There is a saying in Alibaba Sanban Ax Dictionary: "Because of trust, it is simple." This is the original slogan of Alipay and also a management dialect within Alibaba.

Jack Ma has said more than once that from the first day of its establishment, Alipay has not been about payments, but about credit. At that time, many people didn't quite understand it.

On the surface, Alipay is doing transaction guarantees, but it actually touches the basis of transactions - trust. Therefore, this kind of business that seems to only innovate in process is destined to go far.

Trust involves relationships between people.

"Faith", perceptually speaking, refers to the lack of defense between people and the lack of distance between hearts. Rationally speaking, it means that you believe that the other party will not betray you when the other party may betray you; "Ren" means to use, delegate, and entrust. Therefore, trust is entrustment based on belief.

Human beings are social animals and cannot live without dealing with others. Without trust, interpersonal processes are nearly impossible.

Therefore, when "because of trust, it is simple" rises to Ali's dialect, it is talking about management on the surface, but actually touches the foundation of the interpersonal process - trust, and transactions are only one part of the interpersonal process. form.

All problems in organizations are human problems. If you want to solve human problems, you must start from human nature. On the surface, Alibaba attaches great importance to trust management, and its focus is still human management, which is also an important reason for its success.

01

The most important factor for an efficient team is trust

In 2012, Google began to explore the qualities required for a successful team. They named the study "The Aristotle Project," a nod to the philosopher's famous saying that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Jack Ma once told Robin Li that if Baidu advances its technology by another 5 kilometers, Baidu will be better than me; if Tencent suddenly adds 200 products, Ma Huateng will be better than me; but every company Adding 20,000 people would not be as good as us.

Alibaba is an example of adhering to the concept of "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Jack Ma's magic weapon comes from the party, which is to strengthen organizational building. So where is the focus of construction?

Google has discovered that when it comes to building effective teams, how you build them is more important than who you choose. Factors such as how team members get along with each other, how they organize their work, and how they view their contributions are more important than who is on the team.

Google finally concluded that among the five factors required for a successful team, psychological safety is the most important in predicting the success rate of the team.

Maslow believed that security and interpersonal trust are related. A lack of security leads to a lack of trust, while a sense of security leads to trust.

Google’s findings, in other words, are that trust is particularly important for effective teams.

In "Five Obstacles to Team Collaboration" published by Lencioni in 2002, he listed the factors that undermine efficient teams, the first of which is lack of trust.

Two studies conducted 10 years apart have the same conclusions.

In a social community that trusts each other, the costs caused by mutual suspicion will be minimized. Economists can focus on making the pie bigger instead of trying to prevent others from getting more of it.

A high degree of trust within a team will encourage team members to focus more on their own tasks, rather than spending a lot of time focusing on and questioning others' behaviors or behavioral tendencies.

On the contrary, when the level of trust within the team is low, any comments and actions will be regarded as a suspicion, because to them, any actions of the other party will be considered as self-interested Self-preservation.

Team trust will establish a norm of responsibility among all team members, which cannot be easily violated.

Trust is a virtue that should be protected. A breach of trust occurs when an individual fails to value their own commitments or expects to gain greater long-term personal benefit by deceiving team members.

High-performing teams usually have higher levels of interpersonal communication, more constructive conflict resolution, and stronger cohesion, which will enhance mutual trust, and the establishment and enhancement of trust will also affect to communication, conflict resolution and cohesion.

02

Trust does not arise out of thin air in most cases

Hong Kong gangster Zhang Ziqiang tried it in Hong Kong. He started kidnapping wealthy businessmen, but the children of the wealthy businessmen gave him money. It was very unpleasant; later, he kidnapped the children of a wealthy businessman, and the wealthy businessman was very happy to give him money.

If a person's child is kidnapped, he will instinctively be willing to sacrifice himself in exchange. If it is a husband or wife who is kidnapped, it depends on the depth of the relationship; if it is parents, it depends even more on the degree of closeness of the relationship - thousands of years of filial piety still cannot overcome the instinct of protecting the calf.

The tomb robbing industry eventually evolved into this form: father and son team up, the son goes down to get the treasures in the tomb, and the father pulls the rope on top. Other models have been eliminated in the long evolution of the industry - even the son pulling the rope on it and the father going down to get the treasure have been eliminated. Because the son will cut off the rope after getting the treasure handed over by the father, and only the father will still pull the son up after getting the treasure handed over by the son.

It can be seen that in addition to family trust, other trusts need to be built. Even trust under the blessing of family affection is not two-way. The father loves and trusts his son, but the son may not love and trust his father. Trust may not be possessed by both at the same time.

Many examples in reality prove that the trust of a father who loves his son and believes in his son will also be worn away. Therefore, even family trust is very fragile, not to mention other things.

Trust is not a necessary condition for cooperation, because trust can accelerate cooperation and promote efficient cooperation; but often distrust can also lead to cooperation, and trust can be established in the cooperation process. Trust in turn promotes more efficient cooperation.

Animal instinct is immediate gratification, so animals are usually short-sighted. When they find that betraying each other can gain huge immediate benefits, nothing can stop them from betraying each other.

Compared with other animals, humans can achieve unprecedented scale and degree of cooperation and trust because human rationality can help self-control, focus on future long-term interests, and even design various systems. , to prevent defectors from profiting and to facilitate the establishment of a cooperative trust mechanism.

There is a famous thought experiment in game theory called the "Prisoner's Dilemma":

For both parties, crack the prisoner's dilemma The best strategy in a difficult situation is precisely based on mutual trust. Therefore, if the two criminals have established a strong enough trust in the first place, the dilemma is simple.

However, human nature often cannot withstand the test. A better strategy is to establish an external trust mechanism in addition to people's natural trust. For example, two criminals and brothers who know each other, once someone is there, Those brothers will definitely not let anyone go if they betray and violate trust during interrogation. In this way, both parties will be more cautious about betrayal during interrogation.

03

How to build a trust mechanism in a team

Interpersonal trust can be divided into cognitive-based trust and emotional-based trust. That is, cognitive trust and emotional trust.

Cognition-based trust comes from people’s rational thinking. Specifically, it refers to people’s independent choice of what to believe in different environments. This kind of trust is based on the judgment of “reliability” evidence. This evidence is the knowledge and information that people actually have and think is sufficient.

Emotion-based trust comes from the emotional connection between people. Individuals will invest emotions in trusting relationships, truly care about the well-being of the other party, and recognize the value of the relationship. They believe that emotions are mutual of.

Cognitive trust is the basis of emotional trust. Only with a higher level of cognitive trust in individuals can there be a higher level of emotional trust. The emotional trust that parents have in their children goes beyond cognitive trust, and is a special case of instinct.

Cognitive trust is affected by two variables, one is reliability and the other is similarity.

For "reliability", judgment is based on the consistency of other people's past behavior.

Regarding "similarity", groups with similar basic characteristics are more likely to form and develop trust.

Emotional trust is affected by one variable, interaction frequency.

Regarding "interaction frequency", only enough interactions can make trustworthy inferences. The emotional investment of both parties also increases simultaneously, and it is easy to form an emotional connection.

Based on the above understanding, if the factors that affect trust are refined, they can be divided into the following dimensions:

1. Understanding. The better you understand each other, the better you can judge the "reliability" of the other person, and if you understand each other to a certain extent, it is easier to form an emotional connection with each other.

2. Similarity. We instinctively trust people who are similar to us. Our hobbies, hobbies, and schools we graduated from are all external manifestations of similarity. The "Zhejiang University system" and "Alibaba system" in Hangzhou's entrepreneurial circle are easily formed based on this.

3. Comes with attributes. People's trust is affected by the hormone oxytocin. Everyone's hormone levels are different, and their corresponding personality traits are different. Some people are naturally trusting others, while others think that everyone is untrustworthy.

4. Environment. Even if people are born with similar trust hormones, different growth environments will have different effects on the level and production of trust hormones. Usually, people trust each other more in a frank and open environment.

Many people should have heard the folk saying that there are four irons in life, which are: carrying guns together, sharing windows together, sharing dirty laundry together, and going whoring together.

The so-called "iron" is a description of the intimacy of the relationship, which is also based on trust. Comparing the influencing factors of trust, you can understand why these four relationships can reach an "iron" level.

