HuaJin Heavy Equipment

Lei Jun: Strive to find people who don't need management

TIME: 2021-11-12

Introduction to Stone Refining

Lei Jun stated that finding people is the first entry point for management, finding people who do not need to be managed, and establishing a common goal and common interests. People who do not require management have several important characteristics: ability, sense of responsibility, self motivation, and shared values.

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In 2008, Lin Bin, then Vice President of Google China Engineering Research Institute, met Lei Jun for the first time. Lei Jun's passion for the mobile phone industry combined with Lin Bin's determination to start a business. In 2010, the two of them were full of energy and founded Xiaomi. Even though they didn't even understand the hardware of mobile phones at the time, Lin Bin later became the "man behind Lei Jun's success".

Li Wanqiang, who has been working with Jinshan for more than ten years, gave up his original entrepreneurial plan due to an invitation from Lei Jun; There was also Liu De, a high achieving student at the School of Design at the Art Center of the United States at the time, who was a "big shot" in the design industry that Lei Jun couldn't even imagine at the beginning. After seeing the rarity of Lei Jun's team, he gave up the comfortable middle-class life in America and decided to join; And at that time, Motorola senior engineer Zhou Guangping, who was already 55 years old, developed a grudge against Lei Jun after meeting him. Eventually, they decided to join this uncertain entrepreneurial team... Lei Jun once said, "Xiaomi spent 80% of its first year searching for people." Based on this team, Xiaomi also absorbed countless talents over the past decade. As the mobile phone market gradually becomes clearer, Xiaomi has also incorporated backbone forces from other different mobile phone brands, such as Zeng Xuezhong, former CEO of ZTE, who joined Xiaomi in 2020. Lei Jun has innovative management methods in recruiting talents and building teams. Xiaomi has always maintained an extremely flat management model, without even setting KPIs, which is incredible for many large companies. So how does Lei Jun balance the interests between founders? How is it to recruit and manage talents? The following content is compiled from Lei Jun's public speech and interview:

1. Be a true entrepreneur

When I graduated from university, I worked at a research institute in the Ministry of Aerospace for half a year. After meeting Qiu Bojun at an exhibition, he advised me to work with him. At the end of 1991, I stopped working at the institute and went to a private enterprise. It was quite difficult for young people at that time, but we all had dreams. I was particularly fond of writing programs at that time. After seeing Qiu Bojun write such an excellent work as WPS, I really wanted to give it a try. Perhaps I could also become Qiu Bojun's second best. In the first 16 years, I practiced basic business skills in Kingsoft, and in the following years, I continued to practice some intangible things until I could become Xiaomi. I am a person who pursues perfection and is very demanding of things around me. When people see me now, they will feel that I am easy to cooperate with and very tolerant. This is actually what I learned later, and deep down, I am very serious. Because I am a programmer, in the world of programmers, there are only 0s and 1s, only right and wrong. In fact, it is difficult for such people to integrate with the world.

Later on, I convinced myself that the world was an analog signal, with no zeros or 1s, only partial zeros and partial 1s. I told myself to be able to rub sand in my eyes and view the world with tolerance. The biggest difficulty in founding Xiaomi was that everyone felt that my entrepreneurial idea was unreliable. When I communicate with many people, they ask me three questions. Do you know the boss of the supplier who wants to make a mobile phone? I said I don't know. Do you get to know the owner of an operator by selling mobile phones? I said I don't know. Have you ever made a mobile phone before? I said I haven't done it before. I am particularly embarrassed.

I hired 10 engineers in the first round, but none of them came in the end, which made me feel very frustrated. I have talked to about 100 people, and two-thirds of them have declined the invitation. Especially when inviting hardware engineers, it is particularly difficult. Because our two industries are completely different, they may have heard of the name Lei Jun, but they are not familiar with me. And I personally call and invite them out, saying, "Can you meet and talk to me? Is my idea reliable?" To be honest, I haven't called to promote myself in 20 years.

I'm also afraid of messed up, and I can't save face, so I came up with a solution. I quietly did it, and no one knew if I messed it up. This way, I feel more relaxed in my heart. In fact, Xiaomi's performance is quite good. I participated in the founding of Kingsoft Software and also managed a company with thousands of employees, so when I was doing Xiaomi, I set a very simple requirement for myself - to be a true entrepreneur. This statement actually contains a lot of information, and the most important one is not to overmanage a startup company. What I think most about is how to simplify management, even if I don't need it. In an era of extreme speed, it is important to think clearly about what is most important.

