The hottest performationism ruined Sony

Performance doctrine destroyed Sony

employees gradually lost their enthusiasm for work due to the implementation of performance doctrine. In this case, it is impossible to produce a "passion group"... The company spent a lot of energy and time on statistical performance, but perfunctory in real work, resulting in a tendency to put the cart before the horse

in 2006, Sony ushered in 60 years of entrepreneurship. In the past, it was as bright as a diamond, but now it has become covered with dirt and dim. Due to the lithium battery fire accident of notebook computers, about 9.6 million notebook computers using Sony lithium batteries in the world have been recalled. It is estimated that the cost of replacing batteries will reach 51billion yen

ps3 game console was once regarded as Sony's "savior" and sold out on the day of its launch. However, because the speed of mass production of key components can not keep up, Sony was forced to control the production quantity of the whole machine. PS3 is a cutting-edge product with high production costs. It is said that Sony will lose 35000 yen on selling one. Sony's sales department predicts that the operating loss of the game console department will reach 200billion yen when the annual settlement is carried out in March 2007

most people may have noticed that Sony was abnormal in the spring of 2003. At that time, Sony announced a loss of about 100billion yen in a quarter. There was even a "Sony shock" in the market, and Sony's stock fell by the limit for two consecutive days. Frankly speaking, as a former employee of Sony, I was also shocked at that time. But looking back and thinking carefully, the atmosphere in the company has been abnormal since the "Sony shock" two years ago. The number of physically and mentally exhausted workers has increased sharply. In retrospect, Sony has been slowly and unconsciously degraded for a long time

"passion group" disappeared

I entered Sony as a designer in 1964. Due to the popularity of semiconductor radios and recorders, Sony achieved miraculous development at that time. At that time, the scale of the enterprise was not very large, but the "Sony myth" received widespread social attention. From entering the company to leaving the company in 2006, I happily saw off 40 years in Sony

I became a director of Sony Corporation at the age of 46, and later became a managing director. Therefore, I feel that I have a lot to do with what happened to Sony in recent years. Why has the great influence of great entrepreneurs disappeared in Sony now? What is the difference between Sony's glorious era and today's

first of all, the "passion group" no longer exists. The so-called "passion group" refers to those tireless and dedicated collectives of the company during the period when I participated in the development of CD technology. In the early stage of entrepreneurship, such "passion groups" successively developed innovative products. Sony was able to do this because of its leadership

the most admirable thing about well Shenda is that it can ignite the fire in the hearts of technology developers and turn them into "madmen" who devote themselves to technology. When I first entered the company, I had a heated debate with jingshenda. I don't take a high-pressure attitude towards newcomers. He respects my opinions

in order to live up to his trust in me, I also devoted myself to research and development. Those who joined the company earlier than me and were also affected by the well depth university still influenced the whole company with the style of the well depth University for a long time after the well depth University withdrew from the front line. When these people were gone, Sony began to decline gradually

when the group engaged in technology development enters the selfless state of development, it becomes a "passion group". To enter this state, the most important condition is the action based on spontaneous motivation. For example, "I want to develop robots through my own efforts" is an impulse from myself

on the contrary, it is "external motivation", such as the psychological state of wanting to make money, get a promotion or become famous, that is, to get external rewards. If there is no heartfelt enthusiasm, but out of the secular motivation of "want to make money or promotion", it cannot become a "development madman"

"challenge spirit" has disappeared

today's Sony employees seem to have no spontaneous motivation. Why? I think it's because of the implementation of performationism. Performationism is: "business results are directly linked to monetary remuneration, and employees work hard to get more remuneration." If extrinsic motivation is enhanced, then spontaneous motivation will be suppressed

if you always say "if you work hard, I'll give you a raise", then the internal consciousness of taking work as fun will be suppressed. Since around 1995, Sony has gradually implemented performationism, established a special agency, formulated very detailed evaluation standards, and determined the remuneration according to the evaluation of everyone

but Inoue's idea is just the opposite of performationism. He has a mantra: "the reward of work is work." If you have done a good job, you can do a better job next time. In the era of Jingshen University, many people work hard to pursue the pleasure of work

however, due to the implementation of performance-based principles, employees gradually lose their enthusiasm for work. In this case, it is impossible to produce a "passion group". In order to measure performance, we must first quantify various work elements. But work cannot be simply quantified. The company spent a lot of energy and time on the statistics of performance, but it was perfunctory in the real work, and there was a tendency to put the cart before the horse

because of the performance evaluation, almost everyone put forward low goals that are easy to achieve. It can be said that the core of Sony spirit, namely "challenge spirit", has disappeared. Due to the implementation of performationism, the trend of pursuing immediate interests has spread in Sony. As a result, jobs that are difficult to achieve benefits in the short term, such as product quality inspection and "aging treatment" processes, are despised