1. Schoolmate: Understanding - n years of contact, enough understanding to achieve emotional connection, and mutual recognition of reliability in the learning process; Similarity - *** graduated from the same school and studied together Experience; environment - open enough.

2. Carrying guns together: Understanding - n years of contact, understanding enough to achieve emotional connection, and seeing each other's reliability during training exercises; Similarity - ***Same troops and training exercises Experience; environment - being honest and open to each other.

3. Shared corruption: Understanding - each other exposes their illegal facts to each other, establishes a connection of interests, and increases the cost of betrayal to each other.

4. Collaborating with prostitutes: Understanding - each other exposes their bad habits to each other, increasing the cost of betrayal to each other.

Weight this trust-building mechanism.

Let’s re-examine the application of trust elements in building enterprise trust.

1. Understanding - This is what the company's team building, training projects, naked clubs, complaints and many other activities are aimed at.

Alibaba’s early newcomer training aimed at deepening mutual understanding and accelerating the building of team trust through large-scale mutual snooping. However, people often criticized it for being disrespectful and invading people’s privacy. What makes people uncomfortable is that, This method allows mutual understanding to expand to everyone's unsafe zone prematurely. Although the increased cost of betrayal increases trust, it also stimulates people's safety needs, leading to rejection and defense.

2. Similarity - the company's promotion of mission, vision, and values, and assessment of values. The core purpose is to make different people as similar as possible. Similar teams trust each other and manage costs. decreased, but the efficiency increased.

3. Environment - Ali has a concept called "Let poisonous weeds grow in the sun." There is a requirement for employees, that is, you can be dissatisfied with me, but you must tell me in person. But if I hear you talking bad about me behind my back, but you haven't told me about it, I'm sorry, I can tell the company and the colleague who said it behind my back will be fired.

Alibaba has also created an open intranet where anyone can speak and criticize. The company's senior leaders must also proactively and openly respond to criticisms against themselves. This creates an environment where we can treat each other honestly and honestly.

However, even if the relationships between team members are stable, building trust within the team is usually a slow process.

At the same time, it is also one of the most fragile interpersonal processes. If someone abuses the rules within a team, he or she can quickly undermine members' trust in the team.

Moreover, due to the dynamic changing nature of people, the degree of understanding between each other is also changing. Long-term estrangement will affect mutual trust. Therefore, trust needs to be repeatedly built and maintained.

04

Alibaba Trust Building Application

Alibaba’s “Naked Heart Meeting” is both famous and mysterious. Famously, there were three classic naked sessions for bosses in three different periods. Mysteriously, they were very effective every time.

The first famous Naked Heart event occurred in 2000, in its early days.

When the team grew from the initial dozen to dozens of people, the personnel was adjusted. Three founders were promoted, and the others remained ordinary employees. After the sudden changes in the status and positions of the founding team, the lack of conscious and targeted management intervention, and the reduction in meetings and communication, misunderstandings and suspicions arose and increased. When they accumulated to a certain extent, conflicts emerged. In this case, one of the founders, Lou Wensheng, wrote a letter to Jack Ma after collecting the opinions of others. After receiving the letter, Jack Ma realized the seriousness of the problem and immediately called all the founders for a meeting to solve the problem. That day, after everyone sat down around the round table, Ma Yun said: "You don't have to go back today. Since you have so many complaints and grievances, the parties involved are now here, tell them all, scold them one by one, cry if you want, all of them Spread it all out on the table, don’t leave until it’s all spread out.”

The meeting lasted from 9 pm to around 5 am. From the original intention of starting a business to the current situation of the team, everyone threw out their ideas and suggestions one by one. Through communication, team interpersonal trust is repaired and strengthened.

This time the problem of team conflict is solved. When a conflict occurs, both parties always believe that one party's gain is the other party's loss. In fact, in many conflicts, the real opposing goals are only a small part of the core. The larger problem comes from misunderstanding the other party's motives and goals.

Usually conflicts arise based on three points: 1. Competition; 2. Unfairness; 3. Misunderstanding. The reason for Ali's promotion this time was that some people thought it was "unfair", and a lack of communication caused misunderstandings.

In the process of rebuilding trust, similarity is not necessary - because the "Eighteen Arhats" can come together and have common ground; environment is not needed either - Alibaba has been honest with each other since the beginning of their business. status.

