—Excerpts from Sun Weijie's Speech at Jereh 2020 Annual Summary and Commendation Conference
Today, I’d like to share some of my personal thoughts about Jereh’s corporate culture. Although it is a topic that I’ve mentioned repeatedly on many occasions, I understand—that fully implementation of corporate culture could be difficult. Therefore, I have a few points that I’m hoping to reiterate on this special day.
I’ve written several articles about corporate culture and I want to take this chance here to talk about the core contents of these articles.
Making Customer-Focused Our First Management Language
Jereh’s core values should be the principles that every Jereh employee follow in daily work life, among which focus on customers’ needs is the top priority. When facing cross-department cooperation or any sudden circumstances, we may find that there are no established rules or precedents to follow. This is the time when we need to focus on customers’ needs the most. Reinforce the mindset and nourish the habit of being customer-focused, then make this principle the guidance of our decisions and actions.
Rewarding Dedicated Employees is a Supreme Right.
If the management decide to reward an employee but fail to find clear rules that they can refer to, they need to know that their right of rewarding dedicated employees has been given by our organization. Therefore, there is no need to hesitate.
In the meantime, too much random rewarding is not what we are pursuing. We ask the management to be righteous and practical when rewarding employees. Specify the good deeds of employees and value the meaning as well as influence therein. If you have a big rewarding plan for those who deserve it, then share this plan with your superiors and respect their opinions.
I believe our management would not use reward as a tool to buy over their own small groups. But still, I want to underline that Jereh never tolerate fraud and unfairness.
Be sure that the rewarding goes to the grassroots. Some of the junior management could not build true leadership and are used to implement basic tasks only. People like that are managers not leaders. Leaders would locate their own values, voice opinions inside an organization and form common values together with the organization. They practice these values on a daily basis, reward staff whose behavior complies with the values and say no to those who do it in another way. Leaders are responsible to reward dedicated employees with proper rewarding plans. In this way, we are able to form a unique competitive edge.
For many times, I raised this question to new employees, “Is it possible that Jereh can never let dedicated employees down?” “Of course!” They answered.
However, I replied, “I’m not fully confident to say yes.”
I have to admit that most people from top management, including myself, find it difficult to figure out how devoted each employee can be. If Jereh doesn’t want to let dedicated employees down, the junior management could play a more important role than anyone else.
Only when junior management accurately performs our principles, can the dedicated employee be properly rewarded. Hereby, I propose all junior management to pay close attention to every dedicated employee around. You should reward them correctly and never let them down.
Seeking Truth from Facts is our Pursuit
Here at Jereh, we advocate a genuine and sincere atmosphere and pursue facts and fairness. Playing up to the management and covering mistakes are not welcomed here. If an employee only flatters the superior, then he/she is harming the development of the superior and also the entire team. The advance of this superior is hindered, the atmosphere of the team is damaged and the benefits of the organization is harmed too.
This bring along another question, whom should an employee be loyal to?
In the past, I have encountered people who asked his employees to be loyal to himself. I also have met employee from grassroots who told me he was loyal to his superior and the company.
From my perspective, being loyal to a specific superior is wrong and so as being loyal to the company. You should be loyal to the core values that we commonly share and people who hold opinions like this are the ones that Jereh could rely on.
Revolution of Technology Ideology is on the Way
If a previous lead role from R&D chose to take a management position, then he/she is supposed to keep focus on management and select a new person with better capabilities to lead R&D work. That’s how the quality of design is guaranteed.
Who turns the Possible into the Impossible?
Always look forwards. Never give up. Nothing is impossible. These three sentences constitute Jereh’s core spirits that support our survival and development. Jereh wishes its employees to be more wolf-like and the core spirits will guide people to do so. At the same time, the spirits lean upon inheritance, otherwise the company would die away once the spirits were completely lost one day.
What we need is more than the Spirits of Wolf.
The Spirits of Wolf manifest the quality of persistence, the willingness of making every endeavor to reach the goal. Most people need to have such spirits no matter what kind of work they are engaged in, apart from people in HSE department. For individuals, being wolf-like can be even more important than being talented. Backed by healthy corporate culture, a team made up by people with the spirits of wolf shall achieve something remarkable.
Efficiency is Our Life
Jereh has always been a restless and changeful company, or flexible, to be more specific. Our value of continuously improving to be the best guides us to look critically at our shortcomings and to correct them in time. We need to quickly respond to external changes and deliver our best performance.
In recent years, we made some adjustments to our strategies, business layout and corresponding organization structure. I hope all Jereh people can understand these changes well and adapt to them timely.
I have talked about this more than once before: we lives in an era where fast fish preys slow fish. Market changes in seconds, we should swim faster. Extensive discussions, research by professional institutions, and strict voting organism are obviously helpful to prevent decision-making mistakes, yet we cannot accept the loss of efficiency. Or else, we may lose the game in this ever-changing market. We must seek correctness as well as efficiency all the way.
In this ever-changing world, flexibility is an absolute advantage. When Jereh started with mining spares at the very beginning, we already had the guts to step into oilfield spares. When we officially entered the market of oilfield spares, we already had the guts to set foot in equipment maintenance and even in equipment manufacture. Jereh would not have today’s expansive business layout if we didn’t have a restless and changeful mind. If we just followed established patterns, Jereh could only stick to what it did in the past.
With that being said, practice is of equal importance as efficiency.
All successful entrepreneurs are doers. The lasting success of a corporate derives from practice, which means to walk the talk. Get involved in practice and experience things yourself will bring more benefits than mere theories.
I’m honestly worried about the dualism ideas inside some people’s mind. We encourage flexibility and changes, but they never come out of nowhere. Every change has its origin. For Jereh, the origin lies in our team, our people and our culture.
Whether a change should be made? It depends on our evaluation of the change’s influence. Will it leave a negative impact on our team or will it somehow violate our culture? If that’s the case, we must face up to the problems and figure out measures to remedy negative influence, admit the mistakes and correct them publicly.
On the other hand, changes do not mean a total denial of the past. Different strategies, regulations and procedures were made according to the actual conditions at different stages, which were only reasonable at some point or within a period of time. A revolution comes in when the old ones don't fit new environment anymore. Practice never means reckless acts.
Efficiency is our life, yet formalism is the enemy of efficiency. We must resolutely abandon it.
Some people are enthusiastic about doing meaningless things in a fabulous way. That what we call formalism.
Take industrial internet platform as an example. Customers are earned when we empower the industrial enterprises and solve the challenges that they face. We seek to create an internet platform that leads the future, then all we need to do is being down-to-earth, efficiency-first and result-oriented.
Nowadays, young generation are dashy, energetic and full of innovative methods endorsed by the internet era, which are worth learning by those born in the 60s and 70s. We need to be aware of some people who no longer innovate and try out new things, who still adopt past standards under new circumstances. This will lead to the lack of inspiration and loss of young talents with potentials.
My dear fellows, the development of a company is like treading on the thin ice, every one of us needs to get ready for all possible risks and only then we shall be able to create our common future!
