Oral statement of Huawei's departing employees ⑤ Zhang Che: When lack of money becomes the norm of the company, I will think about Huawei

Three years ago, he left Huawei at the end of the year. He reviewed Huawei's many years of career experience with a reflective attitude and wrote "Farewell, Huawei's Eight Year Female Master of Science and Engineering Leaving Speech", which attracted much attention. Later, at the invitation of the publishing house, he wrote the book "The altar is on the left, Huawei is on the right".
The author has been researching and developing the system in Huawei, and has stayed in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Xi'an. During the writing period, I met about 50 Huawei people and former Huawei people successively, and the interviewees told the stories inside and outside the besieged city, before and after turning around orally.
The oral heroes have the following labels: young people who come from clean backgrounds, receive higher education, embrace dreams and struggle in the workplace. Now there are old people and young people, encounter bottlenecks in the workplace, and collide between ideals and reality. Born between 1976 and 1985, with master's degree as the major, 80% of them are from small cities or rural areas, and their income is higher than the social average.
Today, Huawei has nearly 400000 job numbers and 170000 employees. Compared with 400000 people, dozens of samples are considered as individual cases, but the true story happens in these cases. The author said that these dictations only tell true stories without preset positions. As for the positive and negative, everyone has his own balance in mind.
With the authorization of Haitian Publishing House and the author at the end of the book, the column of "Upsurge News" excerpted the oral statements of some of Huawei's former employees for the readers.
Today, I had another farewell dinner at a small restaurant near my current company. I had to work in the afternoon, so I had to substitute tea for wine. The atmosphere was cheerful. The brother who left his job had just become a father, and everyone tried to teach him the skills of taking babies. After all, I don't know when to meet him next time. What's more, this is the third farewell dinner this month. The sadness has been released for the first two times, and the rest is only calm.
During this period, apart from seeing off, there are few things to think about when going to work. Although investors whose capital chain has been broken still make headlines every day, the novelty of everyone's jokes has long passed. Even a few nights ago, when the laboratory was attacked and the valuable instruments in the fixed assets were taken away by a big man, everyone was indifferent. Everyone can understand that the supplier has advanced so many materials based on trust, but in the end, nothing has been achieved.
In a short period of two years, the gap between recruiting and leaving is so fierce that people doubt the reality. However, many people are still hesitant to leave or stay.
Two years ago this time, in the hottest August, when I left Huawei, it was hard to explain why, not complaints or temptations, I had nothing to do with my own entrepreneurial speeches. As a native screw of Huawei, I was used to riding in a stable ship. The moment I walked out of the cabin door, I was full of anxiety, but anxiety could not suppress the desire to rush out to feel the wind and waves, so I successfully experienced the ups and downs of the next two years.
Like the first choice for thousands of urban youth after leaving their jobs, I also chose a trip to Tibet to comfort my freshmen. It's a pity that the blue sky, snowy mountains, lamas, and epiphany didn't appear in the circle of friends one by one, and the eight day trip was completely submerged in the rain in August. When I recalled this trip two years later and compared with my entrepreneurial experience, the similarity of the process was really intriguing.
Five of our college roommates got together in Lhasa without any travel planning. What they wanted most was to chat. More than ten years after graduation, five people in five cities have few opportunities to meet. Some of them are struggling to start their own businesses, some are hanging on the staff of research institutes to do sidelines, and some are tired of the rigid application of state-owned enterprises to the branches of Tibetan inhabited areas... It is not so much Tibet that makes it difficult for everyone to get together, as it is the confusion before 40 years that makes us get together again.
On the night when I first arrived in Lhasa, I could not remember what I had talked about. Alcohol aggravated altitude reaction, and I spent most of my time lying on the sofa in the hotel with an oxygen tank. The name of the shop is Old Fish Restaurant. Maybe the owner is really a fish, or maybe he feels like a fish in water after coming to Lhasa. So he found a perfect location in a small high-rise building far away from the downtown, and can enjoy the Potala Palace in the distance through the lobby window. The red wall is set off by the huge snow mountain photos. The red and white are in harmony, and the distance between the Potala Palace and the owner is also shortened.
Everything here is so fresh. Colorful buildings, exquisite Tibetan ornaments, clear air, clouds within reach, sweet tea houses filled with people, Jokhang Temple surrounded by incense, pilgrims who worship piously... You will feel that this is the color of life, as if everything here is right, and Shanghai thousands of miles away is an uncivilized "magic city", Every time I saw the three landmark buildings in Lujiazui, I would always think of the high columns with prayer flags in front of Jokhang Temple.
The same sense of freshness encouraged me at the beginning of joining a startup. All of a sudden, there was no room for the most laborious craftsmanship in the crowded office of a small company. It is no longer necessary to prepare various plans for KPI (key performance indicators) assessment, to make project initiation reports at all levels for development funds, and to make exquisite films for leaders to explain technical problems... Everyone in the company is within the range of voice. People to people communication naturally returns to the most efficient way of speaking.
