The Blidan effect is derived from a foreign idiom. In the 14th century, the French scholastic philosopher Blidan told such a fable when discussing the issue of freedom: "A hungry donkey stands between two bundles of exactly the same forage, but he is always hesitant, I don’t know. Which bundle should be eaten first, and ended up starving to death. "The idiom "Bulidan donkey" formed from this fable is used by people to refer to those who are indecisive. Later, people often referred to the phenomenon of hesitation and difficulty in making decisions as the "Bridan effect", also known as Bridan’s donkey, Bridan’s choice or Bridan’s dilemma.
Policy makers' countermeasures to avoid the Blidan effect: make a decisive choice and work hard. Enterprises must decisively seize the opportunity, determine a new direction of travel, and concentrate all resources to spare no effort to move in the new direction. This is the forward-looking ability that an excellent decision maker should have.
"Seeing it before doing it" has increasingly become an ideal state, rather than appearing in actual decision-making, because when you see it very clearly, all competitors may see it clearly, then this strategy The direction cannot give birth to the chance of "big win". Therefore, when seeing a direction roughly, companies must make every effort to make breakthroughs.
In fact, no one can accurately see the way forward before entering a new direction. In order to seize opportunities, companies must make decisive decisions. Sometimes, companies even need to make a "big gamble", which is a responsibility that the company's top decision-makers must bear. In this process, the most fearful thing is to "try a little bit, and attack from all sides." "A taste of nothing" is likely to give up when the well is about to be dug, and it is impossible to explore the real path. "Attack from all sides" will only disperse limited energy and resources, and it is impossible to find future growth points.
There are wins and losses in big bets. This is an inevitable phenomenon. But if you hesitate for a long time, the cost may be even greater. Grove said when recalling Intel’s transformation: "If you choose the wrong path, you will die. But the death of most companies is not because of choosing the wrong path, but because of half-heartedness, wasting valuable in the indecisive decision-making process. The resources that ruined their own future. So the most dangerous thing is to stay still. "The choice may be wrong, but the cost of not choosing may be higher. Seriously speaking, the latter is tantamount to a chronic suicide. With the loss of competition, the resources of enterprises become thinner and thinner, and there is less and less room for choice. It seems that enterprises that choose diversified companies have retained the power of "the East is not bright, the West is bright", but what is actually lost is The possibility of a breakthrough at any point.
There is such a modern management fable, it is said that there is an entrepreneur, with the development of his career, the number of his staff is increasing, there are many people who talk and think, and they must compete with each other. Entrepreneurs do not know who is good to listen to, and they cannot make decisions at all, and the operation of the enterprise is paralyzed. Entrepreneurs suspect that they are incompetent, dare not meet people, and read newspapers and study classics behind closed doors. On this day, I saw a new product in the newspaper, called "Decision-making Machine". I bought one immediately and operated in strict accordance with the instructions. As a result, whenever there is a need to make a decision, he enters the small black room and clicks the machine a few times, then turns around to reply "OK" or "No." If the subordinates are not clear, they just praise the boss to become decisive and wise. One day, enterprises celebrate their achievements, entrepreneurs speak truth after drinking, and wise men are "decision-making machines". I'm overjoyed, so why don't we take this wise steel guy apart and study it thoroughly, and imitate it to sell? Just do it, the cutting machine starts to work, cutting layer after layer, the thick colored steel plate is finally cut, the core part reveals its true colors-a coin with YES (OK) on one side and YES on the other side. NO (not possible).
In fact, this kind of Bridan’s donkey dilemma often exists in management companies. If a manager is hesitant or at a loss when facing a dilemma, the end result may be: the lighter company misses development opportunities, and the more important company closes its doors. Therefore, the success of a manager depends largely on whether he can make timely and correct choices in the dilemma of choice.
Generally speaking, managers encounter a selection dilemma related to the fate of the enterprise, which often occurs when determining the direction of enterprise development and shaping the corporate culture.
1. The dilemma of determining the direction of enterprise development
The dilemma in determining the development direction of a company is mainly related to the company's external competition strategy and value proposition.
1. Do the right thing or do it right
Managers often make it difficult to choose such a dilemma, either to implement the original goal intact, but the result is limited contribution to the enterprise, or to set a new goal with great potential, but the result requires employees With great efforts to achieve, what should we do now?
Dulac recently pointed out again in the Harvard Business Review: It is the most worthless thing that managers use the highest efficiency to do one thing that should not be done. Based on his 65-year experience as a corporate consultant, Dulac once again emphasized the importance of doing the right thing. This is because modern companies operate in an environment where the market and technology change faster. The current correct goal may be a few months later. It must be adjusted. Therefore, it is even more important for companies to adjust their targets in time according to environmental changes.
When Warner President Seaman was appointed to Yahoo in 2001, he found that his problem was not in poor execution, but in the loss of business focus. After the advent of broadband technology, Yahoo still used the original equipment. As a result, the market was affected by its opponents with accurate business focus. As the dog eroded, Seaman adjusted its business focus in time and invested heavily in the introduction of the latest technology. As a result, Yahoo soon turned a profit.
2. Want products or market
General managers are very concerned about the two indicators of market share and operating income, so they are very concerned about the two aspects of market and products. So is it to use existing products to maintain the market, or to improve products to expand the market? Or to continue to do business with existing customers, or to find new customers? This is the dilemma that managers must face, if the wrong choice will cause the company Damage to goodwill and waste of funds.
The well-known Volkswagen Company had paid a heavy price because it paid too much attention to market share and ignored market adjustments. The company’s Beetle is known as the best-selling car in history. It took decades from being put into production in 1930 to being discontinued. However, in the late 1970s, when Japan’s Toyota and Honda launched new models and low-priced new cars, the The car’s glory is exhausted and sales are deteriorating. However, the company’s response to this is extremely slow. When the company finds that the production cost of the car is difficult to recover, it is too late and it is too late to recover.
