Walking and Thinking: A Flight Diary for Business People

Author: Chen Huixiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: In recent years, everyone has been busy with their own affairs, and although Huixiang and I occasionally exchanged information, our interactions were few. In my subconscious, my judgment of Huixiang actually fell into another misconception: according to the "cruel law" of media professionals, few people are worth the media's high standards and long-term "exploitation" of value. Because readers are changing, the times are changing, and media standards are constantly improving. Under the stringent criteria of us media professionals, we watched as leaders in business, academia, and all fields one by one, passed through the center of the stage. Once they left, they could leave a lasting memory or respect for their "classic performances," but it was difficult for them to create new, greater value. I had assumed that Huixiang would also not be able to break through this "common pattern" and its "destiny." In my "scale," his position should be among the old friends who are "no longer seen, but often missed." This time, I was wrong. Because I "discovered" again that meeting Huixiang would not be so dull and ordinary as "nothing," but would always be "something," and would always bring "gains," and often important gains. Several years ago, he told me that he was preparing to temporarily step away from his role as a "professional strategist"—his "Emperor Teacher" career—to take on the role of vice chairman and CEO for a period, at the invitation of a private entrepreneur with assets worth billions. He said he had an agreement with the chairman, and this was just a temporary choice, that by fully "immersing" himself in the role of CEO, he could provide more authentic intuitive experience and material for his lifelong pursuit of empirical research on enterprises. After serving as CEO for less than two years and leading the team to increase the company's annual revenue by over a billion, he indeed left, and indeed used this valuable experience and years of rich accumulation to launch a monumental work explaining how Chinese enterprises can pass through one death threshold after another through structural transformation to ultimately achieve enduring success—The Dance to the Summit. Liu Chuanzhi, the president of Legend Holdings, known as the "Father of Chinese Enterprises," passionately wrote the preface for the book and, in his foreword, encouraged future generations: "We have only climbed over hills; what you must scale are the true." Zeng Ming, a renowned expert in corporate strategy and the former president of Yahoo China, highly praised it as "a must-read for Chinese enterprises seeking to break through growth bottlenecks." After reviewing the manuscript, I was both delighted by Huixiang's new breakthrough contributions and happy that Chinese enterprises, often troubled by various issues, finally had a book to help them. In addition to the painstakingly produced The Dance to the Summit, Huixiang recently presented another manuscript that caught my eye—this is his new "treasure," which is the book in your hands, Thinking on the Go. If The Dance to the Summit explains the theory of corporate structural transformation in a solemn manner, then Thinking on the Go presents it in a relaxed way, sharing one after another of the brilliant insights that can change your management philosophy. Since 1999, Huixiang has traveled among hundreds of enterprises, like a pastor listening to the worries and fears of countless entrepreneurs, and like a doctor diagnosing and treating the market economy's rulers who desire health and longevity. Between takeoffs and landings of planes, after observing, listening, and inquiring, the valuable experiences, pressing topics, insurmountable thresholds, and common pitfalls of Chinese enterprises and entrepreneurs often stirred Huixiang's thoughts, forcing him to concentrate and record his valuable findings and reflections into essays and diaries that all business professionals cannot afford to miss and enjoy reading. Since this is a long-term record of reflections, the text is both profound and vivid, but it cannot guarantee that every article fully represents Huixiang's latest judgments. Therefore, if we are overly critical, we will certainly find that some articles or viewpoints in the book carry the imprint of yesterday; but from another perspective, if we start from the real trajectory of Chinese enterprises and the growth of Chinese entrepreneurs, and if we want to build today's and tomorrow's thoughts and actions on a more solid foundation, does the Thinking on the Go, accumulated during his time as an "Emperor Teacher," not provide us with greater, irreplaceable value? Therefore, if I were to summarize my evaluation of Huixiang's Thinking on the Go in one sentence, I would say: it is a small book written for business professionals, worth scrutinizing, referencing, treasuring, and reading at any time.
Ten years ago, when I first met Huixiang, he offered a suggestion and piece of advice to the China Entrepreneurs magazine, which was just beginning its second phase of development. His suggestion was to turn the magazine into a themed publication, focusing on one or two major events or themes in the business and economic sectors each issue, striving to delve deep into them. His advice was that the magazine's positioning determined its service target—picky and difficult-to-please readers—and that if done well, it could achieve the success of Fortune or Forbes, but if not, it would have no middle ground and only a dead end. Because of these words, Huixiang became one of the most important patrons of the China Entrepreneurs magazine's second phase of development and gradually became my close friend. One weakness of human nature is that the more you possess, the more easily you tend to overlook it. After becoming friends with Huixiang and carefully studying the motivations behind his success with Why Is Lenovo Successful and Critique of Chinese Enterprises, I naturally assumed I knew all his strengths, even believing that I had already possessed some of the important values he represented. However, every time we met and chatted, he would bring me surprises and delights. Just as someone who has climbed Mount Xiang believes they have understood its appearance, each climb reveals new discoveries, and each climb surprises them with the scenery they had once overlooked. And only because of this can you avoid "aesthetic fatigue" and instead make this relationship more enduring and increasingly mellow.