Mobile reading

Chapter 151

During the Qin Empire, although the development of Confucianism was not as important as that of Legalism as the core doctrine of the Qin Empire, it was not neglected. Pinshu.com

It can be seen that during the period of the first emperor, "Lu Di Confucian students were hired as doctors, and the number reached seventy-two".

Of course, the nature of this kind of doctor is more like a think tank in later generations, and the first emperor mainly asks about some policies or some systems for the existence of these people, such as when Taishan was enshrined in Zen, the first emperor once asked about the relevant etiquette arrangements.

However, this matter is actually useless, because these so-called doctors have no obligation to exist as a think tank at all.

......

In the history of later generations, the think tank is an existence with a certain evolutionary nature.

Think tank is a popular term these days. There have been many names in history, such as doorman, military advisor, strategist, staff officer, consultant, etc., and think tanks played a very important role in military and other political activities in ancient times. For example, there are records in the history books and military books that Sun Wu conspired for the king of Wu, Wu Qi for the Marquis of Wei, and Sun Bin for the king of Qi Wei.

In modern management, with the rapid development of science and technology and the great challenge of globalization, the competition in the world has intensified, and people have paid more attention to think tanks, and formed think tank organizations and think tank systems. As a group organization to serve the enterprise and the society, this is also the so-called think tank problem.

"Three stinkers - Zhuge Liang", it can be seen that the power of the "think tank" cannot be ignored. In modern society, a "think tank", also known as a think tank, a think tank, a think tank, and an advisory group, is a special organization that produces knowledge and ideas.

A think tank is a special kind of organization that produces knowledge and ideas. It is often referred to as a think tank, a consulting body, and some people refer to it as the "external brain" of a person.

The development of modern science has brought human activities into a new stage. According to rough estimates, the results of research achieved in the sixties of the twentieth century are more than those of the past 2,000 years combined. For example, the theories and methods of physics and chemistry are included in biology, which promotes the development of molecular biology, and biology promotes the study of control theory...... And so on, tightly criss-crossed. In short, the pace of development of the objective real world, with its complexity and variability, far exceeds the extent of any individual effort. In the face of this reality, no matter how much talent and intelligence a manager has, how rich knowledge and experience and how much courage he has, he cannot be qualified for management tasks alone.

In such a situation, a multidisciplinary organization composed of experts and dedicated to providing advice and advice to policymakers in dealing with social, economic, scientific, technological, military, diplomatic and other issues, and providing the best theories, strategies, methods, ideas, etc., came into being. This institution conducts "creative thinking", the result of which is ideas, knowledge, which is used to strengthen the functioning of the brain of decision-makers and thus have a beneficial impact on decision-making. Therefore, some people refer to these "think tanks" and "think tanks" as people's "external brains".

The famous RAND Corporation in the United States is such an "external brain". As early as 1955, it proposed radiation weapons and predicted the launch of the Soviet Union's artificial satellites; in the early sixties, it proposed to speed up the research of bullets, which was valued by the United States Government and finally succeeded, thus giving the United States an advantage in the nuclear strategic arms race. The various economic research centers and advisory organizations established in China are all of this kind of organization. Think tanks have become an indispensable part of policy-making bodies and policymakers.

The decision-making opinions provided by think tanks, staff officers, and consultants are only a plan, a future, and a kind of staff opinion that can be used for decision-making, rather than the decision-making itself. Decision-makers must make the final decision out of the need to be held accountable for the consequences of their decisions. This decision may be a choice of options offered by a think tank, a combination of options, or a complete disagreement from them.

......

The RAND Corporation is the most important military-oriented comprehensive strategic research institute in the United States. It was first known to the world for its research on cutting-edge military science and technology and major military strategies, and then expanded to all aspects of domestic and foreign policies, and gradually developed into a comprehensive think tank for the study of politics, military, economy, science and technology, society, and other aspects. It can be said to be the most prestigious decision-making advisory body in the United States and even in the world today.

The RAND Corporation was officially founded in November 1948. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, USA, it has an office in Washington, D.C., where it is responsible for government liaison.

During World War II, a group of scientists and engineers in the United States participated in military work and applied operations research to operations.

In order to continue this work, in November 1944, Henry Arnold, then commander of the Army Air Corps, would present a memorandum on the "Postwar and Next World War American Research and Development Program," calling for the establishment of an "independent research institute for objective analysis between the public and the private sector" in November 1944, "in order to avoid future national disasters and win victory in the next war."

In accordance with this recommendation, at the end of 1945, the US Army Air Corps signed a contract with Douglas Aircraft Company for a $10 million "research and development" program, which became known as the "RAND Plan". The name "RAND" is an abbreviation of the English word "research and development". Soon, the US Army Air Corps became an independent Air Force. In May 1948, with the sponsorship of $1 million from the Ford Foundation, Arnold broke away from the Douglas Aircraft Company and formally established the independent RAND Corporation.

As a "think tank", the RAND Corporation usually establishes contractual relationships with its customers, and many of the contracts of the RAND Corporation are signed with the U.S. federal government, such as the Department of Defense, the Department of Health, the Department of Human Resources, the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Medicine, the Bureau of Statistics, and so on.

RAND has 3~5 years or annual renewal service contracts with many of the above customers, and the contract amount is about tens of millions of dollars. Within the scope of the contract, sometimes the researchers of RAND Corporation put forward specific project proposals, sometimes the customers themselves put forward requirements, and then the two parties exchanged and discussed through talks, e-mails and other forms of communication, modified the specific content in one way or another, and finally formed the "Project Specification", including problems, methods, background, data, schedule, schedule, etc. The project was then executed, the budget was in place, and the RAND Corporation provided the results of the report study on a timetable to complete the project.

