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** It’s half way through 2020, and it’s time for a mid-year review. In this article, Xiao Yi, senior technical expert of Ali Entertainment, summarizes his growth and harvest in Ali in the past 6 years, and shares some thinking methods in his work, as well as some feelings of life, hoping to inspire students.

By observing your own growth, you can reap greater growth

For a long time I basically did things based on nature or instinct, not that I didn’t think, but I never thought about why I thought the way I did. Over the past year the biggest enlightenment is gradually to look inward, and what you do, how to think, how to grow up, why you are so think, why to do that, seize the thought process, exposing more nature or instinct, to do things within their logic, thus set up a system of their own to think, to think about it. In this process, I gradually formed a series of “rules” that I followed in the process of growth. I think this is the biggest growth of my year.

1. Relearn from your child

At one and a half years old, she was gradually able to recognize the various fruit cards hanging on the wall. Although she could not speak, when I asked questions such as where the apple was, where the pea shooter was, she always quickly pointed to the correct place. I was delighted with the rapid growth and wondered how on earth she had learned it. Conscious observation shows that she has always adhered to the simplest rule: imitate -> repeat -> learn -> learn next. Her growing up has always adhered to such a small circle, which continuously expands her circle of cognition.

The images above, in order, represent the profound insights I gained from watching children grow. The far left is a tiny circulation, the key is to “know how to learn”, the process and the process of deliberate practice is almost similar, but more focused on small and specific things, or even a tiny bit of progress, the value of the pulmonary circulation is examines, perceiving, reflection and consolidate, can greatly bring learning motivation. I put this circular practice into the process of leading my son to learn all subjects. By repeatedly confirming “how to do it”, I encouraged him to grow up, and the little boy became more and more confident in facing difficulties. The three pictures on the right represent the gradual rise of levels, from deliberate practice to cognitive boundaries, and then to the spiral growth in a longer dimension, which basically constitutes the inevitable process of growth.

What’s the hardest thing about this? I think it’s the persistence of the cycle and timely stops.

We all know the exponential distribution of compound interest, and it starts to smooth out over a long period of time, and it takes a long time to reach the inflection point, and that requires persistence, because persistence is the only way to compound interest over time. I believe that the only way to get to the turning point quickly is to keep training the “know how to learn” mental point, and to keep reinforcing the mental representation of a thing, skill or concept through deliberate practice. On top of that, overcome your anxiety and slow yourself down (slow is not a speed issue, it’s a standard issue, please note).

But instead of sticking to it all the time, there’s another layer: “Stop your losses in time,” Buffett said of his investing principles: Rule No 1, Never lose money; Rule No 2, Never forget Rule No.1. At first glance, the second one sounds like crap, but when you understand it, it really means “stop your losses in time” : you have to keep moving forward inch by inch, and you have to care about what you lose and gain inch by inch. Only then can your comfort zone expand. We can acquire a skill or knowledge in a very short time, but if there is no output, no practice, the gain will soon be lost, because it is nature to forget. The essence of timely stop loss is to fight against forgetting, and the best way to fight against forgetting is to keep repeating, keep using, and keep practicing. The book Cognitive Nature talks about the memory nerve, forming synapses through retrieval, tying a knot for memory. This knot is a process of muscle building, just like we do in the gym, where we train, stimulate, and tear muscles and nerves to make them grow again, so you have to learn to “stop the loss in time” to grow.

This is what I learned from my children last year. I have been constantly urging myself to complete a single small closed loop, with continuous repetition and evolution, expecting to meet the inflection point quickly and walk out of the complete compound interest curve.

2. Everything has rules

Wan Weigang said in the book “Never Expected” that the knowledge and skills mastered by people are not scattered information and random actions, but mostly have certain “structures”, and these structures are models. And a great person, or elite person, is someone who is good at mastering and using these models to solve problems. I understand that the model here is “Zhang Fa”, which can also be understood as the routine we often say.

As for the growth of team and management in the past year, I have learned the power of rules and regulations from the sharing of many senior students. All models are abstractions, which is similar to the abstractions in the technical field. For example, last year, I shared “How to Draw a Good Architecture Diagram” in the team, which was a summary of the rules. Another example is performance management, a periodic management action, which is abstracted into a model of setting goals – pursuing process – taking results. Once the rules are formed, and then thinking based on the rules, the whole process will achieve twice the result with half the effort.

So how to find “zhang Fa”? My lesson is always to ask myself: How did I learn this? The process of awareness, results-based review, reflection and precipitation, cognitive practice, repeated confirmation and cognition, I think this is the key to the formation of rules and regulations. This chapter can certainly refer to others, but I think my own thinking is the most useful. Everything has rules and regulations, as long as the intention, willing to work hard, dare to struggle hard in thought, I believe there will be a big harvest.

