2. Background
• Jack Welch was born on 19th November in 1935 in Massachusetts in
America.
• He attended the Salem High School and then graduated from the
university of Massachusetts Amherst in the year 1957.
• He did his graduation in chemical engineering.
• He received a MS and PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign in 1960.
• Welch joined General Electric in 1960. He worked as a junior chemical
engineer.
3. At General Electrics
• In 1963 an explosion at the factory under his management blew off the
roof of the facilities, and he was almost fired for that episode.
• In 1961, Welch planned to quit his job as junior engineer because he was
dissatisfied with the raise offered to him and was unhappy with the
bureaucracy he observed at GE.
• Welch was persuaded to remain at GE by Reuben Gutoff, an executive at
the company, who promised him that he would help create the small
company atmosphere Welch desired.
• Welch was named a vice president of GE in 1972. He became senior vice
president in 1977 and vice chairman in 1979.
• Welch became GE's youngest chairman and CEO in 1981, succeeding
Reginald H. Jones.
• One of his primary leadership directives was that GE had to be No. 1 or
No. 2 in the industries it participated in or else leave it completely.
4. As a CEO
• Nicknamed Neutron Jack by Newsweek magazine for restructuring
strategies.
• Each year, Welch would fire the bottom 10% of his managers, irrespective
of absolute performance and earned a reputation for brutal candor in his
meetings with executives.
• He rewarded those in the top 20% with bonuses and stock options.
• GE had increased its market capital tremendously. Welch reduced basic
research, and closed or sold off businesses that were under-performing.
• In 1986, GE acquired RCA NBC television networks.
• The year before Welch became CEO, GE recorded revenues of roughly
$26.8 billion which were increased to $130 billion after he became the
CEO.
5. SIX SIGMA MODEL
• Welch adopted Motorola's Six Sigma quality program in late 1995.
• Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement.
• Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and
removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in
manufacturing and business processes.
• It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods,
and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization
("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Yellow Belts", etc.) who are
experts in the methods
• A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products
manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects.
6. Leadership Traits
• Adhocratic Leader
• Optimistic Leader
• Motivating Leader
• He used to critique himself & his employees honestly
• Decision making ability-having an edge to say yes or no
• Never give up attitude-highly competitive
• Champion of Innovation, Quality & learning.
7. 4 E’s of Jack Welch
• Energise
• Energisers
• Edge
• Execute
8. Management Lessons – 20 X 70 X10
• Jack Welch introduced a system that was aimed to reward high
achievers in the company and eliminate low achievers
• He followed this guideline
• The top 20% were rewarded with bonuses and stock options
• The middle 70% received no special rewards
• The bottom 10% were released
9. After GE
• Following Welch's retirement from General Electric, he became an adviser to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and to the chief
executive of IA, Barry DillerIn addition to his consulting and advisory roles.
• Welch has been active on the public speaking circuit, and co-wrote a popular column for BusinessWeek with his wife, Suzy.
• In 2005, he published Winning, a book about management co-written with Suzy Welch, which reached number 1 on The Wall Street
Journal bestseller list, and appeared on New York Times' Best Seller list.
• On January 25, 2006, Welch gave his name to Sacred Heart University's College of Business, which will be known as the "John F. Welch
College of Business".
• Since September 2006, Welch has been teaching a class at the MIT Sloan School of Management to a hand-picked group of 30 MBA
students with a demonstrated career interest in leadership.
• In 2009, Welch founded the Jack Welch Management Institute, a program at Chancellor University that offered an online executive MBA
degree.
• Welch has been actively involved with the curriculum, faculty and students at the online business school since its launch.
10. Awards & Recognitions
• By 1999 he was named "Manager of the Century" by Fortune magazine.
• Jack Welch received high military honors for his contributions as an
assistant secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan and George H.W.
Bush administrations.
• His awards included the W. Stuart Symington Award, the highest honor to
a civilian in the field of national security; and the Air Force's Distinguished
Service Medal.
• In 1990, the Air Force created the John J. Welch Award in recognition of
excellence in acquisition leadership.
11. Books Authored by Jack Welch
• “Winning” was a book he co-wrote with his wife Suzy Welch
• Winning the answers: confronting 74
of the toughest questions in business today
• “Jack, straight from the gut”
#1 National Best Seller List.
• “The Welch Way” a weekly news column
co-written by Jack & Suzy Welch.
• Published in approximately
45 various business magazines
12. Famous Quotes
• 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.”
• “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”
• “Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster
and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making”
• “We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are
not told what to do by the management”
13. Do you believe Jack Welch style of leadership
is still applicable for todays business leaders?
