Jack: Straight from the Gut
Jack Welch, John A. ByrneBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
They called him Neutron Jack. They called him the world's toughest boss. And then Fortune called him "The Manager of the Century." In his twenty-year career at the helm of General Electric, Jack Welch defied conventional wisdom and turned an aging behemoth of a corporation into a lean, mean engine of growth and corporate innovation. In this remarkable autobiography-a classic business book and runaway New York Times bestseller now updated with a new afterword by the author-Jack Welch takes us on the rough-and-tumble ride that has been his remarkable life. From his working-class childhood to his early days in G.E. Plastics to his life at the top of the world's most successful company, Welch tells his intensely personal story with his well-known fire and candor. And although it chronicles billion-dollar deals and high-stakes corporate standoffs, Jack is ultimately a story about people-from a man who based his career on demanding only the best from others and from himself.
In anecdotal detail and with self-effacing humor, Jack Welch gives us the people (most notably his Irish mother) who shaped his life and the big hits and the big misses that characterized his career.
Synopsis
How is it that Jack Welch, who sits atop a company which employs nearly 340,000 people worldwide, asserts such an overall positive influence? As he reveals firsthand for the first time, Welch does it through the sheer force of his personality, together with a passion for and a keen attention to details. He does it because he encourages near-brutal candor in the meetings he holds to guide the company through each work year. With one of the most successful and influential careers in business ever, Jack Welch reveals the strategies and philosophies that put him at the top.
Nobuyuki Idei
Jack Welch, the brilliant business magician, has finally disclosed his mysteries of management. Now we must accept the generosity of his challenge and try to match or exceed him.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Jack Welch, the phenomenally successful CEO of General Electric, has been highly praised, relentlessly analyzed, and occasionally criticized in hundreds of articles and books over the past few decades, but his autobiography -- the highly anticipated Jack: Straight from the Gut -- is the first book to be written by him. With characteristic candor, Welch discusses his childhood, his business philosophy, his achievements and his mistakes, and the lessons he shares with students at Crotonville, GE's famous management development center. The insights Welch shares in Jack: Straight from the Gut, which goes on sale September 11th, don't apply just to corporate leaders: Anyone who is striving to realize their dreams or better the quality of their working life will benefit from his inspirational story and teachings.Wall Street Journal
...a book that almost everyone still interested in business...can't afford to ignore...a very good yarn...Newsday
...will be of interest to anyone who really cares about business...Bernadine Healy
An American treasure, Jack Welch teaches us how a leader with keen intellect, guts, and honor can impart courage to people around him, weather unexpected storms, inspire performance, and take an organization to greater and greater heights. His formula challenges all of us and any institution striving for excellence.Warren Buffett
Jack is the Tiger Woods of management. All CEOs want to emulate him. They won't be able to, but they'll come closer if they listen carefully to what he has to say.Thomas Middelhoff
Jack's vision and courage, his ability to prevail, his art of motivation and, of course, his success, make him the role model of entrepreneurs and managers worldwide.Nobuyuki Idei
Jack Welch, the brilliant business magician, has finally disclosed his mysteries of management. Now we must accept the generosity of his challenge and try to match or exceed him.Michael D. Eisner
Jack Welch gave team leadership new meaning as he took an industrial giant and turned it into an industrial colossus with a heart and a soul and a brain.Publishers Weekly
It doesn't matter whether you love or hate Jack Welch. Who can resist hearing the man tell his story? This abridged version of his recently published autobiography, featuring Welch himself, is quite entertaining. With his slightly raspy Boston accent, Welch discusses his childhood and his career. When he proclaims something, he gives examples to illustrate his point. For instance, he says his mother was the strongest influence on his life. He then recalls the time he threw a hockey stick across the ice in disgust after losing a game, and his mother stormed into the locker room as some teammates were changing to exclaim loudly, "If you don't know how to lose, you'll never know how to win." When discussing his long career at GE, Welch is equally detailed. While some listeners unfamiliar with the corporation may find some of the discussions tedious, most will be captivated by what appears to be Welch's brutal honesty. He talks about having to lobby for promotions because he didn't "fit the GE mold," and he's open about making some poor business decisions. He's not as forthright as it appears, though. He talks about his beloved wife, Carolyn, who provided a stable home while Welch was rising in GE's ranks, but barely mentions their divorce. Still, this audiobook will be interesting listening for anyone who has followed Neutron Jack's career. Simultaneous release with Warner Books hardcover. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