In the past year, the team has made solid thinking and implementation in management practice. Through repeated review, thinking and discussion of the core team, the execution times have been strengthened and a driving model in line with compound interest has been formed. If the “rules” of doing one thing are repeatedly applied to the upward spiral of learning, persistence and practice, then in this matter, I can gain much faster growth than others or myself in the past. This is the biggest harvest I have gained in management growth in the past year.

3. Live life and work happily

Last September, the team had an Outing in Phuket Island. During the Outing, I found that many students who were low-key in normal work were full of bright spots. I suddenly found that each of our students is an iceberg, in the work of only the visible part of the iceberg, and under the iceberg of everyday life is more real full reaction of a person, that gave me great inspiration, let me more in-depth thinking “happy life seriously, work” the wisdom behind.

I think we must learn to appreciate in a serious life. We should humbly appreciate everyone we come into contact with and find the bright spots in others. This is the biggest harvest of my Outing. This appreciation makes me more and more tolerant, able to tolerate and accept the people and things I could not accept before, and look inward to myself. This kind of tolerance also makes my heart more open and more receptive to different views, and I can get a lot of growth experience that used to belong to the “blind zone”. This process needs cultivation, need to keep the inner humility, a person at work may not be charming, but in life he is a very shining person, keep humility can let oneself see a complete person.

Serious life is also an attitude, but also a kind of understanding of life. In the past, I always thought that I was in a struggling age, I never paid too much attention to life, I also never believed in the concept of work-life balance, I am far more passionate about work and energy than my life. In my opinion, people’s energy is limited, and they must devote the most vigorous stage to the improvement of their career and personal ability. Therefore, I have never thought about “serious life” in detail, and I just talk about it. I have a narrow view of the relationship between life and work, and I have different thoughts after Outing.

One of the most common questions we ask is how to balance life and work itself. There is a word called “balance” here, and I don’t know what the picture of that word is in your mind. The first thing that comes to my mind is “balance”, which means either putting yourself into life and not pursuing too much in work; Or think more about work and live more about work. This narrow sense of either/or between work and life actually profoundly hinders their further thinking. I’ve been looking at it this way for a long time. The fact is that work is part of life, it is inclusive, what is life? Life is life. Life includes career (work), family (life as we often understand it), children, education, hobbies, and so on. “The seven habits of highly effective people” in the book “shall first mentioned” bucket “life”, the barrel can be filled with rock, gravel, sand, etc., to work for me might be a big stone, it carries me a lot of the values of life, economic base, such as base, this book can make me feel life is advancing, The core is that we need to identify the “important but not urgent” tasks that we undertake in each role in our lives, and then do it well, do the critical 20%, and constantly absorb it, based on the principle of “overall progress”, rather than a one-sided focus as the direction. Besides, thinking and inspiration in daily life can be applied to work very well. It is a kind of wisdom to discover beauty, pain and avoid harm in human nature. It is also the growth I have gained in my serious life in the past year. I am constantly strengthening this understanding and practicing this value.

The underlying logic that keeps me going

The above words are more about the growth of the past year. The following contents are my reflections on the past six years, as well as a summary of these six years.

1. Right now, it’s me

This is one of my favorite Sayings in Turkish, and before it became a value, there were so many stories that nourished me through these eight words. These eight characters contain a sense of mission, responsibility, responsibility, passion, but also contains a kind of “give up who else” heroic spirit. I wonder if the “here and now” part of the new six-vein triangle is placed at the bottom and center by accident or design. In my opinion, this is the endogenous source of all other values, whether in personal growth or defending customer value, which is very, very critical. There are at least three points in my historical experience about how to maintain endogenous passion.

1) Be idealistic

There are two thought patterns mentioned in the book Lifelong Growth: fixed and growth. The figure below is the comparison of these two thinking modes. In various situations, the two thinking modes have different understandings. This book says that changes can be made through observation and training. In fact, this is similar to the difference between idealism and realism that we often talk about, the quality of idealism is silly and naive. In the past six years, I have been in a lot of trouble and done a lot of things. Thanks to the people who led me along the way, I remained naive: full of expectations for the future, willing to keep trying, not complaining and self-motivated.

2) Stay positive

During my six years at Ali, I made one active change and N passive changes. In the past experience, I think the best way to stay optimistic in the change, no matter how complicated the matter is, no matter whether it is a pit or a pot, when you find the problem, you will naturally become very excited, the inner OS is: I am needed here, this is an opportunity to grow; Bigger problems, bigger holes, okay, it’s time for me to turn things around. I think it is such an internal drive and such an idealistic simplicity that has kept me going for six years. Looking back over the past six years, I can’t say how well I have done or how positive I have been. I have also had low moments, but I always regard optimism as my “mean value” in my heart, and it is only a matter of time before I return to the “mean value”. In the most difficult time, might as well read more “dialect”, each dialect is a story behind, each dialect is the condensation of wisdom, different periods, different stages, may be a certain sentence will let you become transparent, produce the courage and courage to continue.

