by Jack Welch
mission and
as motivation
stars and
values and
Ripplewood Holdings
risk taking
Robb, Walt
Robinson, Linda Gosden
Roche, Gerry
Rodriguez, Alex
Rosso, Jean-Pierre
Rowe, Brian
Ruddick, Perry
salary. See compensation
sales force management
Sandler, Herman
Sandler O’Neill & Partners
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
self-confidence
leaders as builders of
after setback
self-reliance
September 11 attack
service
as strategy
Servitje, Daniel
severance package
shared sensibilities
Sharer, Kevin
Siemens
Six Sigma
explanation of
two applications of
sliders
Slovakia
Smith Barney
social problems. See business and society
Southwest Airlines
stars
to implement strategy
starting something new. See new ventures
Steindler, Herbert
Steinmetz Award
strategic fit
strategy
best practices and
big aha and
budgeting and
definition of
implementation of
market analysis and
mergers and acquisitions and
as product
as service
Six Sigma and
three steps in
See also competition
Stride Rite
Table of Lost Dreams
Taco Bell
Tamke, George
taxes
teamwork
differentiation and
as value
technology
television
terminations. See firing; layoffs
terrorism
Thatcher, Margaret
3M
3M China
Time Warner
AOL merger with
Tinker, Grant
top 20-middle 70-bottom 10 performance categories. See differentiation
top performers. See stars
Torre, Joe
Toshiba
Toyota
trade-offs
training
as crisis prevention
differentiation and
4-E framework and
as motivation
Six Sigma
as strategy
work-life balance and
transparency
crisis management and
culture of integrity and
leadership and
Trotter, Lloyd
trust
budget process and
definition of
establishment of
mismanaged firing and
using up political capital and
truth. See candor
Turner, Ted
Tyco
Tylenol
UBS
underperformers
differentiation and
firing of
work-life balance and
unions
University of Illinois
Upper Crust Pizza
U.S. Steel Kosice
Utah International
values
as behaviors
candor and
creation of
definition of
enactment of
leadership and
mergers and
mission and
performance evaluation and
platitudes vs.
political capital and
reinforcement of
work-life balance and
See also company culture
variation, Six Sigma and
Vendor Financial Services
Vioxx
visibility
vision
strategic competition and
Vivendi
voice and dignity
Work-Out process and
vortex of defeat
Wall Street Journal
Wal-Mart
Washington Post
Weinberger, Caspar
Welch, Carolyn
Wendt, Gary
Whirlpool
whistleblowers
Whitman, Meg
Williams, Dennis
Women’s Network (GE)
Woodburn, Bill
work ethic
work-life balance
backup resources and
as chit system
compartmentalization and
how bosses think about
meaning of
negotiation of
Work-Out process
WorldCom
World Series
World Trade Center
Wright, Bob
Xerox
XFL (football league)
Yu, Kenneth
Yum! Brands Inc.
About the Author
JACK WELCH began his career with the General Electric Company in 1960, and in 1981 became the company’s eighth chairman and CEO. During his tenure, GE’s market capitalization increased by $400 billion, making it the world’s most valuable corporation. Mr. Welch is currently the head of Jack Welch, LLC, where he serves as an advisor to a small group of Fortune 500 CEOs and speaks to businesspeople and students around the world. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Jack: Straight from the Gut.
SUZY WELCH is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review. She attended Harvard University and Harvard Business School, and is the author of numerous articles about leadership and organizational behavior, and a contributor to several books about management. She is a columnist for Fast Company magazine.
www.JackWelchWinning.com
Don’t miss the next book by your favorite author. Sign up now for AuthorTracker by visiting www.AuthorTracker.com.
Also by Jack Welch
Jack: Straight from the Gut
(with John A. Byrne)
Credits
Jacket design by Andrea Brown for Mucca Design
Front jacket photograph © 2004 by Darryl Estrine
Authors’ photograph © 2004 by Elin Spring
Copyright
WINNING. Copyright © 2005 by Jack Welch, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Mobipocket Reader March 2005 ISBN 0-06-079620-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Welch, Jack, 1935-
Winning / Jack Welch with Suzy Welch.–1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.perfectbound.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.perfectbound.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
>
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.uk.perfectbound.com
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.perfectbound.com
I have been asked literally thousands of questions. But most of them come down to this:
What does it take to win?
I think winning is great. Not good—
great. Because when companies win, people thrive and grow. There are more jobs and more opportunities.
Have a positive attitude and spread it around, never let yourself be a victim, and for goodness’ sake—have fun.
Effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible.
Setting the mission is top management’s responsibility. A mission cannot be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.
In the most common scenario, a company’s mission and its values rupture due to the little crises of daily life in business.
Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.
We are socialized from childhood to soften bad news or make nice about awkward subjects.
Eventually, you come to realize that people don’t speak their minds because it’s simply easier not to.
To get candor, you reward it, praise it, and talk about it. Most of all, you yourself demonstrate it in an exuberant and even exaggerated way.
It is true that candid comments definitely freak people out at first.
My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now my GE career is over, and I’m telling you that it was my candor that helped make it work.
A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.
I didn’t invent differentiation! I learned it on the playground when I was a kid.
Protecting underperformers always backfires. The worst thing, though, is how protecting people who don’t perform hurts the people themselves.
Differentiation rewards those members of the team who deserve it.
Once we made the case for differentiation and we linked it to a candid performance appraisal system, it worked as well in Japan as it did in Ohio.
While being in the middle 70 percent can be demotivating to some people, it actually revs the engines of many others.
In China, a young woman asked how any businessperson in her country could practice candor and differentiation when “only the voice of the boss is allowed.”
I’d ask, “Why aren’t you asking those questions to your own bosses?” The answer would come back, “I can’t bring that up. I’d get killed.”
Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.
Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.
There were times I talked about the company’s direction so many times in one day that I was completely sick of hearing it myself.
Leaders never score off their own people by stealing an idea and claiming it as their own.
You are not a leader to win a popularity contest—you are a leader to lead.
If you’re left with that uh-oh feeling in your stomach, don’t hire the guy.
“We’ll look into it,” they kept assuring me. I was a know-nothing, meddling pain in the neck, and they were just trying to mollify me.
Just because you’re the boss doesn’t mean you’re the source of all knowledge.
Work is too much a part of life not to recognize moments of achievement. Grab as many as you can. Make a big deal out of them.
Over time, many of us develop an instinct for integrity. Just don’t be afraid to use it.
People with positive energy just love life.
Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can’t cut bait.
Some of the smartest people I hired had real difficulty with edge. For several of them, that was a fatal flaw.
The best leaders in brutally competitive environments have a sixth sense for market changes. They can imagine the unimaginable.
I particularly liked the people who had had the wind knocked clear out of them but proved they could run even harder in the next race.
A good rule of thumb is not to hire someone into the last job of his or her career, unless it’s to be head of a function or CEO.
Don’t beat yourself up if you get hiring wrong some of the time. Just remember, the mistake is yours to fix.
If you managed a baseball team, would you listen more closely to the team accountant or the director of player personnel?
Pastor-parent types see the hidden hierarchies in people’s minds—the invisible org chart that exists at every company.
Very few companies have meaningful evaluation systems in place. That’s not just bad—it’s terrible!
Plaques and public fanfare have their place. But without money, rewards lose a lot of their impact.
Good people never think they’ve reached the top of their game. But they’re dying to get there!
Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company.
A slider just shows up at work and goes through the motions.
Hierarchies tend to make little generals out of perfectly normal people who find themselves in organizations that respond only to rank.
Make your company flatter. Managers should have ten direct reports at the minimum and 30 to 50 percent more if they are experienced.
Every employee, not just the senior people, should know how a company is doing.
The most complex and delicate kind of firing is when an individual has to be let go because of poor performance.
He blew up in anger, shouting, “You’ve got to be crazy. We don’t fire people at this company!”
Every person who leaves goes on to represent your company. They can bad-mouth or praise.
Unfortunately, it took about a year before Steve was let go. At every staff meeting, we watched in agony as the self-confidence seeped out of him.
Yes, the employee has done a poor job. But until he departs, your job is to make sure he doesn’t feel as if he is in a leper colony.
If the company has been through enough change programs, employees consider you like gas pains. You’ll go away if they just wait long enough.
Real change agents comprise less than 10 percent of all businesspeople. They have courage—a certain fearlessness about the unknown.
Managers often hold on to resisters because of a specific skill set or because they’ve been around for a long time. Don’t!
It goes without saying that no businessperson wants disasters to occur, but they will.
Managers can waste a lot of time at the outset of a crisis denying that something went wrong. Skip that step.
There is a silver lining to crisis management in that you rarely have to live through the same disaster twice.
I’m not saying that the correct mind-set means you should fold at the get-go. Sometimes you are absolutely clean and you need to fight.
During a crisis, your lawyers will tell you to say less, not more. That advice is not all wrong. But don’t take it as gospel.
Your lack of visibility will be taken as an admission of guilt, the same way it looks to laypeople when someone does not take the stand in his own defense.
With big crises, don’t ever forget you have a business to run.
When it comes to strategy, ponder less and do more.
Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be everything to everybody, no matter what the size of your business or how deep its pockets.