Do Laozi and Zhuangzi's thoughts and works have a great influence on later generations?

Of course it is, and it will continue to influence. Give two practical examples. Kōnosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic, and Zhang Ruimin, the boss of China Haier, are both profound appreciators and practitioners of Laozi and Zhuangzi's thoughts. It is reflected in the development of the enterprise and in all aspects of the lives of the two entrepreneurs. The following is an article I extracted from the Internet: "Zhang Ruimin: Laozi has a great influence on me-a little bit of Taoist philosophy and Zhang Ruimin's management ideology".

1On May 4th, 1999, Qingdao Youth League Committee invited Zhang Ruimin to preface the youth webpage. Zhang Ruimin wrote a sentence: Never get carried away and never lose your cool when you are frustrated. This is a typical embodiment of Zhang Ruimin's deep influence from Laozi.

Chapter 13 of the Tao Te Ching says, "What do you mean by asking questions with shame?"? If you are a pet, if you are surprised, if you are surprised, you will be surprised. "

Chapter 26 says, "We should pay more attention to the fundamentals than to calmness. Therefore, saints walk all day long and never leave the trench. Although there is a glorious view, Yan is detached. How can you be the master of all things and despise the world? If it is light, it will be ruined, and if it is embarrassing, it will be ruined. "

Impetuousness is the biggest chronic disease in the world, and countless people can't solve the knot of honor, disgrace, pride and frustration.

People who engage in enterprises, with pride, surprise and frustration, don't understand the importance of self-cultivation, don't know self-respect, don't think about solid foundation, and only want to extract immediate utility, which is not only difficult to succeed, but may harm themselves.

Zhang Ruimin always thinks in a higher and deeper ideological and cultural realm. When visiting Zhang Ruimin, Hong Kong journalists were asked what qualities an entrepreneur should have first. Zhang thought for a moment and replied: First of all, he should have the qualities of a philosopher. Zhang Ruimin's quiet character is based on his philosophical accomplishment.

Zhang Ruimin once visited a big Japanese company, and the chairman of the board liked to discuss philosophical issues, especially pondering over some wise words. He introduced to Zhang Ruimin that the starting point of his company's production is "truth, goodness and beauty", and said that this was the words of China Lao Zi. Zhang Ruimin told him that there is no "truth, goodness and beauty" in Laozi's Tao Te Ching; However, there is a saying, the essence is the same, that is, "everything in the world is born out of nothing."

Zhang Ruimin spoke highly of Laozi's Tao Te Ching, which he has read countless times. He said that when it comes to business management, there are two things he has always kept as his motto: First, he emphasizes that intangible things are more important than tangible things, that is, "everything in the world is born out of nothing."

The biggest drawback of an enterprise is that from leaders at all levels to the bottom, it pays too much attention to the tangible and pays too little attention to the intangible. Which superior leader will check the profits? What is the output? No one pays attention to corporate culture. Without corporate culture in many units, an enterprise without culture has no soul.

In Laozi's Tao Te Ching, invisibility is the soul. He believes that "Tao gives birth to one, life gives birth to two, life gives birth to three, and life gives birth to everything". The root of all things is Tao, which is just an important but invisible thing.

Zhang Ruimin was deeply impressed by another point in Tao Te Ching, that is, "softness is better than strength". He said: "In the old version, the evaluation of this sentence was negative. It shows a transformation process, weak can become strong, small can become big, the question is what do you think. As a business, you are always in a weak position. If you can put yourself in a weak position, you will have the goal of moving forward forever. "

The corporate philosophy of Panasonic in Japan also emphasizes enlightenment. There is a bronze statue of Laozi in the garden of Panasonic Company, and the Chinese characters are engraved on the stone pedestal below: Tao can be Tao, extraordinary Tao. 1997 in early April, Zhang Ruimin was invited to visit Panasonic. When I visited the Panasonic Museum, I talked with several "Panasonic philosophers" in the museum about Panasonic's business philosophy. Everyone is very interested, and the more we talk, the more mysterious it becomes.

