Ren Zhengfei
Let those who hear the gunfire call for artillery
Turning authority toward the front
Ren Zhengfei's 2009 speech to the sales and service organisation, published
Headquarters that will not release authority leaves the front line unable to fight. The organisational inversion behind the slogan.
What actually happened?
In 2009 Ren named the big-company disease inside Huawei: right now the front line fights and the rear directs. Authority sat with the headquarters furthest from the customer, and by the time resources were approved the opening had closed. His direction was to move the command post to where the guns can be heard: let the people who hear the gunfire call in the artillery, the front line drawing resources itself, headquarters converting from a control centre into a service and support centre. He added the counterweight in the same breath. Calling for artillery costs money, and the caller carries it.
Command belongs where the information is
The front line learns first that a customer has cooled or a rival has moved, but the resources are decided by a headquarters that knows the battlefield through reports. Five retellings sit between the decision and the fact, each adding distortion and delay. Move authority to the information, rather than making information climb to authority.
An urgent customer request queues upward for scheduling, and by the time it is approved the customer has signed elsewhere. Give the account manager a spending limit and the game changes.
The call for artillery has to carry a price
Devolve authority without accounting and the front treats firepower as free, which is exactly why headquarters will not devolve it. His design pairs them: resources drawn are booked against the unit's own results, wins share more, waste is carried locally. Authority, responsibility and reward descend together.
Give the front its own budget, then put gross margin and resource use into its bonus formula. The call is free and the invoice is theirs.
Headquarters is now measured on response time
The other half of the inversion happens at the rear. If headquarters becomes a service rather than an approver, the scorecard has to move too, from how many non-compliant requests we stopped to how fast we answered the front. Leave the scorecard alone and service stays a word.
Add average response time on front-line requests to the back-office scorecard and publish the ranking. Only then does service centre become a job rather than a slogan.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: the front line says resources never come through and headquarters says the front asks for anything it likes.
Ask first: who holds the information this decision needs, how many layers separate it from the authority, and did the cost accounting go down with the power?
Where it goes wrong: devolving authority without the ledger, so the front sets off fireworks; or using the front line is calling to override every professional check, when compliance and risk are gunfire too.
Lines to keep
Right now the front line fights and the rear directs.
Headquarters must become a service and support centre, not a control centre.
Same situation, other people are asking
I explained it and what came back was not it.Everything is orderly now and we've somehow got slower.What I ask for and what I get are never the same thing.We added people and less gets finished than before.Nothing ships · all 12 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.