48 Yearning (1/2)
In early April, Ning Weikai travelled to Taiwan.
During his past visits, he liked this place a lot. Warm, moist, prosperous, and chaotic. This confusion was on a spiritual level, hidden under the surface of arrogance and prosperity. In such a place, there were endless opportunities and possibilities; it was where a legend could be created.
However, this time, he wasn't feeling as relaxed and certain as before.
New Bori had branch offices in Taiwan. The moment he stepped off the plane, he was greeted by the local officials. Three black Honda CRVs were running smoothly across the airport freeway at high-speed; low-key but eye-catching.
Assistant Yuan Jun reported to him, ”The Sales Director Of South China has already tried to get in touch with Wang Taishi twice.”
”Is he still avoiding us?” Ning Weikai raised his eyebrows. The Wang Taishi they spoke of was the general manager of Mind Fabrics, the CEO of Mind, a strange old gentleman who used to be a university professor.
Yuan Jun's face was a bit stiff. ”The first time we were shunned; the second time our staff were scolded and kicked out, and this piece of news has spread everywhere.”
Ning Weikai's brows squeezed slightly and he said motionlessly, ”Well, he did a great job at letting the whole industry know that we want to stab Aida in the back, yet we failed.”
Yuan Jun was a bit embarrassed and he didn't reply. At the same time, he felt pity for the director who had screwed it up.
The news also gave Ning Weikai a bit headache. In the past few years, with New Bori growing and expanding, he gradually realized that compared to the past, he actually had less and less knowledge of who were his truly reliable employees.
Most of the managers who followed him back in the days, who excelled at their jobs and created one miracle after another for New Bori, had moved up in the hierarchy, and stepped into senior leadership positions.
An employee's attitude was determined by their job position. People in different positions would have different viewpoints and ways of thinking. For example, when he was a sales manager, he would have disregarded the obstacles and done the extreme, even neglecting his acknowledgement of shame and conscience, in order to secure the project for Ning Weikai. After transitioning into senior leadership, it became a different story. He cared more about what I want, which direction I should follow, and then asked his subordinates to do it. As to the hardships and difficulties involved during execution, it wasn't something he needed to worry about as a senior leader.
The newly appointed group of managers and essential staff lacked the experience for the difficulties in the market, and they hadn't experienced New Bori's rapid growth in the previous years or the process of being on top of the industry neither. Therefore, their ability and experience were bound to be inferior to the older generation. It was decided by the larger scope and had nothing to do with their own qualifications. Use the Mingsheng Project from last year as an example, New Bori chose not to bid in order to maintain its own price balance among other state-owned enterprise projects. Although New Bori indeed could afford to lose the project like that thanks to its supreme financial status, it was still not a good thing that the managers could easily jump into the decision to give up such a project without trying.
Right now, seeing this team struggle with the getting in touch with Mind since the beginning, Ning Weikai was determined to review the company's talent pool. This was the core force for New Bori's continuing growth, and it was also the foundation he used to resist the Zhu Consortium.
Now that he had made the most important decision, the difficulties ahead were no longer a challenge for Ning Weikai. Having had a brief consideration, he issued an order, ”Bring over two staff.” He specifically appointed two employees. Yuan Jun was slightly surprised, as these two used to be Ning Weikai's subordinates when he first started working for New Bori, as a manager for the sales department. They use to be some of the best known people in the industry. They had now become the first in command for the company's branches.
”President, the timeline is tight and both of them are now in charge of the branches with hundreds of people...”
This time, Ning Weikai didn't act as affable and lighthearted as usual. Instead, he looked at him without much emotion and said, ”Tell them that within 10 days, I need to see Wang Taishi.”
Soon it was May.
Coming to Shenzhen at that time was not a great choice. The huge city was hot and windless all day. Even without heavy exertion, immediately one would get sweaty, wet and sticky. Occasionally there were thunderstorms and heavy rain, which could be a bit frightening.
However, Lin Qian couldn't avoid coming to Shenzhen. It was the last stop of the over two-month long national market inspection.
It was almost noon, and Lin Qian and some colleagues had just finished meeting with the employees from the Shenzhen branch. They quickly grabbed some food, then headed to some of Aida's stores in the city.
The sun was burning, making her eyes hard to open. Due to the busy schedule, she appeared much skinnier. The dark circles under her eyes hadn't faded for a long time, making her eyes look particularly large, like a slender abused panda.
The colleague joked that she was the Workaholic Xishi. Slowly the nickname spread, and almost all branches in the country had heard that there was a ”Workaholic Xishi” from the company's headquarters. Hard working, beautiful and friendly, she travelled from one branch to another in different cities to provide feedback, support and guidance.
