Chinese Wisdom and Business Excellence

Have you ever thought of linking Chinese wisdom to business excellence? And how can it be done?

In general, Chinese wisdom and philosophy are guiding principles for Chinese people since their formation and have helped China to move around, up and down from centuries to centuries. It may not be easy to notice but Chinese wisdom is reflected in Chinese characteristics and behaviour in their daily life, including business practice.

There are many business excellence models in the world, for example, US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, European Quality Award, Australian Business Excellence Award and Japan Quality Awards. In Singapore, we have our own Singapore Quality Award. The overall excellence standards have 7 categories under SQA. There are Leadership, Planning, Information, People, Processes, Customers and Results. All these excellent models are quite similar and have considered these 7 factors in assessing an excellent company or organisation.

Assessors will evaluate and audit the performance considering the approach used and deployment of the approaches. The evaluation then moves further to cover the feedback system in a way of learning, innovation and creativity. It therefore also touches on the change process and continuation/improvement for organisation development. An organisation must continue to improve, face challenges and make adjustments under different changing environments.

Yi Jing, the Book of Change, is talking about changes, how to face changes and avoid mistakes. In reality the Book of Change involves 3 basic principles: changes, unchanged and simplicity. We should not look at the Book as a “change” management.
Yi Jing has 8 trigrams, 64 hexagrams and 384 (64x6) broken and unbroken lines. All these have its functions and patterns and standard movements and meaning. These are “unchanged”, like the positions of heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake. The changes take place when one of the broken or unbroken line changes position from one to another and so the whole hexagram will also change to a new hexagram. In analysing the changes, one will need to simplify the change process, assess the situation and make the next move (decision).

When we look at SQA model, the flow from leadership to results, plus leaning and innovation are standard movements. These are “unchanged”. However, when facing new challenges, competitions and environment, the relationship of the 7 categories (and the 21 items and 100 questions) will need to make adjustments. Some problems may have to move from holistic (overall) approach to niche approach to faster react to changes. SQA has simplified the change and unchanged process and provides a clear and simple way to approach business excellence.

We will leave Yi Jing (ying and yang movements) as example for business excellence and move on to use other examples from Confucianism and Daoism, to explain how practical Chinese wisdom is relevant in today’s business world. These examples can help us further understand the practical application of Chinese wisdom.

Mengzi and Zhuangzi, the two representatives of Confucianism (representing the yang) and Daoism (representing the yin) will show us the practical uses of Chinese wisdom in business world. Both men are great in story telling and have left a lot of idioms to us. Mengzi is good at essay and arguments. His straight forward thinking has greater influence in Chinese politics. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, is romantic and imaginative. His free thinking has great influence in Chinese literature.

Leadership:
Mengzi: Courage and strength to lead. In the principle of the great “Qi” (spirit movement), a leader believes he is doing the right thing and his decision is benefiting people. He then gains courage to implement policies and strategies accordingly. He built up his internal strength, which becomes stronger and stronger to let him face challenges. Leaders must dare to make tough decision for the benefit of the organisation.
Zhuangzi: High and tall foresight. In the story of a big bird flying to the south, Zhaungzi described how a fish is transformed into a big bird and gets the energy to fly to the sky. While other small birds are satisfied with their flying height, the big bird wants to fly as further as possible. Leaders must think of the highest achievable level for the organisation.

Planning
Mengzi: Before rain, plan first. When the organisation is moving smoothly, the management needs to plan ahead to further improve organisation performance. This is to avoid complacency.
Zhuangzi: Same amount, different arrangements. In the story of feeding monkeys, giving 3 bananas in the morning and 4 in the evening is the same as 4 in the morning and 3 in the evening. However, monkeys think they have a better deal by having more bananas in the morning. Different plans could have the same result depending on how you look at it. On the other way, it is also a planning under limited resources.

Information:
Mengzi: Not to believe everything in the book. If a leader believes all the information in the book, it is better not to have the book. Businesses need to understand and analyse the information, pure data will do more harm than good.
Zhuangzi: The use of useless. The basic of usefulness is based on useless. When we stand on a small piece of land, only that particular area is useful to us. So, we remove all the useless land areas, at the end can we still stand on the piece of useful land? Hence, once we remove the useless, the usefulness will not appear. The meaning of useful information derives from useless information.
People:
Mengzi: Sole happy is not as good as group happy. In this story, the King is enjoying music, Mengzi advises him to share music with his country men. Management should not bring happiness to few people. As an organisation, every one should be happy and so all are willing to make contributions.
Zhuangzi: The real beauty is internal. In this story, a hotel owner has 2 wives, one ugly and one pretty. To everyone surprise, the owner praises the ugly one. His explanation is the pretty one thinks she is a beauty and always pretends and expresses her beauty. However, the ugly one is humble and concentrates working. So, the real beauty is internal and not external. There are many types of employees and who are the real pretty ones?

Process:
Mengzi: Half performance, double returns. Process should be designed in such a way that people only use half of their strength to gain double returns. This seems to refer to productivity and efficiency.
Zhuangzi: The master piece of ghost and god. A woodcrafter needs several processes to produce a master piece. After praying for 3 days, he thinks nothing about reward, another 5 days, he does not think of whether people are good or bad, another 7 days he forgets about his own body parts. He then goes to the forest to look for the wood and based on natural environment, he finally produces his master piece, like having the help of ghost and god. A company needs to produce outstanding products and services to attract business.

Customers:
Mengzi: Either left or right, there are waters. This is a smooth situation. Whether you turn to the left or right, you will be able to find the water and water always represent free and smooth flow. Customers are like waters and businesses welcome them.
Zhuangzi: Only on the surface. In country Lu, on the surface, there are many Confucian followers. However, a notice announcing only real Confucianism practitioners are allowed to wear Confucian dress, otherwise, offenders will face death penalty, the situation changes. 5 days after the notice, only 1 person put on a Confucian dress. Customers can be real and not real, when times come it will tell.

Results:
Mengzi: Family, no regret and education are 3 happy things. Healthy family, safety brothers and sisters are the first happy. Don’t feel sorry and regret in every thing done is the second happy. Finding talents and train them is the third happy. For a business, healthy employees and families are very important. Performing corporate social or citizen responsibility is equally important. For business continuation, new talents needed to be recruited and trained.
Zhuangzi: Eyeing profit, forget the danger. In a fruit tree garden, Zhuangzi is aiming a bird and the bird is aiming an insect. All are in full concentration on their targets. Suddenly, Zhuangzi realised that by doing so, it means someone is also aiming him. It turned out to be the garden owner who is aiming zhuangzi and beginning to chase him. When aiming for profit and return, have we ever thought of the danger of making quick money?