The pain of breaking out of the cocoon, the new branches sprout
The Foundation's annual global meeting was held in Singapore for the first time. While the Marina Bay Sands' infinity pool seemed to connect the sea and sky, the atmosphere in the ballroom downstairs was at odds with the magnificent view.
Li Xiaoyu stood at the side of the stage, watching the young project officer deliver his presentation. The presentation was exquisite, the data detailed, the wording rigorous. Every risk point had a plan, every achievement had a quantifiable indicator. It was impeccable, yet also... lifeless.
"Based on the annual achievement rate of KPI 3.7.2, our user reach rate in Southeast Asia increased by 15.3%, exceeding the expected target by 2.7 percentage points..." The reporter's voice was as steady as an AI reading.
In the audience, some veteran employees who joined earlier and are now regional managers have undisguised fatigue and alienation in their eyes. They wear the same tailored suits, like standardized parts in a set of precision instruments.
When passion is tamed by processes and dreams are quantified by KPIs, the organization will quietly die in perfect rigidity.
At the reception that evening, Li Xiaoyu, glass in hand, attempted to reminisce about the past with several core members. All she received in return were polite yet distant smiles and a few standard responses about "process optimization" and "compliance management." A chill ran down her spine—the foundation was becoming the massive, slow-moving, and impersonal institution it had once hoped to transform.
The real wake-up call came in the early hours of the next morning. Li Xiaoyu received a collective resignation letter from seven core members of the Lighthouse Lab, an innovation incubator within the foundation known for its cutting-edge exploration and tolerance for failure.
The resignation letter was worded euphemistically, but the meaning was clear: “…We deeply feel that the foundation’s mission is great, but as the organization grows, the space for innovation is being squeezed by increasingly complex processes and a risk-averse culture. We long for an environment that allows us to quickly experiment and even embrace failure, to explore the next frontier of psychology…”
Leading these seven people away was Cheng Han, once the foundation's brightest rising star. He was a talented product manager recruited from university by Li Xiaoyu himself, and was also one of the core designers of the early version of "Warm Heart AI".
Li Xiaoyu immediately called Cheng Han. The voice on the other end of the phone was calm and disappointed:
"Mr. Li, it's not about compensation. It's about the 'Dream Visualization-Assisted Therapy' project we submitted. After eight months of internal review and seventeen revisions, it was ultimately rejected due to 'uncertain ethical risks' and 'unclear short-term ROI (return on investment)'. We feel... this is no longer the 'beacon' we once were willing to stay up late for and work so hard for."
The size of an organization is a fortress of security and a prison for innovative souls.
After hanging up the phone, Li Xiaoyu walked to the hotel's massive floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed down at Singapore's dazzling nightscape. This highly planned, orderly city, in her eyes, now resembled a microcosm of the foundation's current state—sleek and efficient, yet bereft of its wild, burgeoning vitality.
She felt no anger, only deep remorse. She had taken the foundation global, built it into a respected giant, but she might have killed its most precious entrepreneurial spirit.
At the annual meeting's closing speech, Li Xiaoyu made a decision that surprised everyone. She abandoned her prepared speech and walked to the center of the stage, the lights shining on her slightly tired but bright-eyed face.
"Ladies and gentlemen, before we celebrate the great achievements of the past year, I would like to show you a photo."
A snapshot from years ago appeared on the big screen: late at night in an old office, Cheng Han and several young people slumped on a sofa. Dark circles hung under their eyes, pizza boxes and scraps of paper lay scattered on the floor, but fire burned in each of their eyes. The photo was captioned: "The Night the 'Heartwarming AI' Prototype Was Birthed."
There was a commotion of nostalgia in the audience.
"We used to be like this," Li Xiaoyu's voice carried through the microphone throughout the venue. "Chaotic and exhausted, but with light in our eyes. We weren't afraid of failure, because having nothing gave us nothing to fear."
She changed the subject and her tone became heavy: "And today, we have everything we once dreamed of: funding, scale, reputation, and perfect processes. But what have we lost?" She paused and announced the news of Cheng Han's team's departure.
There was an uproar in the venue.