In this fascinating personal and business memoir, Welch, recently retired CEO and board chair of the General Electric Company, reveals extensive inside details about his life and his 30-plus years with GE. During his 20 years as CEO, Welch built GE into a highly successful megacorporation, earning a reputation as one of the most admired business leaders in the world. Starting with poignant revelations of the importance of his mother in his life, he carries the listener through his early days of success in GE's Pittsfield, MA, office; his entry into the "big leagues" as CEO; the now famous "Neutron Jack" moniker from the time he reduced GE employment by over 100,000 in his strategy to "fix, sell, or close" each business; and the purchase of RCA to provide a foundation for future earnings. The stories of GE's buyout of NBC, the hard work to globalize the company, and the adoption of quality management principles help relate this powerful tale, read by Mike Barnicle and Welch, to listeners dealing with similar challenges in their own careers. The author's self-effacing personality, down-to-earth delivery, and focus on common sense all greatly add to this collection of Welch's intriguing anecdotes, which will likely be in strong demand. His thick Boston accent will occasionally catch listeners off guard and might steer some to the widely acclaimed hard copy. Highly recommended for all public libraries and university libraries supporting a business curriculum. Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Soundview Executive Book Summaries
The career of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch leaves us with many lessons in management, business and leadership. From his beginnings as a stuttering, competitive kid from working-class Salem, Mass., to his early days as a GE engineer, to his ascension to CEO in 1980 and subsequent 20-plus-year reign at the top, Welch stressed the importance of people, originality, creativity and common sense. The result is a leadership style that is often imitated, but never equaled.In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch is both storyteller and coach, using his exceptional career as the backdrop to share his thoughts on what it takes to be a great leader. Part management text, part page-turner, Jack shows how the man, widely regarded as the finest corporate executive of his generation, built his business and his reputation.
After Welch has described in detail the colorful stories of his rise through the ranks and the actions he took to change the corporate culture at GE, he delivers specific ways a CEO can lead a company to success. He writes that there is no pat formula for being a CEO. Everyone does it differently, and there is no right or wrong way to go about it, no magic formula that is the right thing to do in all cases. However, Welch has found a number of strategies that have helped him lead GE over the years. These are a few:
Ten Leadership Principles
- Maintain your integrity. Establish your integrity and never waver from it. People might not have agreed with Welch on every issue, but they always knew they were getting it straight and honest. He never had two agendas; there was only one way - the straight way.
- Set the tone for your company. The organization takes its cue from the person on top. Welch always told GE's business leaders their personal intensity determined their organization's intensity - how hard they worked and how many people they touched would be emulated a thousand times over.
- Maximize your organization's intellect. Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what being a CEO is all about; taking their best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere, has to offer, then transfer that learning across the organization.
- Put people first, strategy second. Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy - this truth applies to all kinds of businesses. Without the right leaders in place, the best, most forward-thinking strategies in the world will amount to little.
- Stress informality. Bureaucracy strangles; informality liberates. Creating an informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage. It isn't about first names, unassigned parking spaces, or casual clothing; it is about making sure everybody counts, and everybody knows they count. Passion, chemistry and idea-flow from any level at any place are what matter. Everybody's welcome and expected to go at it.
Resist Arrogance
- Be self-confident. Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect; legitimate self-confidence, however, is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open - to welcome change and new ideas, regardless of their source. Self-confident people also are not afraid to have their views challenged; they relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.
- Appraise all the time. Whether you are handing out a stock option, giving a raise, or simply bumping into someone in the hallway, always let your people know where they stand.
- Mind your culture. If your company joins forces with another through merger or acquisition, establish the new entity's culture on day one, to minimize confusion and root out resistance to your goals.
- Recognize the benefits of speed. By acting decisively on people, plants and investments, Welch was able to get out of the pile very early in his career at GE. Yet, upon his retirement 40 years later, one of his greatest regrets was that he had not acted fast enough on a number of occasions. He never regretted taking quick action.
- Forget the zeros. The entrepreneurial benefits of being small - agility, speed and ease of communication - are often lost in a big company. Welch's experience in plastics enabled him to come to the job of CEO knowing that isolating small projects and keeping them out of the mainstream was a smart thing to do. By focusing on such projects as separate, smaller businesses, the people involved were more energized, adventurous and backed by the right resources.
Why Soundview Likes This Book
Jack delivers the lessons of leadership that have helped Welch become one of the most recognizable and respected business leaders of our time. Throughout Jack, he conveys his motivations and successful ideas with heart and intellect, and develops a formula that any leader can use to inspire performance and overcome organizational challenges. By providing the details of his experiences at the top of GE with compelling stories, and shedding light on the thinking he used to conquer unexpected difficulties, Jack offers colorful insight into the strategies of a legendary leader. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries