Simply put, corporate planning can be divided into three levels. At the strategic level, the boss formulates strategic goals, which is strategic planning; at the tactical level, professional managers translate strategic goals into plans, match demand and supply, and guide grassroots execution; at the execution level, grassroots employees put the plans into practice implementation, and feedback the executability to the tactical layer for adjustment of the plan. The three-layer combination, from strategy to tactics to execution, is the basic enterprise management model.

As far as the strategic level is concerned, most of our entrepreneurs are self-made, full of street smarts, visionary, courageous, and dare to seize opportunities and take risks. It is precisely because of these entrepreneurial entrepreneurs that we have achieved more than forty years of rapid economic development. In European and American companies, especially large and medium-sized listed companies, the CEOs have more of a professional manager background. In terms of courage and vision, they cannot compete with our entrepreneurs – this is also the difference between professional managers and entrepreneurs. the essential difference. Therefore, at a strategic level, our CEOs are generally stronger than those in Europe and the United States.

At the execution level, our grassroots employees are far better than the “aristocratic” employees in Europe and the United States. Take my personal experience as an example. When I was managing a global team in new york, I handed the same thing to Asian employees in mainland China, South Korea, Japan, etc., and a reply came three days later, saying what had been done and what was still being done; If it is handed over to employees in Europe and North America, they will often reply three days later with a bunch of reasons, each of which is why this thing cannot be done. Under the high welfare policy, the enterprising spirit and sense of responsibility of European and American employees cannot be compared with that of local employees.

So what are the advantages of European and American companies? At the tactical level, that is, the level of professional managers. What do professional managers do? Professional managers do management. So what does management do? In fact, management does not “do” anything. The task of management is mainly to think (plan) and use the brain rather than hands. Simply put, it is two things: planning and control, that is, refining the goals into plans and using the plans to guide execution. At the same time, the plan (control) is improved and adjusted according to the execution situation, If the plan is not in place, it all depends on execution; it seems that it is not done, but in fact it is not expected. In addition, if you don’t count, you don’t know, and if you don’t know, you can’t manage, you will know what extensive management means.

In my opinion, the key to the ability of North American companies to remain competitive lies in professional managers. They have a relatively complete professional manager training system, such as MBA education in business schools, job rotations in companies, and corporate universities, which have created an excellent class of professional managers. These professional managers effectively make up for the shortcomings of the strategic and executive levels through comprehensive plans. I received a systematic business school education in North America and have been a professional manager in Silicon Valley for more than ten years, so I have a deep understanding of this.

Small enterprises do not lack first-class business leaders: what we lack are first-class professional managers, or Talk about planning professional managers.

In mature European and American companies, professional managers are relatively powerful and can complement each other and check and balance each other to a certain extent with entrepreneurs. This is a healthy balance. In many local companies, professional managers have poor capabilities on the one hand, and insufficient resources on the other. This is especially true for state-owned companies with official positions and private companies with strong founders. For the boss’s idea, they are unable to formulate a detailed plan to prove whether it is feasible or not; or even if they have a plan, they think the boss’s idea is not feasible, and they cannot convince the boss to change.

You can say that this is because the boss is stubborn, but at a deeper level, it is because the professional managers are not capable enough: no matter how stubborn the boss is, as long as the professional managers analyze thoroughly and explain clearly, they will not play around with their own money.

Therefore, professional managers are faced with two choices, both of which are failed choices: a small number of people continue to “resist” and are deemed uncooperative and eventually eliminated; the majority of people surrender, follow the boss’s wishes, and do whatever they are told. This is actually giving up the most important planning role of professional managers, and reducing professional managers from strategists to pawns charging into battle.

In the absence of effective transition from professional managers, the bosses have to roll up their sleeves and go into battle personally，and become the locomotive for thousands of people. Without detailed deduction at the tactical level, ideas at the strategic level are destined to be “crossing the river by feeling for the stones”. Many mistakes have been made in trial and error execution, and the cost will not be lower and the speed will not be faster.

Changes in plans have become a nightmare for the operation level. In a large company with tens of billions of revenue, a purchasing manager said that on the days when the president holds monthly meetings, his schedule cannot be planned at all, because when his boss goes to meet with the president, he has to be on call at any time to deal with various possible suggestions. problem. From this low-level manager to the president, there are at least three or four more levels. If the purchasing manager’s schedule is like this, then you can imagine the directors, vice presidents, etc. above him. The result is that from top to bottom, the entire company is led by one person.

“Leading and walking” is quite different from “leading and walking”. “Guidance” is to guide the direction and is what the bosses should do. For example, when Wang Shiren studied abroad, Vanke still operated in an orderly manner. “Leading you” becomes a locomotive, and every move will affect the entire organization. This is a taboo for leaders: the boss’s ideas are changeable, and a large company with tens of thousands of people will head east, west, and take three steps forward. Take two steps back and toss.

The lack of planning from the top down leads to inherent deficiencies in planning, which can only be made up by working overtime. The employees work very hard, but the output is not high because they spend a lot of time going back and forth and doing useless work. Taking three steps forward, two steps back, and going around in circles is equivalent to digging a hole and filling it in again. You are busy, but you have no achievements. Unfortunately, this is the theme for many businesses.