The Right Way

Feng TangHunan Literature and Art Publishing House2025

Rating 3.6
Word count
123K words
Chapters
40
Series
Feng Tang's Art of Getting Things Done: Eastern Classics through a Management Lens
ISBN
9787572623097

Tags

Personal Growth Motivation and GrowthWorkplace Strategic ManagementOrganizational ManagementSelf-ManagementComing of AgeWu Wei GovernanceDao De JingChinese ClassicsPractical Experience

Summary

The Right Way is Feng Tang's 2025 release. Taking the Tao Te Ching as its base, it retells the "king of all classics," in his own words, from the perspective of "the study of getting things done." The book runs over 100,000 characters: Feng Tang first translates the Tao Te Ching line by line into plain Chinese, then interprets it through his twenty years of hands-on experience in strategic management and investment, striving for "demystification, practicality, and results." Demystification means pulling the Tao Te Ching back from its popular positioning as a health manual or occult text and restoring it to its original identity as a treatise on statecraft and management. Practicality means turning Laozi's lessons addressed to rulers into actionable moves for modern self-management and organizational management. Results are the book's ultimate aim: reading the classics is not for the sake of reading but for getting things done. The book is divided into four parts—Wisdom, Organization, Leadership, and Self-Preservation. Wisdom discusses the nature of the Dao, the strategy of subtraction, and the virtues of emptying the mind and guarding stillness while warning against overly beautiful rhetoric. Organization covers governing through non-interference, the "cook a small fish" approach of minimizing disruption, survival models for small and medium enterprises, and the art of using people. Leadership discusses the leadership temperament of "highest good is like water," softness and humility, and how to employ and retain talent. Self-Preservation discusses the interdependence of fortune and misfortune, stillness as the master of haste, fighting inertia, desire management, and withdrawing after success, with the full text of the Tao Te Ching appended at the end. The book proposes that "the first principle of management is to avoid stirring things up," that "guarding stillness is the simplest way of working and thinking," that "non-interference is not lying flat but steadfastly doing what you ought to do," and three lines for managing adversity: "watch your feet, keep moving, don't cling to fortune or misfortune." It can be seen as another extension of Feng Tang's "getting things done" series toward the Eastern classics.

Editor's review

《道德经》只有五千言，注本却有上千种。多一本注本，意义往往不在“又解了一遍”，而在解的人能不能带来新的提问方式。冯唐的特殊之处在于：他既读过协和的临床医学，也读过埃默里的MBA，在麦肯锡做过全球董事合伙人，又在华润、中信做过一线的战略与投资。这样一个在“成事”现场待了二十年的人去读老子，视角天然不同于学院里的哲学教授——他关心的不是“道”在形而上学上是什么，而是这句话能不能在会议室里、在组织的关键节点上、在一个人的中年危机里兑现。全书四大板块的编排也印证了这一点：智慧、组织、领导、安身，几乎就是一个管理者从判断形势、搭班子、带队伍到保全自身的完整链条。冯唐把《道德经》从“养生书”的流行定位里拉出来，强调它原本是讲给君王听的治理之术，这个“祛魅”的姿态未必人人同意，但足以让人重新坐直了读原文。他的语言保持了惯有的直白与狠劲：“管理的第一要义是少折腾”“完美主义是成事的大敌”“把商场当农场，远好于把商场当战场”，读起来像被人拍着肩膀说了几句不客气的话，未必都中听，但记得住。书末附《道德经》全文与逐句白话译文，也让它具备了一点工具书的用法：可以先读译文，再回头对照冯唐的解读，看看哪些是他自己的发挥，哪些确实是老子本意。若你读过《成事》《冯唐成事心法》，这本可视为同一套方法论往东方源头的回溯；若你从未读过《道德经》，它也是一个不那么吓人的入口。

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Reading tips

  1. 可先读附录的白话译文，对原文有基本印象后，再回头读四篇解读，辨别哪些是老子本意、哪些是冯唐的引申。
  2. 不必按顺序通读，可按当下处境选读：带团队读组织篇与领导篇，个人状态焦灼时读安身篇。
  3. 每章末尾不妨停一停，把书中的观点对照自己最近的一件具体事，写下“下次怎么做”，比划线更有用。
  4. 对书中引用《道德经》原文的段落，建议回到附录核对上下文，避免只记住金句式转述。

About the publisher

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1985

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House is a publisher known for its literary titles, with a catalogue spanning foreign literature, world classics, classical Chinese literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and mystery and detective fiction. Judging from the more than 1,100 books in the database, the press publishes foreign classics such as Crime and Punishment, Snow Country, The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Letter from an Unknown Woman, as well as Chinese classical and modern literary works including Lu Xun's Wandering and A Madman's Diary and Wu Jingzi's The Scholars. In terms of translators and authors, translations by Cao Guowei and Tan Jinghua appear in its foreign literature titles, and the authors involved include Dostoevsky, Kawabata Yasunari, Conan Doyle and Zweig. Its publishing character lies in introducing Chinese and foreign literary classics side by side, balancing popular and serious works and attending to both readability and literary value. Public information is limited; the above is a brief overview based solely on the books in the database.

