我们中国人到底是“爱面子”还是有“勤俭节约的传统美德”

February 19th, 2008 Filed under Thinking

Fave Saving 女朋友今天诘问我，“我们中国人真的有勤俭节约的传统美德么”？

我知道她的答案肯定是否定的。我迟疑了一下，说，应该是穷得不得以而为之吧。中国历代农民，新中国又底子薄，吃不饱穿不暖的，不勤俭节约难道还铺张浪费？一旦有钱了，勤俭节约就抛之九霄云外了。君不见那些山西煤老板怎么买车的，东北的大亨怎么搞婚礼的，穷尽花钱的招数，除了中东富商，无出其右者。中国消费者买车也要加长的，什么奥迪、宝马来了中国都要出加长版。就算那些没钱的，结婚生子也是一分不省。

后来，洗澡的时候，我又想为什么中国人有了钱就不再“勤俭节约了”呢？其实，与其说“勤俭节约”是我们的传统美德，我们更愿意说“面子”才是我们文化的重心。当“勤俭” PK “面子”，这种主流的思想就凸现出来了。

因此，我的结论是，中华民族的“勤俭节约”是被逼无奈，一旦有机会，他们更愿意多挣些“面子”。

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Tags: Book, 老板, 车, 钱, 面子

将玄乎具体化

February 19th, 2008 Filed under Fangxiang

杰克韦尔奇在《赢》的第一章谈到企业使命(mission)和具体行为方式(value/behavior), 非泛泛而谈，二是提供了有意思的实例。比如，他从文化/价值观方面因素分析安达信(Arthur Anderson)和安然(Enron)轰然倒下，一个重要原因是企业使命和价值观不明确。当安达信开始进行咨询业务, 咨询相对激进的企业文化-”encouraging creativity and aggressive sales behavior”影响了审计保守、谨慎的专业态度，尽管后来咨询和审计分家，这种影响却一直存在。业内一直公认安达信的企业文化是当时五大中最aggressive的，即便被普华永道(PriceWaterhouse Coopers)兼并，安达信员工的风格依然如故，并被津津乐道。作者提出是咨询和审计二者格格不入的价值观和行为方式使会计师们困惑，并最终导致安达信大旗的倒塌。

至于安然，Jack评论则是在从一个单纯、踏实的能源商和管道运输商(simple pipeline and energy company) 向交易商(trading company)转型的过程中，未能及时定位自己的使命和价值观，同时原本的中坚力量能源工人和公司新大量引进的MBA们发生了价值观上的冲突，导致最终失控。

使命和价值观是很玄乎的东西，直接说由他们导致企业灭亡有点极端。但Jack提供的实例确实提供了有说服力的reasoning, 这些很玄乎的东西如果没玩儿好，确实会产生严重的后果。

同时，书中也提供了正面的例子，说明这东西要是玩儿好了，确实能为人的行为提供方向和有力引导。所谓玩儿好，大概是指具体-一定要具体、相关。You can never be too specific about values. 千万不要泛泛而谈，比如不要说什么面对现实，追求卓越，主人翁精神(face reality, live excellence, feel ownership)等等不具体的话。要具体就要像这个银行在诠释其价值观”以你希望被对待的方式对待客户”(Treat customers the way we would want to be treated)时一样:

Never let profit center conflicts get in the way of doing what is right for the customer
Give customers a good, fair deal. Great customer relationships take time. Do not try to maximise short-term profits at the expense of building those enduring relationships.
Always look for ways to make it easier to do business with us.
Communicate daily with your customers. If they are talking to you, they can’t be talking to a competitor.
Don’t forget to say thank you.

多么具体和具有指导性。如果是我每天看着这些话，会成为一个非常具有服务精神的人！再看看大部分企业的挂在墙上的标语，除了对环境的污染，对人的作用微乎其微。企业是该在这方面做点功夫了。我相信不是不愿意做，而是大多数企业对自己的定位首先就不明确。

其实不止是企业，个人亦如此。想清楚自己的定位，比如做xx行业最顶尖的xx人才，做最有钱的人，做中国最腐败最潇洒的玩客，。。等等。然后定义一系列相关、具体的value来实现这样的目标。你的目标如何？你的行为原则够具体吗？记住，具体才有约束力和引导性。

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Tags: Daily, House, Jeck Welch, Mission, Value, WINNING, 书, 企业价值, 企业文化, 杰克韦尔奇, 赢, 钱

通讯工具演变时间表

February 19th, 2008 Filed under Internet

在Digg上发现了这张时间表，展示了人类通讯从公元前490年到2008年奥运年的进化历程，写得很有意思，外国人很善于嘲讽现在。

比如这段：

490 BC
Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to transmit the news of the victory over the Persians.
Signal was really bad back then: he died on the spot after delivering the message, according to Plutarch.

还有这段

1876
First successful telephone transmission. Graham Bell says “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” and Watson understands each word clearly. A century later, people would be “What? Say that again? Watson? Watson?” over cellphone lines.

点击这里察看这张时间表

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Tags: cellphone, timeline

Differentiation

February 18th, 2008 Filed under English entries

This is some thoughts and digest after reading Jack Welch’s WINNING.

In the book WINNING, Jeck Welch defines differentiation as distinctions between top- and bottom-performing people and businesses and the different resource allocation to the distincted people and business. It’s a way of managing people and business. Differentiation is one of the chief jobs the managers are paid to do. A company has only limited money and managerial time, winning leaders invest where payback is high and cut loses everywhere else. People maynot like differentiation, but when they know it they manage with it.

Company has two parts, hardware and software. Defferentiation is needed on both of them.

If a company has several business or several lines. Differentiation requires managers to know which is strong and which is weak and invest money and people accordingly instead of sprinkling everywhere. (Here I’d like to add that you can identify strong or weak businesses by financial indicators or using the Boston Matrix)In the case of GE, its No.1 and No.2 framework stopped the decade-long practice of sprinkling money everywhere. Instead, they invest more where outcome maxmized. For the bad businessed, they cut investment or sell or close it at the worst scenario.

Then the people part. Differentiation requires managers to access employees and sort them by performance according to a 20-70-10 framework and then act on it. 20-70-10 means the top 20 percent, middle 70 and bottom 10. Sorting is relatively eazy, but “act” is hard to be made real.

For the top 20, they are the best and should be rewarded with bonus, stock options, praise, love, training and etc. It’s relatively eazy to do.

The mid 70 are managed differently. You are not keeping them out of the bottom 10. Instead, you give them hope. Managers identify people with potential to move up and caltivate them.

As for the tottom 10, they have to go. Sugercoating is not good for them in the long term. They have to understand the work doesn’t fit them and they should pursuit where they truely belong and where they can excel. However, this is the most difficult part about differentiation among people. It’s awful to fire people. But if you have a candid organization and clean appraisal system, then the bottom 10 know who are they and they uruarall leave before you ask.

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Tags: Book, Differentiation, Investment, Jeck Welch, Job, Money, WINNING

方象的开篇志

February 17th, 2008 Filed under Blog on blog, Fangxiang

博客世界里，严肃的声音好像多来自于男性，就像现实世界中一样。政治，经济，管理，当然还有代表时代进步和未来的IT. 从何时起，博客成了男性表现和传达他们征服欲的另一武器？另一世界-现实的延伸？在这个世界里，女性的声音不那么powerful, 与秩序无关，而多是关于情感、经历等。女性从来不像男性有那么强烈的指点江山激扬文字的愿望，女性更倾向于keep it personal。即使是博客，也更多的是出自于抒发和分享的需要。

不过我将试图对自己的这种女性博客心理进行一点小小的转变和试验。谢谢chern在他的地界上辟出这么一块儿，我将以严肃认真、持之以恒的态度对待这里的博客，同时逼迫自己勤加思考和辛勤写作。我是方象，欢迎讨论。

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SmartArchives failure

February 16th, 2008 Filed under Blog on blog

I really like the way that SmartArchives presents. So I decided to install the smartArchives plug-in. It says very easy to inplement this plug-in which only needs you to upload, activate and insert one of the following codes into your WordPress page.

<?php smartArchives(‘block’,’14′); ?>
<?php smartArchives(‘list’,”); ?>
<?php smartArchives(”,”); ?>
<?php smartArchives(‘both’,’14 20 1′); ?>

I created a page named Archives and copy one of the lines into the text box under Code mode and published it. The Archives page did appears but without no content generated by SmartArchives. So I went to the dashboard to check what’s wrong with the plugin. I openned the Archives page at backstage and switch to Code mode only to find that my original code “<?php smartArchives(”,”); ?>” had been changed into <!–p smartArchives(”,”);–> automatically. I tried many times and finally found a way to solve this problem. My solution is replace the original simple code with a complicated one:

<div>
<?php if (function_exists(‘smartArchives’)) {
echo (‘<span> </span><br />’);
smartArchives(‘block’,”);
} ?>
</div>

Now I have the Archives page I wanted. If you want to see what SmartArchives can do, just see this page.

SmartArchives调用无效：我想为我的博客增加一页Archives，所以就尝试把<?php smartArchives(”,”); ?>在Write Page的code形式下插入，保存后查看Archives页，但是没有任何输出。我回到后台编辑模式，结果发现系统自动将这段代码变成了<!–p smartArchives(”,”);–>，请问这是怎么回事？

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Tags: Auto, SmartArchives