This book is the holy grail for managers. It’s a practical guide to becoming an excellent leader and manager. This book contains practical information on how to manage finances, strategies, and your employees/team members.

Very good leadership and business book.

Well, I think this book is for different people in different world of business, as an entrepreneur, I found it unpractical and doesn't suites well in several parts.

ولو أن الكتاب لخص الكثير من خبرات جاك ويلش، إلا أنني وجدت أنه غير واقعي/عملي في بعض الأجزاء لنا نحن العاملين في الشركات الصغيرة.

في بدايات الكتاب ... راق لي تحدثه عن إدارة الموارد البشرية وآلياته في التوظيف والطرد، وخلق الثقافة في الشركة. أعجبني التحدي مع زملائه الرؤساء التنفيذيين ليحولوا كل الشركات لتصبح رقم ١ أو ٢ في مجالها تحت سقف جينيرال الكتريك.

وربما بعض التفاصيل كانت غير ملهمة أو عملية في الأقسام الأخرة!

لم أفهم شي من قسم الإستراتيجية ... وتناول بإسهاب موضوع السيرة الذاتية والخريطة الوظيفية بشكل استراتيجي اربك استيعابي عن إن كان هذا الكتاب يتحدث عن بناء الشركات لتنتقل للنخبة مع الآخرين؟ أم الإدارة والقيادة الحكيمة؟ أم المستقبل الوظيفي؟

رأيي المتواضع ... لكنني مازلت أحب جاك ويلش واحترم تاريخه العظيم

Good read -- contains some general leadership principles and management ideas. However, much of it is fairly specific to the details and minutia of management...budgeting, mergers & acquisitions, hiring & firing people, etc. Not that this was not useful information but I was hoping for more generalized thoughts on Welch's management and leadership style & technique and other ideas.

There is no doubt about it, Jack Welch is a winner. He's a somewhat blunt (candor), lonely, divorced (and remarried), alienated father of 2 children...oh yeah, and he's also one of the most successful business leaders of our time, and a millionaire.

Looking back, this book makes me now think of Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Jack Welch is a product of excellent opportunities and his own desire to succeed and work to exploit/take advantage of those opportunities. He put in his 10,000 hrs early in life and he never looked back.

Anyway, the title should really be "Winning: at all costs, and on unrelenting business principles". He really does point out some excellent business advice, you'd hope so, right? But, it was clear, he was not going to lose to his peers, or his family, when it came to advancement opportunities. I say unrelenting business principles because of the harsh realities his employees faced.

Here are some of those principles:

1) Candor is key to business relationships, without it you're just beating around the bush and get nothing done.
2) HR should have a powerful influence at the board and employees can make great use of where they stand (that's rather candorous). I think most companies neglect the power and positive influence HR can/could have on their employees and the work they do.
3) Do what you say you'll do. He gave numerous examples of himself working on weekends and pressuring his employees to do the same (it's no wonder his first wife left him).
4) The controversial top 20%/middle 70%/bottom 10% rule with people is very divisive, but it makes a lot of sense. It's only successful when candor is the guiding element of performance reviews

I liked the book, but felt sorry for Jack Welch. In my opinion, he missed the boat. Relative business success is enough for me. No business success could compensate for a failed family.

I wonder if he followed the same principle of candor at home, "Honey, I'm not going to be around because I'm going to work 100 hrs a week for the next 30 years. But, I'd still like you and the kids to be happy to see me once a week" Who knows. Overall, I'd say it was a good book, though I clearly have my own idea of what I want to get out of my reading.

Great book on management.

UNDERNEATH IT ALL

Have a positive attitude and spread it around, never let yourself be a victim, and for goodness' sake -- have fun.

MISSION AND VALUES

Effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible.

Setting the mission is top management's responsibility. A mission cannot be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.

Example Value Statement: "We treat customers the way we would want to be treated" translates into:

*** Give customers a good, fair deal. Great customer relationships take time. Do not try to maximize short-term profits at the expense of building those enduring relationships. Always look for ways to make it easier to do business with us.

Communicate daily with your customers. If they are talking to you, they can't be talking to a competitor.

Don't forget to say thank you. ***

Example Value Statement: "We strive to be the low cost provider through efficient and great operations" translates into:

*** Leaner is better.

Eliminate bureaucracy.

Cut waste relentlessly.

Operations should be fast and simple.

Value each other's time.

Invest in infrastructure. ***

We should know our business best. We don't need consultants to tell us what to do.

In the most common scenario, a company's mission and its values rupture due to the little crises of daily life in business.

CANDOR, VOICE AND DIGNITY

Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer.

To get candor, you reward it, praise it, and talk about it. Most of all, you yourself demonstrate it in an exuberant and even exaggerated way.

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

DIFFERENTIATING PEOPLE

A company has only so much money and time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.

Differentiate 20% top, 70% middle and 10% bottom performers. It may be demotivating for the 70% but revs the engines of the others.

LEADERSHIP

What leaders do:

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

2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.

3. Leaders get into eveyone's skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.

4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.

5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.

6. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action.

7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.

8. Leaders celebrate. ***

Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.

Leaders never score off their own people by stealing an idea and claiming it as their own.

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

If you're left with that uh-oh feeling in your stomach, don't hire the guy.

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

Work is too much a part of life not to recognise moments of achievment. Grab as many as you can. Make a big deal out of them.

HIRING

Look for positive energy, ability to energise the others, edge (the courage to make tough yes-or-no decisions), the ability to get the job done and passion.

For the top look for authenticity, the ability to see around the corners, the strong penchant to surround themselves with people better and smarter than they are, heavy-duty resilience.

Do not hire someone into the last job of his career, unless it's to be the head of a function or CEO.

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

1. Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers build leaders and careers. In fact, the HR types are pastors and parents in the same package.

2. Use a rigorous, nonbureaucratic evaluation system, monitored for integrety.

3. Create effective mechanisms: money, recognition, training -- to motivate and retain.

4. Face straight into charged relationships -- with unions, stars, sliders, and disrupters.

5. Fight gravity, and instead of taking the middle 70% for granted, treat them like the heart and sould of the organisation.

6. Design the org char to be as flat as possible, with blindingly clear reporting relationships and responsibilities.

Good evaluation systems are:

1. Clear and simple

2. Meare on relevant, agreed-upon criteria that relate directly to an individual's performance

3. At least one evaluation a year, preferably twice in format, face-to-face sessions

4. Should include a professional development component

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

Make the company flatter. Managers should have ten direct reports at the minimum and 30 to 50 percent more if they are experienced.

FIRING

No surprises. No humiliation. Every person who leaves goes on to represent your company. They can bad-mouth or praise.

Integrity violations are no-brainers. Don't hesitate for a moment and let everyone know why.

Layoffs are more complicated. They shouldn't come as a surprise. Every employee should know how a company is doing.

Firing for nonperformance is delicate. It shouldn't be a surprise. Use your instincts.

CHANGE

1. Attach every change to a clear goal.

2. Hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-it types.

3. Ferret out and remove the resisters, even if their performance is satisfactory.

4. Look out for wrecks and exploit change.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Don't deny there's a problem, act. Implement change to prevent this in the future. The organisation will survive, ultimately stronger for what happened.

STRATEGY

Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. Ponder less, do more:

1. Come up with a big aha for your business -- a smart, realistic, relatively fast way to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

WHAT THE PLAYING FIELD LOOKS LIKE NOW

Who are the competitors in this business, large and small, new and old?

Who has what share, globally and in each market? Where do we fit in?

What are the characteristics of this business? Commodity or high value or something in between?

Is it long cycle or short?

Where is it on the growth curve? What the drivers of profitability?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor? How good are their products? How much does each one spend on R&D? How big is each sales force? How performance-driven is each culture?

Who are this business's main customers, and how do they buy?

WHAT YOUR COMPETITION HAS BEEN UP TO

What has each competitor done in the past year to change the playing field?

Has anyone introduced game-changing new products, technologies, distribution channels?

Are there any new entrants, and what have they been up to in the past year?

WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO

What have you done in the past year to change the competitive playing field?

Have you bought a company, introduced a new product, stolen a competitor's key salesperson, or licensed a new technology from a start-up?

Have you lost any competitive advantages that you once had -- a great salesperson, a special product, a proprietary technology?

WHAT'S AROUND THE CORNER

What scares you most in the year ahead -- what one or two things could a competitor do to nail you?

What new products or technologies could you competitors launch that might change the game?

What M&A deals would knock you off your feet?

WHAT'S YOUR WINNING MOVE?

What can you do to change the playing field -- is it an acquisition, a new product, globalisation?

What can you do to make customers stick to you more than ever before and more than to anyone else?

2. Put the right people in the right jobs to drive the big aha forward.

3. Relentlessly seek out the best practices to achieve your big aha, whether inside or out, adapt them, and continually improve them.

BUDGETING

Link it to strategy, and focus on two questions:

How can we beat last year's performance?

What is our competition doing, and how can we beat them?

ORGANIC GROWTH

1. Spend plenty up front and put the best, hungries, and most passionate people in leadership roles.

2. Make an exaggerated commotion about the potential and importance of the new venture.

3. Err on the side of freedom; get off of the new venture's back.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

When done right 1+3=3. Seven pitfalls:

1. Believing that a merger of equals can actually occur.

2. Ignoring cultural fit.

3. "Reverse hostage" situation, where the acquired ends up calling all the shots afterwards.

