Lord Mengchang had a retainer whom he disliked and wished to dismiss. Lu Lian said to Lord Mengchang: "If a monkey leaves the trees and enters the water, it cannot match the fish or the turtle; if it must traverse perilous heights and scale dangerous crags, even a fine steed cannot match the fox. Cao Mo, brandishing his three-foot sword, could make an entire army yield before him; but if you set aside his sword and set him to till the fields with a plow alongside the farmers, he would prove no better than they. Thus, if one casts aside a man's strengths and employs his weaknesses, even a sage like Yao would find some things beyond his reach. Now, when you employ men, if one lacks a certain ability, you deem him unworthy; when you instruct him and he fails to learn, you call him dull. The dull you dismiss, the unworthy you cast away—so that men are discarded and driven off, unable to dwell among others. In time, they may come to repay you with resentment. Is this not the gravest peril in establishing the way of the world?" Lord Mengchang said, "Well spoken." And so he did not expel the retainer.
💡 商战启示录
In modern business management, Lu Lian's counsel strikes directly at the heart of talent management: leverage people's strengths rather than demand perfection in their weaknesses. Many corporate leaders commit the same error as Lord Mengchang initially did—dismissing an employee's entire worth because of mediocrity in one area, or even resorting to hasty layoffs. Yet exceptional managers understand the principle of "putting the right person in the right place." Consider Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, who was once forced out of the company he created because the board deemed him poorly managed and hot-tempered. Yet it was precisely upon his return that Apple, driven by his relentless pursuit of product design and visionary marketing, introduced revolutionary products like the iMac and iPhone, reshaping the entire industry landscape. Conversely, had Jobs been tasked with meticulous supply chain management or financial accounting, he might well have paled beside professional managers. Similarly, at China's tech giant Huawei, Ren Zhengfei champions the philosophy of "let those who hear the gunfire call for artillery," emphasizing assignment based on employees' strengths rather than discarding them for temporary shortcomings. Enterprises should cultivate an inclusive view of talent—through job rotation, training, or team collaboration—transforming individual weaknesses into collective strengths, and avoiding the loss of potential talent through blunt dismissal, which may even invite retaliatory competition or leakage of trade secrets. True leadership lies in recognizing and igniting the unique value within each person, just as Lu Lian said: when one is employed for what they do best, no talent under heaven is ever wasted.