We bring young people on board to tap into their enterprising and trailblazing energy, not to let them behave in totally unhinged and absurd ways.
Not long ago, a new car launch event held by Xpeng Motors sparked considerable controversy due to the phrase "how could old fogeys possibly understand what young people want".
The incident took place at the pre-sale launch event of MONA L05 on October 15. He Xiaopeng handed over the stage to the young product team. When introducing the vehicle design, a post-2000s product manager repeatedly used internet buzzwords such as "old fogey" and "fogeyish aesthetic" to tease the traditional designs favored by the management.
Some people think it is quite good. Young people should act like young people, be bold to speak and act, instead of being overly solemn as in launch events in the past.
Others find it inappropriate. Why would an enterprise that sells cars to the general public prove it understands young people by negating another type of aesthetic?
Later, this product manager made a public apology. Senior executives of Xpeng also came forward to explain, stating that these remarks were originally jokes within the team about the management, and were not targeted at external consumers. They also made it clear that young employees would continue to take the stage at launch events.
In our view, this incident is quite thought-provoking.
First of all, the fact that Xpeng is willing to hand over such an important launch event to the young team is progress in itself.
Many enterprises claim that they value young people, but when it comes to critical occasions, they still tend to let more senior people hold the right to speak. Young people can put forward suggestions and carry out execution, but the final decision is often made by those with more experience.
At least Xpeng is willing to let young people stand in the foreground and express their understanding of products.
Moreover, it is not entirely unreasonable for the young team to want to challenge the traditional automotive aesthetic.
The problem is that it is one thing for young people to dare to challenge traditions, and it is another thing for enterprises to turn this challenge into real commercial value.
Behind this lies a management dilemma that many enterprises will encounter.
We hope young people are energetic, creative, and dare to break past experiences. But at the same time, we also hope they are discreet, have good judgment, and can understand the complexity of the business world.
These two requirements sometimes conflict with each other.
So what on earth should enterprises do?
The most precious trait of young people is their courage to question things that are taken for granted
Why do enterprises need young people?
Because they are energetic? They are familiar with internet culture? They know more about social media?
These are certainly advantages, but we do not think they are the most important ones.
What makes young people truly valuable is that they do not carry so much historical baggage, and are more likely to find that things taken for granted by the older generation are not necessarily reasonable.
A manager who has worked in the industry for 20 years may have formed a set of mature experience.
These experiences have helped the enterprise achieve success, but they may gradually turn into restrictions as well.
For example, why should high-end cars use a large number of wood grain and chrome trim? Why must a sense of luxury be expressed through specific design languages? Why should things that sold well in the past be kept today?
From the perspective of senior managers, these may all be market-proven experiences.
But young people may not think so.
They may find these designs too old-fashioned, and cannot even understand why the older generation of consumers liked them.
This difference is exactly what enterprises need.
Because the market will never stay in the past. Today's mainstream consumers will gradually grow older, and the new generation of consumers will keep growing up. Their understanding of products and judgment of value may all change.
If everyone in the enterprise has similar experiences and is used to thinking with the same logic, the organization may not even notice when the market has changed.
From this perspective, it is an encouraging thing for Xpeng's young team to challenge the traditional automotive aesthetic.
But there is an easily overlooked problem here.
The uniqueness of young people does not equal correctness by nature.
Young people may know better about their own lifestyle than managers, but they do not necessarily know better about the entire market.
They may think a certain design is outdated, while a large number of consumers still like it.
They may consider a certain function very important, but real purchase data may not support this judgment.
Therefore, enterprises should neither deny young people's views just because they lack experience, nor take their judgments as naturally correct just because they represent the younger generation.
The intuition of young people needs to be respected, but it also needs to be verified.
Good innovation uses new understanding to break through old experience, rather than replacing old prejudices with new prejudices.
This requires both the drive of young people and mature business judgment.
Neither is dispensable.
True balance does not mean making young people less aggressive
When many managers talk about balance, they tend to interpret it as compromise.
If young people are too radical, ask them to restrain themselves a little; if managers are too conservative, ask them to be more open.
In the end, both sides take a step back, and balance seems to be achieved.
But this practice does not necessarily benefit the enterprise.
