My Thoughts on Leadership-By Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Fosun International
Always challenge and go beyond yourself
Why do we always need a break and need to talk with others during work?
I think it is because we need the time and space to refresh our mind. We should always challenge ourselves, and think of how we can solve problems from another angle.
I think keeping your mind fresh and always setting challenging goals is very important in leadership.
This world is changing very quickly. If you don't learn and grow quick enough, you will soon fall behind. We cannot always use outdated mindsets to cope with the future, thus we need to constantly improve ourselves.
There is a saying that, “Every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” I hope that everyone could be promoted to a higher position, but with more responsibilities, your work will become more difficult. You should always strive to breakthrough and go beyond yourself to make progress.
You have to constantly invest in yourself. You should be brave enough to have your own opinions, your own rational analysis, and the courage to take more responsibility.
Share the values of Fosun and lead the team
Fosun realized that there was a management problem six years ago, in that we were not able to manage everything thoroughly. Our management team had a lack of communication with junior staff. The layered management system was filtering bad news through different layers of organizations.
We are all in one big ecosystem, but everyone only pays attention to their own interests. How do we manage the system thoroughly in this way?
Management takes you time and energy to communicate with the team. Good management is also about sharing the same values. If you want to be a better person and lead a good team, you have to constantly make the effort.
When you think about your career, does the job you have match your values, and are you willing to work very hard for it?
We at Fosun must agree with Fosun’s values from our heart and agree with Fosun’s business model from our hearts. In this way, when you really recognize the whole direction of the organization, then you could lead your team forward.
Create a better society with Fosun
Our core principle in Fosun is to make a better society. This principle is to create greater value for a society with limited resources.
I often say that we should do the right thing, do the difficult things, and do the things that others can't achieve.
Fosun was started from scratch, and is always developing by accumulating resources little by little. Now we have the ability to gain more opportunities.
We have the opportunity to see what happened in Israel and what technology can be introduced to other markets. We know that India is developing at a high speed, and the model of China in the past 30 years can be better borrowed in India market. We also see the problems that developed countries have encountered before, and can foresee the problems that China will encounter in the future.
We have been benefited a lot from our global position, and will keep developing our talent and resources.
At Fosun, we know how to make products, and we know how to operate. We know how to build ecosystem starting from zero, and we have enough to be proud of.
But at the same time, where are our weaknesses?
We might not understand our consumers enough as much as other internet companies. So we are constantly learning, improving ourselves step by step, always learning faster than others, and making breakthroughs.
The leadership should start from sharing common values, encouraging learning and take on responsibilities. We should constantly be thinking about how to better solve problems, propose more solutions, and do better for society.