Leadership and HRM of Terry Guo Tai Ming of Foxconn

HRM is more than just resource management. It is actually about creating human capital, from the raw human resource, that increases its value over time. The company must create the culture and environment for challenging their staff to ever learning and experimenting. It is about creating a learning and innovative organization with knowledge accumulation and sharing at the organisation level. Successful leaders must do both well leading and managing concurrently or iteratively depending on the stages of progress and situation. This is typical integrative thinking of the Chinese Management Mindset.

This is the 2nd post in the series of learning from Terry Guo Tai Ming of Foxconn. The previous post is  Learning the Winners Mindset from Terry Guo Tai Ming.

HRM - From Raw Talents to Human Capital

The mind-map below summarized Terry's quotes on HRM.  I am sure he has much more wisdom that what I captured in the mind-map that I got from scanning the internet. The typical four keys of talents management of selection, development, deployment and retention are there. But what is interesting is that you can find the typical Chinese Philosophies and wordings.

On selection, he is looking for people with 3 attributes of  "德、才、气 兼备", which I translated as "Character, Capability/Talent, Energy". The last attribute of 气, which I translate as energy can also be translated as the passion or engagement of the staff. This energy/passion/engagement is the productivity and new value creation multiplier. It is the use of their talents that create the great success. Another point to note is 3 more attitudes of responsibility, progressiveness and aspiration or determination to success. He even used such strong words to describe aspiration as "unless the sun does not rise, I will achieve my targets!".  To complete this topic on selection, I bring in Andy Stanley (the senior pastor of a large and fast growing church in US) concept of 4C's representing Character, Capability, Cultural Fit and Chemistry Fit (with colleagues and bosses).  Culture compatibility is a key criterion for staff selection is also stressed by Tony Hsieh of Zappos. Much of his company interview and training is to find out the culture fit. He even pays a rewards (about US$2000) for the newly hired to quit anytime in their 4 weeks induction training program. Chemistry with the immediate working colleagues and bosses are also important. One of the main reasons of people quitting a company is 'inability to get along with their colleagues".

On Development - From Resource Management to Human Capital
Terry highlighted the 3 stages of development : from raw materials to capable talents to wealth creating talents. (人材 people materials →人才 people capability →人财 people wealth/people capital).  This is the true spirit of SHCM Strategic Human Capital Management, the state of the arts teaching on HRM. Resource, like polymers and power, are consumed in the process of production. However, capital is something that are not used up but could continue to produce and even increases in value. The key is then to make sure that our human talents are developed, deployed and learned to increase their ability to create greater value. Human skills must not be obsoleted but rather kept up-to-date and even more to create new innovation of value. Those attributes are stressed. The company must also create the environment for learning, experimenting and other challenging opportunities.

On deployment - Putting the right people on the right jobs.
I am reminded of the "Bus Analogy" of Jim Collins - getting the right people up the bus, the wrong people down, and putting the right people in the right seats.

On retention - Creating the Learning Organization and Knowledge Accumulation through sharing via ICT systems. It is also about challenging the staff to increase their competitive advantage and also its marketable value.

When staff sees that their value increases over time while working for his present organization, there will be less needs to go elsewhere.

Leadership - Integration of Leading and Managing

Here is the mind-map on Leadership.

Here we can see the integration of leading and managing together. This is the typical Chinese Yin-Yang Integrative Mindset. The western management concept like to separate leadership from management. That is good because the tasks are actually different, but they need to be integrated together to get alignment and focus to achieve the same goal and mission. Before a decision or a goal is set, then there could be lots of collaboration and consultation. But once the goal and plans are set, then tight discipline is needed to ensure smooth execution towards the goals. However, things seldom goes according to plan, and hence constant monitoring of the environment and the executions are needed. At times, some part of the plan may need to be changed while keeping the same goals. Successful execution is a blend of discipline and adaptability. It is the wisdom of when and how to change or not to change!

Lim Liat (C) 11 Apr 2013