During the conversation, Zhang Ruimin quoted a poem "Last Words" written by Jia Dao, a poet in the Tang Dynasty: "When I asked your students under a pine tree," he replied, "My teacher went to collect herbs." But in all these clouds, how can I know which corner of the mountain it is? ."

Then he said, "Mr. Kōnosuke Matsushita's business philosophy, just like this poem, is profound but disorganized. Generally speaking, as for the effect, it depends on everyone's own understanding and application. In fact, people who succeed in business often feel like this, "But through these clouds, how can I know which corner of the mountain it is facing?" . "

A word touched the "Panasonic philosopher". Less than a week after Zhang Ruimin returned to Qingdao, he received a fax from Panasonic Corporation, earnestly hoping to come to Qingdao for corporate culture exchange. He hoped that the exchange would be substantive, and both sides could talk some sense without making superficial remarks.

On Overseas Chinese Day in May, 1997, Counsellor Bo Xinxing led a delegation from Matsushita, Japan to visit Haier. During the conversation, Counselor Bo felt that Haier had made great efforts in studying Mr. Matsushita. President Zhang Ruimin said: "What I understand best is Mr. Matsushita's reservoir philosophy, that is, to gain motivation, only animal potential can have an impact."

He went on to say, "We have a philosopher named Lao Zi in China. He once said this sentence, which had a great influence on me. Laozi said:' I have three treasures, one is kindness, the other is frugality, and the third is not the best in the world'. "

Mr. Seiichi Nakajima in the delegation is a "China hand" who has been in China for 365,438+0 years. After listening to this, he admired it very much and quickly translated it to Counselor Bo: "President Zhang is talking about benevolence and righteousness, that is, insisting on people-oriented people-oriented management, thus forming the cohesion of Haier today. For example, when we go to the' Sister-in-law' noodle restaurant, we see those sisters-in-law who used to be the backbone of production and are now business experts. Two days of thrift, he does not advocate luxury; Third, I dare not be the first in the world. In fact, I advocate honest study, accumulate strength, and finally become the world's number one! "

This atmosphere of talking about metaphysics and Taoism has a great influence on Haier people. Many of Haier's ideas and action plans emerged in the discussion of metaphysics and eventually gathered into a unique Haier culture.

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"consciousness"

Zhang Ruimin reads a lot, and new books on management are the first choice. His office is like a fashionable bookstore. Except for a few books that need to be chewed repeatedly, most of the newly listed books can be found on the shelves.

He spoke highly of the "fifth discipline" and thought that enterprises in the 2 1 century should be learning teams, whose symbol is that enterprise leaders should be able to surpass themselves, and every employee should constantly learn and improve. Due to the rapid growth of Haier in recent years, Zhang Ruimin was worried that the leaders of the group could not keep a clear head, so he particularly emphasized the importance of learning.

199565438+In February, Zhang Ruimin was admitted to China University of Science and Technology for MBA. He said that the pressure of learning first comes from the market, and now the market needs decision makers to have a high comprehensive quality. Just as the OEC management model we created advocates "practice is for fighting, not for watching", only by grasping every minute to improve our comprehensive quality and make our knowledge level, cognitive ability and judgment ability enter a high level can we adapt to the changes in the market. Learning is endless and management is uncertain, especially in the face of the dominance of domestic and foreign home appliance markets and the impact of unfavorable factors such as reduced tariffs on imported home appliances on state-owned home appliance enterprises, learning is more important. I think every employee of Haier should constantly improve their own quality, instead of being the bottom piece of a barrel, so that the joint fleet of Haier Group can become a veritable and truly high-quality fighting collective.

In academic experience, Zhang Ruimin advocates tradition and considers China's classics and history. Subsets and sets contain a variety of knowledge, especially management science, which deserves careful study. He has the driving force of dripping water through the stone in his study, and thinks that dripping water through the stone is not only expensive in persistence, but also more expensive in achieving the same goal.