Because the most valuable part of young people may exactly be those ideas that are not mature enough, and even somewhat offensive to traditions.
If every new idea has to go through layers of screening, must conform to everyone's experience, and cannot make anyone feel uncomfortable, what is left in the end is most likely only some safe and unadventurous plans.
There seems to be no risk, but there is not much innovation either.
On the contrary, if enterprises completely abandon the verification of young people's ideas in order to encourage innovation, and even regard being unconventional as innovation itself, they will easily go to the other extreme.
It is easy to understand when we put this incident in the context of Xpeng's launch event.
The young team does not like traditional wood grain and chrome-plated designs, which can totally be a valuable product judgment.
But then, what the enterprise really should ask is:
Why don't they like it?
Is it because the new generation of consumers' understanding of luxury has changed, or because they pay more attention to simplicity, sense of technology and personal expression?
How widespread is this change? Which consumers have changed? And which demands have not actually changed?
Once these questions are studied clearly, they may help the enterprise redefine its products.
But if the final conclusion is just the sentence "old fogeys don't understand young people", the originally valuable consumer insight will turn into an emotional expression.
The problem is not that young people dare to speak, but whether the enterprise has the ability to help them take their ideas one step further.
We have always believed that balance is not about letting two forces cancel each other out, but about letting two forces empower each other.
The drive of young people gives enterprises the courage to break through past experience.
Mature business judgment makes this breakthrough more likely to create real value.
This does not require young people to become tactful, nor does it require managers to abandon their experience.
It is about letting different abilities give play to their respective value.
Maturity without drive easily turns into conservatism; drive without judgment easily turns into recklessness.
A truly excellent enterprise needs to have both of these two forces.
Give young people a stage, and also give them the support they need for growth
This controversy also raises another question worth thinking about for managers.
When enterprises assign important tasks to young people, what role should managers play?
Some enterprises emphasize empowerment a lot.
Bosses do not intervene, managers do not interfere too much, and let the young team act boldly.
This attitude is certainly worthy of recognition.
But empowerment does not mean managers withdraw completely.
Especially on important business occasions, young people may have great creativity, but they may not have sufficiently mature judgment.
They may be very clear about what a certain sentence means within the team, but do not fully realize that when this sentence appears at a launch event facing consumers across the country, the audience is completely different.
Jokes that can be made casually internally may no longer be just a joke in public.
Because consumers do not understand the internal relations of the enterprise, and have no obligation to understand the tacit understanding between you.
This is actually a very basic matter in business communication.
The effect of expression depends not only on what you want to say, but also on how the audience will understand it.
Young people need to gradually master this ability.
But the question is, where does this ability come from?
It is not innate, and it cannot be formed just by managers emphasizing professional ethics over and over again.
It needs to be accumulated in real business practice, and more importantly, it needs guidance from mature managers.
Therefore, real empowerment should include two parts at the same time.
On the one hand, managers need to give young people sufficient space, allow them to challenge themselves, and even allow them to make mistakes.
On the other hand, managers also need to take corresponding responsibilities, help them understand the constraints of business decisions, and identify risks that they cannot see for the time being.
Which things can be tried boldly, which things need more verification, which expressions may hurt consumers, and which risks should not be borne by young employees alone.
These are all the supports that managers should provide.
After the controversy broke out, Xpeng's senior executives clearly expressed their support for the young employee, and stated that she would continue to participate in launch events.
In our view, this attitude is worthy of recognition.
A young person should not be denied all their abilities just because of one improper expression, let alone lose the opportunity to grow just because of one public opinion controversy.
But for enterprises, what is more important is whether they can make both employees and the organization more mature through such experiences.
There is actually another set of balance here.
We should not only grant authorization, but also take responsibility; we should not only allow trial and error, but also help growth.
If managers control everything, young people will have no space to grow.
If managers do not care about anything, young people may take risks beyond their own experience without sufficient support.
A good manager is neither a controller who intervenes everywhere, nor a bystander who lets go completely.
They know when to step forward, and when to step back.
This is much more difficult than simply emphasizing decentralization.
When making the enterprise younger, do not only consider the feelings of young people
Looking deeper, this controversy actually involves a bigger business issue.
