Function matching丨How many steps does it take to go from wage earner to domineering CEO?

Quotes from "Leadership Echelon":

Before you become a leader, success is only related to your own growth. When you become a leader, success is related to the growth of others.

█ A story

First of all, we use the example of "Private and Marshal" to explain the promotion problem in the workplace, because promotion in the military is more hierarchical and more professional than in the workplace. Significance.

Napoleon has a well-known saying: "A soldier who does not want to be a marshal is not a good soldier." This sentence is often understood to mean that as long as you are the best soldier, you can become a marshal, but this There is actually an overlooked truth inside. The truth is far from that simple.

Because in an army, each level of official rank has different requirements for the capabilities of the chief officer.

If you are a private, a first-class soldier, or a second-class soldier, the main criterion for measuring your excellence is your individual combat ability; for a lieutenant officer, the main ability criterion is to form a formation, implement instructions, and charge into battle; for a school officer, the main criterion is your ability to fight alone. Ability standards include firepower matching, command and dispatching and other tactical skills; for generals, it mainly depends on the ability to lead a team and the ability to coordinate the relationship between various services and arms; and if you want to be a marshal, you will definitely be useless if you don't understand politics.

So for an individual soldier, no matter how good your marksmanship is, no matter how good your skills are, and no matter how strong your individual combat ability is, even if you are as strong as Leng Feng in "Wolf Warrior", you are destined to be upgraded to a company commander at most. Position. Because when you are promoted to regiment or camp level, the focus of the test is no longer on your own combat effectiveness, but on your management ability and systematic thinking and commanding ability.

So, what do you need to do to become that "marshal"?

First of all, you must be an excellent soldier. You must have good marksmanship, strong fighting ability, and perform tasks very well, so that you can stand out in the competition of "Private Soldiers" and become the platoon leader and company commander.

Secondly, you must be an excellent company commander. When tactics are launched and you want to quickly occupy a hilltop position, you must judge the terrain, take advantage of the location, and determine the location of the firepower point faster than others. Have "tactical" ability. Only in this way can you be promoted to battalion commander.

At the regiment level. You must demonstrate exceptional "leadership" abilities. Make correct decisions and judgments at critical moments, have vision and skills, be able to handle the relationship between subordinates well, get along well with the brothers below, and have your own personality charm. Only then can you be qualified to be promoted to "general" and achieve the goal of division army class.

Finally, when you reach the division and army level, you must "talk politics and understand politics." Your military management philosophy must meet the current domestic and international political needs, so that you can be promoted to marshal. The most important job of the marshal is not the military, but the "court". General Patton, the famous World War II general, is not inferior to MacArthur or Bradley in terms of military merit and popularity. However, he is only a four-star general and has not been promoted to a marshal (five-star general). This is due to his impulsive personality and lack of understanding of politics and power. Great relationship. Eisenhower, the only five-star general in American history who served as president, not only had great military exploits, but was also a master of political power.

It can be seen that at different stages, you need different talents.

In other words, what determines which stage you are promoted to is not your business ability in your current job, but your matching ability to meet the next promotion position.

This conclusion subverts our traditional understanding of the "upgrade and kill monsters" model. In traditional wisdom, if you go to a good elementary school and get good grades, you can go to a good junior high school. If you go to a good junior high school and get good grades, you can go to a good high school. If you go to a good high school and get good grades, you can go to a good university. In this model , "Work hard and upgrade" is the kingly way.

But this is not the case in the workplace. Doing well at this stage does not mean that you will be competent at the next stage. Many people do not have the ability for the next stage and will be forced to stay at this stage. This is the so-called bottleneck. Even if some people barely get promoted, they will still encounter problems due to the mismatch in thinking and ability.

This book provides practical implementation plans on how to transform from individual strivers to managers and build an excellent leadership team, which we summarize as “two transformations and three abilities”. Two changes: changing the way of thinking and changing the way of time management; three abilities: the ability to define and assign work, improving the competence of subordinates, and the ability to establish harmonious relationships.

█ Two Transformations

Becoming a manager is often accompanied by changes in many things. To successfully transition to a manager, the following two aspects must first be changed:

From managing oneself to managing others, the first and most important thing is to adjust the way of thinking. Once a person takes a management position, especially a major management position, the criterion for success is no longer developing himself, but developing others. In other words, the process of leaders exercising their leadership authority is, to a large extent, the process of constantly discovering and developing others. This process is the process of team improvement.

A good manager can get a sense of satisfaction and superiority from the promotion of others. In the past, he knew how to motivate himself, but now he must learn to motivate others. In the past, he enjoyed the stage and aura, but now he needs to Giving up the stage and aura to others requires a lot of adjustments in work mentality. They must believe that it is their duty to devote time to helping others, planning, coaching, and similar work, and that getting things done through others must be the key to their own success.

Ron has been appointed sales executive for a medium-sized transportation company. He came to the new company with a strong reputation and was given carte blanche to turn around an ailing sales force. Although this was his first time as a functional leader, Ron was an expert in the field, having helped his previous employer's sales team achieve great results.

