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Unit Two Chinas Haier Power Antony Pauln TEXTIn the archives of Chinas modern management lore, the events at a Qingdao appliance factory in the summer of 1985 have begun to acquire the dimensions of legend. Something like, say, the day Henry Ford separated the manufacture of a valve into 21 steps or when Akio Morita made Sonys first length of recording tape in a frying pan. By the early 1980s, the Qingdao General Refrigerator Factory had become a typical example of a business in the last stages of socialist decay: heavy debt, grumpy workers, shoddy products, service from hell. One day in August an unhappy customer came to the work site to complain of having bought a dud refrigeratorno small complaint in those days, when only two or three of every 1000 urban Chinese households owned such a luxury. Watched by CEO Zhang Ruimin, then 36, the customer rejected dozens of imperfect refrigerators. Finally he settled on one and left, declaring himself satisfied. Zhang wasnt. He went through his warehouse, rechecking the refrigerators. “Of the 400 or so there, I found 76 that I didnt want released to the market,” he recalls.He had the rejects placed in an open space. Then he called his staff of some 600 together, showed them the refrigerators, and passed around a sledgehammer. “Destroy them!” he ordered. The workers hesitated, but Zhang insisted. “If we pass these 76 for sale,” he told them, “well be continuing a mistake that has all but bankrupted our company.” Soon piles of shattered metal littered the warehouse floor.That burst of cathartic violence did more than turn a few refrigerators to rubbish. It set the stage for the regeneration of the Qingdao factory and the creation of one of Chinas most interesting companies, now known as the Haier Group Co. Haiers makeover has proved that it is possible to transform even a rotten socialist enterprise into a vibrant and prosperous company. And the sledgehammer? Refrigerator assembly-line workers have placed it in a wall display.Zhangs next goal is to crack the FORTUNE Global 500. He has a long way to go. In 1998 the groups sales totaled $2.3 billion; thats more than 5000 times as much as in 1985, but less than a third of the revenue of No. 500 on FORTUNEs global list. Still, Haier is a very big fish in the smaller pond that is the China market. It is tops in air conditioners (36.8% market share), freezers (47.2%), refrigerators(40%), and washing machines (35.9%). It is fourth in color TVs and also makes a host of other small appliances, such as water heaters and microwave ovens. And it is growing fast: Since 1984 it has averaged an increase of 83% a year in revenues. Haier now has 50 units (18 are wholly owned, 23 are holding companies, and there are nine joint ventures). It has more than 20000 employees and some $1.1 billion in assets. Its products are sold in 87 countries, and it is building factories in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Iran. Nor is Haier just a Third World wonder. In the U.S. it says it has nearly 20% of the market for small refrigerators. Haier air conditioners have made inroads in Europe.The company that Zhang brought back from the dead is a “collective enterprise,” one of some 25 million quasi-socialist commercial entities owned in principle by the workers but supervised by local bureaucracies and Communist Party officials. Though the problems of such small or middling, often city-based firms are not exactly the same as those of Chinas vast, gangrenous state-owned heavy enterprises, both have suffered from a lack of accountability and poor management.Haier has been able to solve those problems, even though it is still officially a city collective and Zhang therefore a city employee. (At the same time, it is listed on the Shanghai exchange and would like to be listed overseas: Chinese capitalism can be curious.) The companys organizational chart lists a category, “Party and Masses System,” not to be found outside China. There are subheads for the Propaganda Department, the Party Office, and the Armed Department. The city government is a constant factor. “We work in a mixed economy,” Zhang says. “You have to have three eyes: one on the market, one on the workers, and one on policy.” The larger point is that Haiers success shows that even within these constraints, it is possible to resuscitate collective and state-owned