Based on trust, the company does not force employees to stay on duty, nor arrange fixed office space. The only requirement is to work hard on products. In fact, because they didn't want to live up to this trust, almost all of them took their laptops with them, kept their mobile online 24 hours a day, and enjoyed the concentration and efficiency of their new jobs. This atmosphere of being in charge and turning over obviously also affects the MM (beautiful women) in the support department. At that time, the company was still nestled in a corner of the industrial park. Next to it was an express company. When unloading and loading goods, it always piled up packages in front of the door. At this time, the MM would rush out to argue with the express brother. It seemed that the parcels blocked not the entrance but everyone's wealth. In the later half a year, in order to cope with the company's expanding team, they made their main business of finding houses and decorating, and extended the battle line to the office buildings in the city center, the first, second and third floors. When they entered the last position, the staff stood in the hall and faced the towering landmark building in Lujiazui through the whole floor to ceiling windows. The MM's sense of achievement was hard to hide, as if what they saw was not Jinmao, not the global financial center, but the holy Potala Palace.
The feeling of growth is wonderful. The company has completed the A round of financing and defined the project direction. Although the newly formed team is still very busy in terms of business support, the vigorous vitality makes everyone believe that we will soon cross this hurdle, and the rain will soon clear up.
After staying in Lhasa for two days, I finally saw the blue sky. Although it was not sunny, it was enough to excite my body. After discussion, we decided to drive to Linzhi, where the altitude is low, the scenery is beautiful, and it is known as "Little Jiangnan in Tibet". What we yearn for most is the holy mountain in Nyingchi, Nangabava, which is known as "the most beautiful snow mountain in China". I pray that God will open his eyes. When we stand in front of the mountain, the sun will just shine on the holy mountain.
Out of Lhasa, the road extends on the fields in the mountains, and the hillside is dotted with cattle and sheep, which makes the world extremely vast. Occasionally, the sun will fall on the river beach and fields through the cracks of clouds, lighting up the color of nature. At this moment, we always stop to rush over and enjoy this gift.
But happiness is always short. Half way through the day, dark clouds gathered again and covered the sky. When the clouds cut off the peaks on both sides, scattered raindrops began to float into the window. The brothers in the back row are sleeping soundly, Dapeng is driving, and I sit in the passenger seat. Suddenly, he said he wanted to smoke. After two days in Tibet, it may be that the air here has the effect of exhaling the old and absorbing the new. Only now did the senior smoker's body respond. I lit a cigar for him. When Dapeng was at school, he slept in my lower bunk. It seemed that he had the tacit understanding of the sixth sense. When he lay on the bed and turned over, he could guess what his dream was. Therefore, he and I could understand each other without much talk. After graduation, he worked in a communication company. He rose quickly and walked quickly. He was the first person in his class to start a business. Being able to come to Tibet, on the contrary, it showed that the company should be in trouble in the near future, so he often looked thoughtful. While smoking, we didn't speak, just stared ahead. There are few cars on the road, the speed is fast, the windows are not closed, and the swishing air is like a cold knife, which can cut the world open. I know he is enjoying the pleasure. Cigars have a strong taste. Old smokers know that they can only contain them in the mouth, not into the lungs, so as to avoid being drunk. The ability to control them can make people swing between pleasure and danger.
At 2 p.m., near the Mira Mountain Pass, which is the highest crossing point between Lhasa and Linzhi. The car was a little out of breath after climbing the slope for too long, and the roar of the accelerator excited everyone's spirit. The fog on the mountain may be clouds, and the surrounding area is white. Suddenly, someone shouted, "Here we are, here we are"... The wind outside the car is very strong, with cold vapor. The platform for passers-by to stay briefly is empty, with a stone tablet carved at an altitude of 5013m, like a sentry standing guard, which looks particularly solemn at this time.
The peaks on both sides of the pass are not far away. They are wrapped in prayer flags woven into a net. The prayer flag tower (white tower) standing on the hillside makes a thick clatter in the strong wind. The cold forced us unconsciously to drill into the car, but the mantra of the prayer flags pulled us back. I climbed the hillside, walked into the tower, and turned round and round with the flying colorful prayer flags. The belief spread here for thousands of years. Every time the wind blows the prayer flags, the scriptures on them will be read once. The chanting voice is floating in the clouds. Although we do not understand the Buddhist scriptures, we can feel a force, like being in a war declaration ceremony before a disaster, singing loudly in the face of the wind.
After nearly a year of rapid development, the company suddenly broke out a major shareholder's financial crisis, and the developed products did not have money to produce. At this time, the team had more than 600 people, and there was no capital supplement, which could not last long. The subsequent cross company merger did not alleviate the crisis, and the cultural conflict between the two sides increased the difficulty of management and consumed a lot of energy. It's like an overloaded bus trying to rush out of the dense fog by speed before the gasoline burns out. The more anxious it is, the easier it is to make mistakes. As new projects continue to be launched and stopped, the company not only lost its initial focus and efficiency, but also lost the vitality of the team.
