Fables and Philosophy of Enterprise Management

Story One: Mouse Trapped to Death and the Grasp of "Degree"

There is a story about a hungry little mouse who meets a rice jar filled with rice. Looking at the white rice, the little mouse becomes excited and jumps in and out every day, eating whatever it wants.

But the rice in the cylinder is decreasing day by day, and the distance between the cylinder mouth and the rice is increasing day by day. When the high jump height of the little mouse's ability was lower than the distance between the tank mouth and the rice, the little mouse did not escape the temptation of the rice and still jumped into the tank to enjoy the taste of the rice as usual. However, with this jump, the little mouse could never jump outside the tank again. Not long after the rice in the jar was eaten, the mouse became trapped and died in the jar.

This fable tells us that in doing anything, we must grasp a 'degree', go beyond the original 'degree' of the thing, and things will undergo a qualitative change. The sadness of the little mouse lies in not being able to grasp the "degree" of being able to jump out of the rice bowl, resulting in the final jump and wasting Qing Qing's life.

The same goes for commercial warfare. Some of our companies have insufficient grasp of the "degree" of things in market competition, such as the recent "Guanshengyuan Mooncake Incident" in Nanjing on the eve of the Mid Autumn Festival. The exposed manufacturers relied solely on subjective speculation and casually told the media that most companies in the mooncake industry were using aged fillings. This viewpoint was hyped up, leading to the Great Depression of the entire mooncake industry.

Of course, there are also many examples that can be used for reference in this regard. The Pepsi "syringe incident" that occurred in June 1994 was caused by a series of complaints received by the US Food and Drug Administration, claiming that syringes were found in Pepsi. This incident was ultimately determined to be a serious act of human sabotage. Under the high attention of PepsiCo, this matter was quickly resolved.

It is worth mentioning that throughout the entire incident, competitor Coca Cola handled the matter with moderation and did not take advantage of the situation to gloat, but chose to remain silent. Because Coca Cola understands that when a competitor brand in the industry experiences an event that damages their reputation, although individual manufacturers may suffer losses in the short term, if not resolved quickly, it will affect the entire industry over time.

If Coca Cola takes advantage of this incident to make a profit, even if the fact that the syringe was found to be genuine in Pepsi Cola is not clarified, the psychological impact on consumers would still be a lack of trust and rejection of Coca Cola as a beverage. Its approach is worth exploring and thinking about.

Story 2: The Death of Tigers and Donkeys and Risk Prevention

Ming Dynasty writer Liu Yuanqing wrote a story in a short article titled "Xiao": Xiao had a very small body shape and had very sharp claws on its limbs. The tiger's head itched, so Xiao climbed up and tickled it, making the tiger feel ecstatic.

Xiao kept scratching and dug a hole in the tiger's head, but the tiger didn't notice it because it felt very comfortable. Xiao then ate the tiger's brain as a delicious delicacy. CCTV's "Animal World" program introduces a bat that lives in Africa and loves to suck the blood of donkeys. When this bat lands on a donkey, the donkey instinctively shakes its body or uses its tail to drive it away.

I saw the bat gently licking the donkey with its small tongue tip, and the donkey immediately felt a tingling and itchy sensation, never to drive it away again. After a while, the bat bit a small hole and sucked the blood of the donkey. One bat sucked it up and flew away, then another bat flew in to continue sucking. The donkey died unconsciously after being drained of blood. The locals call this bat the 'killer bat'.

It is appropriate to interpret the above story with the words' born in hardship, died in peace '. There are also many similar behaviors in economic life. Why are so many companies going from strong to weak and ultimately being eliminated? Although the reasons for the failure of these enterprises in Maicheng are different, one thing is common, which is the lack of a sense of crisis and anxiety, forgetting about danger, lacking foresight, insufficient awareness of the dangers they face, and inadequate preparation, ultimately leading to the failure of the enterprises.

The development of enterprises is always accompanied by risks. For enterprises, the biggest risk is the lack of crisis awareness. However, even today, there are still some business operators who have insufficient understanding of this, some only see the favorable factors for the development of the enterprise and ignore the potential risks; Some only see the weaknesses of their opponents, but cannot see their own shortcomings; Some people become complacent after achieving temporary success, but lack preparation for potential crises.

Story 3: Turtle Rabbit Remake and Strategic Planning

There is a new fable that tells the story of a rabbit and a turtle who lost a race, but then fiercely fought against their pride and broke through to the limit. They summarized their experience and lessons, and proposed a rematch with the turtle. After the race started, the turtle crawled forward desperately according to the prescribed route, thinking to itself: I'm definitely going to lose this time, but the competition is not the goal. As long as I try my best, whether I win or not, it has achieved the purpose of exercising myself.

But when it reached the finish line, there was no rabbit in sight. While wondering, the rabbit ran over panting heavily. The turtle asked for the reason: "Brother Rabbit, did you sleep again?" The rabbit lamented, "I didn't sleep, but I ran the wrong way." It turned out that the rabbit was eager to win, and as soon as it hit the road, it buried its head and ran wildly, wishing it could take three steps and two jumps to reach the finish line.

Probably nearing the finish line, it looked up and realized it was running on another road. It had to return to the fork in the road and start running again, so it still fell behind the turtle.

这则新的寓言故事深刻地说明：竞争道路上，尽管你的实力再足、条件再好，也要依赖于明智的战略指导。可以说，战略决定胜负，这对我们的企业具有重要的借鉴。

从一定意义上来说，今天的企业己进入战略竞争的年代，企业之间的竞争，在相当程度上表现为企业战略思维、战略定位的竞争。有报道说，国外的企业家花在战略思考、战略研究上的时间占全部工作时间的60％。

而我们的企业经营者对此却很少有深入的思考和研究。因而很多企业要么从一开始乃至直到企业破产也没有制定出一个企业发展的战略，而是走一步算一步，走到哪里算哪里；要么是错误的发展战略，不能根据市场形势的发展变化，对战略进行及时修订调整，适时实行战略转移。

而一个企业战略的失误往往是致命的，难以挽回的。有鉴于此，企业经营者应该增强战略意识，强化战略思维，花大力气搞好企业战略研究与战略设计，并根据形势的变化，适时调整企业的战略重点，从而把企业引向胜利的彼岸，创造辉煌的业绩。

信息来源：腾讯新闻

Editor He Yang of this website/Organizing