Introduction: Whether future entrepreneurs can seize the opportunities of this era and lead their enterprises to achieve sustained success, the key lies in whether they can be self-disciplined. Entrepreneur self-discipline has six new connotations: continuous self-reflection, the belief of continuous struggle, the self-awareness of achievement and innovation, the right way for a gentleman to make money, long-term action, and the pattern of vision and mission.

A global leader of a foreign company once asked this question: Why did it take our company 120 years to reach the top position, while it took only 30 years for a Chinese company to become the number one in the world?

In fact, we have used it for 100 years. Under the leadership of entrepreneurs, all employees basically have to work more than 18 hours, even up to 20 hours, so they can achieve the results of other companies for more than 100 years in 30 years.

This is what makes the group of Chinese entrepreneurs extremely special. They work hard, bravely, and strictly self-discipline to promote the development of China's economy and become an important driving force for the world-renowned achievements of the reform and opening up for more than 40 years. Whether an entrepreneur can lead a company to achieve sustained success in the future depends on whether it can continue to self-discipline.

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Entrepreneur self-discipline is the presentation of strategic logic, but also the lowest cost management

Robert Waterman, one of the authors of the book "Pursuing Excellence," pointed out:

Humans seem to have two ways of learning. First, by analyzing our shortcomings and trying to correct them; second, by observing the best and trying to imitate them.

Many managers have a wrong understanding, that is, leaders require employees to "do what I say", but in fact employees are "do what the leader says" instead of "do what the leader says." This is the internal "benchmarking demonstration role" presented by entrepreneurs in action. If the leader understands this and practice it in daily management and demonstrate behavior, the management effect will be more effective. In fact, entrepreneur self-discipline is the lowest cost management.

Whether a company can obtain more extensive cooperation, seek more integration of resources, and establish long-term strategic partnerships depends not only on the company's own strength, the market environment and the stage of industry development, but also on whether the entrepreneur can restrain For oneself, establish the possibility of value co-creation of symbiosis development. "Traveling against the current, if you don't advance, you will retreat." No one in the world can maintain a successful state without self-discipline.

Ram Charan wrote in his book "Success in the Unknown":

The uncertainty of our era is far greater than that of any previous period. No matter in terms of the scale, speed, or rapidness of change, it is not at the same order of magnitude as the past.

This uncertain performance has brought a complete subversion of the entire industry structure, leading to the once dominating industry giants, the market shrank sharply and even quickly disappeared. Many times, people will think that technology has subverted these companies. It is true, but the core is not technology. The core is whether the entrepreneur has enough crisis awareness, the ability to change himself, and effectively restrict his own determination to form a greater Value creation and a community with a shared future.

Drucker's definition of entrepreneurs can reveal this:

An entrepreneur is a person who never causes change, but he is very sensitive to change and can use change to turn into opportunity.

This sensitivity and use of change stems from his continuous exploration of the external world and his increasingly refined self-discipline for inner cognition.

In addition to diligence and tenacity, all entrepreneurs who can sustainably succeed have one very important thing in common, which is strict self-discipline. The behavior of any entrepreneur will subtly affect the behavior of employees, as well as the culture or values of the entire enterprise.

The greatest charm of entrepreneurs is to "make everyone walk." In a modern society with diverse values, if an entrepreneur wants to activate individuals and release creativity on an organizational platform, he must become an evangelist. People cooperate efficiently because they trust each other. They have similar moral values and follow the same moral tacit understanding. This kind of trust based on the consistent construction of values is the key to the organization's effectiveness.

Therefore, it is required that entrepreneurs must give their employees a clear value, what they agree with and what they oppose, clearly, and more importantly, they must practice by themselves. Therefore, in order to achieve sustainable development, today's entrepreneurial self-discipline has some different requirements, which we call the six new connotations of entrepreneurial self-discipline.

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Self-discipline of entrepreneurs' continuous self-reflection and self-discipline of beliefs of continuous struggle

1. Insist on self-discipline of self-reflection.

Confucius said: My day reflects my body

The old saying goes: "Be prepared for danger in times of peace, and be prepared when you think.

Entrepreneurs who cannot continue to reflect on themselves are not eliminated by competitors, but eliminated by themselves.

It is precisely because of in-depth insights into the law of corporate development that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei chose to use "crisis awareness" to promote Huawei's continued growth and included it as one of the company's core competitiveness.

In 2001, Ren Zhengfei pointed out in the article "Huawei's Winter", "For more than 10 years, I have been thinking about failure every day, turning a blind eye to success, and there is no sense of honor or pride, but a sense of crisis. Maybe this is the only way to survive. After more than 10 years, the day of failure will definitely come, and everyone must be prepared to meet it. This is my unwavering view. This is the law of history."

Therefore, Huawei has one thing that others don't have-it doesn't talk about history but only about the future. Through the institutional arrangement of "People without self-criticism cannot be promoted" and the corporate internal training of "Huawei has no success, only growth", Huawei has integrated continuous self-reflection and criticism into the genes of every Huawei person.

2. The belief and self-discipline of continuous struggle.

In the book Evergreen, James Collins and Jerry Polas pointed out:

What sets you apart is not your beliefs, but the degree of your beliefs.

