11 Jack Welch Quotes on Management

Jack Welch quotes on management

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.

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.

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

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.

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.