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“变革管理” 最近我从北京去了趟山东首府济南，是当天往返。济南和北京相距大约500公里，上午11点我从北京乘高铁出发（列车的终点站是上海虹桥站），晚上9:45就又回到了北京。中间我开了几个会，做了个演讲，还在淄博宴会上品尝了美味的山东菜。 高铁的平均时速为300公里左右，我们用了不到两小时就抵达了济南。即便是全程乘坐的旅客，也只需6个小时就能从北京抵达上海，速度真是太快了。 现在，中国已建成了世界最大的高铁网络，虽然在安全上还遗留一些形象问题，但它改变了中国很多地方的商旅现状。 上世纪七十年代中，去中国出差仿佛上演慢动作电影。首先要说服中方接待单位出具正式的邀请函，有了它才能申请签证。等好不容易把手续都办完了，还要坐上一整天的火车才能从香港到达只有135公里之遥的广州。而接下来飞往北京的航班，非得等到第二天才能起飞。 直到好几年之后，香港和北京才有了直飞航班。而在那之前，从香港到北京（1,971公里），即便是搭乘最快的公共交通工具，也需要将近36个小时。 按现在的标准，这听起来真有点儿吓人。 以上交通变化的重要意义并不仅仅在于显著缩短了从甲地到乙地的时间。 从上世纪七十年代末开始，中国人口和各种意识形态上的流动也一直在加速。这是一个庞大的过程，如果没有中国经济奇迹般的腾飞，根本就不可能实现。但这也为“变革管理”提出了诸多课题。 对普通中国人来说，这无疑是个福音，因为他们的生活水平得到了显著的改善，也享受到了更大程度上的行动自由、选择自由、教育机会，以及与亲朋好友的广泛交流。 而快速变化带来的挑战迫使人们将应对能力发挥到了极致，不仅是对个人、家庭、组织，乃至整个社会，都是如此。 应对这种大变革的管理也催生了对领导行为的巨大需求，要求他们在工作中必须行之有效。 此去济南，我主要是应一些企业领导之邀，为他们讲讲赴美经商的情况，重点是商业习俗和礼仪。 当我跟女儿提起正在准备这次演讲时，女儿反映出些许惊讶，接着就用略带揶揄的口吻说：“你还有资格讲这个吗？”她的意思是我已经离开美国快40年了，也许我和当下美国的商业习俗及礼仪早就脱节了。 她的疑问让我想起中美两国在过去40年间的变化速度，以及如何才能与两国的变化保持同步。 虽然在过去两代人间，世界发生了巨大的变化——其中很多都要拜高科技所赐——但没有任何一个大国能在变化节奏和范围上与中国相提并论。 最明显也是最常提及的就是改革开放带来了市场经济及相关的变化；其中不可或缺的是赋予了中国人在个人生活上更多的选择权和行动自由。 在电讯方面，中国迅速跨越了模拟时代，建立起世界级的全国网络，其手机用户数已居全球首位，网络用户数很快也将成为世界第一。交通方面，中国铺设了最大规模的高铁网络（一种造价昂贵的新型铁路系统），新建的机场也超过了全世界的总和（到2016年底，计划将新建机场56座）。就广泛的基础设施而言，相关的例证更是举不胜举。 与此同时，人类历史上最大规模的农村人口向城市的流动也在进行当中，对地区和国家都产生了深远的影响。 在商业方面，国有企业从臃肿的老旧工业区改组为大型上市公司，仅用一代人的时间，就从无到有，缔造出73家跻身《财富》世界500强的大型中国企业。非国有企业也涌现出大批成功的案例。在国际舞台上，中资企业已开始通过并购、上市、合资、独资等多种形式，涉足国际市场。 总之，尽管我在大中华区已经生活了38年，但仍认为谈论“美国经商之道”比妄言“中国经商之道”更为容易，这主要是考虑到中国的变化节奏和程度。其实在美国也发生了许多变化，但和同一时期发生在中国的根本变化相比不可同日而语。另外，在信息流通上，美国相对来说更透明易懂。 我在济南的演讲中曾建议大家不要臆断普通美国人（或其他外国人）对中国都是了解的。其实在现实生活中，他们很多人都对中国一片茫然，如坠云里雾里。 达成长期合作并不是一件轻而易举的事，需要相互理解和信任。尤其是在背景完全不同的两方之间，只有通过坚持不懈的沟通才能实现。理想状态是，在任何新合作关系建立之初，也就是背景调查阶段，双方就达成共识，优先来解决沟通问题。 顺带说一下，能再回到山东真好，那里是我太太的出生地，也是我中文启蒙老师的故乡。我第一次吃山东菜是在北京丰泽园饭庄，时至今日我对鲁菜仍情有独钟。 这让我想起此次旅行中的另一个问题，为什么在香港和外国有那么多中餐厅——包括粤菜、上海菜、北京菜和川菜——却好像独缺鲁菜呢？ |
Change Management I recently made a same day trip from Beijing to Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. Jinan and Beijing are about 500 kilometers apart. I left Beijing on the 11:00 am high speed train (ultimately bound for Shanghai's Hongqiao Station), and arrived back in Beijing at 9:45 that evening, following a series of meetings, a presentation which I gave, and a scrumptious banquet of Zibo, Shandong cuisine. The high speed train averaged 300 km per hour. We arrived in less than two hours. For those who stayed on the train for the full journey, scheduled arrival in Shanghai was about six hours from departure time in Beijing. Really fast. China's high-speed rail network is now the largest in the world, and despite some lingering image issues relating to safety, it is changing the face of business travel in many parts of the country. In the mid 1970s, the experience of business travel in China was akin to watching yourself in a slow motion film. The first step was persuading a Chinese host organization to issue you a formal invitation letter, which in turn enabled you to apply for a visa. Once that process was eventually complete, you boarded the one daily train service from Hong Kong for the nearly full-day journey to Guangzhou, some 135 kilometers away. The next flight to Beijing was not available until the following day. There were no direct flights linking Hong Kong and Beijing until some years later. Until direct air links were opened, it took nearly 36 hours to get from Hong Kong to Beijing (1,971 kilometers) on the fastest available modes of public transport. This seems shockingly, unimaginably slow by today's standards. The significance of this dramatic change is not simply about the greatly reduced time required to go from point "A" to point "B". There has been a phenomenal acceleration in the movement of people and ideas in China since the late 1970s. This is huge progress, without which China's economic miracle would not have been possible, but it also poses many challenges relating to change management. It's an obvious blessing for the vast number of ordinary Chinese people whose standards of living have been dramatically improved, who also enjoy greatly enhanced personal mobility and choice, educational opportunities, and connectedness with friends and family. The challenges arise because such rapid change stretches the limits of people's ability to