Jack : Straight from the Gut

by Welch, Jack; Byrne, John A.

• ISBN13: 9780446678780
• ISBN10: 0446678783
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Warner Books (P)

Summary

As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years, Jack Welch has built its market cap by over $500 billion and established himself as the most admired business leader in the world. His championing of initiatives like Six Sigma quality, globalization, and e-business have helped define the modern corporation. At the same time, he's a gutsy boss who has forged a unique philosophy and an operating system that relies on a "boundaryless" sharing of ideas, an intense focus on people, and an informal, give-and-take style that makes bureaucracy the enemy. 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. Starting at GE in 1960 as an engineer earning $10,500, Jack learned the need for "getting out of the pile" when his first raise was the same as everyone else's. He stayed out of the corporate bureaucracy while running a $2 billion collection of GE businesses--in a sweater and blue jeans--out of a Hilton in Pittsfield, Mass. After avoiding GE's Fairfield, Connecticut, headquarters for years, Jack was eventually summoned by then Chairman Reg Jones, who was planning his succession. There ensued one of the most painful parts of his career--Jack's dark-horse struggle, filled with political tension, to make it to the CEO's chair. A hug from Reg confirmed Jack was the new boss--and started the GE transformation. Welch walks us through the "Neutron Jack" years, when GE's employment fell by more than 100,000 as part of a strategy to "fix, sell, or close" each business . . . and how he used the purchase of RCA to provide a foundation for the company's future earnings. There were mistakes, too--and Jack confronts them openly. In "Too Full of Myself," he describes one of the biggest blunders: the purchase of Kidder Peabody, which ran counter to GE's culture. The riveting story of his last year--the elaborate process of selecting a successor and the attempt to buy Honeywell--is also told in compelling detail. This book is laced with refreshing interludes, such as "A Short Reflection on Golf," that capture Jack's competitiveness and the importance of friendship in his life. Jack: Straight from the Gut is both a business classic and a deeply personal journey filled with passion and a sheer lust for life.

Table of Contents

Author's Note	p. ix
Prologue	p. xi
Early Years
Building Self-Confidence	p. 3
Getting Out of the Pile	p. 21
Blowing the Roof Off	p. 27
Flying Below the Radar	p. 37
Getting Closer to the Big Leagues	p. 49
Swimming in a Bigger Pond	p. 63
Building a Philosophy
Dealing with Reality and "Superficial Congeniality"	p. 91
The Vision Thing	p. 105
The Neutron Years	p. 121
The RCA Deal	p. 139
The People Factory	p. 155
Remaking Crotonville to Remake GE	p. 169
Boundaryless: Taking Ideas to the Bottom Line	p. 185
Deep Dives	p. 205
Ups and Downs
Too Full of Myself	p. 217
GE Capital: The Growth Engine	p. 231
Mixing NBC with Light Bulbs	p. 251
When to Fight, When to Fold	p. 275
Game Changers
Globalization	p. 301
Growing Services	p. 317
Six Sigma and Beyond	p. 325
E-Business	p. 341
Looking Back, Looking Forward
"Go Home, Mr. Welch"	p. 355
What This CEO Thing Is All About	p. 377
A Short Reflection on Golf	p. 401
"New Guy"	p. 407
Epilogue	p. 431
Acknowledgments	p. 439
Afterword	p. 440
Appendixes	p. 447
Index	p. 466
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