Good article sharing: These 66 business thoughts of Zhang Zhongmou explain why TSMC can become th

The content is reproduced from the WeChat public account: Lishi Business Review

Author: Zhang Junzhi

Editor: Ordinary

TSMC, which was founded with US$200 million, is now a semiconductor giant occupying 60% of the global chip foundry market, with a net profit of over US$34 billion and a market value of more than US$700 billion.

Technology giants such as Apple, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Nvidia all need to rely on TSMC's technology and production capacity to achieve a competitive advantage. At the moment when seizing the high ground of semiconductor chips is tantamount to occupying the commanding heights of technology, the world's major economies such as Europe, America, and Japan are trying their best to win over TSMC. As a result, TSMC has become the company with the most say in the global chip game field.

The person who created TSMC's great cause is Zhang Zhongmou.

Before founding TSMC, Zhang Zhongmou also created a series of brilliant business achievements: leading Texas Instruments to defeat Intel to become the industry's first; creating a semiconductor foundry manufacturing industry; ending IBM's foundry technology hegemony; Defeated Canon and Nikon, the overlords of lithography machines; thwarted Samsung's attempt to dominate the chip industry... The American media called him a person who made his opponents tremble.

In addition to his career success, Zhang Zhongmou's life is also remarkable. When he was young, he studied at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, the three top universities in the United States. At the age of 41, he became the highest-ranking Chinese in the top companies in the United States. At the age of 56, he started his business and became TSMC. In the battle for the global chip industry, he still keeps his word.

Success has its own way, what is Zhang Zhongmou's way of success? In his view, lifelong learning, independent thinking, grasping the direction, flexible management, and decent management are all key factors. This article sorts out 66 business thoughts of Zhang Zhongmou, the founder of TSMC, to help readers explore the secrets behind his outstanding life and career.

0 1 The two most important things in life: lifelong learning and independent thinking

1. To manage is to learn. What should a technology company operator fail if he does not understand technology, but he is really not an expert in this field? You must have enough knowledge before you can have the ability to judge.

2. There are two parts to lifelong learning, one part is reading and the other part is listening.

3. Lifelong learning is not the so-called "live and learn", but "planned, systematic and disciplined" reading.

4. To have a plan is to make a plan for reading and study, and at least it should start with a half-year plan and a one-year plan. I majored in mechanical engineering at MIT, and I didn’t even know what a transistor was. After entering the semiconductor industry, the first plan I made was to study books related to semiconductors, and I continued this plan for the rest of my life, because I've always worked in the semiconductor industry.

5. Having a system means that there must be a whole system of learning. To be a manager requires a whole set of things to learn, such as knowing how to read financial statements, knowing how to understand the stock market, etc. Even if you are already familiar with these contents, you can continue to expand your horizons, such as caring about the international situation and macroeconomics. Some CEOs of world-class companies are just CEOs, not world-class people, but many of them are indeed world-class figures. They not only care about the company's business, but also know the world economy and geopolitics. These are world-class CEOs. should know.

6. Being disciplined means determining how much time you spend on reading every day. My suggestion, don't spend too much time on entertainment, you should save time to read and think.

7. The other half of lifelong learning is "listening". To read is to learn from books, and to listen is to learn from other people. You can learn a lot just by chatting with your friends, or even in a meeting. Moreover, listening often makes reading more beneficial. The so-called listening to a gentleman's words is better than reading ten years of books.

8. Everyone needs to "listen", but "listening" is a "too neglected art". Most people are not good at listening. It would be even more remarkable if they could really listen. If a person often interrupts you, you know that this person probably won't listen and has no patience. This kind of person is often very smart, because he thinks he already knows what you are going to say, especially when meeting someone like me, who speaks more Slow and often interrupted. Very smart people often interrupt me and help me finish the speech, but 90% of his guesses are wrong about what I want to say, then he loses the opportunity to learn. Of course I will correct him, but not every time.

9. The listener is more tired than the speaker. The speaker knows exactly what he is talking about, while the listener must not only "listen", but also "think". In addition to integrating what the other party said and the information presented, he must also pay attention to the other party's body language. If you really "listen" to others with your heart, it will be far more tiring than the speaker.

