Management Wisdom Of The "tao Te Ching"

The Chinese people are more exposed to the western management theories when it comes to management thoughts and strategies. After developing more insights into the Chinese philosophy, I've learnt that China's traditional culture is enriched with a profound wealth of management wisdom. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu is such a classic representative masterwork.However, with the enthusiasm for Sinology rising up, we are now waking up from blind worship of the foreign knowledge system, and start to seek for knowhow for nation administration and enterprise management. China's academic community of management study has made remarkable progress after decades of progression, but most of what we have absorbed is management thoughts from the west. In fact, about two thousand years ago, our ancestors had already gained much wisdom about how to rule a nation and passed it down in written words to their descendants. For the past thousands of years, many of our predecessors have made annotations and textual research on Tao Te Ching, but their interpretations varied widely. From the upsurge of the May 4th New Culture Movement to the end of "Cultural Revolution", there was a gap in the continuity of China's traditional culture evolution. Some of the great works, which should otherwise have become the nationwide literature, vanished right in front of us.I have summarized various kinds of interpretations and research achievements about Tao Te Ching in every dynasty and by foreign scholars after an extensive research of historical documents. Our predecessors tended to ground their arguments from the perspectives of philosophy, health preserving and political strategy when they carried out their research. After the founding of new China, the academic community re-recognized Tao Te Ching as a great work of philosophy, and all consented that the book "is most valuable for its rich and plain ideas of dialectics". Besides, I have come to learn that Tao Te Ching is widely spread abroad and many foreign scholars regard the book as a treasure enriched with management wisdom. The broadness and magnitude of the influence of Lao Tzu and his thought is so profound that it's beyond the expectation of many Chinese today.At the meantime, I have also made an study into Lao Tzu himself and its historical role and contribution of Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu, as the Father of Chinese philosophy, established the first systematic and fairly complete system of China's philosophy. Lao Tzu, also known as Tao Te Ching, is a Chinese classic text of philosophy, which demonstrates the way, rules, principles, methods and wisdom in the universe, one's life and course. Lao Tzu's thought of philosophy has made vast and profound influence over both Chinese and the world's philosophy. The west world even compares the importance of Tao Te Ching in Chinese culture with that of the Bible in western culture.In the part of practice, I demonstrate the management thought of strategies centered on Daoism with real case analysis by means of some interpretations of some chapters in Tao Te Ching. The demonstration is focused on the management principles of "Wu Wei (literally:to go with the flow)", unique management strategies such as "to win from a position of weakness", "to win by reacting secondarily", "to retreat in order to advance" and "to give in order to take". These principles can be further interpreted as the strategies of "it's better to remain in the state of vacancy and stillness, and what is soft and weak is above" for business operation, "action through inaction" for business management, "finding good qualities of people, so no people are rejected" for people employment, "to retreat in order to advance, to give in order to take" for competition management. These thoughts are of great value of reference to modern management.In the end, the essay also gives insights into the influence of Tao Te Ching on today's entrepreneurs. The Book does not teach the business managers exactly what to do as there are no shallow skills available for use. The purpose for entrepreneurs to study the Book is to know "the Way" of how to manage a company, i.e. the philosophy of enterprise management.To conclude, I think the management wisdom in Tao Te Ching is of great value of reference and inspiration to today's managers, which would be better realized in dealing with specific problems. Managers are encouraged to study the Book carefully and absorb wisdom from it, and finally return to nature in management.