Liu Yan
Give the post a future first
he did not hunt for honest men, he changed the post
Xin Tangshu, biography of Liu Yan; on staffing the circuit revenue offices with ranked court officials
You replaced the person and it went wrong again. Is what needs replacing the person, or the post they sat in?
What actually happened?
Liu Yan ran the revenue of an empire, and much of the cash passed through hands thousands of miles away where nobody could watch it. His answer was not tighter inspection. He handed the two jobs closest to the money, audit and disbursement, to ranked officials who drew salaries and could rise; the career clerks were allowed only to process the paperwork. He gave his reason: a man with rank and salary values his name above gain, and a clerk with nowhere to rise values gain above his name.
The sentence is about two posts, not two characters
Scholars and clerks were not two kinds of soul. The difference sat in the post: one carried rank, appraisal and a way up, so a name was worth more than the immediate take; the other was capped, so only the take was real.
When a post ruins three people in a row, the trouble is probably not those three people.
The operative words are nowhere to rise
His variable is not whether the pay is enough but whether there is anywhere to go. In a post that leads nowhere, keeping the rules buys nothing, and asking that man to weigh his name against gain asks him to spend something worthless.
If people in one role keep helping themselves, look first for a route upward; without one, honesty does not pay there.
He replaced nobody, he moved one step
Audit and disbursement went to the ranked officials and the clerks merely carried out the documents. Not one clerk was dismissed; they simply stopped handling money. He changed not the staff list but which step belonged to whom.
Before replacing anyone, move the step closest to the money to someone who has something to lose.
For the well-connected, a title and no work
When the powerful pressed him to place their people, he paid them handsomely out of the salary budget and never let them near the business. The history records the result: everyone else applied themselves, the posts that mattered plainly not being won by a word in the right ear.
For the favour you cannot refuse, give the title in full and take the real authority away.
The history itself wrote the sequel
Those he appointed obeyed him as though he stood beside them, thousands of miles off. But the next line reads that only Yan could work it and no one else. After his death the office decayed until a successor, twenty years on, matched his best year.
Try writing your pick the right people method up as a standard someone else can follow; if you cannot, it is still a personal craft.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you have been through a round of people in this post and it still goes wrong.
Ask first: does this post lead anywhere, because if whoever sits there gets nowhere however long they stay, I am asking them to trade a reputation they do not have?
Where it goes wrong: using it to justify trusting only your own circle. He chose ranked, appraised, promotable officials, not intimates; the men pressed on him by the powerful drew the salary precisely so that they never touched the work.
Lines to keep
A man with rank values his name above the immediate gain.
Audit and cash went to the ranked; clerks kept the paperwork.
Only Yan could work it, and no one else.
Same situation, other people are asking
Everyone I interview is fine at everything and great at nothing.I replaced the person and the post is still rotten.I can't find anyone good · all 2 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.