In this book, we learn the 24 key points that allowed Jack Welch, the eighth youngest CEO in the history of General Electric, to revolutionize the company and transform it into a highly successful corporation. Here are some of the points that particularly appeal to me.
Face Reality
When Mr. Welch became the CEO of GE, everyone insisted that the company was doing very well. Despite the fact that it was indeed one of the most successful corporations in the United States, Jack Welch noted that it had lost much of its market value and was buried under bureaucratic burden. He decided to shake things up in order to gain a clear view of the reality, with no illusions.
Simplify
Simplifying was one of the keys to his success. He did his best to make the company’s processes uncomplicated. For Welch, self-confidence is essential to achieve simplicity. And self-confidence needs an informal context to reach its full potential. So he cut through the bureaucratic noise to:
“You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple… Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.”
See Change as an Opportunity
Most people do not like change. Change also happens a lot faster than most companies can cope with. Since Mr. Welch wanted to change GE products, attitudes, behaviors, etc., he did everything he could to make change a reality by sending the following messages to the employees:
Defy Tradition
According to Jack Welch, people must take destiny into their own hands; otherwise it is destiny that will have the upper hand. Here are his tips:
“Shun the incremental and go for the leap.”
Live Speed
Mr. Welch blew all administrative blocks up to increase the company’s decision agility. He tried to infuse the corporate culture with the soul of a small business, and he succeeded by:
Eliminate the Boundaries
The CEO eliminated the barriers than stood between the employees and their ideas, between different departments, etc.
“Leading a big company… means never allowing to take yourself too seriously, and reminding yourself constantly… that yesterday’s press clippings often wrap today’s fish.”
In short, this book illustrates the concepts we know in theory, but that actually proved to be a source of great success for GE.
Author: J. Krames
Sylvie Grégoire, MBA, CRHA
President, Totem Performance organisationnelle
