Introduction:Are there any signs of the company's decline? Today, I would like to share my 3 thoughts. 
What are the signs that a company is going downhill?
In my opinion, with these three signs, the company is going downhill.
Today, let's talk about it.
When the level of management exceeds the level of operation
The enterprise is not far from collapse
In many companies, there are situations like this:
Everyone in the company is busy, up and down and down into a mess.
But he is not busy with business, he is always busy with meetings, seven or eight meetings a day, and meetings occupy 90% of the time and energy of the grassroots.
Bosses and executives are not busy with business and don't think about strategy, but are busy with attendance, and every day they are watching whether employees are late.
HR was also asked to keep track of how many times someone left their seat and how long they left.
Phenomena like this go on and on. Their energy is consumed on these details.
You see, this is management over management.
Why is this happening?
In fact, it is because the business is not growing, or the growth is not efficient.
As bosses, as executives, they also didn't find a way to grow, and they couldn't find a new direction.
Out of human nature, people prefer to do things with least resistance. Therefore, they try to cover up the laziness of management with management diligence.
But this will not solve any problems. When a company does not grow, and the leaders do not want to do it, but instead strengthen the management action and carve on the details, the company will begin to decline.
So,We must not let management be greater than management. Business is about life and death, and management is just the icing on the cake.
So, how to judge whether management is greater than management? There are 2 ways to do this.
1.Are there more internal or external meetings?
You can see who the management is meeting with every day.
If the executive team is having internal meetings every day, and they are always having meetings that don't solve anything, then it is likely that management is greater than management.
What really needs to be held is an external meeting.
What does that mean? Just don't be an office general. To be with customers, to visit customers, to understand customers' problems, to solve customers' needs, to really solve business problems.
2.Is the system and process a card person, or is it for the business?
The state has its own laws, and the department has its own rules. No matter how small a company is, even if it only has three or five people, it needs to have processes and systems.
But it depends on the process and system, and what kind of role it plays.
Some process systems are restrictive to employees, or even stuck.
For example, I have to fill out various reports every day, and the time to visit customers is gone.
You see, this is management more than management.
Processes and systems are means, not ends, and their core is to serve the business.
Management is 1, management is 0, don't let management be greater than operation.
The decline of an enterprise begins with the silence of the organization
There are some companies that have fallen into decay that begin with organizational silence.
Before I started my business, the owner of a listed Internet company wanted to invite me to join.
Instead of accepting it on the spot, I promised to take a look and smell it.
In this company, I found 3 details:
First, their company has a huge front desk, but the door is very small, the door has been locked, but there are two security guards outside, which shows that the company culture is very open.
Second, I walked from the first floor to the fifth floor in this company, and the walls were full of the boss's wise quotes, which was obviously a one-word company.
Third, the whole company is silent, and the people below their company have to come to their ears to say a word to me. No one was talking loudly in the office, lifeless, a pin dropped on the floor, and it could be heard.
From these 3 details, I judge that this company is not open, the boss is also the boss of Yiyantang, the employees are extremely insecure in this company, and everyone is very depressed in this environment.
The biggest crisis of a team is that most people are silent.
If employees in the company are reluctant to speak, or what they say is flattery, you are in danger.
As a boss, you will become a "deaf", a "blind", unable to hear the real voice, nor can you see the real problems in the operation and management of the enterprise.
This company is like this, in just a few years, running wild on the downhill road, shrinking in market value, and about to go out of business.
So what to do? The core is to solve these three problems.
The first, dare to say.
Employees in the company, dare to tell the truth?
To ask the people below to tell the truth, the boss executives must first lead by example, listen to the truth, and tell the truth.
I often say that your team is what your team is like when you are a manager.
Therefore, within the organization, it is necessary to establish a corporate culture of "right things, not right people".
When you see something you are doing wrong, you can speak up and point out the problems of the other party for the sake of the results of your work.
To tell the truth, there is no need to be afraid of the bad consequences of offending people, and it will not harm the interests of the future.
With such a culture, they dare to tell the truth.
The second, to say.
Ren Zhengfei said: Allowing dissent is the best strategic reserve.
At Netflix, employees are encouraged to continuously provide constructive feedback, which can be bottom-up or horizontal across departments.
Why did they bring it up?
It is to give opinions, and it will be encouraged. And putting forward effective suggestions can also get a certain amount of incentives.
In this way, they will have a sense of ownership and be willing to speak up about problems.
The third, can be said.
The so-called can be said is to have a channel for feedback.
Some companies ostensibly have opinion mailboxes, but a lock is locked. The feedback channel becomes an ornament.
At Kyocera, Mr. Kazuo Inamori established an "empty bus" where leaders and employees get together after work and interact with employees face-to-face.
When someone points out the fault of the manager, Mr. Kazuo Inamori says, "If you are right, I will correct it immediately" and sincerely reflect on it.
And he also regarded this way of communication as an important means of communication.
Can you do that?
When employees dare to speak, want to speak, and can speak, they can break the silence of the organization.
The company's decline began with random recruitment
Finally, there is the question of organization. Without talent, everything goes back to zero. But the most terrible thing is that there are major mistakes in employing people.
In particular, the use of the wrong executives, the recruitment of pseudo-executives, the damage to the organization is huge.
Generally speaking, the pseudo-executives recruited have these three characteristics.
1.The work did not bear fruit
They used the advantages of the platform before, and they were good at packaging, and they blew their experiences into the sky.
Out of the preference of employing people, the boss also trusts him very much.
But when he actually went to do business, he was actually incapable.
He can't get into the game at all, he can't visit customers, he can't solve problems, he only flatters his boss.
So, he didn't get the results.
By the time the boss identified his true identity, the business was already about to collapse.
2.I don't know how to think, I copy and copy
A large number of executives do not have their own thinking and lack a system.
He's in a big company, and he's also a screw.
And when he arrived in the new company, he copied the system of the original company.
But management is dynamic, what works today may not work tomorrow.
What works for others, you may not work.
Because the industry is different, the development cycle of each company is also different, and contingency is very important.
He doesn't have such ability, he still copies it, and the small company obviously needs to be flattened and solve the problems of the business. However, he moved the processes and systems of large companies, which were more standardized on the surface, but in fact completely affected the development of the business.
His arrival not only did not help the company become better, but also became a stumbling block on the company's way forward.
3.has no heart, afraid that others will surpass him
There are also some pseudo-executives, who are also open-minded.
He is a newcomer, and a foreign monk is good at chanting scriptures. At first, the boss trusted him very much and authorized him.
As a result, after he came, he excluded dissidents and squeezed out the original excellent employees. Always do some layoffs to the main arteries and drive away star employees.
Moreover, he is always afraid that others will surpass him and be replaced, so he recruits people who are not as good as himself.
In the end, the good employees are gone, and those who remain within the organization are mediocre.
So, I often say a word,Even if the boss doesn't have any skills, he must be able to select and employ people.
How? I'm in"19 Lectures on Boss Selection and Employment".I talked about it in more detail.
Only when the boss really spends his time on recruiting, will recruit, and can recruit good people, can the business take off.
The above are the 3 signs that the company is going downhill.
Dr. Wu Jun said"The road up is destined to be difficult, but the door down is always open".
Only when the organization overcomes the underlying traction from top to bottom can the company swim against the current.