Jack Welch Quotes

Jack Welch offers straightforward, no-nonsense advice on business, leadership and strategy.

49 quotes

1. I enjoy challenging a person's ideas. No one loves a good and passionately fought argument more than I do. This isn't about being tough-minded and straightforward. That's the job. But so is sensing when to hug and when to kick. Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we're managing good people who are clearly eating themselves up over an error, our job is to help them through it. That doesn't mean you have to take it easy on your top performers.

2. The best way to support dreams and stretch is to set apart small ideas with big potential, then give people positive role models and the resources to turn small projects into big businesses.

3. I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.

4. In GE every day, there's an informal, unspoken personnel review-in the lunchroom, the hallways, and in every business meeting. That intense people focus-testing everyone in a myriad of environments-defines managing at GE. In the end, that's what GE is. We build great people, who then build great products and services.

5. In manufacturing, we try to stamp out variance. With people, variance is everything.

6. Change has no constituency-and a perceived revolution has even less.

7. There are advantages to being the chairman. One of my favorite perks was picking out an issue and doing what I called a 'deep dive.' It's spotting a challenge where you think you can make a difference-one that looks like it would be fun-and then throwing the weight of your position behind it. Some might justifiably call it 'meddling.' I've often done this-just about everywhere in the company.

8. If you like business, you have to like GE. If you like ideas, you have to love GE. This is a place where ideas can flow freely from and through more than 20 separate businesses and more than 300,000 employees. Boundaryless behavior allows ideas to come from anywhere. We formalize our freewheeling style in a series of operating meetings that blend into one another.

9. Being a CEO is the nuts! A whole jumble of thoughts come to mind: Over the top. Wild. Fun. Outrageous. Crazy. Passion. Perpetual motion. The give-and-take. Meetings into the night. Incredible friendships. Fine wine. Celebrations. Great golf courses. Big decisions in the real game. Crises and pressure. Lots of swings. A few home runs. The thrill of winning. The pain of losing. It's as good as it gets! You get paid a lot, but the real payoff is in the fun.

10. Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important.

11. Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.

12. Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence 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 aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.

13. Business has to be fun. For too many people, it's 'just a job.'

14. Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.

15. Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren't just satisfied, they're so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.

16. An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

17. An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.

18. Be number 1 or 2 in your business or get out.

19. Change before you have to.

20. Don't do what they ask you. Do what they ask you plus other insight.

21. From the day I joined GE to the day I was named CEO, twenty years later, my bosses cautioned me about my candor. I was labeled abrasive and consistently warned my candor would soon get in the way of my career. : and I'm telling you that it was candor that helped make it work.

22. Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

23. I was afraid of the Internet: because I couldn't type.

24. I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

25. If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.

26. Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.

27. Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

28. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence.

29. When the amount of change externally exceeds the amount of change internally, the end is in sight.

30. I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

31. Take lack of candor. ... I'm not talking about boldface lying, but a tendency to withhold information. That behavior is far more common, and it frustrates teams and bosses to no end.

32. Failing to differentiate among employees — and holding on to bottom-tier performers — is actually the cruelest form of management there is.

33. We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies - in the minds of those closest to the work.

34. Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.

35. So every time you think about your work-life balance issue, remember what your boss is thinking about - and that's winning. Your needs may get heard - and even successfully resolved - but not if the boss's needs aren't met as well.

36. Wright is a visionary with a great strategic mind, and he's a strong business leader with outstanding people skills, ... He's a terrific guy and will be a key force in guiding the company's future growth.

37. In order to lead a country or a company, you've got to get everybody on the same page and you've got to be able to have a vision of where you're going. America can't have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations - can't have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It's got to have a vision.

38. Real communication is an attitude, an environment. It is the most interactive of all processes. It requires countless hours of eyeball to eyeball, back and forth. It involves more listening than talking.

39. No one is doing something in your business - getting a sale, having a key customer, working on an R&D project - doing anything that's more important than something you say is going to change the company.

40. Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.

41. Innovation is not a big breakthrough invention every time. Innovation is a constant thing. But if you don't have an innovative company [team], coming to work everyday to find a better way, you don't have a company[team]. You're getting ready to die on the vine. You're always looking for the next innovation, the next niche, the next product improvement, the next service improvement. But always trying to get better.

42. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

43. The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important - and then get out of their way while they do it.

44. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

45. GE's businesses turned in a terrific first quarter. Our products and services are being well received in unusually robust global markets.

46. You can't behave in a calm, rational manner. You've got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.

47. The art of managing and leading comes down to a simple thing. Determining and facing reality about people, situations, products, and then acting decisively and quickly on that reality. Think how many times we have procrastinated, hoped it would get better. Most of the mistakes you've made have been through not being willing to face into it, straight in the mirror that reality you find, then taking action on it. That's all managing is, defining and acting. Not hoping, not waiting fro the next plan. Not rethinking it. Getting on with it. Doing it. Defining and doing it.

48. Getting candor right - with your reports, your peers, and your boss - is a skill that can make or break your career.

49. It's the internet like the flu - it just spreads like crazy.