Few management speeches are remembered beyond the event of their delivery. Nor do they catalyze or galvanize strategic employee behavior. An exception is the Haier Group's Chairman Zhang Ruimin's speech in a form of a letter to employees twenty-two years ago (1994). The communication is a vivid yet rare example of the harnessing of indigenous cultural, and even religious, values in purposing and steering an enduring corporate transformation. Impressive is the deep symbolic capacity to endow the organization with individual initiative and resilience in adapting to changes in the environment while maintaining constant improvement and the spirit of ‘not contending’ as societal service. The speech, given early in the Haier emergence as a globally acknowledged competitor, is to this day cited by Haier employees as the mandate for self-improving innovation inside and outside the organization. ‘Haier Is the Sea’ is reprinted in English and Chinese and is deconstructed by four commentaries which follow.