2. Finding people is the first entry point for management

Starting from this question, what kind of company does not need management and what kind of people do not need management. If we find such a group of people, establish a common goal and common interests, will this problem be solved? So I took finding people as the first entry point for management. I wanted to find people who didn't need to be managed. Later, we summarized several important characteristics of these people: the first characteristic is that they must be capable and capable. The second characteristic is that he needs to have a high sense of responsibility. When there is no external motivation, this sense of responsibility can ensure that he performs every action well, so our requirements for a sense of responsibility are very high. Because a sense of responsibility can simplify many processes for us. The third characteristic is strong self driving force. This self drive is our understanding of the common vision, what kind of things we do together, and whether you agree with it. Later, we used the Internet to form a community of interests internally with equity and options, so that we can effectively unite for a great dream and for everyone's own interests. Simply put, it means finding a group of excellent people who share the same aspirations. In the first year of Xiaomi's establishment, we spent 80% of our time in interviews. I once found a hardware manager. That person has strong qualifications. In order to persuade him to join Xiaomi, I talked to him five times a week, averaging about 10 hours each time. We talked for three months, a total of seventeen or eighteen times, and finally convinced him.

But at the last moment, I asked him how many shares you wanted, and he said it didn't matter. At that moment, I felt a bit hopeless. This statement makes me believe that people who do not care about equity will not have entrepreneurial spirit. Even if they end up unhappy, I don't feel like these times are being wasted. Nowadays, it is often said that there is a shortage of talents. I think the first thing to consider is whether you have spent enough time. There is an idiom called Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage, and today, it is not an exaggeration to visit the Thatched Cottage thirty times in order to recruit talents. We often joke that it's not that we can't find talent, it's just that the company's efforts are not enough. How to manage good people in startups and rapidly changing enterprises, the first step is to find the right people. He needs to have the ability, a high sense of responsibility, and a high degree of self motivation. After finding such a person, your management may be slightly weaker, but in fact, there is no problem at all. Finding people without a company is an easy task, and there is also a complete set of methodologies for finding and interviewing people. After finding more people, you will know what kind of personality they have. You need to analyze patterns, so that you can quickly determine what type of person they belong to.

The fourth characteristic is having the same values. In 2015, I interviewed a person recommended by a company executive, who said that this person was very, very impressive. After the interview, I said that this person is not suitable. I talked to this person for an hour, and his resume is almost perfect. He works for an important supplier, and when he took over, he was about $9 million a year. Four years later, he worked for $200 million. He said he has the ability to turn straw into gold bars, but I said you don't fit our values. We work like farmers every day, with no effort, no harvest. Even though he is very popular in the market, this is not our philosophy.

3. Creating a relatively equal management atmosphere

The vast majority of Internet companies, if you look carefully, will have a guerrilla model, that is, small teams, rapid response, flattening, and rapid decision-making. I think this is the key to the success of Internet companies, so Xiaomi is pursuing super flattening, so that every partner of us can understand all the details, so we rarely use meetings, PPTs, and reports to understand the progress. Xiaomi is managed through collaboration and division of labor among our co founders. Our weekly meeting is on Monday night, where everyone eats boxed meals together. The main purpose is to solve coordination problems and simplify work as much as possible, so that the founders can understand. What we advocate is de management, where we are either the boss or frontline engineers. Traditional company bosses listen to reports, and the specific workers may be those who have graduated from college for three to five years, which is completely different from us. On the basis of de management, to create an equal management atmosphere, de title is one of the important methods. In the early days of Xiaomi, we searched for over 100 people as required. In fact, their typical image is basically around the age of 30, with considerable experience and a special desire to do some great things. We have gathered such a group of people. What does the initial title we mentioned mean? We basically give them a title called Engineer, because if we give it to a director, there may be another person who is similar in ability to him, saying that you give me a manager is definitely not enough. If you want to give me a director, then the entire office is full of directors. If it were engineers, everyone would be engineers, but instead they could accommodate more capable people. So in the early stages, Xiaomi deliberately confused levels. For a long time, Xiaomi had no level, and as a company with over 20000 people, there are only thirteen or fourteen managers above the vice president level in Xiaomi Group. In such a relatively equal atmosphere.

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Lei Jun: Strive to find people who don't need management

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