Mainly around a major issue raised in this book: what kind of evaluation system can stimulate employees' best work performance? Therefore, Drucker put forward an important concept-target management, which takes target management as the core and explains how enterprises define goals. How to improve performance through target management?
The most important thing is:
The difference between enterprises and businessmen lies in "creating", creating markets and customers, which is the biggest difference between enterprises and traditional businessmen and the fundamental goal of enterprises.
Businessmen are just "businessmen". They can only passively adapt to the economic situation and cannot create or change economic conditions. Generally speaking, businessmen realize "profiteering" and do not create goods, but may change the way of trading. On the surface, it will cause small-scale changes in the economic environment, but in fact it will not change the medium and long-term economic situation.
Enterprises set goals not to adapt to the economic cycle, but to transcend the economic cycle, so that enterprises can achieve stable development without being affected by periodic fluctuations.
If we simply emphasize "profit maximization", it will blur the great difference between modern enterprises and traditional businessmen, and will also deepen people's misunderstanding of enterprises.
Profitability is only one of the eight sub-goals that enterprises need to pay attention to (eight sub-goals defined by Drucker), and it is definitely not the only goal of enterprises. The importance of profit to an enterprise lies in that, first of all, it is an index to measure whether the enterprise is operating well. Once there is a loss, it is a strong signal of poor management. Secondly, profit is a means for enterprises to resist risks. Therefore, the goal of an enterprise is to obtain the "minimum profit" necessary for survival and development, rather than blindly pursuing the maximum profit.
The so-called enterprise management should focus on customers, not rights, and many enterprises have the wrong direction of power culture.
It is not easy to understand the essence of these thoughts in a real sense, and it needs to be "scrutinized" like writing poetry.
The most important thing is:
The article still illustrates the importance of this goal through the stories of three masons:
Someone asked three masons what you were doing. The first stonemason said, "I'm taking bacon home." The second stonemason said, I'm doing the best stonemason job in the country. The third stonemason looked up at the sky and said proudly, I am building a cathedral.
The first and second masons have their own goals, and the second mason's goal is still very high, to be the best craft in the country. However, their personal goals have nothing to do with the goals of the whole project. Under the guidance of personal goals, the first stonemason is likely to polish the work, while the second stonemason may only focus on the polishing process and ignore the overall cooperation of the project. Only the third stonemason clearly realized that the ultimate goal of his work was to contribute to the overall goal of building a cathedral. Only the third stonemason is the real manager.
Here, the importance of this view has also been proved by the "Japanese disease". The phenomenon of "Japanese disease" is that everyone seems to be extremely responsible for the work, but in fact no one is responsible for the whole enterprise. Equivalent to the second stonemason above, he may only focus on the polishing process and ignore the overall cooperation of the project.
The main problem of "Japanese disease" is the lack of sense of responsibility. There is also an opposite problem in enterprises, that is, some departments like to show off too much and forcibly "grab the show". Especially in the administrative, financial and other functional departments, their work results can not be directly reflected in the business performance of enterprises. They are worried that they are insignificant in the company, so they try to enhance their sense of existence through various plans and activities, and they have to intervene in everything to show their achievements. In fact, these achievements not only failed to contribute to the overall goal of the enterprise, but also caused serious interference.
This is an important issue worthy of deep thinking by enterprise managers. Sometimes the power of functional departments expands too much, which will stifle the development of the whole company.
How to avoid the "Japanese disease" lies in the minds of business leaders. Of course, this only shows that the overall interests are higher than personal interests, and we still have to learn from the spirit of Excellence of Japanese companies.
Similarly, the CEO of an enterprise may make the mistake of neglecting to contribute to the whole.
Drucker pointed out that there is only one way for CEO to solve the competency problem, that is, to split the leadership role. The CEO has at least three roles: first, the thinker is responsible for the long-term strategy of the enterprise; Second, the actor is responsible for the actual operation of the enterprise; Third, the exposed person is responsible for communicating with the outside world on behalf of the enterprise. No genius can be competent for these three roles at the same time. So the head of the company is not a person, but a team of 2-3 people. Many high-tech companies in Silicon Valley have also adopted this form, such as the famous "Three Musketeers of Intel" and "Big Three of Google".
Managers at every level of an enterprise must focus on the overall success of the enterprise, not just the success of individuals or departments.
These truths sound simple, but they are often "involuntarily" and "know a lot of truths, but still have a hard time", which is a typical problem of enterprise founders.
The most important thing is:
Drucker talked about the methods of several high-performance leaders he knew: they stipulated that "subordinates should write two letters to their superiors every year." In the letter, each manager first explains what the boss and his work goals are, and then puts forward what kind of work performance he should achieve. Next, he listed what to do to achieve the goal and what he thought were the main obstacles. At the same time, it also lists what the boss and the company do for him and what resistance will be formed. Finally, he will outline what he will do next year to achieve his goal. If the boss accepts the statement in the letter, this letter will become his management charter. "
In fact, this is the OKR method, and the performance commitment that our company is implementing is similar to this method: measurable goals and key actions. From bottom to top, the two sides reached an understanding through consultation.
Self-management enables people to have more "freedom" and more "constraints" and return to human nature. If their promises are not fulfilled, they will lose face.
At the same time, through the inspector's inspection based on target management and behavior, the problems existing in the department are found and the department is assisted in continuous improvement. Unfortunately, in some cases, many enterprises have made the mistake that "inspectors" only serve leaders.
Here is a very important sentence to explain: management should be based on human nature, not on the willfulness of rights.