Firms can learn a lot from CPC

He emphasizes four major management achievements of the CPC during the Yan'an period: thorough lectures that galvanized all CPC members into sharing the same spiritual goal of pursuing socialism and national liberation, efforts to make the management mature and effective, the thrust to make party organizations at all levels replicate the management system, and building a team of high-caliber leading cadres.

If those measures are interpreted commercially, an enterprise should learn to develop a common goal or a core value shared by all its staff members. Just like the CPC's Red Army (People's Liberation Army after World War II) fought for the same goal of socialism and national liberation, company managers should make employees believe that the organization belongs to all of them instead of only the bosses.

Based on this premise, an enterprise can increase its size and market share just like the People's Liberation Army did by incorporating 1.77 million soldiers of the Kuomintang Army during the War of Liberation, Zhou says.

In stark contrast to the CPC, Kuomintang was corrupt and lacked discipline. In 1939, Chiang Kai-shek, then head of Kuomintang, said his party's spirit was disappearing, discipline was slack, officials were fighting for personal interests and power, shirking responsibility and ignoring the Kuomintang's interests as a whole, and its members didn't care about ordinary people. Zhou says that this phenomenon can be seen in many enterprises today.

"Without an officially-guided core spirit, different thoughts will pervade an enterprise and lead to selfish, short-sighted decisions." Giving examples, he says some enterprise bosses' decisions may be offset by subordinates' countermeasures. Those who work hard get little in return whereas obsequious staff members are easily promoted. And under the slogan of team spirit, small factions are formed, which hinder cooperation among employees, teams or departments.

To develop a core spirit and maneuver employees, bosses have to be more democratic. They should stick to principles they lay out, work as hard as the rest of the staff members and become a part of the whole. Only by doing so can they instill a sense of belonging among the entire spectrum of employees.

This is what the CPC leaders did before 1949. Kuomintang officials, in contrast, were notorious for embezzling public funds and usurping even their soldiers' shares. The Kuomintang Army lost the War of Liberation despite being better equipped because its leaders had lost the trust of Kuomintang members and soldiers.

Zhou, who has been reading Mao Zedong's works since his middle school days, says he wrote the book "in pursuit of truth".

"Perhaps enterprises have not valued the CPC's wisdom as much as Sun Tzu's The Art of War, but ultimately they will realize its importance."

(China Daily 06/30/2011 page9)

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