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Hey, this is He Luoyichong from Hong kong.
When I first saw this topic of
Management of Excellence
I had no idea how should I explain
about this topic.
Then I turned my head to my watch.
Watches and Clocks have always been
the symbolic heritage of Swiss!
Then I had my inspiration!
Take this as flattery or not,
I will explain how it has inspired me.
I went to the British Museum last summer.
As an engineering student,
among all the exquisite antique displays,
I was fascinated by a model which explains
how mechanical clock works.
Here, I have a piece of animation of
how mechanical clock works.
Basically, the mechanical clock consists of
five elements -- Energy, Wheels, Escapement,
Controller and Time Indicator.
I am not professional in this,
but I was so impressed by the organization of
these elements
that to run a clock
the only thing you have to do is
just winding the spring.
This energy, which is stored in the lifted anchor
and was induced by winding the spring,
supports the clock to run
through the whole process.
This energy is what I want to say as
THE ENCOURAGEMENT.
Two years ago, I met my friend Yale Yu
who is the Principal Consultant of Enterprise
Architecture and IT Services,
Infosys Australia & New Zealand
and former CTO of HP Asian Pacific.
He is from the same hometown as I am,
so we built up a relationship on that.
He is a very intelligent and knowledgeable.
He read lots of old Chinese philosophy books
and he told me that he has benefitted a lot from
those philosophies.
Among all, he worships the Taoism the most.
While he was narrating the main idea of Taoism,
I heard the most impressive perception about
Management.
He told me,
if you have ever read the Chinese Taoism,
you would understand one ideology of
Activity as Repose.
Taoism is founded by Lao-tzu
about the year 4000 BC
and the first masterpiece of Taoism is
Tao-te Ching
which is regarded as the essence of Taoism.
The ideology of Active as repose is stated in
Tao-te Ching by Lao-tzu,
as you can accomplish everything
while doing nothing.
This ideology may seem abstract and absurd,
but really sophisticated
if given a second thought.
Yale then explained to me in a concrete way
with his experience in company management.
He said this is like management to me.
What I have to do is to organize,
to settle everything such as regulations,
human resources, disciplines in the first place.
After that, he said, I probably can rest everyday
because everything would be running
in a perfect manner.
because everything would be running
People will see me as I am doing nothing,
as Taoism indicates as repose.
However, this organization built by me
has been doing everything
while I am doing nothing.
So the most important thing
and most complicated thing to him is
how to build up this organization
in the first place.
For example,
as the most complicated thing
-- Human Resources.
Treating those excellences,
you should know what their personalities are
and what they each are capable of
in order to place them just at the position.
But if well settled,
you don't have to worry much after that.
I totally agree with that.
As I have experienced as a programmer
from which Yale has started from as well,
a real masterpiece of codes is when executed,
it needs the least control during the execution.
That is the first point I would like to state.
To ensure a great performance
regarding to management of excellences,
well organization comes in the first place
which would save lots of effort
through the entire management process.
Although there is a saying
that great minds think alike,
everybody holds a different brain.
Nobody see a thing all the same.
When facing an unconventional situation,
how would these different brains
think in a same manner
to come to the best solution?
Being a student in Logistics field,
I learned my lessons on supply chain.
There is an important subject
regarding the supply chain profit,
the coordination among all stages
in supply chain to
maximize the entire supply chain profit.
This may seem a little bit abstract
so please allow me to put it this way...
Let us assume we have a farm producing milk.
We have the Manager Henry
in charge of the production and selling.
Because normally customers don't buy milk
directly from the farm,
we assume between them
there is a retailer stage
-- let's say here is a Salesman Tom.
Also we assume the production cost of the milk
is $5 dollars/L
and the market supply/demand curve
abides by the slope of Q = 1000*(20-p).
Right now, the farm charges the retailer $10/L.
Thus, the cost for Salesman Tom is $10/L.
According to the formula,
the optimized price will be set as p=$15.
The amount of milk ordered from Salesman Tom
would be 5000 Liters and profit for him would be
$25,000
while the profit for the farm
would be 5000*($10-$5) = $25,000
The profit added up together is $50,000 totally.
However, for the entire supply chain,
the profit actually can maximize up to $56,250
Then, based on trust
built up by years of cooperation,
Manager Henry came up with a strategy
to charge Salesman Tom
only the production cost
and they share the total profit by half half
which lead a raise in profit of each by $3,125
Such a win-win strategy, isn't it?
This is just a simplified coordination on price
strategy among different stages in supply chain.
There are way more difficult scenarios
not only about price,
but other things such as transportation,
inventory and so on.
After all, there is one thing that holds forever
is that all stages should be aligned with
a same goal and incentive
instead of everyone pursues
its own optimization.
Just like in company management I suppose,
everyone should stay to
one principle and discipline
other than everyone goes for their own benefit.
I am not a professional in Management
nor I had experience in company management,
I can't suggest any specific method
to help with it.
But I can feel this sense of management by
what I have accessed in my daily life.
This is like this mechanical clock.
When we have well-organized elements
aligned inside with a conspicuous goal
to achieve,
the only thing you have to do is
just winding the clock spring,
as what I call here
THE ENCOURAGEMENT.
Thank You