When Ximen Bao governed Yecheng, there was no grain in the granaries, no coins in the treasury, no weapons in the arsenal, and no account books in the government. Someone reported Ximen Bao to Wei Wenhou. Wei Wenhou visited Yecheng in person and found that the content of the report was completely true.
Marquis Wen of Wei asked Ximen Bao: "Zhai Huang recommended you to govern Yecheng. Is this how you govern it? If you can't give a suitable reason, I will investigate and deal with you strictly."
Ximen Bao said a very famous saying: "I heard that the king enriches the people, the overlord enriches the military, and the ruined country enriches the treasury."
Ximen Bao means the rule of "king" The characteristic is that wealth is hidden among the people. The characteristic of "hegemony" rule is that it has a martial spirit and makes the people good at fighting. Only a king who has subjugated his country will find ways to collect wealth and enrich his treasury.
Ximen Bao then said to Wei Wenhou: "You want to take the road of kingship, so I will let food, weapons, and money be stored among the people. You can use them at any time as long as you need them. If you don’t believe it, please let me go to the top of the city and play the drum. As soon as the drum sounds, what you want will come immediately.”
Sure enough, Ximen Bao went to the city to play the drum. When the first drum sounded, the people of Yecheng put on their helmets and armor and walked out of their houses with weapons. The second the sound of the tong drum sounded, many people from Yecheng gathered together, either carrying food on their backs or carrying food in their cars.
Wei Wenhou was probably dumbfounded and said to Ximen Bao: "I understand. You are great, so let everyone disperse." "When people gather together, the people disperse" is a classic Confucian principle that most advocates virtue. However, when we examine this ancient principle from a contemporary perspective, we will find some doubts - if simply spreading wealth can improve cohesion, then the foundation Everlasting people or companies must be the most generous people.
In fact, if the ruler is just a boy who spreads wealth, it will cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.
For example, a company boss who really wants to convince people with virtue provides additional benefits to his employees. For the employees, this is a piece of pie falling from the sky. Having something is better than nothing, but people's hearts are not like this. In terms of operation, Zhang San would be jealous that Li Si got more than him. Li Si felt that he had obviously worked hard, so why did he get only a little more than Zhang San...
In short, everyone has his or her own merits. If you are not convinced, even if the benefits are distributed equally, many people will curse the boss for being unfair. Therefore, even if the boss really has a lot of money, he will not be able to gain cohesion by just spreading money, but will easily lead to disunity.
This means that while distributing wealth, we must also ensure fairness. The so-called fairness is too subjective. What you think is fair may not be what I think is fair. This puts forward a more stringent requirement for the rulers: they must mobilize all propaganda resources and unify values. This is not enough. Complaint channels, review systems, etc. need to be established.
This involves a classic paradox in organizational management: Should an organization guide its members to focus on the overall goals of the organization, or on personal goals?
If organizational members focus on the overall goal, it will inhibit personal competition and lead to egalitarianism; if organizational members focus on individual goals, it will inhibit team collaboration and lead to tribalism. It's like a seesaw, if you press one end, the other end will tilt up. What if both sides exert force at the same time? I'm afraid the effect will only be worse, and the forces will cancel each other out.
How to solve this problem, the two parties of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party have taught us another vivid lesson.
In fact, in the War of Liberation, an important reason why the Kuomintang army suffered a disastrous defeat was its failure to resolve this paradox of organizational management. Although the Kuomintang army is well-equipped, there are many hills inside. The troops in Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan and Chiang Kai-shek's direct troops do not accept each other's opinions and are in intrigues. In this way, the combat effectiveness will of course be greatly reduced. Looking at the Communist Party's armies, although they are scattered in various liberated areas, they are closely linked with each other and play a game of chess. From this perspective, we can also see that victory in the War of Liberation is inevitable.
In the early days of its founding, the difference in membership between the two parties was not that big. For example, the early founders and leaders of the Kuomintang had similar backgrounds. They all came from the traditional gentry class, and they all had the ideal of saving the nation. However, as the revolution progressed, the Kuomintang gradually violated its original intention. Most people became pursuers of real interests and defenders of vested interests, and only cared about the immediate interests of individuals or small groups. The Communist Party of China adheres to its original aspirations and always practices its beliefs and theories. In the end, the Kuomintang army and the Communist army evolved into two completely different species: one fought for interests, and the other fought for beliefs; one relied on material stimulation, and the other relied on spiritual inspiration.
If an organization can provide its members with a sufficient sense of meaning, then the organization may be able to overcome the paradox between individual goals and overall goals, allowing each member to automatically use the overall goals to correct individual goals. Both striving for the top and working together, neither free-riding nor grabbing territory.
Moreover, within the organization, the meaning systems of mission, vision and values ??are not exclusive. The sense of meaning I obtain will not only not reduce the sense of meaning you obtain, but will instead converge into a larger meaning system. On the other hand, material incentives are different. If you get more, I will get less. If an organization cannot provide its members with a sufficient sense of meaning, it can only rely on money motivation, which is tantamount to guiding members to focus on competing for personal interests, and the organization will inevitably fall into an incentive paradox.
Moreover, the Communist Party also has a set of guiding ideology and methodology, which are condensed into six words: line, principle, and policy. If the organization does not clearly outline the route and method for members to realize the vision, then the meaning system will of course appear false and empty, and cannot be truly believed by employees. Therefore, diversity of ideas is crucial to an organization.
Many of Mao Zedong’s works construct the communist ideology of the Communist Party from different angles and levels. For example, in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, two diametrically opposed arguments emerged within the Kuomintang camp - the "theory of national subjugation" and the "theory of quick victory." Some people believed that if the Japanese came, China would be subjugated immediately; others were blindly optimistic. I think China will win this war soon. Mao Zedong made an in-depth analysis of the international and domestic situation at that time and the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves, and put forward a series of strategic propositions with "protracted war" as the core, pointing out the correct direction for the Chinese people's anti-war cause.
For another example, Mao Zedong proposed the "Sixteen-Character Strategy" guerrilla warfare policy, which is "When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy is stationed, we harass; when the enemy is tired, we attack; when the enemy retreats, we pursue." This "Sixteen-Character Strategy" is the idea of ????communist warfare that the majority of militiamen and guerrillas can understand and use. With this idea of ??comrades fighting, they were able to be organized and creative in actual combat, and further developed a series of new tactics such as sparrow warfare, mine warfare, tunnel warfare, and raid warfare. During the Anti-Japanese War, He repeatedly performed extraordinary feats in the war.
Looking at the Kuomintang side, there are various signs that Chiang Kai-shek does not have the ability to build communist ideas for the Kuomintang. For example, Li Zongren commented on Chiang Kai-shek, saying that this man was "the best in the world in using tactics and deceit", but "the ability to command troops and govern politics is extremely low." Zhou Dajiang said that it was precisely because Chiang Kai-shek did not have the ability to construct communist ideas that he was forced to use his power to the extreme, appointing cronies, establishing a huge spy system, etc.
How many companies and organizations can last forever and survive the long scissors of time? If we start counting from 1921, from a business perspective, mission, vision and values ??are essential.