Contents

  1. Preface: No Era Is More Suited to Reading the Daodejing Than Today
  2. Wisdom Section: The Dao That Can Be Spoken Is Not the Eternal Dao: The Dao, Like Success, Is Not Just Talk
  3. Holding to the Dao of Antiquity: Using the Principles of the Past to Solve Today's Problems
  4. If One Can Hold It: Guard the Great Dao, Do Not Create Trouble Out of Nothing
  5. Attain Emptiness and Guard Stillness: Do Not Rush to Judge, Do Not Rush to Change
  6. Cultivating the Dao Diminishes Daily: The Core of Strategy Is Subtraction
  7. Understanding All and Reaching Everywhere: True Strength Sees the Subtle Details
  8. The Mind of the Fool: Be the One Who Is Greatly Wise and Seems Foolish
  9. Renounce Sageliness and Discard Wisdom: Beware of Overly Beautiful Words
  10. The Way of Heaven Shows No Partiality: How to Keep the Great Dao Enduringly on Our Side
  11. Trustworthy Words Are Not Beautiful: Management Is Not About Flowery Rhetoric
  12. Organization Section: Governing by Non-Action: The Highest Realm of Management
  13. Great Completion Seems Flawed: The Pursuit of Perfection Is a Detour
  14. I Have Three Treasures: The Secret to Excelling in Organization, Finance, and Strategy
  15. Like Cooking a Small Fish: Management Is About as Hard as Cooking
  16. A Small State with Few People: The Ideal Model for Small and Medium Enterprises
  17. Knowing Without Going: How to Narrow the Information Gap
  18. The Bright Dao Seems Dim: Be a More Insightful Manager
  19. Though Wise, Greatly Confused: The Art of Employing People in the Workplace
  20. The State's Sharp Instruments: Guard Your Base
  21. The Surplus Is Reduced: Knowing How to Cut the Cake Is the Wisdom of the Strong
  22. Leadership Section: The Highest Good Is Like Water: The Best Temperament of a Leader
  23. The Valley Spirit Never Dies: How the Power of the Feminine Applies to Management
  24. The Sage Is Not Benevolent: Leading Your Team Well Is the Greatest Charity
  25. The Softest Under Heaven: Softness Is the Art of Those Above
  26. Not Knowing of His Existence: What High-Level Leaders Have Done Well
  27. Embracing Yin and Yang: Humility Keeps You Invincible
  28. Not Injuring Their Hands: Knowing How to Use People and Keep Them
  29. Not Claiming Greatness for Oneself: Overcoming Selfishness Is the Only Way to Win Every Battle
  30. Self-Display Is Not Clarity: A Good Manager Must Be Rationally Confident
  31. Things at Their Peak Grow Old: Never Forgetting the Original Aspiration Is the Discipline of the Top Leader
  32. Self-Cultivation Section: Fortune and Misfortune Rely on Each Other: Though Against Human Nature, It Is the Root of Blessing
  33. Stillness Is the Master of Restlessness: The Three Trump Cards for a Manager's Self-Cultivation
  34. A Journey of a Thousand Li: How to Counter Human Laziness
  35. For the Belly, Not for the Eye: Beyond Great Desires, One Must Practice Restraint
  36. Using Non-Action as Use: Treat Yourself as a Vessel, Not a Sharp Weapon
  37. Those Who Conquer Themselves Are Strong: Knowing Yourself and Others, the Strong Grow Stronger
  38. Deep in Containing Virtue: How to Maintain Workplace Health
  39. Bearing the Nation's Misfortune: Capacity for Pressure Determines the Ceiling of Your Career
  40. Knowing Contentment Brings Constant Sufficiency: The Measure of Desire Management

FAQ

《正道》是《道德经》的注本吗？ 不完全等同。它包含冯唐对《道德经》的白话翻译并附全文，但主体是他从管理学与“成事”角度写的解读文章，按智慧、组织、领导、安身四篇重编，而非依八十一章逐章作注。
没读过《道德经》能直接读这本吗？ 可以。书中附有《道德经》原文与白话译文，解读也以通俗为主。但建议先读译文再看解读，避免只接受二手转述而对原文没有直观印象。
这本书和《成事》《冯唐成事心法》什么关系？ 属于同一“成事”脉络的延伸，可视为冯唐以管理学视角解读东方典籍的系列作品之一。前作偏方法论与案例，本书则把源头追溯到《道德经》。
书里的观点是否代表《道德经》本意？ 书中明确采取“祛魅、实用、成事”的读法，带有强烈个人立场，如强调《道德经》本质是帝王术与管理术。这属于一种解读路径，读者可对照原文与其他注本自行判断。
这本书适合当作管理学教材吗？ 不太适合。它更接近经验型解读随笔，案例多来自作者个人职业经历，缺少系统理论框架与参考文献，宜作启发读物而非教材。

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About the author

Feng Tang Author · Chinese · 1971

Feng Tang, whose real name is Zhang Haipeng, was born in Beijing in 1971 and is a contemporary Chinese writer and poet. He holds an MD from Peking Union Medical College and later earned an MBA from Emory University in the United States; he has also held management positions at McKinsey and China Resources Medical, an experience that gives his writing both rational reflection and worldly observation. His work spans social fiction, modern poetry, essays, and management titles, with 23 works included in the collection. His representative Beijing Trilogy—Everything Grows, Beijing, Beijing, and Give Me a Girl at Eighteen—is largely set in Beijing and explores youth, desire, and urban life. Essay collections such as Growing Old as I Live, As a Flower I Have Never Lost, and Let's Meet Once display a candid, quick-witted, and slightly teasing style. He has also written management-related works such as Getting Things Done, blending practical insight into his prose.