Laozi's Wisdom Of Management

Among all the great thinkers in China, Laozi's idea of management is very extensive and profound. Not only in the old days was it highly thought by many wise minds as kingcraft, but today a great number of successful personages still draw essence and inspiration from it. With infinite charm, the brilliant thought of Laozi will never fade.This essay mainly focuses on Laozi's wisdom of management. Generally speaking, those who study Laozi are either philosophers or managerialists. Philosophers emphasize on Taoism from a theoretical view, while managerialists pay more attention to the skill of management and administration in a practical way. (Of course, Laozi is the founder of Taoism. As it is beyond our understanding, we won't talk about it here in this essay).There is a tradeoff between the two sides. Actually, Laozi's idea of management is developed on the basis of Taoism, thus the unity of Taoism and management can be realized. As it is the very essence of Laozi's wisdom, this unity naturally becomes the core and mainlines of this essay.When discussing Taoism from a philosophical view, it is difficult to tell Ontology from Epistemology. Special ways of understanding Taoism have to be incorporated, as unlike other scientific objects, the existence of Tao is superior. Above all we have to make sure how we can understand Tao, otherwise we will not grasp the real idea of Taoism. Taking both Ontology and epistemology into consideration, we reach the conclusion that we can only understand the true essence of Tao by minding our body and mending our mind. Only by clarifying our mind and remaining the real tranquility of mind, can we understand Tao as it is.In addition, Taoism is also a theory of humanity. Here in this essay we have made a rough comparison between the eastern and western theories of humanity. We place emphasis on the essential connection and origin between Laozi and other ancient Chinese classics. In Chinese theory of humanity, the thought of Laozi is the real start of all the other Chinese classical thoughts. Moreover, Laozi establishes the fundamental theme of all the classics, which is how to achieve an ideal order of setting store by morals in society. Rationally the thoughts'of Laozi has laid a firm foundation and signaled the beginning for the development of Chinese culture in the following two thousand and five hundred years.This essay studies Laozi's philosophy of management and administration, which penetrates into every page of Laozi's"Tao Te Ching"("Dao De Jing"in Chinese, which is the classic of the virtue of Tao). The four major pillars are"The Tao follows nature","Govern by doing nothing that is against nature","Reversing is the law of Tao's movement"and"Being weak is the function of Tao". We have done an elaborate analysis on these four principles here in this essay.We have also done a research into Laozi's idea of"shu"(important concept in Taoism, basically concerned intelligence and skills), by mainly studying the fundamental meanings of"the relationship between the bad and the good fortune","being weak","being inferior"and"not striving". Laozi's idea of"shu"often runs contrary to the ordinary trend, as he starts from the disadvantageous part. He thinks only in conformance to the nature, can we really achieve a state of"Wu Wei"(doing nothing). In the last two chapters, we explore the specific applications of Laozi's thought to enterprise strategic management and development. Though we may have left out many important factors in the discussion, we would love to demonstrate how the idea of Laozi affects the enterprise strategic management in a rich and profound way.