There are many good things about this book and I'll try to put them in pointers:

1. The aura of Jack made him the leader of everyone. He was like super engaging in every business area GE had.
2. He believed that bureaucracy is of no use in an organization. Rather, he use to give more power the best people in business.
3. Jack was unstoppable. The hunger of growing business was never stopped and that made GE to expand globally in such a vast scale.
4. Jack endorsed and made Six sigma, technology and internet to sit at the core of GE. He kept Integrity at the top in GE's culture.
5. During his entire tenure as CEO and despite of facing some of the world's toughest situation like fighting cases with people in power and government, his attitude made him to quit no where.
6. His believed that most of his critical decisions were came out straight from the gut and that made him always get whatever he wanted for the business to rise.

Welch is a smart driven dynamic guy. He worked for GE for probably 35 years. He was the CEO from 1980 to 2001 implementing and overseeing major changes and record profits. This book is basically his memoir.

GE was started by Thomas Edison to sell his lightbulbs. By the time Welch retired, GE was making turbines, airplane engines, major appliances, providing financial services, providing major equipment repair services, medical equipment manufacturing, chemical production, owned RCA and NBC, and much more. It had turned into a global company with major diversification.

The first 3rd of the book was autobiographical on his life and his initial changes. He cut the bureaucracy down, marginally profitable divisions and thousands of jobs from the very beginning. They called him Neutron Jack. He then made the company grow again and be more profitable.

The last 2/3rds was almost anecdotal where he would give a drive by account of how he would buy a new company to add to GE or cut a non performing one illustrating his business philosophy. He would talk about his business philosophies like Six Sigma, boundaryless, firing 10% of the workforce every year, the need for a GE business to be #1 or #2 in its market, globalization, the development of a company culture and more. Great stuff for a business discussion group. 500 pages of it gets tedious for a guy who reads mostly fiction.

Still, it is a worthwhile read because he is a very capable guy. It is a really valuable read for someone who wants to work in the corporate culture. I give it a 3.5.

Straight from the Gut is an autobiography by Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE). He’s largely credited for increasing GE’s value by 4000% during his tenure.

In the book, Welch provides insights into some of the strategies he implemented at GE during his tenure, like the Six Sigma quality program and the vitality curve performance management practice. Straight from the Gut offers a candid glimpse into the leadership and management style of arguably one of the greatest business leaders of the 20th century.

Buy, sell or merge is what I have learned through this book. Its all about what kind of deals GE made during Jack's 20 years stint at GE. You will get to know about the culture and values of GE. What kind of people they need or hire.
The most interesting chapter was the one with failed Honeywell acquisition.
He also sheds light on on the fact that as a CEO there are some decisions you have to take that are not acceptable to others but are really crucial for the company's future.

As CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, Welch gutted the company and almost started over - focusing on key business lines, divesting less profitable or beneficial ones, exploring new areas, driving improvements and innovation. This is his own memoir of how he led the company through a period of dramatic growth and redefinition. In a mixture of personal memoir and leadership training manual, it contains good insights into his business sense, focus on quality, ability to lead and inspire, etc.

The book will be quite inspiring for all those who are very passionate and very ambitious about their career and are too eager to bring in a change in the organization for good.

This book will take you through the tough times faced by WELCH @ GE and how boldly he managed to overcome these and brought a drastic change to the organization after he was promoted to higher position.

Though WELCH was known for being very brutal and harsh to employees, he has been praised for taking vital decisions to reach organizations goals.

MUST READ !!

Last night I finished this classic business autobiography that has been on my bookshelf for literally decades. This book was gifted to me years ago and I just never got around to cracking it open but it became one of my pandemic reads. Though GE is on its third CEO post-Jack and he sadly passed last year, Jack Welch offers relevant and timeless insights. I was struck at some of the parallels between Welch's lessons and those in "Good to Great" and "Built to Last." These include the importance of getting the best people in your organization and facing reality in your business.

His life revolved around GE. It is about how to effect change to a company with own traditions.

091-Straight from the Gut-Jack Welch-Biography-2001
Barack

"If you don't know what failure is, you never know how to succeed. If you don't know, you'd better not come to the game. ."

Jack: Straight from the Gut, first published in the United States in 2001. Autobiographical books. This book introduces Jack Welch's life experience and heart course for most of his life.

Jack Welch, born in Salem, Massachusetts, in November 1935, died in March 2020. He attended the University of Massachusetts at Ames and the University of Illinois at Champaign. In 1960, he joined GENERAL Electric's Plastics Division as soon as he graduated from Ph.D.

In 1971, Welch became the General Manager of GE's Chemical and Metallurgical Division. In August 1979, he became vice-chairman of GM. In April 1981, Welch became the youngest chairman and chief executive in GE's history. Welch officially retired in September 2001.

Part of the directory.
1. Build self-confidence.
2. Stand out.
3. Take off the roof.
4. Fly under the radar.
5. Close to the big leagues.
6. The sea is wide with the fish leaping.
7. Facing the reality
8. Vision.
9. The "middle son" years.
10. RCA trading.

Undergraduate In the course of Business Management, the teacher suggested that we compare Li Ka-Shing and Jack Welch. They do have many similarities and differences. Both are good leaders and entrepreneurs who can talk about people who have influence in a region or even around the world; The former is like water, calm and calm, while the latter is more like fire, and his passion and talent can be seen from a far away.

In business management, Welch firmly believes in the "number one, two" principle, and the rule of the people. To sell all the businesses that the company can't do in the top three in the industry, and to combat the bureaucracy of the company, a company with tens of thousands of people will inevitably encounter this problem and attract talent by the measure of competence.

Entering the 1990s, Welch was given a variety of auras by public opinion, but in the early1980s, the whole GE was full of confusion, anxiety, and confusion. Over five years, about a quarter of its employees left GE, bringing the total to 118,000, and the company was nervous up and down, wondering what would happen to them tomorrow. Welch has also been labeled a "middle-of-the-post jack" and "America's toughest boss."

The reality is often to judge a person under the principle of success or defeat. Because we can only judge a person by his actual results, not by speculation about the future. If Welch does not have the support of former chairman 的 Reggie and the board, as usual, to step down, so that the reform of the. Or that his approach, while correct, did not apply to GE in that era, leading to the company's reform without the great success of the late years. What would people say about Welch?

Bai Guyi wrote in "Speaking Five", "Give a king a law to decide the fox suspect, do not drill turtles and wish ." Test jade to burn three days full, the identification of materials to wait for seven years. Zhou Gong fears gossip day, Wang Mangqian did not usurp the time. To make the original body will die, life-long authenticity who knows."

I think that if Welch is in Li Ka-Shing's position, he may not be able to achieve such great success, and if Li ， Ka-Shing is in Welch's position, he may not be able to grasp the historical opportunity. There are too many able people in this world, but only with internal advantages, even half of the conditions required for success may not be achieved. External time, land, and people are also extremely important.

What's the difference between water and fire? Water is in the dark, fire is in the light, water is not necessarily inferior to fire, but hiding very well, it is difficult to find water is the invisible champion. It is those who have lost to the sailors, far more than those who have lost to the fire.

Business is more like a world-class restaurant, and when you peek through the doors of a restaurant's kitchen, the food looks far less good than being in fine china and putting on a table. Business is chaos and chaos. In our kitchen, I hope you will find something that will help you realize your dreams. There is no absolute truth or management secret here. But there was a philosophy in my journey. I follow some of the basic ideas that work for me, and integrity is the most important of them. I always believe most simply and directly. ."

I now truly understand the meaning of "failure is the mother of success". No one's dreams and dreams develop in a straight line. I am a living example. This is the story of a lucky man. He had no plans, was different, and although he bumped into each other, he was always moving forward. In one of the world's most famous businesses, he survived and thrived. It's even the story of a small American city. I never forgot my roots, even after I had seen a world I had never heard of before. ."

"If I have any leadership style that allows everyone to play to their strengths, I think it's all down to my mother." Patience and enterprising, enthusiasm, and generosity are characteristics of the mother. She is very good at analyzing people's personality traits. She always comments on everyone she meets. She said she could "smell the crooks a mile away." She is very warm and generous to her friends. If a relative or neighbor comes to the house and praises the glass in the cupboard for its good style, the mother doesn't hesitate to take it out and give it to him.

But on the other hand, if you offend her, you have to be more careful. She resents anyone who betrays her trust. I inherited my mother's character. Also, many of my management philosophy can be seen in my mother's prototype, such as the following principles: to succeed through competition, to face reality, to use the way to motivate others, to set demanding goals, and to strictly track the progress of the work to ensure the smooth completion of the task. The insight she has cultivated in me has never gone away. Mother always insists on facing reality.

One of her famous words is: "Don't deceive yourself." That's what it is. She always warns me, "If you don't study, you'll be nothing." Nothing. There is no shortcut to learning. Don't deceive yourself! These are the hard and firm advice that haunts my mind every day. My mother's words always correct me whenever I cheat myself that a transaction or a serious problem that is about to arise in business will miraculously turn around. ."

Everyone in life needs to continue to receive positive support and teachings from the outside world. The education we receive before the age of 20 is most important to the growth of our lives. Of course, not everyone is so lucky, some people have a happy family and a healthy family, some people grow up in a malicious family and a vile and vicious family. If we live in the environment of the former, we must either cherish it. On the other, we should not give up hope, but we should continue to re-educate ourselves after I leave my native family and start living independently.

Perhaps the greatest gift my mother gave me was self-confidence. That's what I'm trying to find and build on every executive I've worked with. Self-confidence gives you courage and can fully release your energy. It allows you to take more risks and achieve more brilliant success than you think. Helping others build self-confidence is an integral part of leadership. It comes from providing opportunities and challenges for people like that to do things they never thought they could do - reward them in every way they can after each success. ."

When my father came back, he was always carrying a bundle of newspapers left behind by the passengers on the train. So from the age of six, I've been learning about current affairs and sports news every day, thanks to the abandoned Boston Globe, The Herald, and The Record. Reading these newspapers every night became a lifelong hobby. To this day I am still addicted to news. ."