enterprises.Zhang, the only son of a worker in a Qingdao shirt factory, says his first love was ancient Chinese literature. As he tells it today, Lao-tzu (a sixth century B.C. philosopher) and Sun Tzu (a military writer of the fourth century B.C.) provide food for thought for modern businessmen as well as ancient warriors. Lao-tzu has advice about running a company:“ When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” Sun Tzu is relevant on, among other things, marketing strategy:“ Uproar in the East; attack in the West.”When Zhang was in his 20s, schools were closed for several years because of the Cultural Revolution. He spent much of the period in solitary reading and slowly rising through the Qingdao municipal administration, then a Soviet-style command structure for local industry. With an eye on the future, he also absorbed, discreetly, Western and Japanese management texts.His chance to put his gleanings into practice came unexpectedly in 1984. As China opened to the West, foreign companies sought out Chinese factories to do business with. The Qingdao refrigerator factory, Haiers own Website concedes, was then merely a “row of shabby buildings containing several lathes”with a production capacity of 84 units a month. And it was losing money: $179000 in 1984. Liebherr-Haushaltsgerate, a leading German white-goods manufacturer, offered to sell the factory modern refrigerator-making technology. The city accepted. Pessimistic about the factorys ability to absorb the technology, the managing director resigned. Zhang, by then vice manager of the municipalitys Household Appliances Division, was given the job.The early months were a managers nightmare. That first winter the factory had no money for heating coal: His workers burned wood stripped from the factorys window frames. Nepotism was rife, production spasmodic, quality laughable. Staff members spent much of their time rubbernecking at funerals in a nearby crematorium.But by then Chinas agricultural reforms had made it possible for farming cooperatives to accumulate cash reserves. With loans from farming friends on Qingdaos outskirts, Zhang paid workers some of the back pay. His most popular move was the purchase of a bus. The workers lived some distance from the factory, and getting to and from work was a heavy burden. A bus was a luxury and a promise of better things. Zhang shocked his workers by commuting with them every day. (Lao-tzu:“Let rule be entrusted to him who treats his rank as if it were his soul.”)As the Liebherr technology was introduced, Zhang placed samples of the German companys products in sight of his assembly-line workers so that they could see what quality looked like. By 1986, Haier had broken even. The refrigerator company took over three other Qingdao white-goods enterprises, and turned the whole lot into the Qingdao Haier Group in 1991.Other than a technology cooperation agreement, which is scheduled to conclude in 2001, the Liebherr connection ended in 1994. Haier had simply outgrown the relationship. It no longer needed to buy German equipmentin fact, it was selling its own manufacturing technology to foreign companies. Last year, for example, it sold appliance technology to Spain. But the groups name is a reminder of the link :“Haier” is a Chinese phonetic approximation of “Liebherr.”The Haier turnaround is a case study of the artand is used as such at Harvard Business School. There were two major strategies: expansion and management. First, the Haier style. A visitor to the 120-acre Haier Industrial Park in suburban Qingdao finds an assembly-line culture that appears to be a mix of foreign management practices and Chinese nationalismwith a whiff or two of Maoist-era self-criticism. Zhang has clearly absorbed the works of Masaaki Imai, a leading guru of Japanese quality control. Imais “5-S movement” takes its name from the initials of five Japanese words whose romanizations start with “s.” Their rough translations: seiri (discard the unnecessary); seiton (arrange tools in the order of use); seisoh (keep the work site clean); seiketsu (keep yourself clean); shitsuke (follow workshop disciplines).Haier has added a sixth item, “safety,” and instills the system through the “6-S self-check station.” At the beginning and end of each shift, a worker judged responsible for a mistake must stand on a painted spot on the workroom floor in full view of his work mates. Workers who fail to reform