You need to casually complete an investigation of the world in your own learning, work, and life processes.
In the workplace, you need to make four key preparations—essentially, clarifying four things.
The first thing you must clarify is what money your industry actually makes.
If the industry isn't profitable, and the bosses aren't making money, how can a regular employee hope to earn well? The industry needs to be profitable, and then specifically your role within it needs to be profitable.
The second thing you must clarify is what money your company makes.
Is it venture capital money? Then product demos are critical—if you botch the demo, investors will pull out. Is it subsidy money? Whether you actually sell anything matters less; winning awards is what counts. Since the government wants to sustain domestic talent and keep the embers of an industry alive, you need to prove you're worth nurturing to get those subsidies, right?
If you don't understand how your own company makes money, you'll never do things right. This is what they mean by "when的事不由东，累死也无功" – no matter how hard you toil, if you're not aligned with who pays the bills, it all amounts to nothing.
The third thing you must clarify is what money your department makes.
The fourth thing you must clarify is what money all the different kinds of people you encounter make.
Your boss, your subordinates, your colleagues, your partners and suppliers, your relatives and friends, your classmates, even the little diner where you grab late-night meals after overtime—and every waiter there. Clear, concrete understanding of利益关系 (interest relationships) is what makes things run smoothly.
Take home renovation as an example:
If you know nothing and hand everything over to the designer and project manager to decide, you'll typically spend twice as much as if you'd done a bare-bones self-managed approach—even for the exact same plan and outcome.
Because you didn't put in the effort to understand, you have no idea what each material, each step, and each person actually costs. Others can easily inflate prices and take advantage of you.
But if you study every matter this thoroughly, one day when you start your own business and become the boss, you'll discover you have an astonishing advantage: your costs will be far lower than your competitors'. You'll always find ways to achieve better results with fewer people, less time, or by adjusting processes and improving plans.
Won't that make you more cost-efficient and competitively stronger?