Evolving team leadership

Tongbao Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., once a leading global supplier of digital camera screens, saw orders drop by more than 40% during the global financial crisis in 2008. Yin Guang, then the general manager of Top Power Optoelectronics, used the Carnegie training he received to reduce operating costs by more than 15% by implementing the "continuous improvement" plan within the company without laying off any employees. Topo Optoelectronics invited all employees to participate in the proposal, encouraged everyone to express their ideas, and finally implemented 26 innovative projects, reducing the cost of more than 50 million yuan.

Lin Shimin moved from Taiwan to Shanghai in 2006 to serve as the business manager of Apex Electronics China. He found that the team members lacked the ability to think independently and a responsible attitude. It took three years for Lin Shimin to make various investments in employees from a supportive standpoint, including sending employees to participate in Carnegie training. , transformed into an atmosphere of willingness to share and transparent information, so that the team truly trusts him, and actively seeks support from him, so Lin Shimin's team performance can increase by 20% against the trend every year.

Dale Carnegie once defined leadership as being based on positivity, building self-confidence, and then bringing people closer and working together. Facing the changes in the external environment and the pressure of internal performance, Yin Guang and Lin Shimin's coping strategy is to correctly exert the strength of the team on the basis of trust and responsibility.

Based on trust, build the confidence of the team

Carnegie's father Heilong believes that a team that can quickly respond to the market should be organized as flat as possible. Hei Liyan, CEO of Carnegie Training, further stated that the main spirit of a flat organization is not to think that the ideas of senior executives must be good, and the ideas of newcomers must be bad. In a flat organization, as long as the correct attitude and methods are used, Everyone has the opportunity to be a problem-solution proposer.

When Topo Optoelectronics initially implemented the "Continuous Improvement" program, employees were concerned about it, fearing that they would be criticized for their comments. Although Yin Guang, who was the general manager of Tongbao Optoelectronics at the time, said it was okay, everyone still had concerns and did not dare to bring up ideas. Therefore, before an inter-departmental meeting to solve the static electricity problem, Yin Guang made an appointment with a supervisor in advance. Once no one came up with an idea, the latter would take the lead. Sure enough, at the meeting on the second day, everyone was still silent, and the supervisor put forward a completely unfeasible suggestion-installing lightning rods. Everyone looked at the supervisor with incredible expressions, and Yin Guang said that the idea was very creative, not only did not criticize but also expressed gratitude. Seeing this, others gradually opened their hearts. It turned out that the reason for static electricity is very simple, because the winter is too dry, and the solution is very simple - more than 20 humidifiers have been installed on the production line, each of which is only more than 100 yuan, which will improve the production yield rate. 50%. So, as Hei Liyan pointed out, the key to success is that everyone rolls up their sleeves and finds a solution, rather than blaming each other.

Topo Optoelectronics Shanghai Branch was acquired from Philips, and there was a phenomenon of staff redundancy at that time. Therefore, after the requirement to reduce costs was issued, the morale of the employees in the Shanghai branch was low, and they believed that they must be the first to be laid off. However, Yin Guang expressed confidence in them. As a result, they saved more than 3.3 million yuan in equipment investment for the company by transforming the existing equipment.

Jack Welch said that his greatest contribution to GE is to make employees more confident. Hei Xiaolong pointed out that when people are more confident, they dare to speak their minds, and when others criticize him, It will feel that this is not against him, but to do things better, and in such a situation everyone can play their own leadership.

As Lin Shimin said, his duty is to help employees succeed. Just like a coach, he will help employees develop new customers together, so that employees can gain confidence after success; when an employee encounters a failure, Lin Shimin does not let him bear the loss, but helps him learn how to do business and borrow money from it. Machine to develop employees' business awareness. Every six months, Lin Shimin's team members will have a salary adjustment. The salary adjustment is not based on performance, but on daily work performance. Lin Shimin said that Aipei Electronics attaches great importance to personal growth, and what leaders need to do is to give timely support to solve problems when the team encounters problems.

Once employees gain self-confidence and the team's trust foundation is established, other things will be much easier to promote. For example, Lin Shimin promotes the establishment of team transparency on this basis, thereby accelerating the acquisition and flow of information. In his view, a team that can quickly respond to the market lies in having enough information and the flow of information is fast. Therefore, he asked the team members to copy the emails of visiting customers to everyone. One is to let others know what they are doing, and the other is to share the obtained market, industry, enterprise, competitor and other information and personal success experience, and put forward what they have encountered. issues, etc. Once two employees were in charge of the business of a large mobile phone manufacturer at the same time, but the R&D of the latter was in Shanghai, and the supply chain management was in Shenzhen. As a result, the employees in the two places communicated smoothly, and they got it in an extraordinary two months. contract.

Learn to listen and communicate and find common goals

Why did Kodak go bankrupt? Hei Youlong believes that Kodak is actually ahead of others in terms of resources and channels, but Kodak lacks a corporate culture of communication, and the supervisor's cultural awareness of listening to employees' voices is relatively weak, so it cannot keep up with market changes. The leader is to listen more, give up selfishness, and understand the positions and ideas of others. Identifying the team's shared goals is the leader's most important task. What Tongbao Optoelectronics has done well is that it does not let each department only look at the indicators completed by its own department, and does not reward department A because the cost of department A is much lower than that of department B, but has formulated a policy that can only be achieved by everyone working together. A shared goal of creating the best possible outcome.

Hei Liyan pointed out that a rigorous process is actually required to carry out a project similar to the "Continuous Improvement" of Toppower Optoelectronics in an enterprise. The first is to set goals, that is, what results you want to see after all the plans are successful. This is a step that is easily overlooked and needs to be clearly seen by senior leaders; the second is the data collection stage, which needs to be All problems are found, and the person who asks them will not be criticized; the third is to hold a meeting to discuss, using the method of systematic analysis of the problem, to find the most critical problems; the fourth is to brainstorm on the problems and initiate cross-departmental innovation meetings , build a platform for everyone to express their suggestions and ideas; finally, experts screen out the best solution according to some conditions, then make plans to implement them, and evaluate the results.

In this process, obstacles usually appear in the brainstorming stage. It often happens that the host or supervisor of the meeting has not collected enough opinions to score and make judgments, such as thinking that the implementation is too troublesome, it will cost too much money, etc. , Although such judgments may be true, employees will begin to set limits, think their ideas are not feasible, and become less willing to participate, thus hindering the proposal of ideas that can really solve the problem. Hei Liyan said that when it comes to accepting suggestions from employees, Chinese business leaders should cultivate a "gift" attitude, that is, "no matter what you say, I will thank you", so that there is no obstacle to communication between top and bottom.

Among them, two skills that can be learned are: first, the supervisor or the person with the highest authority in the meeting must speak last; Writing down ideas and asking people to share what they wrote will give participants more confidence.