Bridging the Meeting Room and the Front Line

The outlook on political performance is the “navigation system” for undertaking endeavors and building enterprises. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: “A correct outlook on political performance requires us to proceed from reality and act in accordance with laws, through scientific decision-making and hard, solid work, to create achievements that stand the test of practice and history, truly benefit the people, and gain public recognition.” Proceeding from reality and acting in accordance with laws, scientific decision-making and hard, solid work — all are closely related to two fields: the meeting room and the front line. [1]1 “Meeting room” (会场) refers to the formal setting where officials deliberate, discuss policy, and make decisions; “front line” (现场) refers to the actual sites of work, production, or community life where policies are implemented and results are observed. Taking only the grasp of laws and scientific decision-making, the meeting room focuses on pooling wisdom, studying and making decisions, while the front line focuses on investigation and research, implementation and testing of results. Party members and cadres who establish and practice a correct outlook on political performance must not only be adept at pooling wisdom and making scientific plans in the meeting room, but also actively sink down to the front line to observe the real situation, produce practical measures, and seek practical results, truly enabling work to take root among the people and benefit the people.

政绩观是干事创业的“导航仪”。习近平总书记强调：“正确政绩观要求我们坚持从实际出发、按规律办事，通过科学决策和实干苦干，创造经得起实践和历史检验、真正造福人民、得到群众公认的业绩。”从实际出发、按规律办事，科学决策和实干苦干，都与两个场域密切相关：会场和现场。仅就把握规律、科学决策而言，会场侧重于集中智慧、研判决策，现场侧重于调查研究、贯彻落实、检验实效。党员干部树立和践行正确政绩观，既要善于在会场集思广益、科学谋划，也要积极沉到现场察实情、出实招、求实效，真正让工作扎根群众、造福群众。

In work, some individual Party members and cadres have an unclear understanding and inaccurate grasp of the relationship between the meeting room and the front line. For example, some emphasize the meeting room over the front line, being accustomed to discussing matters behind closed doors and exchanging documents, lacking a genuine perception of the situation on the front line, so that decisions become divorced from reality, and may even spawn image projects and face projects that waste people’s resources and money. [2]2 “Image projects” and “face projects” are derogatory terms for development projects undertaken primarily for their visual appeal or to impress superiors, rather than for genuine public benefit. Some emphasize the front line over the meeting room, one-sidedly stressing “just do it,” and as a result fail to thoroughly grasp the spirit of the Party Central Committee and the work deployments of higher-level authorities, leading to distortion and deviation in policy implementation, or even falling into a busy but disorderly, busy but useless routinism. In reality, the meeting room and the front line are not separated but are closely linked. Decisions and deployments made in the meeting room must be tested on the front line; fresh experience gained on the front line is an important reference for decision-making in the meeting room. Bridging the meeting room and the front line conforms to the law of cognitive development of practice, understanding, re-practice, and re-understanding, and is an important method for improving work quality and efficiency and creating outstanding performance.

工作中，个别党员干部对会场和现场的关系认识不够清晰、把握不够准确。比如，有的重会场轻现场，习惯于关门议事、文来文往，缺乏对现场情况的真切感知，决策脱离实际，甚至可能催生劳民伤财的形象工程、面子工程。有的重现场轻会场，片面强调“干就是了”，结果未能吃透党中央精神和上级工作部署，导致政策执行变形走样，甚至陷入忙而无序、忙而无用的事务主义。实际上，会场和现场并不是割裂的，而是紧密关联的。会场作出的决策部署要到现场去接受检验，现场获得的新鲜经验是会场决策的重要参考。贯通会场和现场，符合实践、认识、再实践、再认识的认识发展规律，是提升工作质效、创造过硬业绩的重要方法。

Going deep into the front line and mastering the real situation is the basic skill for Party members and cadres to establish and practice a correct outlook on political performance. Without connecting to the “ground qi,” it is difficult to produce “real achievements.” [3]3 “Ground qi” (地气) is a Chinese idiom meaning connection to the grassroots or the realities of ordinary people. Sitting in the meeting room listening to reports and reading materials cannot replace personal investigation and firsthand experience. To truly sink down to the front line, one must set aside one’s airs, throw oneself into the work, and go more often to places with many difficulties, where the masses’ opinions are concentrated, and where work is at a dead end, to grasp firsthand materials and listen to the unvarnished voices of the people. In fact, some problems left unresolved in the meeting room already have answers in the practice of the masses. Only by learning from the people can one comprehend the “great wisdom” for solving difficult problems from the “local methods” at the grassroots and find the “golden key” to creating real achievements.