3. Want income or profit
Professor Slug from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States believes that one of the keys to enterprise development is to decide which of the products to be offered are charged and which are free. Here Slug actually points out the importance of choosing between making money and growing. To make money, managers can of course set a high-profit target, but it is difficult for operating income to grow. On the contrary, they can also set a low-profit target for growth, but such operating income can grow rapidly. Then, in the face of the two attractive pie of profit and income, which one should managers eat first? In this regard, managers should make different choices according to the different stages of the enterprise. Generally speaking, a growing company should focus on the market, so that it can sacrifice a certain profit to attract more customers in order to achieve rapid growth of the company, while a mature company should focus on profit to meet the expenses needed for survival And the investment needed to stay competitive. When Amazon's Bezos founded the online bookstore, he knew that the key to the company's success or failure was whether it could attract a large number of customers quickly, because once the traditional time-honored bookstores also involve online services, the company may be limited by its development. Bezos adopted a pre-emptive strategy, focusing his operations on operating income rather than profit. With the funding of *investment companies, the market grew rapidly. When the market became stable, Bezos used market control to increase order prices. Obtaining excess profits, Amazon made a profit of 35 million U.S. dollars in 2003, and its operating income reached 5.2 billion U.S. dollars.
2. Dilemma in shaping corporate culture
The dilemma in shaping corporate culture is mainly related to the creation of internal value within the company, which often involves the company’s work norms and practices.
1. The task is important or the relationship is important
In the process of cultivating corporate culture, the first question that managers encounter is: is it important for people or accomplishing tasks? In fact, it is difficult to have a simple answer to this question. It depends on the overall attitude of the company, which is quite To the extent it is shaped by managers for a long time, and once it is formed, it cannot be changed overnight.
Citibank’s Wizard Well is best at acquiring companies with completely different cultural backgrounds. He insists on people-oriented management and requires employees at all levels to cultivate deep friendship and a high degree of loyalty. As a result, the company has formed a spirit. Consistent management team. On the contrary, Hewlett-Packard’s Fiorina emphasized task-oriented management and required employees to emphasize efficiency in their work. As a result, the company became an organization with a high degree of decentralization and equality of all. Although the above two have different choices of people and tasks, they both have achieved impressive results. Relatively speaking, Fiorina’s task-oriented management model is conducive to changing the paternalistic ruling culture, while Weir’s people-oriented model is conducive to integrating companies with different backgrounds.
2. To change or to stabilize
Managers often encounter such dilemmas. On the one hand, for the continuity of the internal operation of the company, they need to maintain relative stability; on the other hand, in order to adapt to the changes in the external market of the company, they need to maintain corresponding changes. So how to choose between the two? This issue can be determined by the nature of different industries. Some industries change rapidly, such as the information and entertainment industries, and therefore need to maintain more changes, while some industries change slowly, such as automobile manufacturing and finance, and therefore need to maintain more changes. In fact, in terms of both change and stability, managers are faced with a real dilemma: how to maintain a proper balance between the two, that is, how to solve the urgent tasks without being too hasty. .
When Jagger of Baojian Company took over in 1998, he discovered that the empire of this global packaging brand was due to long-term pampering, aging corporate culture, inflexible organization, and strong bureaucratic atmosphere. Therefore, Jagger vowed to carry out a revolution in the company. He strongly supported the employees who proposed the reform plan, and tried his best to promote the employees who broke the convention, in order to increase the flexibility of the company’s operations, but haste is not fast. He used orders to ask employees to innovate, prompting many people to innovate for innovation. Unnecessary confusion, leading to a further drop in efficiency. In the end, the drastic reforms only lasted a year before they died.
3. Urgent priority or important priority
The most important part of the daily work of many managers is to deal with urgent affairs instead of dealing with important affairs. More unfortunately, almost all of them regard emergency affairs as important affairs, and as a result, they are in a state of exhaustion every day. In fact, the important responsibility of managers should be to use priorities as the basis for designing organization and implementation strategies, and formulate a Set rules, lead by example, and be consistent.
When Fujitsu's Mulide took over its North American retail department in 2000, the factory had been losing money for several years. If it cannot develop new customers and create new financial resources, the result will only worsen. Despite the tremendous pressure to increase operating income, Mulide decisively adjusted its strategy, requiring employees to focus on important tasks rather than urgent tasks. As a result, the company would grab a lot of market from rivals in less than two years. Operating income increased by 40%.
It should be said that the dilemma of Bridan’s donkey in management is an unavoidable objective existence, but if managers often fall into this distressing dilemma, it often means that things are out of control. In fact, a smart manager often proactively explores and thinks about the various dilemmas that may arise in advance, so that he can make timely and correct choices, improve the company’s environmental adaptability and organizational sensitivity, so that the company can stand A place of defeat.
The Enlightenment of Bridan's Choice
1. You cannot have both fish and bear paws. We often face a dilemma, choosing A, worrying about losing B; choosing B, but worrying about losing A. It is this hesitation that makes us lose the best time to make decisions.
2. One mountain looks at one mountain high. We climbed up a mountain, which was the highest mountain originally, but we saw other mountains higher than it, but when we reached another mountain, we found that the original mountain was still the highest.
3. Choose as long as it fits, not the best.
4. The goals set must be feasible, and the original goals should be constantly revised.
How to deal with the "Bridan choice"
1. Adopt a robust decision-making method.
2. To develop the habit of independent thinking.
3. Strictly implement a decision-making discipline.
4. Don't always try to get the most benefit.
5. Can't go against the trend in adverse environment.
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