may be criticized in the company newsletter or fined or, after several warnings, fired, a final step formerly all but unheard of in China. To those who complain that the system is too difficult, an executive sniffs, “The market has no tears.”A look at the ubiquitous wall posters in Haier factories spells out the “Haier spirit” (HARDWORKING AND MAKING SACRIFICE TO THE NATION) and the “Haier style” (PROMPT REACTION TO THE MARKET). Helping facilitate the transfer of these management concepts to new acquisitions is the Haier Enterprise Culture Center, headed by Su Fangwen. Su, who joined Haier in 1988, has become something of a legend. Her talent is to teach discipline and quality control to people who have never before worked in an environment in which such things matter. This friendly, purposeful thirtysomething and her aides are first on the scene when Haier takes over a new company. They are familiar with Western managementZhang cites Michael Porter and Peter Senge as influencesbut training methods have a distinctly Chinese flair. One example: The proliferation of five-star hotels has given Su an opportunity to dramatize for assembly-line workers the higher standards the global market-place demands. Hence one of Sus wall slogans: TO EXPAND MARKET SHARE, OFFER SERVICE LIKE A FIVE-STAR HOTELS.If all this sounds like just so much camp cheerleading, its instructive to note that among Sus rah-rah signs are those with a sterner ring. One stark message informs the factory floor:(1) SOME WORKERS LACK A SENSE OF QUALITY. (2) SOME FOREMEN HAVE TOLERATED SLOPPINESS. (3) SOME DIRECTORS ARE SLACKING. COOPERATE TO IMPROVE! Exercises. Translate the following into English, using the words or phrases in the text:1.跻身“财富”全球500强 to crack the FORTUNE Global 5002.由工人监督的集体所有制企业 a collective enterprise supervised by workers3.对工厂吸收技术能力持悲观态度 be pessimistic about the factorys ability to absorb technology4.国外管理实践与中国民族主义的结合the incorporation of foreign management practices and Chinese nationalism5.日本质量监控的领袖人物 a leading guru of Japanese quality control6.将管理理念传输到新的合并企业acquisitions中去 to transfer the management concepts to new acquisitions 7.在中国冰箱市场的支配地位 the dominant position in Chinas refrigerator market8.一个有关管理艺术的案例分析 a case study of the management art9.让劣质产品大量投放市场 to let shoddy products released to the market in large quantities10.为企业的革新创造条件 to set the stage for the renovation of the enterprise11.在母公司控制之下的全资子公司和控股公司 the wholly-owned companies and holding companies under the control of the parent company12.吸纳从国有企业分流出来的下岗人员 to soak up the lay-offs released from state-owned companies13.向该工厂出售现代电冰箱制造技术 to sell modern refrigerator-making technology to the factory14.占工业企业大多数的国有企业 the state-owned enterprises accounting for the majority of industrial enterprises15.本国支柱产业的发展 the development of domestic pillar industries. Translate the following sentences into English:1.虽然这家合资企业发展得很快，但要实现它跻身于“财富”全球500强cracking the Fortune Global 500的目标依然任重而道远。(have a long way to go)Although it has been growing very fast, this joint venture still has a long way to go to realize its goal of cracking the Fortune Global 500.2.海尔曾尝试将样品放在流水线工人the assembly-line workers视野之中in sight of以提高产品质量，现在他们已不需这样做了it has outgrown this practice。(outgrow)Haier once tried to place the sample products in sight of the assembly-line workers to improve the quality of the products, but now it has outgrown this practice.3. 80年代初期，中国每out of 1000户城市居民households中只有两到三户居民拥有电冰箱。随着人们生活水平的提高enhancement ，电冰箱便成为许多家庭购买支出中首要的一项the first big item 。(out of, households)In the early 1980s, out of every 1000 urban Chinese households, there were only two or three that owned refrigerators. With the enhancement of peoples living standard, refrigerators have become the first big item (that) households buy.4.该公司在全球拥有70家子公司subsidiaries ，其中三分之一为全资公司wholly-owned ，其产品行销108个国家和地区。近几年，公司年收入平均averaged an increase增长50%。(wholly-owned;revenue)The company has 70 subsidiaries around the world, one third of which are wholly owned, with their products sold to 108 countries and areas. In recent years, it has averaged an increase of 50% a year in revenues.5.中国民营和私营企业collective and private enterprises的迅速发展有助于吸纳soak up从经营不善poorly-operated的国有企业分流released from出来的劳动力，减轻relieve国家的就业负担。(soak up)The rapid development of collective and private enterprises will help to soak up the labor force released from poorly-operated state-owned enterprises and to relieve the nations employment burden.III. Put the following passage into English:许多管理人员如果不亲自参与actively involved in某项任务就会感到不自在。