Outside a busy store, a vice president of the Shenzhen branch were accompanying Lin Qian and her team, observing it from a dozen steps away. The vice president was pleased and proud to say, ”This week, the Shenzhen branch will surely have the highest national sales volume. We are very confident.”
Lin Qian and others nodded with a smile. Lin Qian said, ”Shenzhen's business environment is very strong and advantageous. The employees of the Shenzhen branch are really the most inspirational I've seen.” Having said that, people nodded frequently, because indeed, even during the lowest of Aida Group, the Shenzhen branch still maintained a decent performance, showing the resilience of its team.
The two parties briefly discussed areas for improvement. Some of the managers from the headquarters pointed out a few minor issues with the internal operations and after-sales services of the Shenzhen branch. Lin Qian also stated that they could have more flexibility in market promotion activities. After a few additional conversations, both sides were happy, and it was a perfect ending for the headquarters' market inspection. The vice president of the Shenzhen branch said, ”We are really glad that headquarters can send someone over. To be honest, as the performance of the company in the past few years hasn't been great, subsidiaries like ours felt like we're abandoned. Now it's changed, with such an excellent product from headquarters, we have completely turned around. In the past, we used to walk around the people of New Bori and SMQ, with our heads down. Now they are going to have to detour!”
Everyone laughed. The vice president looked to Lin Qian, smiling, ”Manager Lin, maybe sometime you could also invite President Li to come and inspect?”
The reason he asked was that they all knew that Lin Qian used to be Li Zhicheng's assistant, and now she had become the assistant manager of the subsidiaries, she could be considered as the right hand person of the big boss. Lin Qian heard Li Zhicheng was mentioned, her heartbeat slowed down. She smiled and responded, ”I'll absolutely bring your invitation to President Li.” she paused, ”I think he'll definitely like this place a lot.”
Lin Qian's flight back to Lin City was at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, she would land by 4.
Because of their exhaustion, the colleagues in the team were all being quiet, or sleeping during the flight.
Yet Lin Qian couldn't fall asleep. She was sitting by the window, looking at the golden beam from the clouds, thinking of Li Zhicheng.
At noon, why had she told people in the Shenzhen branch with such certainly that Li Zhicheng would like Shenzhen and like the Shenzhen branch? It wasn't just a polite comment to make them happy. It was because she thought of him as a resilient and goal-driven person. This matched exactly with the business atmosphere in Shenzhen.
She seemed to inadvertently comment more on any topics relating to President Li Zhicheng.
Lin Qian's eyes were slightly shut, leaning against the back of the seat. Her mind was like flying kites, passing through the clouds and drifting away to the place she had been missing so badly over the past two months or more.
The day since leaving Lin City, she had begun another state of life.
Busy, thoroughly busy, so busy that she was about to vomit, day and night.
The process was full of excitement. She was young and working in a key position. She had followed the top performers from various departments, travelling and researching in all the markets around the country. She felt like a sponge, desperately absorbing everything from the market to after-sales, from internal operations to overall management. It felt like being rebuilt for once. After a long period of hardships, she had been inadvertently reborn.
She also fully exposed her talent without holding anything back. She treated people with sincerity and tried her best to provide support to them, regardless of who they were, and which branch they worked in. Thanks to her great efforts, she had made a lot of friends. The friendships had already been established no matter whether they were with or without genuine intentions. At first, she didn't what was her reason to all of sudden become a social butterfly with an advantage, since she wasn't particularly enthusiastic about such things normally.
Later, she slowly learned that the hidden motives of her heart - she did it for the sake of Li Zhicheng.
He could only manage the overall situation while sitting at the tip of the pyramid. So she went down to the earth to explore for him and find out how his business was actually doing. And her building the professional and personal friendships, would be helpful for gaining in-depth understanding of the Adai Group all over the country, and would be beneficial for him to manage and lead the entire company going forward.
He who touches pitch shall be defiled. Gradually, without realizing, she had been planning so much and so far for him, but he still had no clue.
These past two months, more than 70 days, were also a torment for Lin Qian. Because she and Li Zhicheng hadn't seen each other, not even once.
At first, she was hoping that she would occasionally have a weekend to fly back to Lin City to meet him. Or when he was free, he could come to visit her. Although it was somewhat out of place for a president to do, this was really what he would do. In the United States, he followed her without saying anything, and in Taiwan, he brought her to his side without hesitation. Therefore, Lin Qian believed that no matter where she went, they'd always see each other very soon.