Great Cohesion - Winning Strategies of the Top 500 Elite Teams

Author: Xiao Xiao, Mao Jinlan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The goal is the banner of the team. Accurately grasping the team's goals is the first step of team management and also the source of team cohesion. Because goals are direction, they concern the future and interests of the entire team and all its members. The Haier Group, a representative of China's national enterprises, is a highly cohesive team. However, it wasn't the same in the early days of entrepreneurship. In 1984, the predecessor of the Haier Group—the Qingdao—changed four factory directors within a year. In December, Zhang Ruimin, the deputy general manager of the parent company "Qingdao Home Appliances Company," was transferred to take the position of factory director. At that time, the company was in disarray, and workers who were careless and undisciplined had even gotten into the habit of urinating and defecating anywhere in the refrigerator production workshop. After Zhang Ruimin took office, he mainly did two things: first, he borrowed money from nearby villages to pay the workers' wages; second, he disciplined labor discipline and established a management system with 13 articles, one of which was prohibiting urination and defecation anywhere in the workshop.
At that time, the external market situation was as follows: there were nearly 100 refrigerator manufacturers across the country, including some "Ministry-level Excellent" and "Provincial-level Excellent" brands. Foreign products were flooding the market, with various brands of refrigerators dominating the scene, making the market competition extremely fierce. However, Zhang Ruimin quickly discovered that although there were more than 100 domestic refrigerator manufacturers sharing the market, there was still no outstanding, guiding, and consumer-oriented branded refrigerator. Therefore, under Zhang Ruimin's leadership, Qingdao made a major decision—to implement the "Branding Strategy" and position the Haier Group's goal as producing branded products. This goal became a bright red banner in the hearts of the Haier people, guiding them step by step toward success and glory.
Of course, to achieve this goal, the Haier people also faced tremendous challenges. From December 1984 to December 1991, when the group was established, Haier only produced one refrigerator product and did not produce any other products. At that time, many companies were pursuing output and profit without focusing on quality or building a strong brand. These companies also achieved relatively rapid development at the time. For example, in 1988, Wanbao refrigerators had an annual output of 1 million units, while Haier's annual output was less than 100,000 units. Naturally, the Haier people were very anxious: "What is the benefit of 1 million units? What is the benefit of 100,000 units?" But Zhang Ruimin believed, "At that time, the quality of our workers was simply not capable of producing so many. If we did, we couldn't guarantee the quality. There was no choice but to be honest and steady," and "If we do it, we must do the best."
In the late 1980s, guided by the "Branding Strategy" and the goal of "Striving for ," the Haier people moved from a small factory toward the goal of becoming a renowned home appliance enterprise in China. In 1985, Qingdao achieved the basic goal of "introducing, developing, producing, turning losses into profits, and achieving growth within the same year," quickly emerging from the production. Next, they gradually changed their mindset, dared to reform, improved product quality, strengthened basic management, transformed their business mechanisms, and achieved a market-oriented operational strategy. They moved steadily and, by 1988, finally won the refrigerator "National Excellence Gold Medal," making a leap