Therefore, this naked meeting focused on the perspective of understanding. Although the process and methods were a bit simple and crude, it further expanded the area of ????understanding and promoted mutual trust.

Many people are curious. They are obviously the same people, but not long after starting the business, the level of trust has changed? The principle behind it comes from the "Johari Window". Those who are interested can explore on their own.

Through the "Johari Window", we can see that the degree of mutual understanding between any two people is in a state of dynamic change. This leads to different degrees of understanding between the two people in different periods, and the degree of trust is also different. Just different.

The second famous naked center event took place in 2008.

At that time, the Alibaba B2B company led by Airborne Soldier Wei Tetsu was only focused on stocks, and there were many internal problems, which made Jack Ma unable to sit still.

After an enlarged meeting of the organization department, Jack Ma asked the cadres of Alibaba B2B company to stay, "Let's take a look at what happened in B2B in the past year to one and a half years... You guys prepare dinner... ...Similar to today's meeting, Alibaba has only held it twice a day in its nine-year history, once with 18 people...Tonight will be the second time..."

Ma Yun asked Wei Zhe to speak first. Wei began to self-criticize and explained all the strategic and tactical mistakes he had made since joining the company.

Ma Yun asked everyone to speak again, "Don't have any worries. Missed it." Today, nothing like this will happen again. Don’t bring up your usual problems and complaints. Today is your last chance.”

Zeng Ming added: Re-establish trust instead of knocking anyone down; when problems are discovered, everyone needs to be tied together. Wei Zhe also gave a speech of encouragement: I will never put small shoes on everyone, I have enough mind. Finally, Zeng Ming spoke by name, and the one who was named said, "Wei Zhe doesn't pay that much attention to our growth, makes more decisions that don't represent long-term interests, and does a lot for financial reporting."

As soon as someone started, the cadres began to speak freely. Some people think that Wei Zhe throws out too many ideas and they can't handle them. "We haven't figured out the first one yet, but the second and third ones are coming. How to straighten these out is more painful." Others said the same thing: Wei Zhe doesn't pay attention to products, customer experience, and doesn't use Do things with a sense of mission and values, only care about profits and numbers….

Jack Ma did not speak to criticize Wei Zhe. Two hours later, half of the cadres had finished speaking, but no one spoke for Wei Zhe.

Almost all the cadres unanimously believed that Wei Zhe needed improvement, and Wei had to be convinced. "If half the people in the team say I'm wrong and half say I'm right, then I feel a great grievance. But when everyone says I'm wrong, I understand that the problem is indeed mine, so I no longer feel aggrieved, but feel calm. I just need to change myself.

”

After a while, Wei Zhe began to change from his core and became better integrated with Alibaba.

This time, the problem of integrating airborne troops was solved. In the enterprise high-speed During the development period, the most common way for a company to expand rapidly is to introduce excellent management talents from outside, especially middle and senior managers. These people are often called "airborne troops"

Looking for suitable talents. It is not easy to introduce talents, but whether the talents can land safely after they arrive and stay in the company for a long time to contribute to the company's growth is even more of a headache for the company.

Alibaba emerged around 2006. After the "Airborne Troops" executives were collectively killed, Wei Zhe, who was favored by Jack Ma, also had adverse effects.

According to Ma Yun's tone, this naked center should be the second one after the one in 2000. However, this time is much more complicated than last time. First of all, the focus this time is Wei Zhe, who is the real boss of many participants. It is not that everyone was a partner in the initial meeting; secondly, we need to understand Du and The similarity is much weaker than that of Wei Zhejun.

Therefore, the method of this meeting was adjusted. As a veteran party member, Ma Yun adopted the criticism and criticism often used by the party in organizational life meetings and democratic life meetings. The advantage of self-criticism and focusing on helping one person is that it can make the meeting more spicy and encourage the parties to "sweat and heal"

As expected, everyone's understanding of the situation has increased during the meeting. Wei Zhe's understanding sharpened the similarity between Wei Zhe and everyone else.

The third famous naked meeting took place in 2009.

At that time, after the "Eighteen Arhats". Dai Shan had just been transferred to Taobao HR. One afternoon, she went to Lu Zhaoxi's office. The sun was shining on his desk. He was sitting there with his eyebrows furrowed and very serious. But there were very lively employees outside the door. It was a sharp contrast.

She asked Lu Zhaoxi why he didn’t go out to have fun with everyone? Didn’t anyone usually talk to him? Unexpectedly, Lu Zhaoxi said that they would only meet during the meeting.

At that time, she felt that her boss was so lonely that he would definitely not be able to continue, so she decided to have a naked party.

Dai Shan also said that before the naked party, she was also very stressed. I don’t know if the CEO at the time, Lu Zhaoxi, could deal with the negative emotions of all her subordinates towards him, especially after she had a chat with everyone and found that everyone had emotions towards him, and there were quite a lot of them. If the manager's negative emotions are not dealt with well and the gap between everyone is not resolved, the conflicts will inevitably become larger and larger, and the consequences will be self-evident.

She told Lu Zhaoxi that there was nothing she could do, and it was the only thing she could think of. The most important thing is "Naked Heart Meeting", which may allow you to change from a lonely CEO to being connected with the team. Only by being connected can the team be successful.

Lu Zhaoxi expressed that he could accept the move. Dai Shan also made it clear, "No matter how others scold you, you must maintain your gentlemanly demeanor for me. Just listen. I won't let you speak. You are not allowed to speak. You can only nod. Can you do it? He I can do it. I said I would sit next to you during the meeting.”

Until one minute before the naked meeting, no one else knew that this meeting was going to be held. The morning was still very busy with business. During the strategy meeting, in the evening, she said we hadn’t had a drink in a long time, so we went to have a drink, and then she gathered a group of people and started in a private room.

At the Naked Heart Meeting, various methods of breaking down were used, and the managers started to set the mood. One by one, they began to evaluate Lu Zhaoxi and complain about him. At the end of the "Naked Heart Meeting" meeting, she asked Lu Zhaoxi has been listening all night. Many people have complained about you. You were transferred by the organization and it was not what you thought. I didn't see anyone eating with you. You work so late every day. Can you tell me? Why do you want to be CEO? What are you doing for?

Lu Zhaoxi began to talk about what he wanted, why he came to Taobao from Alipay, and what his difficulties were. The meeting lasted until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. After the meeting, it was discovered that the integration between Lao Lu and his employees had been greatly improved.

What this time solves is the problem of disagreement between the CEO and employees. Lu Zhaoxi's biggest problem is that everyone doesn't know him well, but as an executive who grew up from Alibaba, he is different from Wei Zhe in that he is more similar to others and his Alibaba flavor is purer. Therefore, Dai Shan adopted a relatively mild approach, allowing Lu Zhaoxi to talk to managers and deepen their understanding through evaluation and complaints. The final effect was achieved, promoting team trust.

The occurrence of the last two Naked Heart Meetings is also related to the development process of Alibaba. At the end of 2006, Alibaba established a group, and in 2007, major subsidiaries were established. After each subsidiary developed independently, it began to have its own culture. , and after the management was busy with their own affairs, there was less communication and communication, which led to problems with trust. At this time, Naked Heart Meeting was used to fix the problems in time, and then the mines were cleared for subsequent development.

In terms of building team trust, Alibaba also uses target sharing, group review, ***creation, and three-level axes on a daily basis, all of which increase mutual understanding and similarity. The ultimate goal is to enhance trust.

In fact, all team integration problems are attributed to trust issues. Whether it is "Naked Club" or other activities, they are just tools for team trust building, and their operating principles cannot bypass the trust building mechanism. , Only by recognizing the causes behind the behavior can we prescribe the right medicine and truly solve practical management problems.

References:

1. Paul M. Makinsky, "Psychology and Work"

2. David Myers, "Society Psychology》

3. Andy Lee, Zhihu "What is the basis of trust?" "Answer

4. The Awakened Man, "Seeing the Great Journey", Commander-in-Chief of the Night Watch

5. Zhang Shanling Zhang Pu Jiangli, "Ali's Three Axes: Redefining Cadres" Training"

6. He Yang, "The Most Shocking Personnel Disaster in Alibaba's History", re-reading DeepRead

7. Dai Shan, "Dai Shan's Speech at Lakeside University: How HR can make employees and Lonely CEO concentric? 》, Noteman