The Jack Welch Lexicon of Leadership phần 1 pdf

He created a new ness lexicon.” This statement planted the seed for this book...that busi-the very words, terms, and phrases used most often by Jack Welch, 250 in all, could become the b

The Jack Welch

Lexicon of Leadership

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The Jack Welch

Lexicon of Leadership

Jeffrey A Krames

McGraw-Hill

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DOI: 10.1036/0071389385

To my parents, Barton and Trudy

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vii

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In November of 2000, The Wall Street Journal asked me to write

an opinion piece on Jack Welch’s choice of a successor The essay,

entitled Welch’s Successor is likely to Succeed, included the ing proclamation: “Welch has done more to advance the body of

follow-knowledge than any of his contemporaries He created a new ness lexicon.” This statement planted the seed for this book that

busi-the very words, terms, and phrases used most often by Jack

Welch, 250 in all, could become the basis for a management book

Of course, I have more than a passing interest in Jack Welch.Having spent a decade studying all things Welch and after editingfour books on GE’s CEO and the learning culture he had nur-tured, I had begun, imperceptibly at first, to inculcate Welch’stenets into the everyday fabric of my work life

At McGraw-Hill, the books on Jack Welch that I had acquired andedited had become something of a phenomenon Each one out-sold the one that preceded it, and sales were not confined toNorth America Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold anddistributed throughout the world, and not only in English, but inclose to a dozen languages Thanks to Welch’s sweeping globaliza-tion initiative, GE had a strong presence in all 32 countries inwhich McGraw-Hill had an office

The vision for this book finally came three months after the Wall

Street Journal piece ran, and the key was a childhood memory I

recalled that as a child I would leaf through the pages of The

World Book Encyclopedia, always amazed at how much

informa-ix

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tion they got into one book The World Book not only transported

its readers to places like Tangiers and Jerusalem, it also told youabout each entry’s history, its origins, the significance to the

region, etc That’s it, I thought By marrying the language of Welch to a World Book-like treatment, readers would be treated to

a unique, guided tour of Welch’s two-decade crusade at GE’shelm

The model includes not only an explanation of, say, Six Sigma

(Welch’s quality initiative), it also includes the origins of the gram, the role of employees, the evolution of the program, etc The last piece involves adding lessons, so readers can apply what Welch

pro-had learned to their own organizations The final product puts all

of Welch’s key strategies and initiatives in perspective and vides readers a road map to follow in implementing all things

pro-Welch After reading the Lexicon, readers will understand how the

son of a train conductor became one of the great business leaders

of the modern day, or any day

x THE JACK WELCH LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP

Throughout the 1980s I closely followed reports of a maverickCEO in Fairfield, Connecticut, who was purportedly rewritingthe rules of business That inspired me to approach author

Robert Slater with an idea for a book The result was the 1992

publication of The New GE, which chronicled Jack Welch’s first

decade as CEO Three other books followed over the next nine

years, including the national bestseller Jack Welch and the GE Way.

In creating these works, I worked side by side with Robert Slater,planning, molding, shaping, and editing Several of these confer-

ences, such as the June 1999 meeting at Lake George (for The GE

Way Fieldbook), went on for days It was during these

get-togeth-ers and the subsequent editing marathons that I received my firstdegree in Jack Welch For this, I offer my appreciation to theauthor I have worked with since 1985

I am fortunate to be a part of an organization that has been at theforefront of learning for more than a century McGraw-Hill hasbeen home to many of the most gifted authors in the industry,and I am proud to join their ranks I would like to thank the fol-lowing individuals at McGraw-Hill who helped make this book areality: Philip Ruppel, Lydia Rinaldi, Lynda Luppino, AllysonArias, Chitra Bopardikar, Peter McCurdy, as well as the entireBurr Ridge team for their unwavering enthusiasm

I would also like to thank the people who reviewed the script in its early stages and made valuable suggestions: John H.Zenger, Executive Vice President of Provant, Inc., and John

manu-xi

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Ivancevich, prolific author and professor of management at TheUniversity of Houston.

To my Nancy, who has been my inspiration since that fateful,Navy Pier evening The road here came through Belmont, and Ithank her for her unsparing encouragement, and for providingenough light to see me through the middle-of-the-night writingsessions

To my family, I offer my gratitude for the love and the lessons,and for transforming a few small rooms and a shop on

Kingsbridge Road into a learning organization of their own

xii THE JACK WELCH LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP

P A R T O N E

Evolution of a Leader: The Welch Years

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Why a Jack Welch Lexicon of Leadership?

Lexicon (lek-si-kon): (1) A dictionary; (2) A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary.

—THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY

In his two decades at the helm of GE, Jack Welch did more toadd to the leadership literature than any other CEO of themodern era Not only did he give more thought to the business

of leadership, Welch devised principles, strategies, and tenets tolead by

In creating one of the world’s most competitive corporations,Welch created his own lexicon, a new language that gave voice tothe new methods and strategies that transformed GE from a cen-tury-old bureaucracy into a global juggernaut

The Jack Welch Lexicon of Leadership is alphabetically organized

and includes more than 250 of the words, ideas, concepts, tools,and strategies used or created by Welch and GE between 1981 and

2001 Some listings, such as “Boundaryless,” have already foundtheir way into the everyday language of business However, thereare dozens of terms that have received less attention but alsoplayed a vital role in advancing Welch’s leadership agenda Forexample, while most managers have heard of Six Sigma, there has

been less written about Master Black Belts and Green Belts In ilar fashion, Work-Out™, Welch’s sweeping cultural initiative, has

sim-garnered the spotlight in countless books and articles, while other

3

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concepts associated with the program, such as “high hards” and

“rattlers,” have received far less attention

Many of the entries in the Lexicon were indeed the brainchild of

Jack Welch and GE However, it is worth noting that the bookincludes dozens of entries that were not invented by the GE chair-man but have some unique and pertinent Welch application For

example, the entry for confidence does not include a literal

defini-tion, but instead explains why Welch felt that “instilling dence” was one of his key responsibilities In addition, to fullygrasp why the GE chairman attributed such weight to confidencebuilding, readers will learn the origins of Welch’s own self-assur-ance, as well as the role it played in crafting his vision for GE

confi-The goal of the Welch Lexicon is threefold:

1 To give readers a guided tour of the language and strategies

of all things Welch Readers will gain valuable insights into

the key management ideas that consumed Welch, while alsolearning the significance of these concepts and programs.The most important terms are clearly designated (with theSix Sigma icon) so readers know which Welch words andstrategies formed the centerpiece of his leadership ideal Forexample:

4 THE JACK WELCH LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP

σσσσσσ

Bureaucracy: Productivity’s enemy Welch told his people

to “fight it, kick it.” The GE CEO fought a two-decade war

against bureaucracy with initiatives like boundaryless and

Work-Out GE’s list of values specifically addressed the

company’s intolerance for bureaucracy (it was at the top of

the list for many years), and stressed the importance of

building an organization of trust, excitement, and

informal-ity Welch recognized the adverse effects of bureaucracy and

knew that unless he rid the organization of the worst of it,

GE would never become a legitimate global competitor.

2 To impart additional insights into Welch’s key wide initiatives During his tenure, Welch launched four

company-growth initiatives (globalization, Six Sigma, Product Services,and the e-Initiative) and one behavioral initiative (Work-Out) All key initiatives are explored at length, as are the keyterms associated with each initiative For example, not only isWelch’s Six Sigma initiative explored in depth but so are morethan three dozen terms associated with that watershed pro-gram (e.g., Defects, Variance, etc.)

3 To chronicle the evolution of Welch’s leadership thinking.

Wherever possible, dates and chronology are included to helptrace Welch’s evolution as a leader Many of Welch’s key con-cepts and programs evolved over the years, and that chronol-ogy often played a major role in implementing a particularprogram For example, Welch said that Six Sigma would nothave been possible without Work-Out, the behavioral pro-gram that helped GE become a more boundaryless place inthe late 1980s and early 1990s

The ultimate goal is to create a dictionary that is much more—aroad map of the language and programs employed by the GECEO in launching the many revolutions that earned Jack Welchthe sobriquet of world’s greatest manager (although Welch dis-likes the term “manager”—he prefers “leader”) It is intended to

be a complete reference that can be read in its entirety or accessedfor individual entries

An Incredibly Brief Welch History

Welch, an only child, was born in 1935 and raised in Salem,Massachusetts An avid sports enthusiast as a child, he credits thelessons he learned in a “scrappy place” called the “Pit” (the neigh-borhood gravel pit turned into a makeshift park) with forging his

THE JACK WELCH LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP 5

leadership abilities He later attended the University of

Massachusetts at Amherst, and then went on to the University ofIllinois, where he received a Master’s degree and a doctorate inchemical engineering In October 1960, Welch joined GE in theplastics division in Pittsfield, Massachusetts It was there that heformed his leadership ideal Working in that exciting, fast-pacedenvironment, Welch said, “Bureaucracy could not form, just as icecould not form in a swiftly moving stream.” (Despite this envi-ronment, Welch almost quit in 1961 when he received what hecalled a “lousy” $1000 raise that brought his income to only

$11,500.)

In the beginning, there were only two employees, which

prompted Welch to liken his part of GE to a “corner grocerystore.” In a neighborhood grocery store, you know the customers’names, what they buy, who they are Welch believes that confi-dence thrives in an informal arena That metaphor would staywith him as he moved up the corporate ladder, becoming thecompany’s youngest general manager at age 33 Welch’s predeces-sor, Reg Jones, started searching for his successor in 1974, six fullyears before his retirement, and although the original list of 96candidates did not include Welch, his name was added to the final

list of contenders (see Succession Planning).

In 1980, GE announced the name of it’s eighth CEO: 45-year-oldJohn Francis Welch On the day of the announcement, corporateAmerica was in a tailspin Interest rates were skyrocketing and theeconomy was sandwiched between two recessions The stockmarket was in a shambles, emerging from its worst period sincethe 1930s The Dow 30, which had first pierced 900 in the mid-1960s, was at 937 And GE, one of America’s premier corpora-tions, wasn’t doing much better Despite the fact that Reg Joneswas voted the best CEO by the Fortune 500 CEOs, GE’s stock,when adjusted for inflation, had lost half of its value over the pre-vious 10 years

6 THE JACK WELCH LEXICON OF LEADERSHIP