RAND has 700~800 projects in progress every year. In addition to most government projects that are arranged under long-term contracts and government budgets, there are also some projects that RAND chooses at its own discretion that it believes will be meaningful or have a significant impact. For the latter type of project, after the proposal is opened, RAND will recommend and sell to potential users, or after the research is over, tell potential users in a bold way to mobilize them to buy the research results.

In general, RAND will provide project clients with up to 5 decision-making consulting options, and advise users about the possible consequences and pros and cons of each option in terms of politics, economy, public relations, etc. Provide scientific, objective, fair and comprehensive decision-making suggestions to decision-makers. Different people and decision-makers with different personalities will make different decisions from these choices, and thus get different results.

RAND's forte is conducting strategic research. It has carried out a lot of predictive and long-term research, and put forward many ideas and predictions that the parties did not think of at all, and then it took a long time to be confirmed. It is through these accurate predictions that RAND has established its credibility in the consulting industry around the world. In the early days of its establishment, due to its small reputation at that time, the research results of the RAND Corporation were not taken seriously. There is an incident that has made the reputation of the RAND Corporation very popular.

On the eve of the Korean War, the RAND Corporation organized a large number of experts to evaluate the Korean War and make a prediction on "whether the country will send troops to Korea."

At that time, the RAND Corporation wanted to transfer the research report to the Pentagon for $5 million. But the top brass of the US military dismisses RAND's report.

In their view, the new country at that time did not have the possibility of sending troops, either in terms of human and financial resources.

However, the development and outcome of the war were accurately stated by Rand. This incident made the American political circles, military circles, and even the world look at the RAND Corporation with admiration, and after the Korean War, the Pentagon bought the expired report for 2 million.

Fact, it's a fictional story.

After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union dominated the world. The United States has always wanted to know about the state of satellite development in the USSR.

In 1957, the Rand Corporation shocked the Pentagon by speculating in detail the timing of the Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite, which was only two weeks short of the actual launch time. Since then, the RAND Corporation has truly established itself in the United States. Since then, the RAND Corporation has successfully predicted major events such as the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, the Cuban missile crisis, the Great Depression in the United States, and the reunification of Germany.

The research results of the RAND Corporation have attracted worldwide attention. He has published more than 18,000 research reports, 3,100 journals and nearly 200 books. Of the hundreds of research reports each year, 5% are classified and 95% are public, and these 5% are declassified over time.

While providing decision-making services for the U.S. government and the military, the RAND Corporation uses a large number of its world-class think tanks to provide a wide range of decision-making consulting services for the business community, and is known worldwide for the accuracy and authority of "enterprise diagnosis". RAND analysts believe that 85% of every 100 large enterprises in the world that go bankrupt and fail are caused by careless decisions by corporate managers. With the intensification of global commercial competition, the decision-making ability of an enterprise manager determines the future and destiny of the enterprise to a large extent.

For a long time, RAND insisted that it was only a non-profit, private research institute, working independently, with only one customer contractual relationship with the U.S. government.

The RAND Corporation strives to maintain its independence by having a diverse nature of customers.

Although most of RAND's clients are the U.S. federal government, even a single client, such as the Pentagon, has many different departments within it, such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Intelligence, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

RAND achieves a certain independence by dealing with different departments. At the same time, RAND has many customers in the non-governmental sector and the private sector. After the 90s, 65% of RAND's revenue came from the U.S. federal government, that is, 65% of RAND's business came from the U.S. federal government, and the remaining 35% of its business was distributed among many different customers, such as U.S. state governments, foreign governments, private companies, foundations, and so on.

The RAND Corporation has maintained a tradition of independence.

The RAND Corporation has the freedom to publish the results of its research and make them available to the public. As a policy research organization, RAND is able to tell the truth, whether it is good or bad for its clients. Clients who pay RAND should be prepared to accept the possibility that RAND's findings are inconsistent with or even conflicting with their policies.

Therefore, RAND's clients should pay more attention to the objectivity and impartiality of RAND's research than to ask RAND to tell them what they want to hear. And there are precisely some people who are afraid of this independence of RAND and do not dare to hire RAND. This independence of the RAND Corporation is guaranteed by a supervisory board of more than 20 people. The members of the board of supervisors have the right to manage and dominate the RAND Corporation, which means that they are the real owners of the RAND Corporation, but they do not own any property of the RAND Corporation.

RAND has a mechanism to review a certain research division of the company every 4~5 years to examine whether its research is valuable.

There are a variety of different reviews at the RAND Corporation, including independent reviews. First of all, the management of the department responsible for the project or study conducts a quality review of their own research.

Then, it is handed over to the project reviewers for review, one of which does not belong to the RAND company, but is invited from outside, and the other 3~4 reviewers are from within the RAND company, but none of them participated in the project or research under review. RAND has an internal set of quality standards against which the company requires reviewers to review the results of researchers' research. The RAND Corporation has about 800 professional researchers. Any professional researcher will be involved in the review, and he will be involved in the review more than once in his RAND career.

................................................ Dividing line ......................................................

Compared with the existence of the think tank in later generations, the "think tank" of the doctors during the period of the First Emperor did not give the first emperor correct and effective relevant advice in Taishan, on the contrary, these Confucian doctors did not even hide their ridicule of the first emperor because of the obstacles caused by weather factors when the first emperor was enshrined......

Well, Zhang Jiashi said that if he was the first emperor, he would have let these rotten Confucians see what the wrath of the king is......

This book comes from Pinshu.com