How on earth should enterprises understand "becoming younger"?
In recent years, many consumer brands have been working hard to become younger.
They sign young spokespersons, use internet buzzwords, create young brand images, and let young employees stand in the foreground.
These practices can certainly help brands build connections with young consumers.
But some enterprises end up turning "becoming younger" into performing youthfulness.
Originally meant to understand young consumers, it finally turns into imitating the way young people talk.
Originally meant to create products that better meet the needs of young people, it finally turns into trying to make the brand look younger.
The two are very different.
A brand that can speak the language of young people does not mean it truly understands young people.
Just like a middle-aged person who has learned young people's buzzwords and put on clothes that young people like, it does not mean he understands the life of young people.
True youthfulness should be reflected in the enterprise's understanding of consumer demands, in product innovation, and in business decisions.
Moreover, there is another very important issue.
When an enterprise chooses to serve young people, it does not mean it has to negate other consumers.
The market is diverse by nature.
Some people like simple and tech-focused designs, while others prefer stable and luxurious styles. People of different ages and different lifestyles may have completely different expectations for the same product.
Enterprises can certainly choose part of the consumers as their core customer group.
But precise positioning does not mean creating confrontation.
You can tell young people why this car is more suitable for them.
There is no need to prove your choice is more correct by mocking the aesthetic of another group of people.
Especially for mass consumer goods like automobiles, consumers' purchase motivations are far more complex than age.
A young person may also like stable designs, and a middle-aged person may also pursue a sense of technology and personal expression.
Age is only one dimension to understand consumers, not the answer to explain all consumption behaviors.
If enterprises simply divide consumers into "young people" and "old fogeys", they may lose their understanding of real demands instead.
Behind this, balance is also needed.
Enterprises should not only have a clear positioning, but also maintain a sufficiently open understanding of the market.
They should not only serve core consumers well, but also not regard other consumers as opponents.
They should not only pursue communication volume, but also consider whether this communication can ultimately help product sales and brand accumulation.
After all, the purpose of enterprises to become younger is not to win the applause of young people, but to win their choices.
The value of youthfulness should ultimately be reflected in product competitiveness and business results, not just how young the brand looks.
Excellent enterprises know how to let different forces empower each other
Looking back, Xpeng's launch event this time actually showed us two very representative sides of making an enterprise younger.
On the one hand, the enterprise is willing to give the stage to young people, allow them to challenge traditional designs, and even tease the management publicly.
This openness and inclusiveness is something many traditional enterprises need to learn.
On the other hand, when young people's expressions move from internal to public, enterprises have to face a more complex business environment.
Consumers will not naturally agree with your views just because you are young.
The market will not necessarily reward your innovation just because you dare to challenge traditions.
These two things are not contradictory.
Enterprise operation is full of similar contradictions.
We need growth, and we also need profit; we need innovation, and we also need stability; we need speed, and we also need quality.
The relationship between young people and mature experience is the same.
CAAS Consulting has always emphasized a business philosophy: balance.
But the balance we understand is not taking the middle value in everything, let alone becoming overly safe in order to avoid making mistakes.
True balance is to understand the respective value of different forces, and find ways to make them promote each other.
Sometimes, enterprises need more drive to break through experiences that no longer adapt to the market.
Sometimes, enterprises need more calmness to judge whether a seemingly good idea can create commercial value.
Sometimes, managers should step back and let young people try boldly.
Sometimes, managers have to step forward to provide judgment and support for the team.
None of these choices has a standard answer that can be applied forever.
What is tested is exactly the manager's ability to judge specific situations.
Balance is not to keep the enterprise in place, but to let the enterprise move more steadily, and also have the ability to move faster.
All in all, enterprises need young people not to make themselves look younger, but to prevent their business thinking from gradually aging.
Young people need a mature organization not to have their edges and corners worn down, but to make their creativity really change something.
Good management does not use maturity to suppress youth, nor does it use youth to negate maturity, but lets the drive of young people and mature judgment empower each other.
What enterprises ultimately need is not a group of people who are always right, but a team that dares to break through and also has the ability to judge the direction.
This is what youthfulness should really leave for enterprises.