Ron recognized that as he went through this new phase, he would have to change his work philosophy and learn new leadership and time management skills. Therefore, he did not repeat what he had done before and focused his energy and time on improving sales performance. Instead, he strives to have face-to-face conversations with his direct reports, younger salespeople, customer service reps, and executives.

After a period of getting to know each other, Ron developed a strategy that took into account the complexities of the company and the relationships between the subordinate functions within its divisions. To the surprise of most in management, he chose to focus on improving customer service. Because everyone thought he would consider issues from the perspective of a salesperson, such as bringing in top salespeople from outside the company or reorganizing the sales team to improve sales performance. However, Ron listened carefully and thought strategically and comprehensively about his department's operations. Slow sales growth is mainly due to poor customer service rather than weak sales force. This approach attracts new customers while also retaining existing ones.

Thanks to Ron's rapid change of thinking when faced with the new position, ultimately, with his insights, the company's performance was greatly improved, and he was promoted to a new position with greater responsibilities.

At the same time, the way of time management needs to be changed, so that more time can be spent on management instead of doing everything. Although many people are aware of this change, in actual work, they still often directly intervene in the work of their subordinates because they are good at a certain job. On the one hand, he is always willing to operate specific projects himself rather than supporting his subordinates to do it. He likes to show people his expertise in this area; on the other hand, when they are not satisfied with the work of their subordinates, they will do it themselves Do it, which invisibly creates competition with subordinates. At this stage, it can be very difficult to let go of the jobs and responsibilities that earned them the managerial role.

Mary is a programmer for a communications company and finds great satisfaction and accomplishment in technical work and creative problem solving. When she is engaged in technical work, she will be very confident and calm, but when dealing with interpersonal problems, she is a little less confident and at a loss.

Due to her outstanding technical ability, Mary was promoted to manager of her R&D group. When Mary's boss put intense pressure on her group to develop a new system, she forgot her role and became too involved in her subordinates' work. She required her subordinates to report on their work progress every day and often ordered them to follow her own ideas instead of coaching them to find solutions to problems on their own. Mary seems to think that she can instill her ideas into the group members, and believes that if she writes the program herself, all problems will be solved. In fact, Mary's overstepping weakens the enthusiasm of the group members and deprives them of the opportunity to receive guidance. As a result, not only did they miss the deadline, but the system they developed was riddled with bugs.

Facing the problem, Mary tried to find the reason for the failure of the work. She was shocked by the feedback from these familiar and well-cooperated team members. Their unanimous opinion was that she was too detailed and not good at allocating work. , the management style that often interferes with specific work limits the performance of team members and hinders the achievement of goals.

This feedback forced Mary to look at management issues in a new light. Although she still intellectually believes that meticulous management is right. But the need for change has been emotionally accepted.

Through the training, Mary gradually understood the importance of delegation. She finally realized that, just like the technical work she liked, she could combine her technical expertise and leadership skills to help her subordinates complete tasks successfully. It can also bring her the same sense of satisfaction. In the end, Mary successfully transformed into a manager by changing her time management methods.

█ Three abilities

How to transform into a qualified manager and build a leadership echelon, the book also gives three solutions:

Management It is necessary to judge the amount of workload and the difficulty of tasks, and make reasonable and high-quality allocations according to the abilities and expertise of subordinates, so that the work can be completed better, the expertise of employees can be brought into play, and career development can be more promising. Among them, communication takes up a lot of time, and many people who are new to management positions are accustomed to spending time on "doing things" and are unwilling to spend time communicating with subordinates. This will lead to hasty work due to lack of sufficient information. layout.

Gordon is a technical director of a large communications company. He has high requirements for his work and sets high KPI standards for the team and everyone. However, his approach not only did not reduce his score, but also won high praise in the 360-degree evaluation reports of his superiors, subordinate managers and colleagues. And employees in other parts of the company are clamoring to support Gordon's work, precisely because Gordon does a better job than anyone else in developing future executives and leaders.

First, Gordon was fair in his rigorous demands for the job, and he explained his requirements clearly and promptly. At the same time, Gordon is also very good at delegation, setting work goals for his subordinates and allowing them to achieve their goals in their own way.

Most importantly, Gordon is very clear about his primary job responsibility: developing great managers. Gordon understands his subordinates very well and always interacts with them individually according to their different needs. He always provides sincere feedback when his subordinates do a good job or make mistakes. His feedback is always clear and constructive. Sexual, though his feedback may initially sting some people, he doesn't turn criticism into personal attacks. Whenever he talks about his subordinates, his pride is palpable. He believes that one of his important achievements is that many subordinate managers have been promoted and are doing excellent work in their new positions.

It is this perfect definition and good arrangement of work that makes Gordon a well-loved and excellent manager.

Good managers must learn to improve the competence of their subordinates through supervision, guidance, feedback, communication and problem solving, so as to carry out their work efficiently.

Supervision is not a supervisory task. This is a proactive and meticulous job. You must always pay attention to and ask about the progress of your subordinates' work. When the results are consistent with expectations, timely encouragement and positive feedback should be given; when the results are disappointing, the information obtained through supervision should be used to adjust plans, methods, strengthen training, and require additional resources. support and other measures to get work back on the track of healthy development.