When lack of money becomes the new normal of the company, I sometimes think of an article in Huawei's internal magazine. The reason why I remember it is that Huawei always finds popular language that conforms to human nature and instills complex values in employees. I once respectfully extracted it from my notebook:
“ The biggest problem in management is that we do not attach importance to the management of budget and accounting 。 From the management level to the employees, they seldom have the idea of operating, but just concentrate on doing things. Western enterprises have summed up the business philosophy of hundreds of years, and finally attributed the evaluation of all activities of enterprises to the only measurable standard: money. "Many managers seldom consider the cost factor when making industrial plans and measures, as if all activities were free of money.

In this way, no one considers the resource and cost factors in the review and implementation of change and IT projects during the demand acceptance stage. The business department blindly raises the demand, which is a free dinner anyway. It is IT's business whether there are resources or not, and the IT department has no convincing standard to measure the relationship between IT investment and business income. Often, when the workload is far beyond the capacity, They were also forced to accept a large amount of demand. The quality of the IT products made by hard work cannot be guaranteed at all, resulting in dissatisfaction with the business. It is a vicious circle to invest more resources to repair defects. In fact, in the daily life of every family, the decision of what furniture to buy and what items to buy is based on their own economic ability. It is natural to follow the 'budget management'. But once they arrive at the company, it seems that money is no longer a problem. Further consideration, no matter what and how the enterprise does, the ultimate goal is to survive. The prerequisite for survival is reasonable profits, which should be attributed to financial indicators. Therefore, managing and measuring all business activities with budget is the most effective means to simplify the management process and improve the overall efficiency of the enterprise. "
The early prosperity blinded everyone's mind. We pursued efficiency in our own way of thinking, but ignored the most essential element of efficiency. We are used to relying on money to solve problems, and we seldom think about whether there is a solution without spending money. Unfortunately, the business society is a world where the jungle is the strongest. You won't be rewarded for your reflection. Self help is the only thing that can survive. All of us feel that we should not give up easily. Since some of us have the skills, if the main road is not accessible, we can try to break up into small columns and take the path. There should always be a way to go out. At that time, more and more small projects spontaneously grew up in the team, and a wave of enthusiasm and hope rekindled.
After passing the Mira Pass, I went downhill and soon burst out of the clouds. As the altitude becomes lower, large areas of meadows and bushes appear on the wilderness, and then the forest and sea become the main scenery, which is really beautiful in Xiaojiangnan. The towering trees on both sides of the lane blocked the light, giving the illusion that it was almost dusk, so we didn't stop all the way. It was not until it was close to the urban area of Linzhi and entered the open Niyang River Beach that it felt like it could see the sun again. The clouds here are very high. It didn't rain a day. Tibetan compatriots are dancing in a big circle in the square of the city. We begin to remember the picture of the sun shining over Nangabawa.
It's a pity that August in Tibet belongs to rain. The heavy rain in the second half of the night dispelled everyone's dream. The morning channel was full of news that many bridges were destroyed by floods. At the dinner table, everyone agreed that since we had come, we had to start and finish. So we re planned the route and set out as early as possible. On the way, there are turning back vehicles telling Lu Lang that they can't get through, and the road in the front bridge section has been closed. We always thanked and continued to move forward. With the navigation, we drove out of the national highway and walked on an unknown path, first along the Niyang River and then next to the Yarlung Zangbo River. When passing through each village, you have to switch between mud beach road and mountain climbing road. We matched the driving characteristics of several people with the road conditions. At the place where the drizzle water with the lightest weight has not crossed the road, because of the fear that the wheel will be trapped in the mud due to the load, everyone except the driver got off and walked. If you drive a muddy road with stones, you can avoid protruding stones even if you go around a deep mud pit. Otherwise, the crash sound from the chassis makes you afraid that the car will fall apart. I had a strong personality to drive the mountain road. After the heavy rain, the steep slope was muddy and slippery, and I had to rush. Every car left deep ruts... The original three hour drive ended up being nine hours. Until it was dark, I finally checked into the inn near the Yarlung Zangbo River. Nangabava was just opposite us, and the rain was still raining endlessly.
In the morning of the next day, we stood for a long time, and the cloud belt wrapped the holy mountain like a hada. Just like a dream, she is there, yearning for countless times, but unable to reach.
Shouldn't you come because you can't reach it? No one regretted the trip, no one cursed the heavy rain, and no one complained about the nine hour turbulence yesterday... We came here, and that's what we want.
The last guerrilla war of the company was also expected and failed to achieve results. When the orders of layoffs came out one after another, the brothers who had fought together were sad but helpless in the face of parting. Chasing dreams will not always blossom and bear fruit, but at least we have been here, which is enough.
The life of the company is not over yet. I'm still here, and many brothers are still here. I can't explain why we should persist.
At the end of our trip to Tibet two years ago, when we walked on the edge of the holy lake, the sunset covered Namco like a blessing. Beautiful, maybe it is unexpected.