He regards learning as seeking "enlightenment" and being able to "realize", which is a realm that Zhang Ruimin emphasized very much.

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1998 in the spring, Zhang Ruimin's speech at the training course of Haier's career minister.

Confucius said, "Learning without thinking is useless, and thinking without learning is dangerous."

If you just memorize the book by rote and study like a management major without serious thinking, this kind of learning is useless, that is, "learning without thinking"; What about "thinking without learning is dangerous"? You may think a little at ordinary times, but it is also dangerous not to study hard, including the study of cases and books.

I hope everyone must be "enlightened" and "completely enlightened". Facing many problems, how to solve them? What's the problem? Enlightenment is very important.

Buddhists talk about "enlightenment". Where does consciousness come from? Buddhist scriptures say "Bodhi", which means "enlightenment". Zen talks about "epiphany" and hopes that everyone will "epiphany". Zen, also known as "big drink", is to give you an epiphany by giving you a stimulus.

"Epiphany" is called "bucket base" in Zen. Like a bucket, there are many problems in it. Now I've completely figured it out. Just like a bucket foundation fell down at once, all the problems were solved.

From this point of view, it is impossible to solve all the problems through training, but all the problems are a system and linked together. If you join this class, you can't consider the problem piecemeal, and you can't attend to one thing and lose sight of another. You must find a comprehensive solution. In the final analysis, it is seeking truth from facts and proceeding from reality.

Consciousness is also a kind of physical and mental cultivation. Through the media of predecessors, we can dispel the confusion of consciousness, stimulate the potential of morality, turn the will contained in the text into action, and enhance personality. This is the traditional culture attaches great importance to self-cultivation, that is, Xunzi said that the study of a gentleman "listens to his words, cares about his heart, covers his four bodies, and moves."

As an entrepreneur, you must have considerable achievements in self-cultivation, and then you can fulfill your obligations of "righteousness" and "benefit" to the society, and you can shape a responsible and ideal entrepreneur character.

Self-cultivation, how can we assume social responsibility? People have no transcendental accomplishment, but they talk rashly about the great cause of benefiting the world. It is precisely because they lost their weight and the balance of their weight. The so-called "light person loses money, impatient person loses gentleman".

"People-oriented enterprise" is an ideal enterprise, not only for its own self-interest, but also for the interests of all countries in the world. In this sense, we say that an organization is not only a combination of a series of products and services, but also a humanistic group.

Haier people, including some young people who have just entered the factory, all look as gentle as Zhang Ruimin. When they went deeper, they found that they were ambitious and wanted to do something earth-shattering under the banner of Haier.

We talked with Japanese Health and Welfare Chemical Company about the "strong" attitude of enterprises, and they all highly praised it, saying that running enterprises depends on this "spirit" and talking about the "3s spirit" of health and welfare, pointing out that this 3s is a bit like China Haier's "pursuit of Excellence".

The first s is service, which emphasizes serving the public; The second s is speed, which means that the momentum of the enterprise is like a river rushing into a canyon; The third S is superiority, which means striving for Excellence in everything. In fact, the entrepreneurial spirit of healthy chemistry also originates from China culture. These three S's are concentrated on the second S, namely speed, which mainly refers to "stagnant water", which comes from China's book Sun Zi.

Zhang Ruimin consciously applied the excellent culture of the Chinese nation to enterprise management.

He said: "Laozi helped me establish the overall situation of enterprise management and development. The Analects of Confucius has cultivated me into a dignified, unyielding, enterprising and vigorous person, and Sun Tzu has helped me form specific management methods and enterprise competition strategies. "

He believed that "all rivers run into the sea, all rivers run into the sea", and he was infatuated with China traditional culture in his early years, which gave him great spiritual support for starting a business. After 1990s, he absorbed more achievements of western modern civilization and gave him a general plan to gallop the world market.