Bubbles is my good friend. I am 31 years old. I joined Alibaba right after graduation and was promoted from P4 to P6, P7 and P8 within five years.
I seldom talk about work with him, but I always think that he has great work experience and should share it, so this interview came into being. I hope to be helpful to new employees in the workplace. After talking for 3 hours, I found it enlightening for me, who has worked for many years.
Start of the interview:
Before entering the work force, knowledge is not difficult for me
I entered the university in 2006, majoring in industrial design and graduated in 2010. When I was in college, my knowledge did not come mainly from the teachers, but from the electric donkey.
I may have been downloading the latest learning materials and videos for more than ten hours every day. As MY major is design, I will find a lot of them on the Internet, such as movie concept paintings, original paintings and illustration sets, and copy them by myself. Slowly shaped their own modeling and aesthetic ability. Later, I went to watch various movies, became interested in special effects, and began to learn video production. After painting for a long time, I went to learn coding.
It wasn’t like it is now, when information came to you. At that time to find information will be very valuable. I usually have a problem, go to the source, and spend an all-nighter practicing it. Solve the problem before moving on to the next challenge.
This experience is very important to me, because it gives me the awareness and habit of active learning. It tells me two things.
First, knowledge is no longer scarce for me, only curiosity is scarce. It gave me the confidence to acquire knowledge. In the past, we were taught that you had to work hard and pass an exam or some kind of official certification to get to the next level of study. Now the knowledge is there, whenever you want it.
The other is that it affects my view of the relationship between people and authority. Because information is equal, when you communicate with people in authority, or people outside your field of expertise, there is not much of a gap in the level of information and can be equal dialogue through independent thinking. It makes me less afraid of authority.
Don’t care about “this can’t work.” I have my standards
When I first entered Alibaba, I was not used to it. I think it’s a little slow here.
I expected to learn a lot from one of the best companies on the Internet. It was also a time when the whole of China particularly emphasized or just began to develop the so-called craftsman spirit. Follow the example of companies and products like Apple and aspire to the elegance it advocates.
But after I came in, I found that the way of doing things and the efficiency of communication were not as professional and efficient as I imagined. But the good thing about this is that I’ve decided to set goals for myself. If circumstances do not help me, I will go on my own.
As I began to talk about the confidence in knowledge built through independent learning, I felt in my heart that it was feasible to rely on myself. So I think what made me different from a lot of young people when I came into the workforce was that I didn’t care so much about authority.
For example, when we make Internet products, there will be various limitations, such as technology and resource problems. Or maybe the milestones are different from what you want to do. I didn’t care about it at the time. I’m not judging by whether it works or goes live, but whether it meets the goals I’ve set for myself.
The whole period of more than one year is a very fast stage of professional improvement. And then I kept doing things, very quickly. I completed my first promotion to P6 two years later.
For the first two years, I have a trick for quickly building a degree of professionalism
I had a little trick that worked for me in my first year. Every new project I do, whenever there’s a new person, someone I work with for the first time, I have to surprise them.
Tara: So the surprise, do you make different surprises for different people based on their background and characteristics?
Don’t be. I think the lesson is called taking the extra step. It’s about taking one more step than you think. The so-called extra step is omnidirectional. The extra step may vary from project to project.
Of course, make a small adjustment depending on who he is or what your goal is. But the most important thing is not the personality of the person to adjust. It’s about what he needs, what you need to fix for him to adjust.
Tara: Does your surprise point align with your project goals?
Not necessarily.
I’m going to think of it this way. The first time we cooperate with each other to complete a project, my first priority must be to do the project very well.
For example, we need to solve the problem of GMV’s final volume. So the first thing I’m going to do is split: what is GMV equal to? That’s equal to someone coming, the conversion of that person, and the unit price of that conversion. I’ll look for opportunities in all three directions.
In the first two years, when a task is given, the goal is usually set. But I think about how does it contribute to the final goal? Where does it help? Is there anything else that could move the final goal?
Goals can be broken down into many assumptions, and we do things because of certain assumptions to achieve certain goals. In the first two years of your career, people tend to stop talking about goals and start talking about to do. But all to do comes from a goal. The so-called to do of a project has never been so precise that there must be more optimized space. That’s my number one priority.
If this cannot be done, I will try to get a better and more elegant scheme at the toDO level.
When these two levels are not possible, I will make more things on people. Can you be more considerate, what other people need, and be more considerate of others?
The talk about Nietzsche changed my way of thinking
At the beginning of my career, I focused all my energy on personal and professional progress, but soon I encountered some bottlenecks, because many things can not be done by myself.
It only took me one year to upgrade P6 to P7, which was very fast, because THERE were some changes in my way of thinking, which led to a significant difference in the results.
I remember I had a conversation with my boss about what is a team and what determines the ability of a team?
