Find the right people, not the best people.
Interpretation
It's more important to surround yourself with the right people who share your values than to only seek the most qualified individuals.
This quote by Jack Ma emphasizes the importance of building relationships with individuals who are a good fit for your vision and values rather than solely focusing on their qualifications or status. The right people contribute positively to our goals and provide support, while the best people in a technical sense may not always align with our ethos or help foster a productive environment.
In practice
In a leadership seminar, this quote can inspire attendees to prioritize team cohesion over individual performance.
Hong Kong people say Hong Kong needs to preserve its uniqueness. I say Hong Kong's uniqueness is in its diversity, its tolerance of difference cultures... China does not want to see Hong Kong in decline. I have full confidence in its future.
If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat tons of them.
It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.
Helping doing business easier, we choose the name Alibaba because it is a global company. It is founded in China, but it was created for the world.
In the beginning I just wanted to survive. For the first three years, we made zero revenue. I remember many times when I was trying to pay up, the restaurant owner would say, 'Your bill was paid.' And there would be a note saying, 'Mr. Ma, I'm your customer on the Alibaba platform. I made a lot of money, and I know you don't, so I paid the bill.'
Even if your competitor is still small in size or weak, you should take him seriously and treat him as a giant. Likewise, even if your competitor is massive in size, you shouldn't regard yourself as a weakling.
Men strengthen each other in their faults. Those who are alike associate together, repeat the things which all believe, defend and stimulate their common faults of disposition, and each one receives from the others a reflection of his own egotism.
It's like everybody's sitting there and they have some kind of veil over their face, and they look at each other through this veil that makes them see each other through some stereotypical kind of viewpoint. If we're ever gonna collectively begin to grapple with the problems that we have collectively, we're gonna have to move back the veil and deal with each other on a more human level.
After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes. Often it is awe or admiration, sometimes it is repulsion, once or twice it has been fury hurled directly at me for reasons I remain unsure of.
If you don't have the right people around you and you're moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself.
If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you but he will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards
Until we meet again, may God bless you as he has blessed me.
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