Jack welch quotes

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

Celebrating creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy. Imagine a team winning the World Series without champagne spraying everywhere. And yet companies win all the time and let it go without so much as a high five. Work is too much a part of life not to recognize moments of achievement. Make a big deal out of them. If you don't, no one will.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Cash is king. Get every drop of cash you can get and hold onto it.

For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple.

First and most obvious, bring out the three old warhorses of competition - cost, quality, and service - and drive them to new levels, making every person in the organization see them for what they are, a matter of survival.

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.

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.

Don't lose youself on the way to the top.

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.

Real communication is an attitude, an environment. It is the most interactive of all processes. It requires countless hours of eyeball to eyeball, back and forth. It involves more listening than talking.

The most important quality of leadership is intellectual honesty. The reality principle - the ability to see the world as it really is, not as you wish it were.

Don't make the process harder than it is.

The secret of success is changing the way you think.

Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood……. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple.

Trust happens when leaders are transparent.

When employees underperform, a leader tells them so.

If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Companies don't give job security. Only satisfied customers do.

If we get the right people in the right job we've won the game.

Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.

I might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I'm pretty good at getting most of the other bulbs to light up.

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

Not surprisingly, work-life moaners tend to be a phenomenon of below-average performers.

Hierarchy is an organization with its face toward the CEO and its ass toward the customer.

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.

Any time there is change, there is opportunity. So it is paramount that an organization get energized rather than paralyzed.

...I think that ideally that is how a company works. It becomes a place of ideas, not a place of position.

Nothing of any importance has ever been accomplished by a pessimist.

No vision is worth the paper it's printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards.

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.

Great leaders love to see people grow. The day you are afraid of them being better than you is the day you fail as a leader.

You never know how diverse your career can be. I think it's wonderful. My life has always been the next page, not the last page.

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.

I believe social responsibility begins with a strong, competitive company. Only a healthy enterprise can improve and enrich the lives of people and their communities.

You can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simpleminded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.

Every employee, not just the senior people, should know how a company is doing.

The 3Ss of Winning in business are speed, simplicity, and self-confidence.

If you're a leader and you're the smartest guy in the world - in the room, you've got real problems.

The best thing workers can bring to their jobs is a lifelong thirst for learning.

The world belongs to passionate driven people.

So every time you think about your work-life balance issue, remember what your boss is thinking about - and that's winning. Your needs may get heard - and even successfully resolved - but not if the boss's needs aren't met as well.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of all employees are in the pile because they don't think.

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.

I think every leader has an obligation - the absolute obligation - to treat everyone fairly. But they also have the obligation to treat everyone differently. Because people aren't all the same, and the last thing you ever want to do, in my opinion, is let the best in your organization be treated like the worst in your organization. It does nothing for your future.

You hang around with good people, you play a lot of golf, and you have a pretty good life. That's what success is all about. It's getting people you like, who want to take the hill with you, who want to win, who have the passion. This is not rocket science.

Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It's that simple.

Just because you are the boss doesn't mean you are the source of all knowledge.

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open - to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.

If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.

Managers often hold on to resisters because of a specific skill set or because they've been around for a long time. Don't.

When the amount of change externally exceeds the amount of change internally, the end is in sight.

Excellence and competitiveness aren't incompatible with honesty and integrity.

It is better to act too quickly than it is to wait too long.

HR should be every company's killer app. What could possibly be more important than who gets hired?

Change before you have to.

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.

Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.

Trust is enormously powerful in a corporation. People won't do their best unless they believe they'll be treated fairly. The only way I know how to create that kind of trust is by laying out your values and then walking the talk. You've got to do what you say you'll do, consistently, over time.

The team with the best players wins.

Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.

Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.

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.

Protecting underperformers always backfires.

Be candid with everyone.

If we wait for the perfect answer, the world will pass us by

A leader's role is not to control people or stay on top of things, but rather to guide, energize and excite.

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.

Some think that it is cruel or brutal to remove the bottom 10 percent of our people. It isn't. It's just the opposite. What I think is brutal and "false kindness" is keeping people around who aren't going to grow and prosper. There's no cruelty like waiting and telling people late into their careers that they don't belong - just when the options are limited and they're putting their children through college or paying off big mortgages.

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.

Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important.

Innovation is not a big breakthrough invention every time. Innovation is a constant thing. But if you don't have an innovative company [team], coming to work everyday to find a better way, you don't have a company[team]. You're getting ready to die on the vine. You're always looking for the next innovation, the next niche, the next product improvement, the next service improvement. But always trying to get better.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

Strategy is not a lengthy action plan. It is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.

The hero is the one with ideas.

The last thing you want to do is be a bore. When you wake up in the morning, give yourself a good mirror test. If you look like you’re going to be a sulking, pouting bore, slap yourself in the face before you go out to the office.

Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company.

Take time to get to know people. Understand where they are coming from, what is important to them. Make sure they are with you.

Keep learning; don't be arrogant by assuming that you know it all, that you have a monopoly on the truth; always assume that you can learn something from someone else.

Someone, somewhere has a better idea.

Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete.

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.

There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.

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.

You have no right to be a leader if someone who works for you doesn't know where they stand.

The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders - people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those whom they lead.

In the end, your integrity is all you've got.

When there's change, there's opportunity.

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

People aren't the same. Business is, in my opinion, all about the team that fields the best players. It's not about an idea. An idea goes away. Somebody catches up with it. It's not about a widget.

Any company trying to compete...must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee.

The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people.

You talk about seeing around corners as an element of success. That's what differentiates the good leader. Not many people have it. Not many people can predict that corner. That would be a characteristic of great leaders.

Genuine leadership comes from the quality of your vision and your ability to spark others to extraordinary performance.

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.

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.

If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

No one can guarantee you a job other than satisfied customers. That's the only thing that works. Nothing creates work other than products and services you provide that create satisfied customers.

All of management is about self-confidence

When you were made a leader you weren't given a crown, you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others.

As a leader, your job is to energize people around the mission and vision you've articulated.

Leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. it is not just about you. It's all about them.... everyone deserves a chance.... you can never let yourself be a victim.

We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies-in the minds of those closest to the work. It's been there in front of our noses all along while we've been running around chasing robots and reading books on how to become Japanese-or at least manage like them.

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.

Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren't just satisfied, they're so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.

I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

Never miss out on an opportunity like a good recession.

Its a marathon, its not a sprint. Ten years. Fifteen years. You've got to get up everyday, with a new idea, a new spin, and you've got to bring it to work, every day

We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies - in the minds of those closest to the work.

The most important job you have is growing your people, giving them a chance to reach their dreams.

Does coaching work? Yes. Good coaches provide a truly important service. They tell you the truth when no one else will.

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence.

If there is anything I would like to be remembered for it is that I helped people understand that leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. To repeat myself, leadership is not just about you. It's about them

In difficult times your best must be hugged, loved, kissed, rewarded, paid - everything. And your worst must be the people that leave, because your best are going to take you to the next game.

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.

Stretch targets energize. We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don't quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.

An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

You are not a leader to win a popularity contest-you are a leader to lead.

Above all, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organization to reach people. They don't stick to the established channels. They're informal. They're straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible. They never get bored telling their story.

A leader's job is to look into the future and see the organization, not as it is, but as it should be

Take the middle 70 percent and tell them what they need to do to get into the top 20 percent.

Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence.