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The "pig king" Muyuan shares suddenly became popular. It was originally a complicated labor dispute, but it suddenly revealed the absurd corporate culture of this company.

An employee of Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd. died suddenly at home. Because he had worked overtime for a long time before his sudden death, it caused heated discussions online. However, when curious people dug deeper, they found out about Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd.’s bizarre "pig" corporate culture from this incident, which put this famous Chinese pig king company at the center of public opinion.

Muyuan's Pig Culture

This is the "Pig Worship Text" read out publicly by Qin Yinglin, the founder of Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd., at the "Pig Worship Ceremony" held at Muyuan's headquarters.

In this article about worshipping pigs, which represents corporate culture, it is written:

"Like a pig, calculate less, give more, and create value";

"Be with the pigs, be silly, be happy, and devote yourself";

"Be like a pig, and trade the length of your life for the quality of your life"...

According to many online comments, this article worshiping pigs is also regarded as an important document that Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd. employees must study.

Muyuan Foodstuff's campus recruits are subject to quasi-military management, with short hair and cell phones collected, just like new recruits in a barracks. They are required to wear military uniforms and undergo training every day until 10:30 a.m., and then write a summary and recite the entire Pig Worship Text by heart.

Judging from the Internet memories of many netizens, the credibility is very high. The following are the notes of an employee of Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd.

This kind of corporate culture was actually very common in state-owned enterprises during the planned economy era.

Educating all employees to devote everything to the company and treat the company as their home was the most common corporate slogan in that era when there was not much of a market economy.

Mr. Qin Yinglin, the founder of Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd., was born in the 1960s and was originally an employee of a state-owned enterprise. He started his business in 1992, a critical period in history, and has developed his business all the way to today.

As an entrepreneur of that era, the cultural imprint left on him by history is clearly evident.

But what he did not notice is that even among the current state-owned enterprises, many have abandoned this so-called culture of pure dedication.

For example, Shanxi Coking Coal, a pure state-owned enterprise in Shanxi whose main business is coal, has the following corporate culture:

Focus on the strugglers and long-term hard work

Shanxi Coking Coal's value orientation and distribution principle is to focus on those who strive. Resources are concentrated on those who strive, and salaries are tilted towards those who strive, so that those who strive will not suffer losses, speculators will not profit, and mediocre people will not enjoy the benefits.

You see, even state-owned enterprises will not talk about dedication alone, but Muyuan Foodstuff, a purely private enterprise, keeps saying less calculation and more dedication, which makes people laugh and cry.

Of course, I believe that Muyuan Foodstuff’s success today is by no means the so-called success of its corporate culture.

Just from the salary incentive model of this employee who died suddenly, we can see that the pursuit of economic benefits is the fundamental driving force behind his business.

Using a monthly salary target of more than 10,000 yuan to motivate sales staff to work hard is not a culture of dedication, but a typical pay-for-performance scheme in the market.

This shows that, although "Pig Worship" has indeed become the so-called corporate culture slogan of Muyuan Foodstuff Co., Ltd., this is a purely slogan-like corporate culture. The development of the company does not rely on this weird culture at all. It still relies on the stimulation of economic interests to drive the company's performance growth.

But in reality, there are countless private entrepreneurs in China who are constantly building this kind of corporate culture in various meetings and through various corporate culture slogans.

Dong Mingzhu, a famous entrepreneur, once said in an interview program that young people should not regard making money as the only purpose of life, otherwise they may do anything to achieve their goals.

In Gree's corporate culture, the words loyalty and dedication are also very prominent.

Why are these entrepreneurs so keen on developing a corporate culture that is out of touch with the times?

Cultural Misunderstandings of a Generation of Chinese Entrepreneurs

The relationship between an enterprise and its employees is actually simple and clear.

The enterprise is the purchaser and consumer of employees' labor, and the employees are the suppliers of the enterprise's labor products. The relationship between the two is a mutually beneficial cooperation.

Entrepreneurs widely use corporate culture in order to promote consistency in employee actions. In the early business theory CIS (corporate identity system), the three major systems of an enterprise include concept identification, behavior identification and visual identification.

Among these, concept identification refers to the impression that consumers and partners have of the company, which includes the impression that employees give to the outside world on behalf of the company, while behavioral identification further refers to the actions of each employee, which should be in line with the overall interests of the company.

This CIS theory, which was popular in the 1980s and 1990s, guided a large number of entrepreneurs to develop corporate culture and employee behavioral standards. Various high-sounding slogans that were divorced from the essence of business became widely popular in all kinds of companies.

It can be said that early Chinese entrepreneurs were all influenced by this business theory. Many employees who had just entered private enterprises did not resist this corporate philosophy with the idea of ​​"family culture". Military training even became a common means for many companies to unify the actions of new employees.

But in the new era, after experiencing rapid business development, these corporate business theories have long been outdated. Employees are difficult to be influenced by this corporate culture. They do not regard the company as their home. The entrepreneur is just a short-term collaborator. Constantly changing jobs to achieve higher income has become a habit for many workers.

The words "loyalty" and "dedication" are empty slogans that are completely incompatible with the business world. Even if you shout them loudly and emphasize them in meetings every day, your employees will leave you without hesitation if you offer them higher salaries.

After hiring employees, any company will inevitably find that economic benefits are the most core motivation factor that drives employees to work hard.

All other incentives are secondary, ineffective or even counterproductive.

The laws of the market cannot be violated. We should not look at what these business owners say, but what they actually do.

For any successful enterprise, one with highly motivated employees and rising performance, the core of its management system is still to pay according to contribution, rather than to distribute benefits based on loyalty and dedication. Otherwise, the enterprise will only go bankrupt.

The "pig culture" can end

If entrepreneurs want to make profits, they must of course calculate. Without accounting for costs, they cannot create profits.

Employees also need to calculate whether their hard work, effort and dedication can be exchanged for higher rewards. This is how they make their choices when taking action.

Muyuan shares have been able to achieve what it has today, to become today's pig king, to create a market value of hundreds of billions, and to achieve annual profits of tens of billions. It is obvious that its business owners did not create these achievements by being silly, cheerful, and without any calculation.

This kind of bizarre corporate culture is even more unacceptable in a highly commercialized society. If it is exposed by various media, it will only damage the image of Muyuan Group and cause the company's founder to be ridiculed by the public.

Perhaps, people in modern society would say:

This is a pig-like entrepreneur and a pig-like corporate culture.

It's really a bit stupid.