10. Another reason why you can’t listen is that you can’t tolerate different opinions. As long as the other party has a slightly different opinion from yours and is a bit critical, this person’s attitude will immediately turn into a defensive position. If you want to refute, then Even more lost the opportunity to learn.

11. Another most important thing in life is independent thinking. The ability to think independently is even more lacking than the habit of lifelong learning. Moreover, both of these habits should be developed from a young age. No matter what someone tells you, or what you read in an article, don't believe it right away. You have to think about it, what evidence did he give for what he said? Was his evidence biased? He may have cited certain examples, but not others. Even though he gave good examples, did the evidence lead to his conclusion?

12. How to cultivate independent thinking ability? One is the attitude problem, you must have a critical thinking attitude; the second is the vision problem, independent thinking also depends on how much data you have, if you read very little, then you have very little material for independent thinking; listen more If you read a lot, you will have a strong ability to think independently. You will hear two or three different conclusions about any matter, and you will have more materials for independent thinking.

13. My so-called thinking steps are observation, reading, learning and thinking, of which observation at work accounts for about 2/3, observation outside of work accounts for 1/3, and reading at work accounts for 1/5. Reading in spare time at work accounts for 4/5. Learning is the result of observation plus reading. As for the most important thinking, thinking about work only accounts for a small part of my life, and most of my thinking is outside of work. When I say a world-class company is one that is always learning and thinking.

0 2 leaders need to know which direction to go

1. The CEO of a technology company must have a technical background and continue to keep up in his subsequent career, because technology is always improving. None of the previous CEOs of Intel were technical people, so how could their company do well?

2. A leader needs to do two things, one is to be followed, and the other is to know which direction to go. This is not the definition of a good leader, but a necessary skill for any leader.

3. Authoritarian leadership is fundamentally different from strong leadership. Authoritarian leadership is completely dependent on authority. It is like saying the same thing. What is said above is followed by the following. The characteristics of a strong leader are that they have strong opinions on major decisions, often seek the opinions of others, and are not concerned about directionality and strategy. Decisions can be made easily, and it doesn't take much time to convince everyone.

4. A leader's values must have a "big self", otherwise, honestly, no one will follow. Even if someone stays with him for a while and finds out that he is just a "little ego", they will leave.

5. Enthusiasm is also a value that a leader must have. I don't see a leader who is indifferent and has no enthusiasm. If there is such a leader, he may lead very few.

6. Tolerance is also very important. No matter where I go, I rarely take people with me, because these so-called "team members" will eventually form a small circle. We should not limit ourselves to the small circle.

7. Treat employees with sincerity. Sincerity is not the same as honesty. Employees must speak up when they are doing well, and they must speak out sternly if they are not doing well. If they are dissatisfied with their subordinates but do not let them know, this is not sincerity. Sincerity will lead you to another realm of the enterprise, because sincerity can touch people's hearts and drive employees to follow you, then you are truly a leader.

8. You can be strict with your colleagues, but you must be fair, with clear rewards and punishments.

0 3 Operations and management is a skill

1. Business management is a "living science". Unlike physics or engineering, you can solve problems after learning these theories. Business management does not have a complete set of things to teach you to apply, because the model is often changing. Business management is not a set of methods that can be used in all situations, nor can it be used within the same company.

2. Drucker, the master of business management, once said that in the past, it was considered a good system to let everyone participate in the decision-making process, but if a ship is about to sink, the captain still needs to hold a meeting to find a solution ? He'd be better off just ordering the response.

3. Someone asked me, when making a decision, do you mainly rely on intuitive thinking and judgment, or mainly rely on the analysis of relevant financial data? From my personal experience, a good manager makes most of his decisions based on intuition, but he also needs to have objective data to help him determine whether to do or not to do.

4. Senior executives often suffer from burnout (exhaustion), that is, they are under psychological pressure, because they do not have enough intuition, no matter how much data they read, and they have no sense of security to cause burnout. But intuition is not innate. Intuition requires long-term observation, reading, learning, thinking and other abilities. After hard work, if you accumulate these abilities, you will have less psychological pressure to make decisions with intuition.

5. It is best for the general manager not to worry about too many things, but spend most of his time thinking about the future. If everything has to be reported to the boss to get a solution, it is tantamount to trouble.

