Yanwen’s blog

9/6/2026

Today I'm going to take a break from The Way of Huawei Learning by Deng Bin.

Yesterday, during my weekly video chat with my family in Beijing, my youngest sister told me about a conversation she had with her son.

Her son kept encouraging her to find an interest of her own. She mentioned raising fish and taking care of her cat, but he didn't think those counted. He told her that she needed to have a goal.

Then my sister mentioned playing a music instrument. She used to enjoy it, but she hasn't played for decades.

Her son replied, “Mom, your problem can be summed up in one word: lazy.”

My sister admitted that he might be right. And that was the end of the conversation.

But the conversation stayed with me. Three thoughts came to mind.

First, I think it is very kind of her son to care about how she spends her retirement life. Encouraging a parent to develop interests of her own is good advice. Having something we enjoy and look forward to can make retirement more interesting and fulfilling.

“Find your own interest” is actually valuable advice for parents of adult children. When children are young, parents naturally organize much of their lives around them—taking care of their needs, driving them to activities, helping with school, and putting their own interests aside. Many parents postpone things they enjoy for years.

I remember a friend telling me that when her daughter left home for college, she said to her, “Mom, find an interest. You need a life of your own.”

It sounds a little harsh, but there is wisdom in it.

Second, her son may have been right about the underlying problem.

My sister says she likes music. She used to enjoy playing the piano. Now that she is retired and has more time, why hasn't she returned to it?

Perhaps the problem really is a lack of motivation—or simply the habit of putting things off.

But third, calling someone “lazy” doesn't necessarily help.

I think this is the interesting part of the conversation.

Very often, we already know what is good for us. We know we should exercise more, learn something new, reconnect with friends, or pursue an interest we have neglected. The problem isn't necessarily knowing what one should do.

So the real challenge is execution: turning an abstract interest into a regular activity.

Instead of telling someone, “You're lazy,” if we really want to bring about changes, it may be more useful to suggest something concrete:

• How about playing the piano for 30 minutes a day?

• How about taking a music class or joining a music group?

• How about choosing one composer and learning more about his or her music?

• How about playing one song you love every Sunday?

These small actions turn “I like music” from an idea into action.

Perhaps this is true of many things in life. Good intentions don't automatically produce good results. Knowing what we want is only the first step. We still need to create a way to make it happen.

And sometimes, instead of telling someone what is wrong with them, it may be more helpful to give them a small, concrete step toward what they want.

Maybe my sister already has an interest and doesn't need to find another one.

Maybe she just needs to start playing the piano again.

9/5/2026

I'm going to continue talking about the book I've been reading since 9/3, The Way of Huawei Learning by Deng Bin.

One of Huawei's important learning methods is benchmarking: identify the best performers in the field, study what makes them successful, and use their strengths as a reference for improvement.

Huawei does not look for one company to copy wholesale. Instead, it breaks a business into different modules and identifies the best reference for each. Ericsson might be the benchmark for carrier business, Apple for product design and R&D, and OPPO or vivo for consumer-market channels. Huawei studies these companies in great detail, learns their proven best practices, and then adapts and improves upon them.

This approach helped Huawei make some remarkable leaps. It began as a B2B company serving telecom operators, then expanded into consumer smartphones and eventually into global markets. Each transition brought new customers, products, channels, and competitive environments. Huawei could not rely solely on its own past experience. It needed to learn from those already successful in each field.

The author describes the principle this way: compare every part of your business with the best in the industry—and learn from them.

This reminds me of Peter Drucker's principle that effective managers should build on strengths—the strengths of themselves, their employees, and the people around them. The same applies to learning. When we study someone who is better than us, the goal is to absorb what they do well in order to become better ourselves.

That may be why Huawei has been able to repeatedly move into unfamiliar territory and make such successful transitions.

What we can learn from Huawei's benchmarking practice:

Find the best. Study them closely. Learn their strengths. Then make those strengths your own.

9/4/2026

I'm going to continue talking about the book I mentioned yesterday, The Way of Huawei Learning by Deng Bin.

This part of the book really took me by surprise.

After 2009, Huawei began studying the U.S. military and its approach to standardized management and organizational efficiency. Huawei had noticed that the traditional front-to-back-office workflow used by many large Western companies could be rigid and slow. It began experimenting with military-style reforms: delegating more authority to frontline sales teams and making back-office departments respond more quickly to the demands of the field.

At first, I found this hard to believe. But the more I read, the more it made sense.

Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei (任正非), has repeatedly said that Huawei deliberately studied the U.S. military, particularly its organization, logistics, leadership, and ability to operate large and complex organizations.

In a 2019 interview, Ren was asked how his own military experience had influenced his management style. His answer was unusually candid. He said that he had been only a low-level engineer in the Chinese military and had never actually managed a military organization. Much of what he learned about military management, he explained, came from studying the West Point model and reading about American generals, while comparing how American and Soviet commanders organized and conducted military operations.

Even more strikingly, Ren has described the U.S. military as “the world's best company” when it comes to organizational and logistics management. He said Huawei wanted to learn from the U.S. military's logistics system, while also acknowledging that a company could not simply copy the military's willingness to spend without the same concern for cost.

One important lesson Huawei took from the U.S. military was the importance of putting resources and decision-making closer to the frontline.

The U.S. military has spent decades developing systems that allow combat units to focus on their missions while specialized organizations provide logistics and other forms of support. Huawei adapted some of these ideas into business practices, including the famous principle:

“让听得见炮声的人来呼唤炮火” — Let the people who hear the gunfire call for the artillery.

