A collection of quotes by Jack Welch on inspiration, winning, leadership, destiny, personality, vision, determination, business, change, opportunity and confidence.
109 Top Jack Welch Quotes On Winning And Leadership
Quick Facts
Famous As:
Former Chairman & CEO of General Electric
John Francis Welch Jr., better known as Jack Welch, is an American chemical engineer, former business executive and writer. He went on to become one of the most successful chief executives in American corporate history. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studied chemical engineering and then went to acquire his post graduate degree and doctorate in the same subject from the University of Illinois. Welch started working for General Electric in 1960 as a chemical engineer and quickly rose up through the ranks to become the vice president in the company in 8 years. Later, he became the head of strategic planning, a post he held for six years. However, his most significant time at General Electric was from 1981 and 2001 that he spent as the chief executive of the company. During his tenure as the CEO, Welch turned the already huge corporation’s growth to levels that were unheard of. According to some estimates, the company grew 4000% during those twenty years. Welch has been without doubt one of the most important men in American business and is regarded as a legend. Let’s dive into some business and life lessons from one of the world’s best CEOs. We have curated Jack Welch's quotes from his sppeches, life and writings that you would find interesting. Read on the compilation of thoughts and quotations by Jack Welch.
My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.
The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don't have to work hard.
Jack Welch
The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.
If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.
CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.
Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.
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.
Jack Welch
I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.
Jack Welch
If you don't have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don't take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It's crazy.
There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization's overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow...It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it...
In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I've ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.
Jack Welch
Our behavior is driven by a fundamental core belief: the desire, and the ability, of an organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere; and to rapidly convert this learning into action is its ultimate competitive advantage.
There are only two sources of competitive advantage: the ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition and the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition.
Too often we measure everything and understand nothing. The three most important things you need to measure in a business are customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow. If you’re growing customer satisfaction, your global market share is sure to grow, too. Employee satisfaction gets you productivity, quality, pride, and creativity. And cash flow is the pulse—the key vital sign of a company.
Strategy is simply resource allocation. When you strip away all the noise, that's what it comes down to. Strategy means making clear cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be everything to everybody, no matter what the size of your business or how deep its pockets.
Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.
Jack Welch
Be candid with everyone.
Jack Welch
A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.
Jack Welch
I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that's a big deal. And if you're going to be a leader - if you're a leader and you're the smartest guy in the world - in the room, you've got real problems.
The biggest cowards are managers who don't let people know where they stand.
Jack Welch
You can't grow long-term if you can't eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.
You've got to eat while you dream. You've got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.
One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot.
What's important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn't satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn't right, or if the offerings aren't right, it's the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don't get hung up on zeros.
Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can't - you can't put a wall up around here. We tried that in the '30s. It didn't work.
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.
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.
Jack Welch
I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It's got the market. It's got consumer confidence and it's got banks throwing - I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.
The story about GE that hasn't been told is the value of an informal place. I think it's a big thought. I don't think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don't like to use the word efficiency. It's creativity. It's a belief that every person counts.
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.
We've all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight.
It's a terrible sin.
If you don't make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn't count.
If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it's an ugly life. When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you've hit the jackpot for people.
