Jack Welch

The campus was a flutter on April 12th with the news that Jack Welch would be speaking from 12-1pm at the Wong Auditorium. I have a class that runs right up to 12pm, so I knew I'd be unlikely to get a seat. Fortunately, Ilana was nice enough to save me a seat. And oh was it a seat! We were just 3 rows back from center stage directly in front of Jack. Thanks Ilana!

Jack was great. He is a real lively character that's obviously been around the block a time or two. He had a lot of great advice and I tried to capture as much of it as I could.

BTW, the auditorium was filled to capacity at 11:30am so they moved everyone else to an overflow room. After the talk, Jack signed copies of his new book Winning, but it was so crowded I didn't stay around.

Jack's Bio

Notes:

As CEO of a big company, you are really in the people business regardless of what your company's primary business is

He wasn't in the plastics business or light bulb business, as CEO of GE he was in the business of people

It is all about putting people in the right place and giving them the resources they convince you they need

Your job won't be doing what you are doing in MBA school – it will be more about building teams and rallying smart people to do the job

What should students focus on? Have good analytical background, but you need to be able to make decisions, execute, and care about people

Emphasized the importance of leadership, not just knowing how to do the financials

Budget reviews are the worst thing

At GE he measured his people against their competition and how they did compared to last year

Gave bigger bonus to appliance biz that grew only 1% in a tough market compared over the plastics biz that grew 25% in an easy market

Bonuses and promotions were transparent

Talked about the 20-70-10 rule (His managers had to promote the top 20% of their people each year, they got to keep another 70%, but they had to terminate the bottom 10%.)

You have an obligation as a leader to let your people know where they stand

Always try to field the best players

Better to work with bottom 10% on phasing them out than to cut them quickly during a recession

Anytime he gave a raise, stock or bonus, he would give the employee a sheet on what they did well and what needed improving

If you are going to build the best team, you have to be on it all the time

The job of managing is the paradox of managing short and thinking long

Strategy reviews were also people reviews

You should look at everyone as a mentor

Error on the side of being bold, take the big swings, take risks while you are young. Be safe later.

With a MIT background, why be cautious?

Work/life balance is a real struggle

Crisis management will be a big part of your job and life

Should you use management consultants? Rarely – The profession is a bit of a shame.

Can leadership be taught? Yes

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes

Inherently, extroverts do better as leaders

It is about incremental steps – building self confidence through experience

After he blew the roof off a chemical plant in his 20's, he never beat someone while they were down.

Culture counts as much as financials when making deals

Everywhere you see "values", substitute it with "behavior"

Someone shouldn't know why another person got the promo and they didn't

Openness and transparency are so important

Could you have accomplished what you did if you were female? No, he doesn't think so, but he thinks it would be possible today.