Sony Chairman Akio Morita has a habit of often going to the staff restaurant to eat and chat with employees in order to cultivate employees' sense of cooperation and maintain good relationships with them.

One day, Akio Morita found a young employee who was depressed, full of worries, and eating without paying attention to anyone. So Akio Morita took the initiative to sit across from the employee and chat with him. After a few glasses of wine, the employee finally spoke: "I graduated from the University of Tokyo and originally had a job with a very good salary. But because I admired Sony so much, I thought that joining Sony would be the best choice in my life." . However, now I realize that I am not working for Sony, but for the section chief.

All my actions and suggestions must be approved by the section chief. For some of my own small inventions and improvements, the section chief not only did not support or explain, but also ridiculed me for wanting to eat swan meat and being ambitious. To me, this section chief is Sony. I was very discouraged and disheartened. I regret very much now that I would give up that well-paid job to come to a place like this! "These words shocked Akio Morita. He thought that there might be many similar problems among employees within the company. Managers should care about their distress, understand their situation, and not block their way forward, so the reform was born. The idea of ????a personnel management system.

After that, Sony began to publish an internal tabloid every week, publishing "want advertisements" from various departments of the company. Employees could apply for jobs freely and secretly, and their bosses had no authority. Stop. In addition, Sony in principle allows employees to change jobs every two years, especially for those energetic and motivated talents. Instead of letting them passively wait for jobs, they actively give them opportunities to display their talents. After Sony implemented an internal recruitment system, most capable talents can find their preferred positions, and the human resources department can also discover the management problems of those bosses who "drain" talents.

Work is characterized by a high degree of interdependence. Managers need to establish trusting, open communication channels both horizontally and vertically, so it becomes very important to establish good interpersonal relationships with bosses, subordinates, customers, suppliers, etc. Work is often difficult for many managers. On the one hand, they may not have learned to build relationships as individual contributors; on the other hand, their company culture may not support this enough. So, overcome. These obstacles require the concerted efforts of managers and careful guidance from superiors.

Ford Motor Company had a branch plant in New Jersey that was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management. An excellent manager, Tom, set out to solve management problems. After Tom arrived, he conducted a comprehensive and detailed inspection of the factory's management and other aspects. It was not until the third day that he discovered the crux of the problem: the factory's problem did not lie in management. It’s about interpersonal relationships!

Tom found that in the huge factory, the assembly lines were like barriers blocking direct communication between workers; the roar of machines and the noise from the rolling shafts on the test line , not only makes people feel irritated, but also makes it difficult for people to exchange information about work. In addition, the factory's efficiency is not good. In the past, leaders were obsessed with production capacity and efficiency, but left employee gatherings, team building, and off-site activities. **The time for entertainment has been reduced to the lowest level. All of this has left employees with very little opportunity to talk and socialize with each other. The decaying factory has greatly reduced the enthusiasm of workers for work, and the indifference in interpersonal relationships has also made employees feel bad. To make matters worse.

After being keenly aware of the root cause of this problem, Tom decisively decided that from now on, the factory would bear the lunch expenses of employees, hoping that everyone could stay for dinner and spend the day together. Difficulty. When everyone was having lunch every day, Tom personally set up a barbecue grill in a corner of the cafeteria and grilled every employee for free.

Tom hopes to create a happy lunch for employees. Opportunities to communicate and understand each other to build a space of trust and improve the interpersonal relationships in the organization. In the eyes of employees, this seems to be a different feeling. They feel that the factory may be at the last moment and must make a big impact. After a lot of work, during those days, the topics discussed by the employees at the dinner table were all about the future future and destiny of the factory and personal job prospects. Everyone offered suggestions and took the initiative to discuss problems at work. Find the best solution.

Tom's hard work was not in vain. Although providing free lunches to workers when the factory's performance was not good increased some costs, he saved the company's bad interpersonal relationships and brought all members back to one In a harmonious working atmosphere, although the noise of the machines is still there, it can no longer stop people's inner communication and enthusiasm for active work.

Two months later, the company's performance turned around, and five months later, the company miraculously began to make profits. This company still maintains this tradition. Everyone gathers together for lunch and the manager personally delivers barbecue. This shows the importance of good interpersonal relationships in the development process of an enterprise.

█ Conclusion

To sum up, in order to successfully transform managers, we must achieve "two transformations and three abilities":

Two transformations:

1. Adjust the way of thinking

2. Change the way of time management

Three abilities:

1. The ability to define and arrange work< /p>

2. Improve the competence of subordinates

3. The ability to establish harmonious relationships

From managing oneself to managing others is a change in the way of thinking. The change in working style is a change in the direction of professional ability matching. At this stage, the skills that should be learned include work planning, knowing people and assigning tasks well, assigning work, motivating employees, coaching and performance evaluation, etc. This is different from the previous self-management. Completely different dimensions. Such a transformation is not easy and requires a certain amount of time and space for adjustment, but it is crucial for those in the workplace who want to be continuously promoted to realize value. I hope every enterprising person can successfully complete the key task of skill matching. Transformation■