Jack Welch
Jack Welch
John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.is a retired American business executive, author, and chemical engineer. He was chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his tenure at GE, the company's value rose 4,000%. In 2006, Welch's net worth was estimated at $720 million. When he retired from GE he received a severance payment of $417 million, the largest such payment in history...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth19 November 1935
CityPeabody, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.
If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.
I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It's got the market. It's got consumer confidence and it's got banks throwing - I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.
The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.
Set stretch goals. Don't ever settle for mediocrity. The key to stretch is to reach for more than you think is possible. Don't sell yourself short by thinking that you'll fail.
Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.
Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don't like to use the word efficiency. It's creativity. It's a belief that every person counts.
Culture drives great results.
Give me a highly successful unionized industry.
We've only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.
Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of all employees are in the pile because they don't think.