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Editor’s Note: This article is from the steering boat, written by Li Yanglin, and reproduced by the entrepreneurial state with authorization.
It is difficult for startups to escape the word "boss culture". Corporate culture reflects the boss’s style to some extent.
Before starting to study Zhang Yiming/Byte, the steering boat tried to get to know the company with Byte employees. Many people say that this company has a strong brand of Zhang Yiming and a boss culture. From system to process, Zhang Yiming’s thought has been well implemented.
So, what exactly is Zhang Yiming’s style?
These two words are obvious: honesty.
Many entrepreneurs in China are fans of Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (GE) Group, and so is Zhang Yiming. If Drucker helped Zhang Yiming deepen his understanding of "courage", then Jack Welch helped Zhang Yiming deepen his understanding of "frankness".
The frankness mentioned here does not mean that you can vent your emotions without scruple or make malicious subjective life attacks. Emotion and fact are two different things. “Emotion "hurts self and others, and" facts "can help self and others grow.
The frankness mentioned here means that under the premise of achieving the goal and solving the problem, everyone can put down their guard and communicate without consideration, express their views and put forward constructive suggestions. Lack of frankness will fundamentally stifle keen creativity, hinder quick action and prevent outstanding people from contributing all their talents.
Unfortunately, it is a common cognition of human beings to take good care of the scene and not be too frank. Because it can protect yourself well. Being too frank will lead to trouble. From childhood, we began to learn how to cover up bad news and make everything look good.
This social culture of "hello, I am good, everyone is good" has also been brought into commercial companies.
For example, we promote a project in the company, and the effect is not bad, but there is still a lot of space to iterate. Without iteration, the project will have no future.
But what are we often talking about when we hold project meetings?
It’s really not bad, we did our best, it was really excellent, I like you and so on. The impression left after the meeting was "We are not bad".
But everyone knows in their hearts that if this is the case, the future is extremely slim. How fierce the competition is outside.
Although everyone is very uneasy, they would rather feel better for everyone’s face, and even choose to give up exploring the future.This is what happens every day in many companies.
Zhang Yiming said that "dishonesty" in business life is actually a selfish performance. In order to make your own life and work easier, this kind of thinking is often short-sighted, and this lack of foresight may be rooted in cowardice.
People who dare to get angry and speak out directly will be regarded as heterogeneous at the beginning and labeled as "low emotional intelligence" The young Jack Welch, was also so warned:
From the day I joined GE until I was appointed as CEO, for 20 years, my bosses often warned me not to be too straightforward. I am classified as rude, and I am always warned that being too blunt will soon hinder my career.
Fortunately, although people are afraid of embarrassment, they prefer truth. Welch’s later achievements are a good illustration. When you present a frank, pragmatic and efficient work style, you will attract people with the same characteristics to join. Generally speaking, such a team is more likely to create good performance than a team that is not honest, pragmatic and efficient.
In addition to Welch’s inspiration, Zhang Yiming also has his own understanding of "frankness". He said: "In this society where information flows faster and more transparent, from an economic point of view, the cost of being a duplicitous person is getting higher and higher, and dirty people will get more and more unlucky. Not pretending to be improper is a moral character preference, and it is also more economical. Many people have not realized this. "
He praised this sentence: it is good to be honest and ruthless in communication, and this does not prevent you from being a warm, humorous and constructive person. But honesty is extremely important for people who work together.
In addition to dishonesty, there is also a kind of dishonesty that is hidden deeply, which is called "self-satisfaction".
The resistance to self-satisfaction is the culture of bytes. Zhang Yiming said: "I have always felt that deliberately touching others is almost cheating."
If you are moved by this, even yourself, you are deceiving yourself.
Now, Zhang Yiming has brought "honesty" into ByteDance.
Regarding how ByteDance landed a "frank" boss culture, the steering boat combed several details:
First: OKR
ByteDance implements bimonthly OKR, so that everyone can check other people’s OKR details, so as to better coordinate. Zhang Yiming’s own OKR is also open. Byers can learn what bosses are busy with recently, which can actually play a comparative role and know their own direction of efforts and whether it is important in the company.
