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25 Lessons from Jack Welch
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Management Insight and Leadership Secrets of the Legendary Former CEO of
GE
The techniques and ideas that Welch has employed to move GE forward
are applicable to any size corporations, small, medium, or large. |
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Jack Welch knew that it would take nothing less than a "revolution" to
transform that dream into a reality. In his self-proclaimed
revolution,
Welch waged
war on GE's old ways of doing things where
forms and approvals and bureaucracy ruled the day.
Jack Welch
reinvented the company
from top to
bottom. |
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25 Lessons from Jack Welch |
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2.
Manage Less
In the
new knowledge-based economy, people should make their own decision. Managing less is
managing better. Close supervision, control and
bureaucracy kill the competitive spirit of the company. "Weak
managers are
the killers of business; they are the job killers. You can't manage
self-confidence into people." |
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We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are
not told what to do by
management. |
Jack Welch
GE |
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3.
Articulate Your Vision
The best leader do not provide a
step-by-step instruction manual for workers. The best leaders are those who
come up with new idea, and
articulate a vision that
inspires others to act...
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4.
Simplify
Keeping things simple is one of the keys to
business
success.
Have the
courage to be simple.
Simplicity is practically an art form,
with many definitions. "Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach
the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows
faster decision
making."...
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You
can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple... Clear
tough-minded people are most simple. |
Jack Welch
GE |
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5.
Get Less Formal
Harness the power of an
informal place. "Today form isn't allowed. Global battles don't allow
forms. It's all substance. Form means somebody is not intensely
interested in the company."...
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Without needless rules,
titles, and approvals people are not afraid to voice their ideas,
even they go against conventional company wisdom. |
Jack Welch
GE |
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My main job was developing talent. I
was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750
people. |
Jack Welch
GE |
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19.
Instill Confidence
Create a truly confident
workforce. Confidence is a vital
ingredient of any learning
organization. The prescription
for winning is speed,
simplicity, and self-confidence.
Self-confident people are open
to good ideas regardless of
their source and are willing to
share them...
More
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3Ss of
Winning in Business
Confidence
How To
Build Confidence |
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8.
See Change as an Opportunity
Change
is a big part of the reality in
business.
"Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the
company into total confusion for a while...
Keeping an eye out for change
is
both exhilarating and fun."...
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9.
Get Good Ideas from Everywhere
New ideas are the lifeblood of business. "The
operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better
idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that
better idea, learn it, and put it into action ‒ fast." |
10.
Follow up
Follow up on everything.
Follow-up is one key measure of success for a business. Your follow-up
business strategy will pave the way for your success. |
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11.
Get Rid of Bureaucracy
The way to harness the power of your people is "to turn them loose, and get
the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their
feet and the functional barriers out of their way."...
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12.
Eliminate Boundaries
In order to make sure that people
are free to reach for the impossible, you must remove anything that gets in
their way. "Boundarylessness" describes an open organization
free of bureaucracy
and anything else that prevents the free flow of ideas, people, decisions,
etc.
Informality,
fun and
speed are the
qualities found in a boundaryless organization. |
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13.
Put Values First
Don't focus too much on the numbers.
"Numbers aren't the vision; numbers are the products." Focus more on the softer
values of building a
team,
sharing ideas,
exciting
others...
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15.
Create a Learning Culture
Turn your company into a
learning organization to spark free flow
of communication and exchange of ideas. "The desire, and the ability, of an
organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere - and to
rapidly convert this learning into action – is its ultimate
competitive advantage." |
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16.
Involve Everyone
Business is all about capturing
intellect from every person. The way to engender enthusiasm it to
allow employees far more freedom and far more responsibility...
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17.
Make Everybody a Team Player
Managers should learn to become
team
players. Middle managers have to be
team members
and
coaches.
Take steps against those managers who wouldn't learn to become team players.
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18.
Stretch
Set
stretch goals.
Stretch targets
energize. "We have found
that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do
the impossible; and even when we don't quite make it, we inevitably wind up
doing much better than we would have done."...
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20.
Have Fun
Fun must be a big element
in your
business strategy. No one should have a job they don't
enjoy. If you don't wake up energized and excited about tackling a new set
of challenges, then you might be in the wrong job...
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21.
Be Number 1 or Number 2
"When you're number four or five in
a market, when number one sneezes, you get pneumonia. When you're number
one, you control your destiny. The number fours keep merging; they have
difficult times. That's not the same if you're number four, and that's your
only businesses. Then you have to find strategic ways to get stronger.
But GE had a lot of
number ones."...
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22.
Live Quality
"We want to change the competitive
landscape by being not just better than our competitors, but by taking
quality to a whole new level. We want to make our quality so special, so
valuable to our customers, so important to their success that our products
become the only real value choice." |
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23.
Constantly Focus on Innovation
"You have just got to constantly focus
on
innovation. And more competitors. You've got to constantly produce more
for less through intellectual capital. Shun the incremental, and look for the
quantum leap."
Now the fundamentals have got to be more education. More information
knowledge, faster speeds, more technology across the board...
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24.
Live Speed "Speed is everything. It is the
indispensable ingredient of
competitiveness." Speed,
simplicity and self-confidence are closely
intertwined. By simplifying the organization and instilling confidence, you
create the foundation for an organization that incorporates speed into the
fabric of the company...
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25.
Behave Like a Small Company
Small companies have huge
competitive advantages.
They "are uncluttered,
simple,
informal.
They thrive on
passion and
ridicule bureaucracy.
Small companies grow on good ideas – regardless of
their source. They need everyone,
involve
everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to
winning. Small companies dream big dreams and set the bar high
‒ increments
and fractions don't interest them."...
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