On January 10, 2024, the Fantasy Conference was held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Beijing, with the theme of "Resilience and Crossing the Singularity Moment". Chen Xiangdong, founder, chairman and CEO of Gaotu Group and CEO of Gaotu Jiapin, delivered a keynote speech on "Turning Crisis into Opportunity, Enterprise Passes Through the Darkest Moment".
Not long ago, Gaotu just received a wave of "pouring wealth" from the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room, which not only hit new highs in the live broadcast room, but also drove the stock price of Gaotu to rise sharply. How to face the ups and downs of such business achievements, Chen Xiangdong shared his own experience.
In Chen Xiangdong's understanding, when the external appearance is difficult to change, this "external" may become an opportunity. "There are many people in this world who are hardworking, capable, and graduated from prestigious schools, but they have not succeeded. Others, on the other hand, have a different mindset, are more optimistic and know how to navigate through cycles, and they can achieve great success. ”
At the Fantasy Conference, Chen Xiangdong shared his three thoughts with the audience: decision-making, thinking mode, and principles.
First of all, Chen Xiangdong believes that when there is a change on the outside, it is often the great moment to make a decision. In the era of PC Internet and mobile Internet, there have been a large number of excellent companies, and when the Internet era switched to the second half, the former successes were left behind and became very anxious.
People who are successful in the mobile Internet have strong organizational skills and good basic skills, why are they suddenly planted in the new era? When Chen Xiangdong saw Pinduoduo and Douyin, he remembered a sentence: we should seek real change when we remain the same, and seek the same things when we change drastically.
What exactly is the unchanging? Chen Xiangdong took Gaotu's entrepreneurial experience as an example, Gaotu has experienced the mobile Internet period and the policy change period. In a sense, that is the darkest hour of the high road.
When the policy changed, Gaotu absorbed 11 vice president-level people from listed companies and non-listed companies in the industry. A lot of people ask me, why are you still hiring? I said that there will be changes that will remain the same, and the Chinese people's demand for high-quality education will always remain the same; The training and cultivation of top-notch talents will always be the same. When others are not optimistic, we retain people and see opportunities. Gaotu later underwent changes and adjustments, and entered a benign development. This is to grasp the constant in the face of change. ”
Chen Xiangdong also shared with the audience the thoughts that Warren Buffett and Drucker brought to him. In 2023, Warren Buffett summed up the past 58 years of investment, and he said: We can achieve satisfactory results because we have made more than a dozen really right decisions, that is, it takes about five years to make a good decision.
In the past six months, Chen Xiangdong has often shared Buffett's words with the team around him. And Drucker also wrote in "Effective Managers": Bell, an excellent company, a CEO who has been in office for 20 years, said that his core is to make four key decisions.
As the founder of Gaotu, this year marks the 10th year of my business. In the last 10 years, I've only made two important decisions. One decision was that in 2014, I did Gaotu and did a live class class. Today, there is no doubt that Gaotu is absolutely leading in the field of education. My second important decision was to make a good product. ”
Some time ago, Gaotu Jiapin was considered to have been rich. But Chen Xiangdong began to lead the team to learn Douyin in December 2020. "In November 2022, I personally formed a team of about 20 people and founded Gaotu Jiapin as a project manager. Because we have been doing Douyin for three years, if it is not done by the first leader, for a listed company in Gaotu, there is a high probability of failure. It's better to let the founders fail, and no one will blame you. ”
Therefore, Chen Xiangdong believes that Gaotu Jiapin and Gaotu are the same thing. Gaotu does content, courses, and teaching, and Douyin e-commerce is a content e-commerce and an interest e-commerce, which is the advantage of Gaotu.
