"How to Understand Your Strengths and Weaknesses?"

This article is Lu Canwei's 90th original piece.

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In the past two days, I have gained a lot, and while I may not cover everything, I will mainly discuss the information I absorbed and some of my thoughts during this time.

The Story of Tanks

Teacher Xiao Ma Song mentioned that one should know their strengths and weaknesses and leverage their strengths.

However, some advantages may turn into disadvantages when facing different enemies.

Teacher Xiao Ma Song used an example from World War II regarding tanks to illustrate this point. The tank was invented by the British, characterized by thick armor, strong firepower, and fast movement.

However, the British adopted the concepts of infantry tanks and cruiser tanks, leading to the problem that either the tanks had thick armor and strong firepower but were very slow, which meant the tanks had to run ahead while the infantry followed behind, or they were fast but had weak armor and insufficient firepower.

As a result, when facing the Germans during the Blitzkrieg, they were directly overwhelmed. The Germans did not use infantry but instead focused on tanks, which were centralized, flexible, well-protected, and had fierce firepower, directly defeating the British.

The advantage of Blitzkrieg was vividly demonstrated in the attack on Poland, which took only 36 days to conquer.

However, this advantage became a disadvantage when facing the vast territory of the Soviet Union. Every time they captured a location, the Soviet army would retreat to another place, leading to increasingly long supply lines for the Germans. The final outcome is well known.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union's vast territory became a disadvantage when facing the United States, which developed intercontinental missiles with longer ranges. The Soviets had to adjust their defenses, but the vastness of their territory led to a very dispersed defense, and the final outcome is also well known.

Rapid Decision-Making Ability

Many times, we may think we have disadvantages in certain aspects. For example, some people say they have a bad temper, and many consider anger to be a very negative thing. However, if your so-called bad temper helps you solve problems, it may actually be your advantage.

Some people think a lot but do not execute. In this case, thinking becomes a disadvantage. However, if a person has strong execution ability, then thinking a lot is an advantage because if you only act without thinking, it is easy to stumble in the same place repeatedly.

Recently, I heard a guest share that they managed to grow their company to over 1,000 employees in a very short time, with stores spread nationwide. Many of the staff did not possess management and decision-making abilities, and many decisions were made by him.

I initially thought there must be some brilliant methods and thinking to solve the numerous management problems arising from rapid expansion, but he told me there weren't. So I asked, wouldn't you become a critical node? Once things pile up on you, how do you push things forward?

He said that making quick decisions, despite many wrong decisions, was covered by the revenue brought in by rapid growth, meaning they could afford to make mistakes. Once the scale reaches another level, some problems naturally disappear.

He cited the example of the PHS (Personal Handy-phone System), which had many issues at the time, but once mobile phones emerged, the problems with PHS ceased to exist.

This made me realize why I had experienced two unicorn companies that seemed to have severe internal conflicts yet still achieved good results.

Rapid decision-making is an advantage, but if revenue cannot cover it, it can lead to a terrifying situation where numerous wrong decisions trap the company in a quagmire, thus becoming a disadvantage.

Late-Mover Advantage

So, is it true that as long as the business is growing, adopting rapid decision-making is an advantage? It seems not to be the case. For instance, as everyone sees, Meituan is expanding into new businesses everywhere. Is their decision-making process also rapid?

When Meituan decided to enter the food delivery market, they analyzed the entire model of Ele.me and found that Ele.me was performing very well in universities in cities like Shanghai. Meituan did not choose to confront Ele.me head-on in the initial phase but instead analyzed the situation of universities nationwide and discovered many cities had very promising universities that Ele.me had not covered. At this point, Meituan entered the market.

If you observe closely, you will find that many of Meituan's projects are late entrants. So, is rapid decision-making an advantage or a disadvantage in this case?

Freedom and Efficiency

This reminds me of what I previously saw about Netflix. The freedom to take leave, reimbursement without approval, no KPIs, and the highest salaries in the industry—this "Netflix model" is their competitive advantage.

Firstly, Netflix has extremely low marginal costs. Once a creative idea is filmed, the remaining task is to get more users to watch it. This results in them offering the highest salaries to recruit the best talent in the industry, creating a cycle. As mentioned in the book "Scarcity": "The essence of scarcity is the absence of slack." In a situation with plenty of slack, creative personnel can unleash their maximum creative advantages.

However, if a service-oriented company tries to adopt Netflix's model, it could be a significant disadvantage because service-oriented products rely on human capital. The higher the output of individual personnel, the greater the company's revenue. For example, the revenue generated from serving 10 customers in an hour versus serving 20 customers in an hour is certainly different.

So, how do we manage ourselves to achieve success?

As Teacher Xiao Ma Song said:

Aren't we the same?

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How important are right and wrong?

What's so difficult about this?

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