Whether an entrepreneur can continue to succeed, the key lies in whether he has the belief and self-discipline of "continuous struggle". Management is to face facts and solve problems. The resources owned by any enterprise entity are limited. Using limited resources to meet the unlimited growth of customers' needs is inherently unsustainable. But when entrepreneurs start to restrain themselves and act with continuous struggle thinking, the results are already destined to be different. Therefore, for an entrepreneur, the most important thing is to constantly adjust himself and continue to struggle. Only when we have this firm conviction, can we lead the enterprise out of a path of development.

Driven by emerging technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things, data will become the core assets of future enterprises. Chinese enterprises are already at the forefront of a new era of digital survival and management reconstruction, and the digital transformation of enterprises has become unstoppable. From the outside, the external conditions have all changed. From the inside, the things that used to be confident are gone today, and experience no longer works. The original experience and core competitiveness may become a trap, which makes managers feel more anxious.

At present, the most puzzled by enterprise consulting is the problem of enterprise transformation. Enterprise transformation is an inevitable choice, and it must continue to transform. If you do not choose continuous transformation, enterprise development cannot be sustained.

In fact, there will be more and more problems in the future, so entrepreneurs must give themselves a training, which is to believe that problems can always be solved, and the way to solve them is to continue to struggle.

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Entrepreneur’s self-recognition and self-discipline for achievement and innovation and gentleman’s self-discipline for making money

1. Achieve innovative self-cognition and self-discipline.

We went to interview Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei. He talked about how Huawei understands innovative talents. He said, “In Huawei, people who can make innovations are called geniuses. There are very few people of this kind. Those who work hard to innovate but fail to produce results. People, a lot. These people are called talents at Huawei. Because they have experienced the test of innovation and failure, our company also needs them." It is Ren Zhengfei's understanding that guarantees that Huawei will always have the internal drive for innovation.

Regarding the fault tolerance rate of innovation, Google founder Page even praised an executive who caused millions of dollars in losses, “I’m glad you made this mistake. Because I hope the company can act quickly and do many, many things. , Instead of being cautious and dare not do anything." This is very similar to Huawei's "genius who can do it, but talents who can't do it." The fault tolerance rate for talents is very similar. Because Huawei has such an understanding of people and innovation, Huawei has always been very creative.

Only innovation can drive development. Tolerance of innovation and respect for talents are one of the principles that entrepreneurs must always adhere to.

2. The gentleman's self-discipline in making money and making money.

In the Analects of Confucius, it says:

Wealth and nobility are what people want, and they don’t get there. Poverty and humbleness are what people do. They don’t get what they want, and they don’t go.

Its meaning is, "Wealth has status. This is what everyone yearns for, but if it is not obtained in the way of'Tao', gentlemen will not accept it; poverty and lowliness is something that everyone hates, but if it is not It is impossible to get rid of it by the way of "Tao"."

The "Tao" in this is the way of benevolence and righteousness, and the foundation for a gentleman to settle down and settle down. Even if he is displaced, he cannot violate it. The lesson for our contemporary enterprises is that entrepreneurs must do something, not do something, and stick to their own moral and legal bottom lines in order to achieve their longevity.

If an entrepreneur only pays attention to his own profit, does not understand the care of human nature, does not understand the contribution of corporate development to social progress and human civilization, does not understand that profit must come from the care of human nature, but blindly chooses his own interests, even Harm to social progress, this can not be called the behavior of entrepreneurs.

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The self-discipline of the entrepreneur’s vision and mission and the self-discipline of long-term action

1. Self-discipline in the pattern of vision and mission.

The pattern determines the outcome, the entrepreneurial mind is the ceiling of enterprise development, and the mission of vision is the externalization of the enterprise pattern.

The underlying logic of business has undergone fundamental changes, and the development of enterprises requires a more interactive connection and a more open pattern. As we mentioned in our new book "40 Years of Shunde" released in 2018, there is nothing we can learn from, only we keep practicing and constantly looking for answers. This requires entrepreneurs to build a vision and mission that can be connected to the entire symbiosis system.

Therefore, entrepreneurs must be strictly self-disciplined and look at the entire business with a more open perspective. Only in this way can they understand the complexity, diversity, self-organization, evolution and symbiosis, and use their vision and mission to build a more in-depth interconnected and open business structure.

2. Long-term self-discipline of action.

In the more than 40 years of reform and opening up, when the development of enterprises encounters challenges, we will find that when discussing values with entrepreneurs, "customer first, fulfillment of social responsibilities, and product quality" will be recognized, but once they really encounter challenges When conflicts with each other, the real gap between people, companies and companies is revealed.

When we went to explore in depth, we discovered that the fundamental reason is that the ultimate power of culture is at work-the role of the basic assumptions of the enterprise. Since this power has always been hidden under the "iceberg" and has a certain degree of concealment, we call it "subconscious." Therefore, we must realize the "subconscious" change at the cultural level in order to appear as a firm defender of "long-termism". We need to shift from focusing on the acquisition of corporate profits to whether it can truly promote the progress of the industry and society.