深入现场、掌握实情，是党员干部树立和践行正确政绩观的基本功。不接“地气”，难出“实绩”。坐在会场听汇报、看材料，替代不了亲身调研和切身感受。实实在在沉到现场，必须放下架子、扑下身子，多到困难多、群众意见集中、工作打不开局面的地方去，掌握一手材料，倾听原汁原味的民声。实际上，一些在会场悬而未决的问题，在群众实践中早有答案。拜人民为师，才能从基层的“土办法”中领悟破解难题的“大智慧”、找到创造实绩的“金钥匙”。

The perceptual materials gained on the front line need to undergo “deep processing” in the meeting room before they can be transformed into scientific decisions that are based on the present and look toward the long term. From the “Fengqiao Experience” to the “Thousand Village Demonstration and Ten Thousand Village Renovation Project,” [4]4 The “Fengqiao Experience” is a model of grassroots social governance originating in Fengqiao, Zhejiang Province, emphasizing mediation and conflict resolution at the local level. The “Thousand Village Demonstration and Ten Thousand Village Renovation Project” (千万工程) is a rural development initiative launched in Zhejiang in 2003 to improve living conditions and environmental quality in villages. these governance wisdoms originating from the grassroots have mostly gone through a process from exploration on the front line to summarization in the meeting room, and then to promotion on a larger scale. In this process, Party members and cadres must be adept at reviewing, refining, and systematically sorting out the situations brought back from the front line in the meeting room, transforming the “solutions” at individual points into methods applicable across the board, and elevating grassroots pioneering initiatives into replicable and promotable governance methodologies. At the same time, the new ideas and new measures formed in the meeting room should be further tested and optimized on the front line to ensure that decisions conform to reality and are effective.

现场获得的感性材料，需要经会场“深度加工”才能转化为立足当前、着眼长远的科学决策。从“枫桥经验”到“千万工程”，这些源自基层的治理智慧，大都经过从现场摸索到会场总结，再到更大范围推广的过程。在这一过程中，党员干部必须善于在会场上对现场带回的情况进行复盘提炼、系统梳理，把点上的“解法”转化为面上的方法，将基层首创上升为可复制、可推广的治理方法论。同时，将会场形成的新思路、新举措放到现场一线进一步检验优化，确保决策符合实际、行之有效。

The vitality of the meeting room stems from its deep integration with front-line practice. In February 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping traveled by car along rugged mountain roads deep into the hinterland of the Daliang Mountains in Sichuan Province for an inspection. By the hearth of a villager’s home, he turned the front line into a meeting room, sitting in a circle with villager representatives and village-based poverty alleviation work team members, convening a unique small symposium to prescribe solutions and chart paths for the local area to shake off poverty and become prosperous. [5]5 The Daliang Mountains are a mountainous region in Sichuan Province, historically one of China’s most impoverished areas. This fully demonstrates that an effective meeting room is never constrained by form or ostentation, but is based on the real front line, conducting pragmatic discussions around practical problems. The “ridge meetings,” “courtyard meetings,” and “bench meetings” that have emerged in grassroots practice, though simple in form, are close to reality and directly address problems. Decisions planned in this way, which carry the “fresh heat” of practice and are stained with the “soil flavor” of the grassroots, are often more feasible and effective.

会场的生命力，源于与现场实践的深度融合。2018年2月，习近平总书记乘车沿崎岖山路深入四川大凉山腹地考察，在村民家的火塘边，把现场当作会场，同村民代表、驻村扶贫工作队员围坐一堂，召开了一场别开生面的小型座谈会，为当地脱贫致富开方子、谋路子。这充分表明，富有成效的会场从不拘泥于形式与排场，而是立足真实现场，围绕实际问题进行务实研讨。在基层实践中涌现的“田埂会”“院坝会”“板凳会”，虽形式简约，却贴近现实、直面问题，这样冒着实践“热乎气儿”、沾着基层“泥土味”谋划出的决策，往往更具可行性和实效性。

Currently, the entire Party is carrying out study and education on establishing and practicing a correct outlook on political performance. [6]6 This refers to a Party-wide education campaign announced in 2024 to correct deviations in officials’ performance evaluation criteria, linked to the broader “comprehensive and strict governance of the Party.” Bridging the meeting room and the front line is precisely an important lever for transforming the achievements of study and education into actual work results. To make good use of this lever, the focus is on building a closed loop of work characterized by “problems come from the front line, ideas are planned in the meeting room, implementation goes to the front line, and results are evaluated by the masses,” continuously enhancing the scientific nature, foresight, initiative, and creativity of work, effectively transforming the masses’ “problem list” into a “happiness bill,” consciously producing political achievements for the people and through solid work, and creating more real achievements that stand the test of practice, the people, and history.

当前，全党正在开展树立和践行正确政绩观学习教育。将会场和现场贯通起来，正是推动学习教育成果转化为实际工作成效的重要抓手。用好这一抓手，重在构建“问题从现场来、思路在会场谋、落实到现场去、效果由群众评”的工作闭环，不断增强工作的科学性、预见性、主动性、创造性，切实把群众的“问题清单”转化为“幸福账单”，自觉为人民出政绩、以实干出政绩，创造更多经得起实践、人民、历史检验的实绩。