据说这是因为“不能容忍含糊不清”的心理造成的。管理人员希望了解每时每刻发生的事情。明智的管理人员应该清楚哪些工作是必须分配delegated雇员，并且培养他们去干的。如果在训练之后，雇员确实不具备完成这项任务的能力，那就应该考虑换岗replacement的问题。管理人员应该避免责任倒置reverse delegation 。如果一个雇员把本应由他做出决定的事交给了管理人员，就会产生责任倒置。接受这种责任倒置会增加管理人员的工作负担，并且会使雇员变得更依赖于老板。Many managers feel uncomfortable if not actively involved in accomplishing a given job. This is said to result from a “low tolerance for ambiguity”. The manager desires to know what is happening on a moment-by-moment basis. A wise manager should know clearly what work must be delegated, and train employees to do it. If after training, an employee is truly unable to perform the work, then replacement should be considered. A manager should avoid reverse delegation. This happens when an employee brings a decision to the manager that the employee should make. An acceptance of reverse delegation can increase the managers work load and the employee is encouraged to become more dependent on the boss.Unit Three How Bill Gates Invests His Moneyn TEXTTending the Investment Pools As Gates converts billions of dollars of Microsoft stock into philanthropic tender, Michael Larson will be shepherding the funds every step of the way. He will manage the foundation portfolios until the dollars are expended on syringes, scholarships, and software. “People have no idea the kind of pressure that Michael Larson operates under, says Roger McNamee. “For one thing, hes running money for two of the largest foundations in the world. The better he does, the more good works can be done. Heres how Larsons job works. Hes in charge of three large pots of money: the two foundations and the $5 billion or so in Gates personal portfolio, which is mostly invested through Cascade, though there are other smallish accounts also under Larsons auspices. Each of these three pools is discretely managed, with its own objectives and investments. And theres one thing both Gates and Larson want to make perfectly clear. “Michael and I talk regularly about general investment matters, but he has full discretion over the portfolio. Gates says. Larson, his usual grin gone for a second, says, “I wish everyone understood that. When people find out that Cascade has made an investment in something, thats not Bill Gates. Ill call Bill about something Im buying if he needs to know, but Bill might not have any idea what Cascade owns. (There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, Gates makes his own investments in biotechmore on that later.)So whats in the portfolios? The Learning Foundation is the simplest. Because Patty Stonesifer and her crew have a fairly constant need for cash, Larson keeps this portfolio mostly in short-maturity U.S. government and corporate fixed-income securities. The William H. Gates Foundation is a little more complicated. Though it may have a smattering of stocks at any given time, it too is almost entirely in bondsabout 75% short-term U.S. governments and corporates. “The portfolio is pretty conservatively positioned right now for a couple of reasons,” says Larson. “First, it reflects my view of the markets. And second, we just had an inflow of a couple of billion dollars.” Another reason bonds are attractive to Larson is that as new money streams in, scaling up in the fixed-income markets is much easier than in stocks.As for the other 25% of this foundations assets, Larson has made investments running the whole gamut of the bond market. He holds some inflation-protected Treasury bonds called TIPs, and plain-vanilla corporate bonds like Ford, Du Pont, and Time Warner (parent of Time Inc., FORTUNEs publisher). He also has a position in junk bonds and foreign government bondsDanish, German, Canadianas well as foreign corporates, gobs of mortgage-backed securities, and all sorts of hedging investments. Larson farms out some 15% of the overall portfolio to bond managers at Morgan Grenfell, PIMCO, Miller Anderson & Sherrerd, and Western Asset Management. “These guys have discretion over the money we give them, but if I dont agree with their take on interest rates or the yen, Ill override them by hedging, Larson says.Gates $5 billion personal portfolio is another matter. First, there is the question of how much Microsoft stock Gates should own. “The money I have outside Microsoft is less than 10% of the total, says Gates.“ Since we are obviously heavily weighted wi