This total commitment to talent development is pretty inspiring—regardless of whether or not I'd agree/recommend this exact strategy or whether it ultimately works for Alibaba. Succession planning is hard and time-consuming, but the potential rewards are huge. A real passion for developing employees is also, to me, a much better differentiator than the number of foosball tables and espresso machines your company has.
These reminds me a lot of "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visoionary Copmpanies"[0], where the authors of the book spend a lot of time pointing out how the companies they consider "better" (better performing in the long run, most likely to not fail, widely considered leaders of their field etc) have a few shared features such as a widespread shared culture, homegrown management, focus on building a lasting company rather than immediate benefits etc.
The book is very interesting, but I believe the conclusion are quite arguable and 25 years later many of those companies might not be looked with the same glaring eyes (i.e. HP, motorola).
Interestingly, a newer book with a different focus, Boards that Lead [0], lays the blame on the ultimate demise/downfall of those two companies on the boards as instructive of things not to do. Both books are quite good, and worth reading -- even if it is better not to treat them like roadmaps =)
our own (HN's) davidw coined Welton's law about this[0] some years back: "For each bit business advice, there is an equal and opposite bit of business advice” :)
> As a result of our effort in the past few years, 45% of our management team are in the post-70 generation, the post-80 generation make up 52%, while the post-60 generation only accounts for 3%. We are also fortunate to have 3,000 young people who were born in the 90s.
Basically they have declared management retirement/retrenchment age to 45 with a positive spin of culture etc.
The large percentage of younger people in advance positions might be unique here since China only started to develop its economic in the early 80's. The people of 70's and 80's grew up with the rapid economic development and capitalistic market reforms. Also they were the generations that went back to school taking education seriously after the previous generations wasted their time in countless strife, like the Culture Revolution.
Alibaba probably couldn't find sufficient talents in the pre-70's generations.
I think you nailed it. When I read the article I was thinking about names like Buffet, Jobs, Murdock, who certainly added more equity to their companies especially after they turned 30. Instead of saying post 70's it seems more accurate that it's "Post Nixon."
Having young directors that have spent multiple years in a company is much better than having a professional CEO caste all from the same HBS/Accenture track.
> Basically they have declared management retirement/retrenchment age to 45 with a positive spin of culture etc.
I think... this is hardly the case. In the 1990s when Jack Ma got going in a bedroom hand typing listings, China had thin pickings of IT talent. Even today it graduates a lot of people with a working knowledge of C or Java (rarely either/or) but little more. Universities as graduation factories.
Alibaba has retained people from the start, instead of buying in and churning management. As the company ages the proportions, ceteris paribus, pushes it older, but it is not ceteris paribus and as the company grows, and has grown, the averages push it younger.
Jack Ma is 50, handing senior leadership to the 45+ crew. He's giving people a 5-10 year reign at the top, and keeping the funnel balanced to maintain that ratio.
In China it is pretty standard to use 70后(后=after), 80后 (born 1980-1989), 90后 (born 1990-1999) etc to describe the age of a person. Instead of "he is forty-something", you say "he is 70后". "Born in the 70s" might be a little lost in translation.
Fascinating letter. In my mind this is the difference between building an institution and building a company. Building the company to have processes in place to keep the management and strategy evolving, rather than hoping that people will do that on their own, is pretty forward thinking.
isn't there an elephant in the room here? specifically, ageism. whilst it's fantastic to give opportunities to the youth, promoting people on the basis of youth whilst "resuffling" other employees just because they were born before the 70's doesn't seem like wise corporate policy. if a guy who is born in the 50's is still a fresh thinker and performs well, why hold his age against him? china has an ageing population and with corporate policies/attitude like this, things will take a turn for the worse. i'm shock that so many people applaud jack ma for his blatant ageism
And more broadly than just Alibaba or China, 14 of the 15 posts to this thread so far say the policy is wonderful. Indeed, there is praise that the company is massively invested in talent development. But not apparently enough to bring the guy born in 1969 who's skill apparently evaporated, up to the skill level of someone born in 1971 who is still apparently a maestro (for one more birthday anyway)
18 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 43.0 ms ] threadThe book is very interesting, but I believe the conclusion are quite arguable and 25 years later many of those companies might not be looked with the same glaring eyes (i.e. HP, motorola).
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built_to_Last:_Successful_Habit...
[0] http://www.amazon.com/Boards-That-Lead-Charge-Partner/dp/142...
[0] http://journal.dedasys.com/2011/05/10/weltons-law-of-trite-b...
Basically they have declared management retirement/retrenchment age to 45 with a positive spin of culture etc.
Alibaba probably couldn't find sufficient talents in the pre-70's generations.
I think... this is hardly the case. In the 1990s when Jack Ma got going in a bedroom hand typing listings, China had thin pickings of IT talent. Even today it graduates a lot of people with a working knowledge of C or Java (rarely either/or) but little more. Universities as graduation factories.
Alibaba has retained people from the start, instead of buying in and churning management. As the company ages the proportions, ceteris paribus, pushes it older, but it is not ceteris paribus and as the company grows, and has grown, the averages push it younger.
Jack Ma is 50, handing senior leadership to the 45+ crew. He's giving people a 5-10 year reign at the top, and keeping the funnel balanced to maintain that ratio.