I recently read an article in the Economist that credited Haier’s success to its CEO’s (Zhang Ruimin) decision to eliminate middle management. The move generated innovation that any Silicon Valley start-up would be proud of. I was not expecting a large Chinese firm to lead the way in being nimble and customer driven but it worked for them and I could see it helping many US companies, particularly game companies.
As a little background, Haier has sales of over $25 billion, is recognized globally for reliability and marketing expertise and has seen its market share grow from 3.1 percent to 9.6 percent.
Haier’s 80,000 employees are organized into 2,000 zi zhu jing ying ti (ZZJYTS), self-managed teams that perform many different roles. Each is responsible for profit and loss, and individuals are paid on performance. Continue reading “Consider getting rid of middle management”