Jack Ma says this Chinese author is his ‘one true idol.’ Here’s why.

Much of Jack Ma’s understanding of business strategy comes directly from the author’s novels.

Image courtesy Youtube.

The following is an edited excerpt from Alibaba: The Inside Story Behind Jack Ma and the Creation of the World’s Biggest Online Marketplace by Liu Shiying. The excerpt was provided by HarperBusiness publishing. You can buy a copy here.

Few in China can resist the addictive novels of Jin Yong (the pen name of Louis Cha); Jack Ma succumbed many years ago and has modeled his life on the martial code described in the stories. He has said he has “one idol in his heart,” and that is Louis Cha.

The author, who is now in his mid-eighties, has described his relationship with Jack Ma as one that transcends generational differences and is a genuine friendship. Jack Ma emphatically describes his business strategy in wuxia terms, and much of his understanding of these terms come directly from Cha’s novels.

As noted above, these combine martial arts with traditional Chinese culture and Chinese history. As we learned in the first chapter of this book, wuxia means something akin to “martial heroes,” but with deeply resonating layers of cultural and philosophical meaning.

Louis Cha lived most of his life in a British colony, and his exploration of these layers may reflect a profound longing for home, a home that for many decades he was unable to visit. Cha was born on February 6, 1924, in the same province that Jack Ma comes from: Zhejiang Province in southern China. His family name is Cha, though it is pronounced za in the Mandarin dialect. Knighted in 1981 by Queen Elizabeth, he is considered as much a British treasure as Chinese.

Ma has read the novel The Smiling Proud Wanderer more times than any other book. The character he most appreciates is Feng Qingyang because he admires the way that character moves naturally, without premeditation. “He has thought through everything and internalized all moves in advance so that he doesn’t have to think about them. They are a part of him.”

As noted above, the word move is a special term in Chinese that signifies not just physical action but also mental discipline and focus. In martial arts training, the mental focus is as important, if not more so, than the physical result. This training is of cardinal importance to Jack Ma; his own moves in the realm of business are what have brought him recognition as a master of both strategy and well-timed action.

Ma also compares himself to Feng the teacher—his mission in life is to bring along students who can surpass him. “I too come from the life of being a teacher. I most like it when my colleagues and my students can surpass me.” Among the wuxia concepts Jack Ma put into actual use in his business dealings is a sense of key values.

The Alibaba impact

Termed the “Six Sacred Swords” in Alibaba parlance, these values are recognized by Western investment firms as bringing a major contribution to the bottom line. They are factored into an employee’s performance ratings and so are reinforced in very real-world terms. The Six Swords derive originally from what are called the Nine Swords of Dugu, although nine were consolidated to six at Alibaba. (Dugu is a character in certain of Cha’s novels, including The Smiling Proud Wanderer, The Return of the Condor Heroes, and The Deer and the Cauldron.)

Another saying that has been influential in Ma’s thinking is “No moves trumps having moves.” Once an opponent knows a person’s moves, the opponent can use those against him. This relates to the fundamental idea in martial arts that a person’s own strength can be turned against him, make him off balance, make him lose what had been his core defense. “Your opponent’s strongest points are also his weakest,” says Ma. “Most people think that the places to attack are those that show weakness. But the strengths are generally vulnerable. And the opposite is true: when everyone thinks there is a great danger in a particular strategy, you have to look closely for there may be great opportunities hiding inside.”

In general, Ma is a contrarian who uses wuxia thinking to conceptualize scenarios that others might miss. In Western terms, the phrase “thinking outside the box” is a start on understanding the process, but it is relatively unidimensional compared to the multidimensional training that wuxia novels talk about. The training includes a sustained focus on logical consequences. For example, one discipline is to visualize a far-focus and then a near-focus reality, then keep the vision in mind as you close your eyes and mentally move your reality from one place to another.

The same is done in terms of time: training an internal eye to see different realities or scenarios at different times as factors change. Sports psychologists are aware of the benefits of mental training for physical performance; wuxia masters have used these tricks for centuries. Jack Ma has said that he sees the world as an enormous weiqi board, which similarly requires sustained logical thinking and focus. In using the moves and the mental training of wuxia masters, he has so far been able to apply ancient traditions to modern business with considerable success.