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.