6. The general enterprise organization will inevitably form a pyramid structure, but the disadvantage of this model is that it has to go through several levels when reaching the bottom. Only one-tenth of the "filtered" remains. I am not in favor of a "pyramid" organization, I advocate a "fluid" organization.

7. Fluid organization means that people at the same level can manage other people's affairs. This kind of mutual participation in management can establish an open environment of "constructive contradictions". There are more opportunities for interaction, and many problems can be resolved at the same level.

8. There is another characteristic of the fluid organization, that is, the attribution of responsibility is very important. Although in this kind of organization, everyone has to take care of other people's affairs, and people in the same position can alternate with each other, but the most important aspect of organizational ethics is the attribution of responsibility. In the process of making a decision, a supervisor, no matter what class he is, can ask his friends or colleagues, but after the matter is decided, the responsibility must be on the supervisor himself.

9. The best way to train employees is to give them jobs and responsibilities. Ideally, a supervisor manages seven or eight employees. This supervisor is like a lifeguard in a wide boat.

10. Usually people like to talk about authorization, but there should be more accountability than authorization. If the authorized person does not expect to be responsible, then he should not be authorized at all. Authorization is like the gravitational force created by oneself. For example, someone is promoted and authorized, but he does not immediately have power, but depends on the respect of the people below you before he starts to have power.

11. In the process of power and responsibility, responsibility comes earlier than power, and young and promising people are brave enough to take responsibility, and power will come slowly. Those who insist on having rights before responsibilities, or those who hope that rights and responsibilities come together, often end up with neither.

12. Both China and the West emphasize that rewards and punishments must be proportionate. Chinese often say that rewards and punishments are clearly defined. However, in the corporate world, the proportion of rewards outnumbering punishments is actually very large. Few people are punished, but as many people as rewards are crossed.

13. A company needs to get rid of the culture of "unwilling to review others", and only companies that can review others will make progress.

14. When performing performance appraisal, few supervisors are willing to tell their subordinates their weaknesses frankly. In fact, how to tell subordinates their weaknesses is also a kind of training for supervisors, especially for subordinates who are selected as successors. Looking more closely at his weaknesses, the supervisor must be sincere and offer constructive advice to his subordinates.

15. Performance appraisal is a system created to achieve motivation and shaping, but there are few successful examples. The reason is that the focus is often placed on performance appraisal, while "shaping" is ignored. The focus of the performance appraisal system is on "nurturing and shaping" rather than just looking at past performance.

16. The by-product of the performance appraisal system is the process of confirming the best and worst 10% or 5% of the performance, which can achieve both incentive and communication effects.

17. When an employee is promoted, don't just look at his past work records, but also whether he agrees with the company's business philosophy.

18. According to the research of general psychologists, the incentive (incentive) is roughly divided into two categories. One is the "maintenance factor", which includes basic living expenses. This part can make a person work, but it cannot make people fully Put your mind to work. The maintenance factor also includes a comfortable working environment, the company has restaurants, dormitories, etc. The other category is "motivation factors", including a sense of accomplishment, money that can be used to get rich in addition to the basic salary, team fun, and Recognition (recognition, praise).

19. Psychologists believe that it is very important to cultivate a person's ambition and satisfaction with achievement. If you are looking for a group of people to work hard with you, you have to find people who have the potential for a sense of accomplishment. If you are looking for a group of people whose main purpose is to make money, my experience is that making money is certainly one of the motivating factors, but this kind of motivation has no success The incentive factor is strong, and it is not a long-term solution. People often lose their incentive factors and leave after making money.

0 4 Big strategies look at the market, small strategies look at opponents

1. As a business leader, I pay more attention to the two aspects of business model and strategy. Among them, the business model is at a higher level. This is TSMC's most important innovation (the principle of only doing foundry, not sustainable competition with customers).

2. The business model is determined by "who is the customer", not by "what is the product". Starbucks can sell 4 cents of coffee to 2.5 dollars, mainly because they position their customers as those who know how to enjoy life, not those who drink 4 cents coffee and continue on their way. I really admire Starbucks.

3. The strategy of the enterprise should be divided into two parts: big strategy and small strategy. The big strategy is to look at the trend and look beyond the big "red sea" to find the big "blue ocean"; the small strategy is to look at customers and competitors, and to find out the needs of customers and the weaknesses of competitors from the competition and prescribe the right medicine. Both big and small strategies rely on the insights of leaders, and insights come from constantly thinking about and planning the future.

