King Xuan of Han said to Jiuliu, “I wish to employ both Gongzhong and Gongshu simultaneously—would this be feasible?” Jiuliu replied, “In former times, Wei employed both Lou Huan and Di Qiang at once, and thereby lost the territory west of the Yellow River; Chu employed both Zhao Xixu and Jing Li together, and thereby lost the cities of Yan and Ying. Now, if Your Majesty employs both Gongzhong and Gongshu, they will surely contend for power and collude with external forces to strike bargains, and thus the state will inevitably face calamity.”
💡 商战启示录
This counsel reveals a core management wisdom: within an organization, if two equally matched factions or senior executives are simultaneously supported, yet lacking clear delineation of authority and coordination mechanisms, internal friction and misallocation of resources are highly likely to ensue. In modern commercial warfare, many enterprises have committed similar errors—for instance, a certain tech giant once granted two senior executives independent authority over product line decisions. The pair, vying for internal resources and the CEO's attention, each brought in external partners, resulting in divergent strategic directions, redundant product development, and ultimately the loss of a critical market window. Conversely, successful organizations such as Huawei have adopted a rotating chairmanship system, wherein multiple individuals participate in top-level decision-making, yet through clearly defined term limits and collective deliberation protocols, prolonged power fragmentation and infiltration by external forces are forestalled. The admonition of Jiuliu serves as a reminder to entrepreneurs: the distribution of power is not a simple matter of "two titans standing abreast"—it must be accompanied by checks and balances, unified strategic objectives, and unambiguous attribution of performance. Should multi-party co-governance be truly necessary, one ought to emulate Alibaba's partnership system, which emphasizes consensus on shared values and collective decision-making, rather than indulging individual rivalry. Otherwise, internal power struggles will deplete organizational energy, and may even afford external competitors or partners an opportunity for "divide and conquer," ultimately leading to the loss of market share (as with the "Western River") or core assets (as with "Yan and Ying").