3) Give your work meaning

It is impossible for all things at work to come according to their expectations, more or less there are always some “chores” and “coolies” that we understand. In a project or a period of cooperation, you might as well ask yourself what you want to be remembered by others. Then give meaning to the work. I remember during the women’s Volleyball World Cup last year, when the reporter interviewed Lang Ping, she mentioned that each serve should have a “sense of mission” and give each serve a meaning, which roughly means: Can not say that they are afraid of mistakes on the conservative, so everyone has to impact the opponent, serve a very poor ball they have no responsibility for mistakes, complete the task of serving, but the other side can easily organize an attack to bring pressure to teammates. That’s probably what I mean by “meaning of work.” No matter how small things, can find their own “sense of value”, get things done, make teammates easier.

2. Take responsibility for results because I’m different

After entering Ali for a long time, MY requirement for myself is to “stop the problem when it comes to me”. I will try my best to solve the problem and give the final reason or result as long as I see the problem or send it to me. This process can span many teams, it can span entire business links, and every time I want to give up, the belief that “the problem stops with me” comes up and despises me. As a result, my personal ability grew rapidly at that stage and my influence on the team became bigger and bigger.

To later, this self requirements into a “different” because I (because of my participation, can make things different, can be better, more efficient, or a more disciplined), has experienced the flying pigs to barley to the Olympic team, “because I’m different” this faith has gradually replaced the “problem” to me, but also will often jump out to despise me.

1) “Because I’m different” is about constantly raising your standards

Taking responsibility for results is the most intuitive interpretation of “I’m different,” I think. The results here correspond to levels, and different levels actually correspond to different standards. There are different levels of effort behind different standards. For example, in daily development work, if the criteria are: Just get my part done, that might be at the personal outcome level; If the criteria are: I get my part done, but I also focus on the end goal of the project, and make sure that all partners, top and bottom, right and left, get results together, it might be at the end level of the project. If the standard is: I want to finish this thing, connect the upstream and downstream, and I know the meaning behind this thing, start the overall planning of the future, and do things in a more systematic way, it may be a team or a higher level.

Everything has levels (levels = standards), “because I am different” means to constantly improve their standards of doing things, the higher the standard of a person, the more profound the understanding of a thing, over time, the formation of the ability to distinguish, also created a different growth rate.

2) “Because I am Different” means to Make Different, Impact, and Friends

This 3M rule is not my original one. It comes from my HR sister who has left. She said that these are the three principles that guided her in her career at Ali. Give full play to subjective initiative, like a candle, always exert personal influence to the maximum. Make Different wherever possible; Start small, start small, start from the people around you, and lead by example. Maybe I can Make an Impact in the department, maybe I can Make an Impact in BG, maybe I can Make an Impact in the whole group. And we will always remember the work we do a lot of things, eventually found to stay is not the thing itself, but when we are doing things for other people’s impression, others call their labels, so Make Friends, this impression/label is friendship, savings can support us in the sometimes-complex mix-and-match I have your ali do more.

3. Never “butt decides head”

There are two things I want to say here. One is that we need to “evolve”. We need to constantly discover and perceive changes in the world and adapt to them more quickly. The other layer is pattern and vision, that is, do not be limited by their own level, role position, perspective.

1) Open your eyes

“Open eyes”, I think, is a very graphic word. A sheep on a hillside has a better chance of coping with a Wolf than a sheep at the foot of the mountain. We may still be at the foot of the mountain, but we need to be alert to what’s going on around us. We need to extend our awareness halfway up the mountain. For example, going to see the big boys in the field and sensing what the technology trends are, what the changes are? Gradually allow yourself to see, to believe, to shape. Here once again could be applied to the metaphor of “black hole”, the world is stereo, anything, thinking and ideas have layers, we have to do is to constantly improve their thinking level, continuously improve their pattern, to elevate himself at least one or two levels, to find and perceive the world changes, only in this way can keep the pace of progress.

2) Look up at the stars and keep your feet on the ground

It’s important to keep your eyes open, but more important to keep your feet on the ground. If blindly pursue looking up at the stars, it is easy to lose focus, go astray. The reliable way is to combine the current business, combined with the current team challenges, imitate the actions of pioneers, imitate the same level or similar level of pioneers, constantly “look in the mirror”. List several role models, look at them one by one, and gradually go beyond them. Start by bringing your role model into a problem, starting with “What would he think? Start with the question, step by step, why? From learning to knowing how to learn, to consolidate, precipitation, formation of rules, and then advance to the next example. This process training is the pattern and vision, beyond their current perspective and position to think about problems, out of the current butt to do things.

Write in the last

The above words serve as a summary of the past year, but also to put a “comma” on the past six years. In 2020, we need to comprehensively promote and iterate ourselves at work, study, cognition, body and other levels, strengthen our input and output, and use OKR as a tool to drive ourselves and achieve more progress. Six years ago, I joined the company because of my attraction, six years ago, I persisted because of my dream, and in the future, I hope to inherit because of my ideal.

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