In practical terms, this meant:

• Making headquarters more of a supporting and service organization rather than allowing it to control everything.

• Giving frontline business units greater authority and flexibility.

• Organizing around customers, products, and regions rather than relying entirely on centralized functional departments.

Huawei even organized systematic studies of U.S. military thinking. For example, in 2015–16, Ren had Huawei employees study writings on the U.S. military and invited Chinese military scholars to lecture to Huawei executives and employees.

In another interview, Ren said that Huawei employees could find no anti-American slogans throughout the company and that “everyone is learning from the U.S.” He even said that Huawei circulated U.S. Department of Defense documents internally because they considered them well written and valuable for learning.

What strikes me most is not that Huawei studied the U.S. military. It is the open-mindedness behind that decision.

Huawei was competing in the global technology industry, much of which was dominated by American companies. Yet instead of assuming that everything developed in the United States was something to reject, Huawei was willing to look carefully at what the United States did well and ask: What can we learn from it?

That takes a high level of humility.

Ren's attitude was: If someone is better than us at something, find out why they are better and learn from them.

It doesn't matter whether the teacher is a friend, a competitor. If they have something worth learning, learn it.

I think that is one of the most valuable qualities in Huawei.

Real confidence does not mean believing that you are already the best. It means being confident enough to learn from anyone who is better than you.

9/3/2026

Huawei is a Chinese technology company specializing in telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and digital infrastructure, with operations in more than 170 countries.

There have been many books written about Huawei. Recently, I got hold of one written in Chinese by Deng Bin, titled The Way of Huawei Learning.

Deng was a senior employee at Huawei for 11 years. His book examines more than 30 years of Huawei's history, focusing on whom Huawei learned from and how it learned.

During its early years, from 1987 to 1997, Huawei's learning was largely disorganized and problem-driven. The company responded to problems as they arose, without a systematic management framework.

That began to change in 1998. Huawei started investing heavily in organizational learning, with the goal of building standardized management systems. This was the period when Huawei began learning extensively from Western consulting companies.

Ren Zhengfei, Huawei's founder and leader, once admitted that he “did not know how to manage.” Rather than trying to figure everything out on its own, Ren made a smart move. Huawei spent roughly a decade, from 1998 to 2008, systematically learning how to build modern management systems, working with Western consulting firms, including IBM.

Huawei spent enormous sums bringing in these outside experts. According to incomplete statistics cited in the book, since beginning its partnership with IBM in 1998, Huawei has cumulatively paid more than 40 billion RMB in consulting fees to global consulting firms.

At first glance, spending that much money on consultants might seem excessive. But I think what Huawei did was remarkably smart: it was willing to spend heavily to learn from the best.

Ren Zhengfei put it this way:

“Thrift alone will never build Huawei. When you seize a strategic opportunity, any amount spent counts as victory. If you miss a strategic opportunity, spending nothing still leads to demise.” (“节约是节约不出一个华为公司的，抓住了战略机会，花多少钱都是胜利；抓不住战略机会，不花钱也是死亡”。)

To capture strategic opportunities, Ren believed, a company should be willing to hire the best teachers in the world. Trying to teach yourself simply to save money, he argued, can be the worst possible choice.

Looking at Huawei today, I find this philosophy particularly interesting.

Huawei didn't just invest billions in technology. It invested billions in learning.

The company paid outsiders to teach it how to manage, organize, develop processes, and compete at a global level. It then absorbed, adapted, and eventually internalized what it learned.

That investment may be one of the reasons Huawei was able to develop the capabilities it has today.

In other words, learning, initially a cost on Huawei's balance sheet, was a long-term strategic investment.

And sometimes the smartest investment a company can make is learning how to become better at everything it does.

For ordinary people, I think the most important lesson from Huawei is that investing in learning can be one of the smartest investments we make.

What is true for a company can also be true for an individual. If you want to become an excellent tennis player, learn from a great coach. If you want to master a new skill, let the master teach you.

More on Huawei tomorrow.

9/2/2026

The end of summer and the arrival of September always bring back memories of back-to-school days, especially when my children were young.

The children would get ready for the new school year. For a child, September meant that everything started again—a fresh beginning. There were new teachers and classmates, sometimes a new backpack and new shoes, freshly sharpened pencils, and a new classroom. It was like turning to a new page.

In China, we called it 开学日. I still remember those days from my own elementary-school years.

When my children were in elementary school, I experienced those new beginnings alongside them. I was part of the annual back-to-school ritual—the preparation, the anticipation, and the feeling that something new was about to begin.

Now those years are long gone. Yet when September comes around, these seasonal memories come back, even though the people who once gave that season its meaning have grown up.

Perhaps what I miss is not simply the school days themselves, but what “back to school” represented: the feeling that life was beginning again.

As children, we had built-in new beginnings. Every September, we moved up a grade, increased in age, and began another chapter. Adulthood is different. There are no school calendars indicating a fresh start. We simply move from one day to the next, and sometimes life can begin to feel like one long continuation of the day before.

I wish we could keep that back-to-school feeling long after we leave school. Perhaps we can in our own way.

We could deliberately give ourselves a September every year—a time to start something new, change a routine, meet new people, begin a project, learn something we have never learned before, or simply look at familiar things with fresh eyes.

Maybe growing older doesn't mean we have to stop going back to school. We just have to choose our own first day.

No more new classroom, new teachers, or a freshly sharpened pencil. But we can still decide what we want to learn, where we want to go, and what new page we want to turn.

Perhaps every September can be a reminder of our own back-to-school day and we can still have the ritual and its meanings in our lives.