Jack Welch joined GE in 1960. And he believed within next ten years of heading the company. It took him a decade more, but he did achieve it. He became the CEO of the company in the year 1980. Imagine how much planning, hard work and dedication that he went through to achieve this success.
He was born on 19th November, 1935 at Salem in Massachusetts. He had stammering problem in his childhood and to make him self confident his mother used to tell him that his mind worked faster than his mouth.
When his team lost the hockey game at Salem high school, he couldn’t take it. At that moment, his mother said only one thing to him “If you don’t know how to lose, you’ll never know how to win. If you don’t know this, you shouldn’t be playing.” His mother taught him how to be tough, warm, and generous and was the prime motivator for building self confidence in him.
His father was a rail road conductor and used to bring the newspapers left behind by the passengers while returning home to night. Reading newspaper at night became a lifelong addiction for Jack and called him as “a news junkie”. Jack used to deliver news papers in the evening at Salem worked at the local post office during holidays and sold shoes on commission. At early stages of his life, he was able to learn the true value of money.
Once while he was travelling with his colleague in a plane, the air hostess addressed him as “Mr. Jack” and his friend with “Dr.” He wanted to be called as Dr. Jack Welch, so he again went back to do his PhD instead of joining the job.
He remembers till date as to how he became frustrated on his first day at work i.e. on October 17th 1960. Once an explosion occurred at his office, which blow the roof off. Every company would expect their managers to come up with new ideas, but will not expect their managers to blow up a plant. This was an instant where he could have been fired out of the company, but his corporate group executive Mr. Charlie Reed comforted him and discussed with him to see that this incident might not occur in the future. The people whom he met in his life were mentors, friends, subordinates and company heads who taught, directed and supported him and made their own wonderful contributions by paving a way in his life for him to become a CEO.
He was called as Neutron Jack at the time of massive layoffs. For this he responded that he removed the positions and not the people. But one thing he used to be very impatient with the people who under performed.
He was the one of the five sector executives in the race to become the next CEO after Reg Jones. Reg Jones called once Jack and asked, if they were travelling in a plane and if they would have got killed in a crash, then whom he would recommend to become the next CEO. To this, Jack argued that would have survived in the crash and would become the next CEO of GE. That was his zeal to become a CEO.
His part in mergers, joint ventures, was a significant one for GE’s growth. He fought against bureaucracy for many years in the company and has succeeded in bringing a concept of boundary less organization in to the company where ideas flow freely irrespective of ranks and positions.
The four E’s of leadership described by Jack were: 1. High Energy levels, 2. Ability to energize, 3. Edge to make yes/no decisions and 4. Consistently execute and deliver on time. And he said that all these E’s are connected by one P i.e. Passion.
He bought in to the company a concept called “Workouts”, where employees/ trainees would come out with their own unique ideas and suggest it for growth of the company. And at the end, some superior managers are given the responsibility of implementing these ideas, which again will be reviewed in the next session. So in this manner, the company had progressed to become a boundary less organization. He says that being a CEO is the nuts. Every day some or the other crisis would rise up. But at the end of the day it would teach the thrill of winning and pain of losing. Getting involving every employee’s mind to actively participate in the game is what the CEO Job is all about. It is just like taking the employees along with you and showing them what they are capable of doing.
It requires lot of guts to head a company. A brave heart to battle the ups and down’s in the field of business. And that’s how Jack Welch today is considered to be the most celebrated CEO in the pages of History.
Source: Jack: Straight from the gut, Autobiography of Jack Welch