There is no standard answer to this question. This is the same for most business issues. This process helps you get closer to the dark side of things. There are a few answers that are not white or black. And in more cases, the requirements for smell, sensation, and touch in business are as important as numbers, sometimes even higher than numbers. If we have to wait for the perfect answer, we will miss the whole world. ."

By the time I left Illinois in 1960, I was sure what I liked, what I wanted to do, and, equally important, what I was not good at. Although my expertise is relevant, I am not the best scientist in any case. Compared with many of my classmates, my character is more outgoing, I belong to the kind of people who like people more than books, like sports more than like the development of science and technology. I think these abilities and interests will be very applicable to a job that involves both technology and business. ."

Some people are lucky enough to realize early in life what kind of life direction they should roughly choose. Some people are bumpier, perhaps not until the age of 20 or even 30 years old to know their way to go. And more people's lives are regrettable, they may always be in an indispensable state of life, they feel that they like the current state of life, but do not want to bear change and risk, in the established 在track of life as inertia to go on. No, don't live like this. To find, to continue to find their way.

"All I want to do is "stand out." If I only answered his question, it would be hard to get noticed. Whenever bosses ask questions, they already have their answers in mind. They just want to be confirmed again. To show that it's different, I think my answer should be broader than the questions asked. I want to give more than just answers, but unexpectedly fresh ideas. ."

I was impressed by Gatos’s recognition that he thought I was different and special. Since then, differential treatment has become an essential part of my management. The standard pay increase I received 40 years ago may have pushed my actions to the extreme. But treating differences is very extreme in itself, rewarding the best talent while eliminating those who are inefficient. Strictly enforcing differentiation can produce real stars - they can create great causes. ."

Feminism may satisfy most people. But as long as we read history carefully, we will find that the number of people who play a key role in great causes is often very small. Most people are only helping them with their careers. Perhaps they provided some information and advice to these minorities, but they ended up in a collective way, rather than as a distinct, determined individual.

"Everyone has to think they have a part in the game, but that doesn't mean everyone on the team should be treated equally. Back in My time at Pittsfield, I had a deep understanding of how to effectively configure the best athletes. Whoever can best configure athletes will succeed. This is no different for business, as Ruben Gatos has repeatedly stressed. Successful teams come from differential treatment, that is, retaining the best, eliminating the weakest, and always striving to raise standards. ."

When people make mistakes, the last thing they want is punishment. What is needed most at this time is encouragement and self-confidence building. The priority is to restore self-confidence. I think when a person encounters a difficult or setback, the human cloud is also the most undesirable behavior. ."

In times of crisis, human clouds can easily plunge people into what I call the "GE vortex." This can happen everywhere. You can see that once a leader loses confidence, starts to panic, and gradually plunges into a bottomless hole of self-doubt, a so-called "GE vortex" occurs. I've seen this happen to the general managers of strong, smart, and confident multi-billion dollar companies as well.

When things go well, they usually do well, but once they've made some bad plans or a loss-making deal - not for the first time - self-doubt begins to slowly erode them. So they started to have no idea about everything, and they agreed to every proposal so that they could get out of the meeting room early or put it off until later. ."

Our success depends on a group of crazy people who believe we can do anything. We're scared, and we're dreaming - try everything crazy to make plastic products successful. ."

I long for such a passion, a passion to devote myself to a cause that I consider great. I knew before I started that I was going to have all sorts of difficulties, but it was as much fun to try to overcome it as it was to win a game.

"One beautiful spring day, after work I went to the parking lot to drive my brand new convertible. The first time I pressed the lever to put the awning down. At this time, a hydraulic pipe suddenly broke, dirty black oil sprayed on my suit, but also destroyed my beautiful new car in front of the paint. I made a fool of me at once.

I've been floating around all this time, and now the smell is pulling me back to reality. It's a good lesson that when you think you're a big guy, something happens that wakes you up. For me, this will be the last time it happens. ."

Forget when you're happy when you're down, you're depressed. This is human nature. This means that most people will do so. If you want to be different, then you must be able to resist this temptation from the depths of your soul. Be cautious at peak and optimistic at low ebb.

"Between 1965 and 1968, we developed very fast, and I took the next leap. In early June 1968, nearly eight years after joining GE, I was promoted to general manager of the $26 million plastics business. This is a top priority for me because at 32 I became the youngest general manager of the company. ."

2016/10/15
2020/04/14

This book is almost 20 years old now but many of the lessons feel relevant for today.
Jack Welch was well of his time and his story is a really interesting one.
Highly recommended!

Very intersting book, for the Tiger Wood of management, Mr. Jack Welch.

This biography of Jack Welch provides some great insights into the thinking and world view of a very strong leader. While he gives a lot of credit to the people he worked with and developed, it's clear that this is the story of Jack Welch with a supporting actor role of General Electric. Some of his most famous management values (raising the talent pool by removing the lowest performing 10% of the workforce annually, commitment to eliminate portions of the business that weren't or couldn't be #1 or #2 in their markets, expansion of global markets, etc.), his intensity and focus, and his absolute confidence in his own knowledge/ability/judgment shine throughout the book.