Xu Jiayin: a rural boy who refuses to accept his destiny

On March 7, 2012, the 2012 AFC Champions League continued with Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou Evergrande visiting Korean K-League champion Jeonbuk Hyundai. After 90 minutes of fierce competition, Guangzhou Evergrande beat Jeonbuk Hyundai 5-1 away to get the AFC Champions League "off to a flying start". The 5-1 score was also the biggest victory for a Chinese team in the history of the clash between Chinese and South Korean clubs. Evergrande's victory, no doubt to Chinese football played a dose of "tonic".

Xu Jiayin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, chairman of the Board of Directors of Evergrande Group, and an investor who has just been involved in the football circle for two years, has once again entered the eyes of the Chinese people

When I was young, a fortune-teller once showed Xu Jiayin a picture: My child, you will be the "golden bowl" ah!

Xu Jiayin is indeed holding a "golden bowl" today - Evergrande real estate. In more than a decade, the real estate company, which only officially opened in 1997, has risen from a single start-up to China's real estate giant.

Until now, Evergrande has been implementing a "compact group management model", which means that major issues in the company's operation are managed by the group in a unified manner. Some people have nicknamed this model "centralization". It is well suited to expansionary strategies, ensuring that the "boutique model" can be quickly replicated across the country. For example, if a real estate project comes out of nowhere today, Evergrande can organize a team with complete types of work to operate it immediately in just two hours. This vertical management ensures Evergrande's national expansion to avoid detours, avoid risks, save costs and standardize operations, and of course, also guarantees Xu Jiayin's absolute authority.

Xu Jiayin has formulated more than 6,000 rules and regulations and industrial processes. Evergrande will also establish hard standards to measure the food, transportation, and accommodation of employees. But this is precisely his characteristic, striving for perfection and scale without giving up on detail. One of Evergrande's partners once said: "There is no company in China that can execute as well as Evergrande."

Deciphering XU Jiayin is not only to restore the growth difficulties and opportunities of a generation, but also to deconstruct once again the dream of success that every one of us has, which is in the bud, in practice, or has been annihilated.

A disobedient peasant boy

Henan Zhoukou City Taikang County Gaoxian town Jutaigang village is the hometown of Xu Jiayin.

His father joined the Party at the age of 16 and served as a company commander of the cavalry company of the anti-Japanese Army. After being wounded, he returned home to work as a warehouse keeper in the village, responsible for taking the key and recording work points. He is honest and serious. When Xu Jiayin was less than one year old, his mother died of septicemia, leaving him "half an orphan". It was Grandma who looked after Xu Jiayin. Xu Jia's successive generations of single, grandma is very fond of the Xu Jiayin of a young mother. On the north wall of the main house of Xu's family, there is still a portrait of her grandmother, which was painted by the young Xu Jiayin by the scale of the "square method". When he was in junior high school, his school took his students to the county seat once. Xu saw the huge gap between rural and urban areas.

After graduating from high school, he did almost all kinds of rural jobs, hoeing fields, driving tractors, and even digging manure in the production team.

When the college entrance examination resumed in 1977, he failed because of the short time. The next year, Xu went back to school to review remedial lessons. He lived in a broken house and carried a basket of steamed buns, sweet potato flatbread, and a bottle of salt every week. After 3 days, mildew grew on the dry food. He did not want to throw it away and continued to eat after washing off the mildew. At that time, Xu Jiayin had outstanding results in mathematics and physics. Both Mr. Cheng, who taught physics, and Mr. Chen, who taught mathematics, liked him very much. "He was always the first in the physical examination, and was also the top three in other examinations."

In 1978, Xu was finally admitted to the university, where he ranked among the top three students in Zhoukou, a city of 10 million.

"Luxury" hot and dry noodles

Xu's choice of college major was still rooted in his desire to escape the backcountry and pursue a glorious life. At Wuhan Iron and Steel Institute (now Wuhan University of Science and Technology), he studied "Metal Materials and Heat treatment" in the department of metallurgy -- even after graduation, he would have been a steelmaker.

He was commissioner of health for four years, which was a "begging job". When it was time to clean up, he would carry a big broom and shout at the men's and women's dormitories, "Clean up! They're coming down!" Sometimes the boys come down, the girls are not too willing to come down, Xu Jiayin on a dormitory to find. "Xu'S ORGANIZATIONAL AND MANAGERIAL SKILLS HAVE GROWN SINCE then, which has made him MORE humane." "Said Meng Xiankun, his university teacher.

In his college days, Xu often wore a yellow military uniform, which he washed at night and wore during the day. Even an old suit is always clean. Poor Xu Jiayin was able to finish college, all by the school providing financial aid. "My generation appreciates the party and the country from the bottom of their hearts. "The gaokao has changed our lives completely, and state grants have supported us through college." "Xu said.

Xu Jiayin's only luxury at that time was to eat a bowl of hot and dry noodles for 10 cents. Until he became China's richest man, five out of 10 of his favorite late-night snacks were hot and dry noodles.

The Little Emperor in the workshop

In 1982. Xu Jiayin, a university graduate, was assigned to Wuyang Steel Works in Henan Province.

Wugang was only put into production in 1978 when a furnace did not start, the urgent task is to quickly establish the process and technical regulations. Xu Jiayin was assigned to assist workshop director Lu Yuezhang. He drilled into the cracks in the steel plates every day to study the process and came up with hundreds of questions. Some issues are minor, such as the gap between emergency repair facilities, if you eat a box lunch on the top or the bottom? The question may seem trivial, but it concerns security.

Two MONTHS LATER, XU JIA YIN PRESIDED OVER THE DEVELOPMENT OF "PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT 300", THE MOST interesting is to belong to the "150-degree assessment method": THE range OF THE body OF personnel ON the DUTY NIGHT shift to open more than 150 degrees, QUALITATIVE FOR WORK SLEEP, to accept a FINE. Xu Jiayin was an instant success, and was evaluated as having "many ideas" and being "able to manage".

In his second year in the factory, Xu was promoted from technician to workshop director, and his potential in management began to show. "We set up a dispatching center for heat treatment and thick plate, which is operated by Xu Jiayin himself. It can monitor and organize production 24 hours a day to ensure 100% completion of the contract." "Mr. Lu said. In 1987, the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry awarded Wugang 23 awards, Xu Jiayin alone accounted for six.

In just a few years, Xu Jiayin became the most dynamic workshop at Wugang and earned himself the nickname "Little Emperor". This nickname contains Xu Jiayin's authority in this 300-strong workshop: technically excellent, management in the world, and good at handling the relationship with subordinates.

In his workshop, he built a "heat treatment compound," nicknamed "Xu's compound," where the lounge and conference room, including the tables and chairs inside, are made of discarded steel. There is no bathroom in the workshop, Xu Jiayin welded a bathroom with a thick steel plate, and someone joked: "This bathroom, even the machine gun can not hit in, bulletproof!"

Such time practice is beyond the imagination of many people.

At the end of Wugang's career, Xu Jiayin felt less and less space for development. In his subconscious mind, he always felt that Wugang was just another big gully. "Surrounded by mountains, I always had the idea of leaving and exploring."

Restless migrant workers in Shenzhen

In 1992, Mr. Xu was traveling through recruitment markets in Shenzhen with a resume of more than 30 pages. Half a month later, still could not find a willing to accept him. He seems to fall, flat tiger, difficult to hide the huge loss in his heart: Wugang is also a grade cadre, here should be "mixed" to no work.

Then a friend gave him the advice: Make that stack of resumes a little simpler. Hui then created a new two-page resume, and soon three companies were offering him jobs. He chose one of the trading companies, Zhongda. "From the first moment, I felt I had met a good boss. I learned a lot from him about managing the company. Thank him very much." "Xu said.

Arriving at a new company, he desperately needed a win. Fortunately, after years of work, he accumulated a certain network, and a friend in his trade project, let him let a deal. He managed it carefully and soon made a profit of 100,000 yuan for the company. He was also promoted to office director. A year later, he took the initiative and suggested that his boss cooperates with Wugang, which he was familiar with. Soon, a new company under Zhongda named "Quanda" was set up under Hui Ka Yan's leadership.

With this platform of his own, Xu Jiayin was in his element, and Quanta's business was thriving.

In Shenzhen for a few years, Xu Jiayin completely gave up the sharp and proud leader in the Wugang period, lowering himself to start from scratch, "Shouting people shout scream, opening called master, the mouth is very sweet, but also very modest." Because there was no turning back: he went back to zero and started from scratch.

In his early days as a salesman, he lived on a friend's porch for three months. When he became head of the office, he used an unused kitchenette as his bedroom. Until 1993, already is Shenzhen's whole reach of total manager XU Jiayin shared with the person to rent two rooms in two halls. Xu Jiayin, his wife and two sons, as well as his mother-in-law, father, and friends, a total of seven people, live in the remaining room. The only bedroom in the house is air-conditioned, and Mr. Xu's son spends summers lying on the floor outside his roommate's door "soaking in the cold." Bitter years, for his flat life after the richest man, made the most real footnote.

Catch the "last bus" of Guangzhou Real Estate

The National Day 1994, XU JiayIN TAKES CAR OF A Peugeot, WAIT FOR 4 PEOPLE as a PERSONNEL of driver, cashier, BUSINESS, the complacent ground came TO Guangzhou, established a name is "PENG DA" REAL ESTATE company, FOR "IN DA" OPEN UP THE REAL estate MARKET OF Guangzhou.

Penda's first REAL estate project in Guangzhou was called "Pearl Island Garden". At that time large families as the mainstream of the Guangzhou property market, and the main "small area, low price" strategy of the project quickly became a "dark horse", and has not been released on the market sensation, the first phase of the project quickly out of stock.

Although still a professional manager, the operation process of this project has begun to bear Xu Jiayin's brand. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up -- the project of Pearl Island Garden needs 108 official seals to be covered, all done that year, and "that year started, that year sales, that year sold out......" The quick and effective execution of the "eight years" has been fully played in the Pearl Island Garden project.

Before the Pearl Island project, Xu had no experience with real estate. "I didn't even know what a floor area ratio was," Hui later recalled. "I just learned and worked."

Leaving for the last time

On May 1, 1997, XU Jiayin made a deep talk with the boss of ZhongDA to change his fate. He appreciated the boss's kindness and said very frankly: "People are valuable, what kind of person, what kind of level, what kind of contribution, must have what kind of treatment. Otherwise, from the perspective of management, it is impossible to retain people."

Pearl Island garden for the parent company in a net income of more than 200 million yuan, Xu Jiayin's salary a month is only 3000 yuan. Had he been given 100,000 or 200,000 yuan a year, he later recalled, he might not have thought about starting a business. Because starting a business is risky and hard.

Xu Jiayin is determined to no longer work for people, he chose to leave again.

Deng Fan, who worked with him for several years during the "Zhongda" period, summarized Xu's personality characteristics: first, "he will never give up until he achieves his goal"; Second is "perfectionism"; The third is "result-oriented"; The fourth is decisiveness. From technology to management, from state-owned enterprises to private enterprises, after the collision between the cultural deposits of Central Plains and the commercial connotation of Lingnan, the typical "Xu's style of conduct" was finally formed.

Leaving "Zhongda" is Xu Jiayin's last departure. After that, his success or failure is firmly tied to the company named "Evergrande".