Lesson for managers from the mind of Baidu CEO

After the March crisis, Robin Li, Baidu's CEO, sent a letter of interest to all Baidu employees. This letter not only inspires dedication to the company's employees, but is more deeply about the experience of managing the company with other managers. In this article, we would like to invite you to read Mr. Robin Li's letter, along with a management lesson worth thinking about.

"To all hardworking colleagues who work at Baidu,

The incidents with Tieba in January and the deceased Wei Zezi in April have created an extremely fierce criticism of public opinion for us. The user's anger is now more grounded and more serious than any crisis Baidu faced earlier.

Over the past few days, I have always wondered the question: Why do so many people using Baidu no longer trust and love us? Why are Baidu employees beginning to feel ashamed to say they are working for Baidu? What is the real origin of the problem?

These two sad crises remind me of Baidu's early days. At that time, we had to work at full capacity, diligently forgetting to forget to sleep to create the best product for users and to compete with Google. At that time, Google can afford to pay 3 times what we can pay you. But when Google officially entered the Chinese market, you still stayed with me. Those hard days have made all of us have the same thought: to make the best Chinese search engine. Until today, when writing these lines, I am really proud and proud of what we have done.

Lesson for managers from the mind of Baidu CEO Picture 1

The first days were always difficult and full of thorns. The first is to find people who share the same direction. At that time, we made posters with pictures of famous people who had a great influence on society and wrote short words below. To find a person who "wants to translate and make meaningful search results for Chinese people", we use Lu Xun's image. The image of the famous aeronautical engineer Tien Hoc Sam is for those who "want to have villas overseas and each time they return to China will be guided by missiles." Or with the image of Mao Zedong, a very good call below, "will you surrender or do you want to be stronger than your enemy?"

Even now I give suggestions about slogans to others, they are also very choked up. With those dreams, we have learned and listened to users' needs. Gradually we gain the Chinese market from the inferior position of Google.Our value is to put users' interests on everything else . Those who have joined me to create a powerful Baidu like today who are passionate about building Tieba, diligently answer each question on Baidu Zhidao and writers and edit all items on Baike. Without you side by side with me, no Baidu will exist.

But what about today? I often hear departments quarrel for KPIs, or engineers start compromising to create more commercial interests. Because of these things, users have raised doubts about the objectivity and impartiality of what we are doing. Baidu users oppose the commercialization of products such as Tieba and Baike.

Lesson for managers from the mind of Baidu CEO Picture 2

Because of the immediate goal of KPIs that exist everywhere from management to employees, our standards have been distorted and changed, as productivity growth surpasses human experience. use. Basic reliability has been replaced by pure business (when it is the core value). We are moving away from the original mission we set, we are losing our own users. If we are not trusted by users, Baidu can really go bankrupt in just 1 month!

Baidu affects many people because of the usefulness we have built. The information is also provided and changed much faster than before. The market is getting more and more complex than ever. Nice - ugly, right - wrong, all these things always exist in parallel on our site. Every day there are countless people making important decisions based on the information they find on Baidu. Reality requires us to be careful and honest to deserve the trust of users. The right thing to do right now is that we have to overcome the crisis no matter how much sweat and tears we have. We have to take responsibility for users!

What Baidu users want us to do, we need to act quickly. Being proactive in taking responsibility is not delayed. How do we make money, how do we manage a set of human resources, . all the questions that are asked must be put on top of business ethics. Currently, we all need to focus our strength on the following:

First , we need to review the business model of all Baidu products, determine whether it affects the user experience or not and thoroughly reform anything that doesn't respect it. important user experience. We need to create a user experience veto system that will be monitored by a special department. If there is anything that violates the user experience principle, it will be vetoed and no one has the right to interfere.

Secondly , we need to improve the feedback system from our users, listen to every voice and make sure that all their donations are quickly acquired in their latest updates. me. Evaluating the use of services and products should be a key factor to determine search engine rankings.

Finally , we need to continue to improve the compensation mechanism for users to ensure their rights. We will spend an additional 1 billion yuan (US $ 150 million) on the Guarantee Fund so that all those who are violated will be compensated.

Doing the above may cause a negative impact on the financial situation of the company but we need to be courageous and determined to do it, because I believe this is the right path. This path is the best for us in the present and the long term future.

Lesson for managers from the mind of Baidu CEO Picture 3

Ten years ago, on an existing search platform, we created new products like Baike, Tieba and Baidu Zhidao. Today, based on the spirit of progress and talent already, we will do everything like voice search, automatic translation . If Baidu wants to close the gap between a "big company" and A "great company" we need to expand further and still retain the foundational values ​​made by Baidu now.

We have to make users trust, always look for them first when any questions need to be answered. Everything needs to be convenient and fast. Make sure that later generations will be proud of what we have tried to do today!

Robin

May 10, 2016 "

Refer to the following articles:

1. All things about Jack Ma - Billionaire admires the whole world
2. 8 key successes from Jack Ma - Alibaba's billionaire and CEO