In contrast, departments in many companies don’t know what each other is doing. To make matters worse, in a department, no one knows what each other is busy with.
Second: information is "urgent"
We often encounter things that don’t return information at work, which you think is very important, but the collaborators don’t understand it that way. This kind of gap makes the workplace full of infinite waiting.
I once encountered such a situation. The middle managers of a company talked about the fact that the president didn’t reply to the information behind his back, but they were afraid to communicate face to face, which led to many things not being promoted.
So what will Bytes do? Through collaboration software’s work, the information is expedited, and the other party is forced to push it, and the other party is strongly required to reply to the information. Regardless of whether the other party feels uncomfortable.
Third: strong "pull the group"
What if the other party doesn’t reply to the message if it is urgent? Then byte can find the other person’s boss to promote the work without caring about the other person’s feelings. What if the boss doesn’t reply to the message? Just pull the boss’s boss, if not, pull the boss’s boss, and you can pull it all the way to Zhang Yiming.
Byte culture, so that everyone has no psychological burden to do so. Everything is not to vent emotions, but to solve problems.
Fourth: Score each other.
How is your work done? Bytes are evaluated 360 degrees every six months. Your collaborator will grade your real name. What about you? The eyes of the masses are discerning.
Scoring each other may bring the phenomenon of being a good guy, or someone maliciously scores low. Fortunately, it is a real name. If there is an impersonal nice guy, he will be communicated, and if there is a malicious low score, he will also be communicated.
How do you grade, the eyes of the masses are also discerning.
Jack Welch said that for some people, becoming a leader means starting their own journey of power. They like the feeling of keeping control over people and information, so they will keep secrets, keep their thoughts on employees and their performance secret, and hide their thoughts on the future development of the company. This behavior allows the leader to establish his own territory, but he excludes trust from the team.
Trust appears when leaders show sincerity, frankness and keep their words. When you always cover up or whitewash those bad information, you may lose the trust and support of the team.
I hope I can be liked by everyone, which will make a manager insomnia and headache. Because you have to make a firm decision, let unqualified employees be laid off and let inappropriate projects be closed.
Obviously, excessively tough demands will lead to complaints and resistance from others. But as Welch said: On the basis of fully listening to opinions and explaining your ideas clearly, you must move forward, don’t hesitate, and don’t cheat and cajole. If you are honest-although you can never be absolutely honest-you will find that everything will work faster and better.
Zhang Yiming is practicing this rule.
Bytes may rarely come into contact with Zhang Yiming, but they all know:
I can say no to Zhang Yiming.
I booked this conference room in advance, even if Zhang Yiming came to jump the queue, he shouldn’t let me.
As far as Zhang Yiming is unprofessional, we can ask him to shut up.
This is the best sense of security for employees.
Steering boat recommends "frankness" in this article, not to praise how great ByteDance is, but to hope that entrepreneurs and managers who read this article can realize that you have better means to solve problems: when you feel communication difficulties, the best communication method is not to think too much about skills and arguments, but to communicate more frankly.
When you feel that management is very difficult, you can realize that frank communication is the main problem of company team management.
Honest corporate culture can be learned. Welch’s methodology is: to popularize the spirit of frankness, you must inspire it, appreciate it and talk about it all the time. You can make people who show honesty into heroes of the masses. The most important thing is that you have to be energetic yourself, and even exaggerate this spirit and prove it to everyone.
However, we also need to be psychologically prepared, and it is extremely difficult to do things right and against humanity with the whole human secular culture, although it is very rewarding.
How to break through? Grasping the team means grasping the leader. You should first have an excellent team of managers. Managers can be honest, and the team is likely to implement it. If managers are secretive and vague, then the whole team will inevitably be unable to be honest.
This article (including pictures) is reproduced by the cooperative media and does not represent the position of the entrepreneurial state. Please contact the original author for reprinting. If you have any questions, please contact editor@cyzone.cn.