"This isn't Cheng Han's betrayal; it's my failure, and the failure of every manager here," Li Xiaoyu said with pain in her voice. "We built a giant ship capable of withstanding the winds and waves, but we forgot that its original mission was to explore unknown waters, not to remain anchored in a safe harbor forever."
Crisis is the best sobering agent. Only under the stinging pain can numb nerves regain consciousness.
Immediately after the speech, Li Xiaoyu convened a closed-door strategic meeting with global partners, titled "Breaking the Cocoon." During the meeting, she proposed a groundbreaking proposal: launching an "internal entrepreneurship program."
The core of the plan is radical:
Break down departmental walls: Establish a completely independent "Pathfinder" laboratory, which is not constrained by existing KPIs and process systems and has independent budget and decision-making power.
Venture capital model: Any employee can submit innovative ideas, which will be reviewed by a committee composed of internal and external experts. Once approved, they will receive "seed funds" and form a cross-departmental team to incubate them.
Embrace a culture of failure: Explicitly inform all participants that up to 70% of projects may fail. Failed projects are not considered a stigma; instead, their experiences are carefully documented and shared as valuable organizational assets.
Profit-sharing mechanism: For successfully incubated projects, the core team will enjoy up to 30% of the profit share and have the opportunity to become a partner of the newly established social enterprise.
The plan was strongly opposed by conservative forces.
“This will cause internal competition for resources!”
"What if we lose control? How do we manage financial risks?"
"This will undermine the existing salary system and cause unfairness!"
In the face of doubts, Li Xiaoyu was remarkably firm: "Are we afraid of losing control, or are we more afraid of slowly dying under 'perfect control'? If we can't use the power of the organization to safeguard innovation, then what's the point of our scale?"
Under Li Xiaoyu's strong push, the Pathfinder Lab was quickly established within a month of the annual meeting in Singapore. Surprisingly, the lab's first "Chief Exploration Officer" was Cheng Han, whom Li Xiaoyu personally invited back.
"Aren't you afraid that I will leave with another failed project?" Cheng Han asked.
"I'm afraid you won't even have the chance to fail," Li Xiaoyu replied. "I'll give you space, and also give the Foundation itself, a chance to grow wings again."
Trust is the most fertile soil that can make creativity that is on the verge of withering sprout again.
In its first quarter, the Pathfinder Lab received over 200 project proposals. These included using VR technology for exposure therapy for fear of heights, developing an AI-powered emotion recognition game for children on the autism spectrum, and even studying how horticultural therapy could help soldiers traumatized by war.
Cheng Han's team's previously rejected "dream visualization" project became one of the first to receive seed funding. Six months later, although the project failed due to technical bottlenecks and failed to achieve the expected results, the EEG signal processing technology they had accumulated during the process unexpectedly led to the successful incubation of another auxiliary project that helps paralyzed patients control external devices with their thoughts.
Li Xiaoyu was even more pleased to see the long-missed, vibrant "chaos" reappear in some corners of the foundation. She saw young people from different departments arguing fiercely over an idea, people working late into the night in the lab testing prototypes, and at sharing sessions for failed projects, everyone diligently analyzed the lessons learned instead of blaming each other.
A year later, at the global annual meeting, Cheng Han once again took the stage as a representative of Pathfinder. Instead of a suit, he wore a T-shirt with the words "Embrace Failure" printed on it.
"This year, we incubated 27 projects, 19 of which failed," he said at the outset. "But we gained eight new directions with the potential to change the industry landscape. More importantly, we rediscovered that feeling of being alive."
Thunderous applause broke out from the audience, and the familiar light from many years ago flashed in the eyes of many old employees again.
Li Xiaoyu watched quietly from the audience. She knew that the foundation's cocoon had been ripped open, and new life was struggling and growing within. The process of breaking free from the cocoon is inevitably accompanied by pain, but only through this pain can one break free and become a butterfly to fly.
An organization's life is like a forest: it needs towering trees to provide stability and shade, while also needing constantly sprouting new branches to maintain vitality and evolution. What she needs to do is protect this forest, ensuring that every seed that dares to break through the soil has the right to grow.
“The most difficult part of managing an organization isn’t setting the rules, but maintaining a vibrant, weed-like innovative spirit within the soil of rules.”
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