Getting There Faster

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

The following are ten leadership tips from Jack Welch - former CEO of GE. During his twenty years at the helm of GE, he grew it from a $13 billion company to a $400+ billion dollar empire:

1. MEASURE THE RIGHT THINGS.
 “If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow.”

2. SIMPLIFY YOUR BUSINESS BY BUILDING THE SELF-CONFIDENCE IN YOUR PEOPLE.  If your company is not simple, you can’t be fast. And, if you’re not fast, your company will soon be dead. So, everything we do (at GE) focuses on building self-confidence in people so they can be set free to simplify the business.”

3. SET YOUR PEOPLE FREE TO SUCCEED.
“You’ve got to balance freedom with control, but you’ve got to give your people more freedom than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

4. SHOUT WHEN YOU WIN.
“People feel guilty about stopping to celebrate a little victory … but it lets people know they’ve won. It’s so critical to an institution. It brings it alive, gives it character.”

5. THE BOTTOM LINE IS NOT ENOUGH.
“Your bottom-line numbers are not the vision. Numbers are the product. I never talk about numbers. I talk about what drives the numbers.”

6. SPEND MORE TIME ON TALENT/LEADERHIP DEVELOPMENT.
“In most companies, the talent review process is a farce. At GE, I (Jack Welch) and my top two Human Resources people visited each division for a day. They reviewed the top 20 to 50 people by name. The talent review process…at GE…has the same intensity and importance that the yearly budget setting process has at other companies.”

7. FAIR DOESN’T MEAN THE SAME.
“Every person should be treated fairly in an organization, but every person should also be treated differently in an organization.”

8. MAKE YOUR PEOPLE SHARE GOOD IDEAS.
“What makes a company flourish is the transfer of good ideas.” At quarterly meetings, Welch insisted GE bring together the leaders of all of its businesses to share best practice ideas. “We take the best of our diversity, and proactively use it,” said Welch.

9. MEET WITH YOUT CUSTOMERS OFTEN.
Welch made a point of personally meeting GE’s major customers in the spring and fall every year.

10 TRUST YOUR GUT AND ACT.
“As a leader, I’ve learned that I rarely regretted stepping out to act on an initiative - but often regretted NOT acting fast enough.”