cope. That's true for individuals, families, organizations, and for society as a whole. Managing phenomenal change also places enormous demands on what leaders need to do to be effective in their jobs. My trip to Jinan revolved around an invitation to speak to a group of business leaders on doing business in America, with a focus on business customs and etiquette. When I mentioned to my daughter than I was preparing a talk on this subject, she reacted with some surprise and asked in a slightly humorous tone: "Are you still qualified to talk on that subject?" Her point was that since I've lived outside of America for nearly 40 years, perhaps I might be somewhat out of touch with current business customs and etiquette there. Her question started me thinking about the comparative rates of change in China and America during the past 40 years, and the relative challenge of keeping abreast of those changes in both countries. Although the whole world has experienced big changes during the past two generations -- many of them driven by the impact of new technology -- no major country has experienced the pace and scope of fundamental changes that China has. Most obvious and often cited are the embrace of market economics and other changes resulting from the Open Door and Reform policy; an integral part of which was granting Chinese citizens a far greater degree of personal choice and mobility in their lives. In telecommunications, China leapfrogged the analog era and installed a world class national network, with the largest mobile and (very soon) internet user base in the world. In transportation, China built the largest high-speed rail network, an extensive new highway system, and more new airports than the rest of the world combined (56 more are planned by the end of 2016). In a wide range of basic infrastructure, the examples are too many to name here. At the same time, the largest movement of people from rural farming communities to cities in human history is well underway, with profound effects at the regional and national levels. In the business sector, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises from rust-belt behemoths to large listed companies has produced 73 Chinese companies big enough to be ranked on the current Fortune Global 500 list, up from zero a generation ago. In the non-SOE sector there has also been an explosion of new corporate success stories. On the global stage, Chinese companies have begun the march into international markets through mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, joint ventures and wholly-owned operating units. On balance, despite having lived in Greater China for the past 38 years, I still think "doing business in America" is a much easier story to tell than "doing business in China" is. A big part of the reason why is the phenomenal pace and degree of change here. America has changed a lot as well, but not in as many fundamental ways as China has during this time frame. America is also a much more transparent environment regarding the flow of information. One piece of advice I offered in my presentation in Jinan is to avoid making the assumption that the average American (or other foreigners, for that matter) understand China. In reality most of them find it confusing and complex. Sustainable partnerships depend on mutual understanding and trust, which are not easily achieved. This outcome can only be achieved through consistent efforts to communicate, especially between groups with such different backgrounds. Ideally, this communication process should be elevated to a mutually agreed priority starting from the early stages of due diligence on any new partnership. It was good to be back in Shandong, which is where my wife was born and also the home province of my first Chinese teacher. I first sampled Shandong cuisine in Beijing's Feng Ze Yuan restaurant, and remain a big fan of Shandong cooking to this day. Which brings me to another question which occurred to me during this recent day trip. Why is it that among all the Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong and overseas -- including many offering Cantonese, Shanghai, Beijing, and Sichuan cuisine -- there seem to be no Shandong style restaurants? |
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