He said, do you know Nietzsche? I said yes. He says, everybody says Nietzsche is crazy, but he has a very good answer. What is the history or culture of a country?
For example, what is the culture of Germany? The so-called culture in my mind is folklore, impression in other people’s mind and so on. But Nietzsche is saying that the influence of a great nation or a great culture is the history of the greatest people of that nation.
My boss said that the improvement of a team must not be achieved by all people in the same step, and a lot of attention should not be put on helping others grow. All that matters is that someone can break out of a post and fight their way out. You have to believe that people are agents, that they have a fire inside them. They see the road, and they will work in that direction.
It’s easy to get into a situation in the workplace where the more mature you get, the more you think about cutting the cake. But the problem is that the cake is only so big, and everyone is cutting so little, it’s not very interesting. The more important thing is to make the pie bigger. So how do you do that? It’s not going to be on your own. It’s going to be on everyone’s own.
Before, I spent a lot of energy talking to people about “Should we do this?” . After talking to my boss, I changed my way of treating people. I’m going to talk more about people. I was taking all the graduates and interns. I tell everyone that there is no such thing as a team, each of us is the best, and the team is the best.
We were doing responsive design for the whole site. At the time, there was no proven solution to responsive rules from PC to wireless. I need to figure it out myself.
There were several difficulties.
First, the previous responsive design only proposed a basic methodology, and only realized in some very simple products, such as blog products, text products. But we are a complex e-commerce product with very complex scenes and a greater density of information.
Second, we are a multi-language website, the length of text in different languages is completely different, for example, Chinese and Russian, there may be three times of text gap. But you have to have one solution for everything.
Third, it involves teamwork. For example, development coordination. Because the previous labeling system was completely different. Let’s say the product manager understands these things, what are the risks of what he’s trying to do. You need to create a communication mechanism so that everyone understands how this thing works.
You have to fight your way out. When you prove the way, people will strive in that direction. He will take the direction you are exploring and add more details. As you get more and more detailed, this will happen.
I P6 to P7, the biggest project is this project.
Tara: So as a team leader, to be a benchmark is to go, can you understand it as to set a bigger goal?
When I was in P6, I was not a leader, but I had to work as a leader. When you are not a leader, you have no authority and cannot ask others to do anything. Therefore, the most efficient way is to fight your way out for everyone.
I think many people are stuck when they have certain ability and professional authority, but have not become a leader. In order to truly enter the stage of becoming a leader, there are usually two ways. The first way is top-down. The boss assigns you, and then you hold the sword, but only a few people get it. The other is to rely on their own, I think the most efficient is to fight a way out.
After P7: How do you play team battles
I spent two years from P7 to P8. After P7, I lead a team, a small team of several people. At Alibaba, I think the real challenge starts with P7.
Before, I was still dependent on individuals, but from now on, I really bear the KPI of a team. To think about the building of trust in the team, the team and the relationship between the team and so on. The complexity has gone up geometrically.
After P7, I led a marketing team in AliExpress, which is actually not my specialty. I am good at UX Design, user experience, information architecture and so on.
There was a big problem.
At that time, we already had large-scale marketing activities such as Double 11 in China, but AliExpress’s marketing ability was still relatively poor in overseas markets. We do not have so much manpower taobao, still need to do more than 200 countries, there are a lot of pages. There are 18 languages that need to be translated into multilingual adaptation, and there is no such reserve in technology. We don’t know how to do it.
I was facing a lot of pressure at that time, I think the most important thing at this time is heart! Ali Baba has been talking about three things, and the longer I work, the more I recognize them: heart, body and brain. The order of these three things is heart first, physical second, mental third.
So I was joking in my circle of friends all day long, saying that I was making money selling cabbage and worrying about selling white powder. This sentence is actually when I was telling something to a front end classmate, he broke down and directly replied to me.
Tara: Is there anything else you can do when you’re under a lot of pressure and everyone’s in a bad mood?
I think we just have to hold on.
One of the points I want to make is that it’s only when you experience more stress that you realize that the previous stress is not P.
Like when I did a homepage revision on P6, I was like, wow, I’m in a fucking meeting with a big boss, and he’s all over me, and I’m so stressed. Then, on Double 11, I was burdened with so many things and had to work for several months. As soon as I went offline, everyone would hang up, and all the students’ KPIs were hung up. Going back to the P6 thing, P is not.
It’s still stressful, but you’ll be a little slower. I don’t think mental strength means increased ability to withstand stress. It’s a heightened sensitivity to pressure.
Tara: OK, go ahead.
The first year we managed to, I don’t know, muddle through, but you just know what it means to be prepared for a rainy day. I can’t say the strategic direction this year, I’m preparing now. I don’t have it in me, and it’s hard enough to survive this year.