5. The measure of TSMC's strategy is to meet customer needs, including: what are customer needs; providing technology that enables customers to win in the competition, or at least competitive with their competitors; TSMC's flexibility in responding to demand; low Price; short cycle time; quality and reliability; design service; seamless communication; turnkey service; protection of customer proprietary information; immediate efforts to solve any problems that may arise; TSMC's cooperative attitude and behavior.

6. Leading technology, superior manufacturing and customer trust are TSMC's three major competitive advantages and housekeeping skills. If one of them is lost, TSMC is not what we want.

7. (TSMC) should become a marketing and service-centric company. Every employee is a salesperson of the company, of course he is a professional engineer, accountant, supervisor, etc., but he is also a salesperson of the company. Upper management must be good businessmen in addition to being good salesmen and professionals. If they are not, they should train themselves or be trained to be so.

8. Anything that cannot be quantified cannot be managed. Quantifying management indicators is the importance of corporate fundamentals.

9. The so-called corporate culture should be regarded as a model of the company's behavior, rather than formed naturally with the company's growth; it should be formulated by the founder or the CEO, and it should be used as a guideline for proactive attacks. This is also the responsibility of the leader.

10. Members of a company should be like-minded. The so-called "aspiration" is the vision, and the "Tao" is the corporate culture.

11. Running a business requires the spirit of long-term cultivation. Many companies in Taiwan lack the spirit of long-term cultivation, and shareholders also lack this spirit.

12. If an enterprise wants to go international, it must have the moral concept of decent management.

13. TSMC has four core values: integrity, commitment, innovation, and customer trust.

14. Integrity and integrity represent the character of the company, which is the most basic and important concept. As for the rules of business execution, the first is to tell the truth, the second is not to exaggerate or show off, and the third is not to make promises lightly. Corruption, factionism, and corporate politics are not tolerated. The first requirement for employing people is character and talent, not relationship.

15. Commitment is a two-way commitment. The company must have a commitment to its employees, and the employees must also have a commitment to the company, because without commitment, there is no faith. A man without faith and without a soul cannot be a happy man. If you are not committed to yourself, you are giving up on yourself.

16. Innovation is the common denominator of all world-class enterprises, and innovation does not refer to technology alone but to innovation in all aspects. In the era of digital economy, in order to establish a successful business model, organizations must continue to innovate.

17. Customer trust is the core of TSMC's business model. We are always worried about someone grabbing orders, but we are also happy to say that in the competition with Samsung and Intel, we will win in the trust of customers.

0 5 I don't aim to be brilliant

1. I don't make my life goal by being brilliant or not. I make my life goal by being healthy and happy.

2. Taiwanese people say that "you will win if you fight hard." "Struggle" seems to mean working overtime. I don't agree with this at all. I strongly disagree with the need to "replace quality with quantity" in work. I don't believe that a life with only work will be a happy life.

3. In addition to work, life also includes life, family, spouse, children, friends and interests. If there is no life, life will not be much fun.

4. Work has only one purpose, which is to do the right thing efficiently.

5. In 1955, I started working at the age of 24. It has been 55 years since I started working, and it has been about 3,000 weeks in conversion. Whether as a grassroots engineer, general manager or chairman, my working hours hardly exceed 50 hours a week. I do the same with my colleagues and never call them after get off work.

6. When I started to pay attention to the working hours, I found that the company still played movies in the auditoriums of the factories for employees to enjoy after get off work. I terminated this measure, because I think employees should not be confused between work and life. Why do you still stay in the company after get off work? Keep seeing the same faces? The company should be responsible for providing employees with a fun working environment, and employees should be responsible for their own life after get off work. This is my philosophy. Only when the initiative is handed over to employees themselves, will they actively seek work-life balance.

7. Someone who is richer or more successful than you does not mean that he is more capable than you or wiser than you. Key factor. There is no need to compare people, and you should be more open-minded.

8. From the age of 20, I have developed a lifelong and healthy living habit to strictly control my body, including regular work and rest, no overtime and no social interaction, light diet, continuous exercise, reading and learning, listening to music, etc. .

9. Regardless of life or career, it is like running a marathon. Success is often a long-term effort, and it cannot be achieved in one or two years.