Jack : straight from the gut / Jack Welch with John A. Byrne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Welch, Jack, 1935-2020.

Contributor:

Byrne, John A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Welch, Jack, 1935-2020.

Welch, Jack.

General Electric Company.

Businessmen--United States--Biography.

Businessmen.

United States.

Chief executive officers--United States--Biography.

Chief executive officers.

Electric industries--United States.

Electric industries.

General Electric Company--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvi, 479 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Warner Business Books, [2001]

Summary:

As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years, he has built its market cap by more than $450 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, Massachusetts.

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 rolls 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. Destined to become a business classic, Jack: Straight From The Gut is a deeply personal journey filled with passion and a sheer lust for life.

Contents:

Section I Early Years

1 Building Self-Confidence 3

2 Getting Out of the Pile 21

3 Blowing the Roof Off 27

4 Flying Below the Radar 37

5 Getting Closer to the Big Leagues 49

6 Swimming in a Bigger Pond 63

Section II Building A Philosophy

7 Dealing with Reality and "Superficial Congeniality" 91

8 The Vision Thing 105

9 The Neutron Years 121

The RCA Deal 139

11 The People Factory 155

12 Remaking Crotonville to Remake GE 169

13 Boundaryless: Taking Ideas to the Bottom Line 185

14 Deep Dives 205

Section III Ups and Downs

15 Too Full of Myself 217

16 GE Capital: The Growth Engine 231

17 Mixing NBC with Light Bulbs 251

18 When to Fight, When to Fold 275

Section IV Game Changers

19 Globalization 301

20 Growing Services 317

21 Six Sigma and Beyond 325

22 E-Business 341

Section V Looking Back, Looking Forward

23 "Go Home, Mr. Welch" 355

24 What This CEO Thing Is All About 377

25 A Short Reflection on Golf 401

26 "New Guy" 407.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0446528382 :

OCLC:

47913725