Save for a rainy day, or as Teacher Jack Ma would say, fix the roof while the sun is shining. I never really thought about it before. But really encountered things, only then deeply realized the importance.
So we started to build what we call a big push marketing system and productization, not as an operational activity, but as a product. We spent a year perfecting the infrastructure.
The structure and ability of my team also need to be adjusted. Our designers are at least the first-class in China, but our marketing designer team at that time is composed of product design. I need more people from advertising agencies. The knowledge background of the students in the advertising company is different from that of the Internet company. We need to consider how to make them accept our culture.
The big picture of team interest: Let others take the C position
Tara: As mentioned earlier, when it comes to the relationship between the team and the team, you have to protect your team members when there are KPI conflicts. Do you have any experience in relationship handling?
Yes. I think the first one is called not butt to head.
Often the disputes between the team and the team are caused by the butt to decide the head, which is to harm their own interests, or I did not defend the territory.
For example, I am from the AliExpress design team. When I cooperate with the Taobao Tmall design team today, I will think why SHOULD I do this for him?
Take Singles’ Day for example. The big brand of Singles’ Day is Tmall. But after all, the overseas market only knows AliExpress, not Tmall. I do want to put the Logo of Tmall, but I want to put what degree, how to say in the advertisement, these are things I want to think about.
So I often have to rethink my position. Am I a designer for AliExpress or Alibaba Group?
AliExpress is a subsidiary, but what is the mission or goal of the subsidiary? What is Alibaba’s mission and goal? Is to let small and medium-sized enterprises to better life, so that the world is not difficult to do business.
But to make the world easy to do business, this is not necessarily done by AliExpress, we can rely on the acquisition of companies, if it is more efficient or something. What is our current purpose? Like us as a design team, what’s the number one thing? Is the ability to precipitate international design for the group.
How about the Tmall design team do it? If we end up with a better, more efficient result, shouldn’t we put them in position C and help them out?
This problem is fine in our mid-stage team, but the real business team needs to think about this problem.
For example, I am the owner of the home page, so should I have the highest conversion rate of the home page, or should WE have a more reasonable distribution and diversion of the whole business? Each product has its life cycle. I am already at the end of my life cycle and I am already a spent force. Do I need to fight for something or reconsider optimizing the whole thing? I think this is first of all the self-consciousness as a leader.
And then the second point is how to influence others when communicating with others, to make others believe that you are sincere.
Tara: But what if you put someone in position C and it really affects your team? What if you did this and it didn’t help your team KPI?
I don’t think I really care.
For me, THERE are only two things I’m responsible for. The first one is my colleagues on my team. The second is for the business.
Any organization needs refactoring, and refactoring is an ongoing process. If that’s the life cycle of my team, if that’s the strategy, we respect that strategy.
So if I need to redefine the KPI, I redefine the KPI. Ali’s good point is that KPI cannot be changed in the system every six months. You can change it according to the general direction at any time, as long as your boss approves of it.
If I need to cut people, I’ll cut them. If my team is not as well suited to do this as other parallel teams. I can turn my eight people into four people, and the other four people can do it for the team.
Then I will complete a smaller KPI target by myself with four people. I took maybe a lower position and a little bit less traffic to do my conversion well. And think about what I’m going to do next in the product life cycle to prepare for the next round, which I think will be a plus with your boss, not a minus.
Of course, this is only in my current level of thinking, I can not guarantee that IF I move to a higher level, there may be more people involved in more interests, what do I think? Well, my experience today tells me it’s probably smarter to do that.
Tara: OK. On your second point, do you have anything specific to say about team communication?
One of my tips is that every time I meet a new team leader, no matter he is new to the job or I first meet him, I always have an open and honest talk with him. What was the conversation about? It’s showing weakness.
This show of weakness is to make a heart-to-heart with him, put his heart on the table. What’s the problem with our team right now? What is our pressure? What are our pain points? We want to do something, but we’re limited and we can’t do it. So what do you think it looks like? What are your short-term goals? What are your long-term goals? How can we help you?
Often the heart is the flesh, so the first contact will be easier to trust, the later will be smooth.
Of course, this is also related to our role, we are a mid-stage team, not a business team, not a front-line fighting team, so it may be easier.
Tara: One last question. Have you ever thought about job-hopping during your working years?
I seldom think of job-hopping.
I think so. Every year I have a different topic, a different challenge, a different learning experience. If it’s always new, I’m less likely to think about job-hopping.
There are some difficulties. These difficulties often stop after a few months, and there is a sense of accomplishment. I like to reflect on my own problems, that is, I often fail to do something, then I will reflect on my own reasons or how. So to be honest, the idea of job-hopping is very rare.
This article is from the cloud community partner “Internet ER morning Reading class”, to understand the relevant information can pay attention to “Internet ER morning reading class”.