Manager's Essential Handbook of Ancient Chinese Knowledge

Author: Shen Ming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: Management as a discipline is originally a Western import. The characteristics of Western management science lie in its emphasis on organizing people into relatively stable, programmed systems to create wealth. This management model, while capable of achieving maximized efficiency, also has various drawbacks. Bill Pollard pointed out that the fatal weakness of Western management is: "If you only view people as production units or completely approach it from an economic perspective, you will overlook their true value." After Western management entered China, it also faced the issue of being unsuitable for the local environment. Zeng Shiqiang discussed in Chinese Management that: "Generally speaking, the average lifespan of a company is only 7 years. Companies with a lifespan of less than 7 years cannot even talk about corporate culture, because no one knows when they will go bankrupt. If the survival period exceeds 7 years, it is necessary to carefully build corporate culture to ensure continuous growth and sustainable operation." Many companies fail to break through the 7-year bottleneck, largely because they have not overcome the drawbacks of Western management. The Western management model is built upon a developed commodity economy and a market economy with clear property rights. Although China's reform and opening-up have achieved tremendous economic success, the market economy is still in the nurturing stage, which is also a major reason why Western management is unsuitable for the local environment. The transition of the economic system cannot be achieved overnight; it requires a longer period of time. The development of Western market economy from chaos to maturity also took a long time. Therefore, under the reality of high costs in obtaining institutional guarantees, most private entrepreneurs have had to explore alternative paths to seek "safety" after "development."
Many entrepreneurs believe that compared to the rigidity of legal protection, moral constraints are a weaker level, but if supplemented by kinship and professional relationships, they can form a relatively stable internal personnel system, albeit one that is difficult to expand. Within this system, the cost of protecting property rights through morality and emotions is often much lower than the cost of relying on the law. Guo Zilin, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of Core Group, believes that Chinese private enterprises have two fundamental characteristics: first, the complexity of the original capital source; second, due to the lag of social legal, moral, and cultural development relative to marketization, private enterprises have left many congenital shortcomings. The former involves the procedural legitimacy of the establishment of private enterprise property rights, while the latter concerns how society should balance efficiency and fairness while improving it. The former is a matter of "technique," which cannot be resolved in the short term, while the latter is the lag and absence of "technique." Therefore, turning to the "way" has become the only choice for Chinese private entrepreneurs. In fact, traditional Chinese culture should not just be a choice for managers out of necessity. Many contents of traditional Chinese culture can not only help entrepreneurs solve practical security issues but also the shortcomings of Western management. The high efficiency brought by systematic organizational operation also hides profound crises. Individuals become just components of the enterprise organization, and their intrinsic value and individuality are eroded by the organization. The identification of individuals with the enterprise and the creativity of special talents may also be overlooked in the process of organizational operation, and these are important pillars for the sustainable development of the enterprise. The so-called Chinese management is precisely aware of the shortcomings of Western management and proposes a people-centered management approach to break through the development bottleneck of enterprises.
Professor Zhang Weiyi, Dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, pointed out: "My thinking is that I believe there must be many aspects of the management systems and methods of ancient Chinese governments that can be learned and referenced by today's business managers. We cannot only import management knowledge from abroad; we must explore the management wisdom of ancient Chinese people. Not only should we apply foreign knowledge to China, but we should also use ancient wisdom for the present, innovate, and create anew." The success of the Peking University Traditional Chinese Culture Training Class demonstrates that more and more private entrepreneurs have realized that China's inherent value system and management wisdom have not become outdated. As long as the connection point between traditional culture and modern management is found, it will not only promote traditional culture but also help entrepreneurs improve their management skills. P24-26