On January 6, 2023, when Chen Xiangdong posted his first Douyin on Gaotu Jiapin, co-founder Luo Bin once said to him: If it fails and there are few fans, the brand of the listed company will not be able to hold it. "If I fail, I fail, so let's do it. In the past year, I have 4 million followers, and in the entrepreneur circle, I have gained more than 4 million followers a year, which is also my personal record. I compare myself with myself, not with others. ”
In the new year, Chen Xiangdong is ready to work harder. "We have no choice, no way back. As a CEO, if I'm selfish, protect myself, and I want to live a comfortable life, what about your team? What about your organization? What about the dreams of the future that your life really carries? ”
Therefore, Chen Xiangdong often said: I am crawling, kneeling, crying, shouting, no matter how painful it is, I have to crawl forward. "Everyone has seen Gaotu Jiapin's wealth and wealth, and some people say that there is at least one billion advertising costs in this wave of out of the circle. Many people who don't know me suddenly know me, saying that Chen Xiangdong is a good product of Gaotu, but they don't know that Chen Xiangdong is a good product. ”
In terms of thinking mode, Chen Xiangdong believes that the biggest gap between people and people lies in cognition, and cognition comes from the underlying thinking mode.
Two years ago, Chen Xiangdong wrote an article defining it as a "truth-knowing mindset." He concludes: Thinking starts with the capture of the problem. Like playing tennis, hit the ball, and that moment is the problem capture. A truly excellent entrepreneur, a true entrepreneur, your starting point is problem catching, strong curiosity, and eternal childlike surprise.
And after the problem is captured, can you find the real problem; Ability to think deeply, question themselves, constantly dissect and find solutions to problems; Ability to correct real problems through in-depth communication and ultimately make high-quality decisions; whether the decision can be executed efficiently after it has been made; After efficient implementation, as an individual, whether you can review, introspect, and whether you can be a gentleman is the key to turning thinking into action.
Chen Xiangdong has his own principles. He was born in poverty, "When I was a child, my family was poor, I couldn't eat enough, I ate wild vegetables, and I had worms in my stomach." At the age of 14, he began to study teacher training and came out to work at the age of 17. After working in small towns and county towns for 10 years, Chen Xiangdong came to Beijing at the age of 27 and entered the Chinese People's University for graduate and doctoral studies.
After 10 years, Chen Xiangdong looks back on the past, "Every night before going to bed, I can't help but say that it's so good. A poor child in the countryside almost starved to death when he was a child, and his house almost collapsed. I have so many things today, and I have an endless amount of new self after a refresh, and it's a wonderful feeling. ”
Some people will criticize him for this: Chen Xiangdong, you are stupid and optimistic, and your head is not normal. "I said, why am I the same as you? I'm just different, I don't encourage myself, who will encourage me? I don't believe in myself, who will believe in me? Especially at my age, I have a set of principles about what kind of activities to participate in, who to eat with, how long to eat, and what time to spend enriching my heart. ”
Now, Chen Xiangdong has set a principle for himself: what kind of things to do in the next five years will make the greatest contribution to the entire organization. "For the next five years, I will do these five things. ”
The first thing is to strategize, to determine what to do and especially what not to do. The second is the organization, which should match the strategy with the structure. The third is talent. "From the first day I started working as a high-tech product, I knew that the CEO should not be my business. How do I change from Manager Chen to CEO Chen, and become Chairman of the Board in the future, I want to find this point. Now after more than a year of searching, I finally found the best person in the future company. ”
The fourth is to set up a good incentive mechanism for employees. "At this age, I definitely don't want to work with people I'm not happy with. A person chirps crookedly, no matter how capable you are, but I and you are not the same values. If you can make money, I don't want it. I must be working with people I admire, and when you get to this position, you should also work with people you like. ”
What if you don't like it? "There are conflicts and contradictions in values, and I absolutely tolerate them. But I don't want you to be a partner, slapping the table every day on a very high staircase. Does Munger slap the table for Buffett? Did Munger make Buffett obedient by slapping the table? Definitely not. This is my underlying logic, and after a certain age, this is also my life. ”
The fifth principle is tools.
After ten years of ups and downs, Chen Xiangdong has completely achieved self-consistency. "It's not that I need it so much, it's that I need it so much. I need to live, I need to have a life, I need to have an optimism that allows me to run, faith to run, inner peace and tranquility to run. ”
Author |Li Yuan.
Edit |Dong Yuqing.
Operations |Liu Shan.