"aging treatment" is one of the processes to ensure the quality of batteries. After the battery is manufactured, it cannot leave the factory immediately. It needs to be placed for a period of time, and then the unqualified products are picked out through inspection. This is "aging treatment". As for whether the problem in the "aging treatment" procedure is the direct cause of the lithium battery fire accident mentioned above, it is still impossible to draw a conclusion. But what I want to point out is that no matter what kind of enterprise, as long as the performance doctrine is implemented, some solid and meticulous work is easy to be ignored

Sony not only evaluates everyone, but also evaluates the economy of each business department, so it determines the remuneration of the business department that the surface roughness of the metal surface before electroplating has an impact on the quality after plating. The final result is that the business departments undermine each other and try to get more benefits from the overall interests of the company

team spirit disappeared

at the end of February 2004, I met Professor chichetzentmihai, the representative of "inrush theory" in the United States, and listened to his speech. At the beginning of the speech, there was a passage on the big screen that I had read many times since I entered Sony, but it was translated into English

"the purpose of establishing the company is to build an ideal factory. In this factory, there should be a free, open-minded and happy atmosphere, so that every serious technician can give full play to his skills." This is the founding purpose of Sony. Sony lost its vitality because of the implementation of performationism

I didn't expect that I was in the United States, the birthplace of performatism, listening to Sony's founding purpose to deny the "surge theory" of performatism. This deeply touched me. Performationism attempts to quantify people's ability, so as to make an objective and fair evaluation. But I don't think we can. Its biggest drawback is that it spoils the atmosphere in the company. The boss doesn't think that there are 200 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation (NSF) on graphene. He treats his subordinates as emotional people. Instead, he looks at his subordinates with indicators and "evaluation eyes"

not long ago, I found a letter while sorting out my book collection. That was the draft I wrote to my boss when I went to Northeastern University to study for the development of antennas. Once I played truant and went skiing, just in time for the Minister of Sony to visit the school. I wrote that letter to apologize to the minister

in fact, such things have happened to me more than once, but I have never been scolded by my boss. The boss believes that although I am fond of playing, I am very serious about research work. At that time, my boss didn't look at me with "evaluation eyes", but regarded me as his own child. For enterprise employees, this kind of warmth and trust is needed

in some Japanese enterprises in the past, even if the subordinates did a little out of line, the superiors were not so demanding, and they dared to undertake for their subordinates when their work failed. On the other hand, although subordinates speak ill of their superiors when drinking, they still support their superiors in practical work. Later, management was strengthened and a seemingly reasonable evaluation system was implemented. So everyone tried to escape. In this way, there can be no team spirit

innovation pioneers fall behind

not only Sony, but many companies now spend a lot of human and material resources to introduce evaluation systems. But the performance of these enterprises seems to be declining

Sony is one of the first enterprises to introduce American rationalism management theory. The business philosophy of the founder of the company, jingshenda, is not so-called "reasonable". The most representative example is the development of a single gun three beam color kinescope TV set, which was launched in October 1968

at that time, Sony was at a disadvantage in the market competition of TV sets and was almost on the verge of bankruptcy. Even so, well deep university still insists on developing single gun three beam color kinescope TV independently. This kind of color TV has good picture quality, and it has been highly praised as soon as it comes into the market. For the next 30 years, the sales of such TVs have been Sony's main source of revenue

however, the spirit of pursuing independent development, such as "doing what others don't do", may not be in line with today's enterprise management theory that only looks at income. If Sony had adopted the same technology as other companies at that time, it could immediately sell its products in the market, and it might not have worried about bankruptcy at the beginning

after the success of technology development with huge investment and a lot of time, in order to manufacture products, it is also necessary to have a larger scale of equipment investment and recruit new employees. However, from a long-term perspective, Sony has accumulated technology and trained technicians. In addition, people all believe that "Sony is a company pursuing unique technology", which has greatly enhanced Sony's brand image

more importantly, this kind of independent development can bring a sense of honor to Sony employees, who are proud of being "a member of the most cutting-edge enterprise". The reason why single gun three beam color kinescope TVs can become a source of revenue for Sony for a long time is that technology developers keep improving technology with a sense of honor and great enthusiasm

ironically, Sony, which is complacent about the success of single gun three beam color kinescope TVs, lags behind in the development of LCD and plasma thin TVs. In fact, Inoue Shenda once said, "we must develop and sell the new technology of single gun three beam color kinescope as an outdated product." Sony executives, including myself, didn't remember well's words

nowadays, Sony adopts