Efficiency comes from processes, efficiency comes from teamwork. Convening a 50-attendance meeting that was delayed for half an hour due to 3 to 5 participants coming late, how much time would have been wasted with the 50 persons factored in?
Job market nowadays is circulating this saying: “Use women as men, use men as animals.” Office workers everyday think that they are too busy, too tired. Company personnel often work overtime or extra shift, and it is not easy too for the boss who has numerous matters to attend to, while managers are burdened with work……why are Chinese so busy?
Our working hours are long, but efficiency is low.
As indicated by the statistical figures, China is one of the countries in the world having the longest per capita working hours, about 2200 hours per annum. 1903 hours for Argentina, 1841 hours for Brazil, 1758 hours for Japan, 1610 hours for the US, 1489 hours for the UK, and the Dutch have the shortest per capita working hours, only 1389 per year.
Why are Chinese so busy? After acquiring France Thomson, TCL discovered that French never work overtime, they switch off the mobile after work and there is no way to find them, but they go to work on time. Chinese managers of TCL find it hard to understand why they are used to having the mobile switched on 24 hours a day, and used to being woken up from the dreams. Don’t tell me only Chinese have the fine tradition of working hard?
Let’s have a look at how people from different countries create fortunes at work place. Norway topped the list in 2006, with its workforce creating fortune of US $37.9 per hour; USA came second with US $35,63; next being French with US $35.08; while the per capita figure for Chinese was US $5.75 per hour. Chinese labour productivity increased rapidly, almost 8 times that of 1980, but the per capita value creation was less than 1/6 of Norway’s.
The most important cause of low efficiency is doing work without following the process, which is the procedure for work in accordance with standards. Every link in the procedure has standards, and the efficiency may be increased only by working according to standards.
Efficiency may be a small problem to a person, but is a big problem to a corporate.
The Hope Group’s Chairman of the Board, Mr. Liu Yongxing, once visited a flour company during his tour in South Korea，and was extremely amazed that the company processed 1500 tons of wheat everyday with only 66 workers. In China, a company of the same size would normally have only several hundred tons of production capacity per day, but the employees are more than a hundred. The efficiency of Hope Group is higher than the standards of its counterparts in the industry, and there are some 70 to 80 employees in its factory with daily production capacity of 250 tons, which is equal to only 1/6 of that of a Korean company.
Some of the Chinese companies have facilities more advanced than that of Korean companies. How can a Korean efficiency be 10 times that of a Chinese? Liu Yongxing mulled over the subject for a few nights, and finally got the answer: The disparity in manpower effectiveness is absolutely not a simple sum of addition – a Korean efficiency is 1.2 times that of a Chinese, 10 Korean would be equivalent to 12 Chinese in terms of efficiency. According to Liu Yongxing’s understanding, efficiency is about the product of multiplication – The efficiency of one Korean is 1.2 times that of a Chinese, 10 people will have approximately 6.20 times efficiency, and about 38 times for 20 people.
The per capita efficiency disparity between Chinese and Korean enterprises is actually not that pronounced, but this explanation does have its rationality. In the production line, a link having a drop in efficiency will hold up the next link, one link after another, and the final efficiency will naturally be low. The only way to compensate for low efficiency is by means of extra working hours……
The “compounding effect” of efficiency is derived from the “compound interest” of scientific management. Compound interest is the frequently stated compounding interest. Einstein said: Compound interest is more powerful than an atomic bomb. For example, if a person in possession of a skill were to teach 2 people who in turn teach 2 each, and eventually without reaching 20 levels the whole world would be taught the skill.
Interestingly, the shape of the Chinese word “众” (Translator notes: the word meaning “many” is formed by three little characters “人”meaning “person” piling up within the word ) just happens to elaborate on the meaning of interest, and explains not only the repetition process of imparting knowledge, but also that the growth of a company is achieved via people copying efficient methods thereby generating the scaled benefits.
We have raised such a question: Do you think like Zhu Geliang (Translator notes: a well known strategist in the “Three Kingdom Period” of ancient China), or like the American management scientist, Taylor? The crucial difference in the ways these two reflect on a problem is whether or not their methods can be copied. Zhu Geliang is a strategist, but the wonderful plans of his, such as “Empty Castle Plan” and “Borrowing arrows with Thathed Boat”, cannot be easily copied in the enterprises. On the other hand, the principles of management that Taylor summed up can be continuously copied in enterprises, so as to have their growth continued.
Selected from: “Working Science – Details and Processes”
[Cartoons] Living such a busy life, but what for?
