Developing Managers Is a Strategic Priority: Invest Time in Selection and Development

Developing managers is a strategic issue for a company. Founders must take personal responsibility for developing managers and setting the company’s hiring standards. This is part of building a business. Only with clear talent standards can a company know how to select people and apply those standards. Employees, too, need them to know the direction in which to grow. Selection is extremely important. If possible, the person at the top should personally oversee hiring, because only that person fully understands the company’s development and the hardships it has faced. In other words, only the leader truly knows its strengths and weaknesses, the talent it lacks, and the personalities that will not fit. Hiring is precisely the opportunity to bring in fresh blood, address weaknesses, and extend strengths. For middle- and lower-level staff, one reference is Lakala’s ‘three qualities’ standard: attitude, caliber, and ability. For senior people, the standard should reflect the three qualities and two abilities required of a leader: high aspirations, inner strength, and a broad mind, together with strategic capability and the ability to learn. The best way to develop managers is to promote from the front line, especially from frontline sales. Emphasize internal promotion. The leader should personally build a management-development system and cultivate managers. Internally developed managers share a stronger cultural alignment. In a crisis, the more critical the moment, the more you must rely on your own team to turn danger into safety. They are veterans tested by failure and experience, with an implicit understanding of teamwork and a common way of doing things. More importantly, managers developed from the ground up, as longstanding members of the company, care more deeply about it. Their sense of responsibility cannot be matched by outsiders parachuted into the role. Even promoting a company commander directly to regimental commander is, in most cases, better than parachuting in a deputy division commander to run the regiment. Dare to trust your managers and do not underestimate your own team. If they have followed you this far, they can support you into the future. Eighty percent of the people now on your team are the best candidates for their positions. Their sense of ownership is a startup’s most precious asset. Do not assume that ‘monks from elsewhere chant better.’ Distrusting your own people while blindly admiring so-called experts will only bring internal confusion and the loss of talent. All great founders place tremendous importance on developing leaders. Whether at the Peasant Movement Training Institute, Whampoa Military Academy, the Red Army University, or the Lushan Officer Training Corps, however critical the situation or harsh the environment, the founders placed great weight on leadership development and even personally served as principals or instructors. Also, do not use developing people as an excuse for lax management or give managers too many chances. Management requires clear rewards and consequences: replace people who are not up to the job. Giving another chance after every failure may turn managers into sheltered laboratory mice, unable even to stand upright when exposed to the harsh realities outside. #創業36條軍規 (36 Rules for Entrepreneurs, descriptive title) ---- Robin: ‘Spend time selecting people. Only you know best what talent the team needs at this stage. Spend time developing people. Managers who have fought their way up from the front line have deeper emotional ties and a stronger commitment to the team, and want it to become better. Do not assume that outsiders are always better. Your best or most suitable people are often already beside you. When VCs assess a company, the most important thing beyond its founder is whether it has a solid team. A solid team with strong execution capabilities is the foundation that supports continued growth.’