we decided to make up all the salary increase from July. Many employees were surprised, but then felt moved. But this strict adherence to promises proves that the company is a principled company that doesn't change in the middle of things. In this kind of company, employees will also become simpler. If he has the ability, he doesn't need to think about anything, just rush forward. More importantly, a company that is honest and trustworthy, he is trustworthy to his employees and will certainly be trustworthy to customers.

Bold authorization is based on full trust and constrained by multi-faceted management. This is also the reason why you have rights, but see rights more as responsibilities, right?

Yes! The leaders of Yike are very dedicated, no employees are charged, and the leader enjoys the situation, which may also be because of this full trust. Take me as an example, because my superiors trust me so much, I have to work hard. Since I became a leader, I hardly have a rest before 12 o'clock in the evening. My employees are used to getting my emails at two or three in the middle of the night. The rights that the company gives me are actually also responsibilities.

The same is true for Zhou Xiaoling. We asked her to be the general manager of China. She felt that she had a great responsibility and was unwilling to accept it. The position of general manager of China was vacant for half a year. She later said to me: "I signed all the documents at that time, and they never suspected that the problem might be bigger after I signed it. My mistake might lead to the closure of the China area. They gave me Full trust and empowerment." It was this trust that made her feel compelled to do her job well.

---Richard Li