4. Integrating too timidly. A merger should be complete within niety days.

5. Conqueror syndrome where the acquired talent is lost.

6. Paying to much.

7. Resistance of the acquired team

SIX SIGMA

Six Sigma is a way to improve a copmany's operational efficiency, raise productivity, and lower costs.

A huge part of making your customers sticky is meeting or exceeding their expectations, which is exactly what Six Sigma helps you do.

Six Sigma is about variation and removing it from your customer's interface with you.

THE RIGHT JOB

Working for some companies is like winning an Olympic medal. For the rest of your career, you are associated with great performance.

Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your chances or shut them down.

Working to fulfill someone else's needs or dreams almost always catches up with you.

If a job doesn't excite you on some level -- just because of the stuff of it -- don't settle.

Authenticity may be the best selling point you've got.

If you are let go don't let yourself spiral into inertia and despair.

The job is for you if:

*** You like the people a lot -- you can relate to them, and you genuinely enjoy their company. In fact, they even think and act like you do.

The job gives you the opportunity to grow as a person and a professional and you get the feeling you will learn things there that you didn't even know you needed to learn.

The job gives you a credential you can take with you, and is in a business and industry with a future.

You are taking the job for yourself, or you know whom you are taking it for, and feel at peace with the bargain.

The "stuff" of the job turns your crank -- you love the work, it feels fun and meaningful to you, and even touches something primal in your soul. ***

The job isn't for you if:

*** You feel like you'll need to put on a persona at work. After a visit to the company, you find yourself saying things like, "I donj't need to be friends with the people I work with".

You're being hired as an expert, and upon arrival, you will most likely be the smartest person in the room.

The industry has peaked or has awful economics, and the company itself, for any number of reasons, will do little to expand your career options.

You are taking the job for any number of other constituents, such as a spouse who wants you to travel less or the sixth-grade teacher who said you would never amount to anything.

The job feels like a job. In taking it, you things like, "This is just until something better comes along", or "You can't beat the money". ***

GETTING PROMOTED

Do deliver sensational performance, far beyond expectations, and at every opportunity expand your job beyond its official boundaries.

Don't make your boss use political capital in order to champion you.

Do manage your relationships with your subordinates with the same carefulness that you manage the one with your boss.

Do get on the radar screen by being an early champion of your company's major projects or initiatives.

Do search out and relish the input of lots of mentors, realising that mentors don't always look like mentors. There is no one right mentor. There are many right mentors.

Do have a positive attitude and spread it around. You can win without being upbeat -- if every other star is aligned -- but why would you want to try?

Don't let setbacks break your stride.

A BAD BOSS

Generally speaking, bosses are not awful to people whom they like, respect, and need. Think hard about your performance.

In any bad boss situation you cannot let yourself be a victim.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

The reality:

1. Your boss's top priority is competitiveness. Of course he wants you to be happy, but only insasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing the job right, he is making your job so exciting that your peronal life becomes a less compelling draw.

2. Most bosses are perfectly willing to accommodate work-life balance challenges if you have earned it with performance. The key word here is: IF

3. Bosses know that the work-life policies in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes and that real work-life arrangements are negotiated one-on-one in the context of a supportive culture, not in the context of "But the company says ..!"

4. People who publicly struggle with work-life balance problems and continually turn to the company for help get pigeonholed as ambivalent, entitled, uncommited, or incompetent -- or all of the above.

5. Even the most accommodating bosses believe that work-life balance is your problem to solve. In fact, most know that there are really just a handful of effective strategies to do that, and they wish you would use them.

Best practices:

1. Keep your head in whatever game you're at, i.e. compartmentalise.

2. Have the mettle to say no to requests and demands outside your chosen work-life balance plan.

3. Make sure your work-life balance plan doesn't leave you out.

I wish I had read this masterpiece before my first day at work. A must read for everyone from frontline employees to the C.E.O.

2005 or 2095? Jack and Suzy Welch’s business management and leadership title ‘Winning’ will continue to be an all-time musst-read for graduates fresh out of the university seeking employment, entrepreneurs with the next best idea that will change the world, and business executives seeking knowledge on how to remain relevant on their jobs without losing out on the benefits that come with having a family of their own.

The former Chief executive at General Electric alongside the one-time Harvard Business Review editor bring together decades of their experience in leadership and management to put together a book that must never be missing from the library of anyone currently in business or planning to take the dive. Leadership, hiring, change, strategy, or work-life balance – Jack and Suzy’s book approaches each topic in an easy-to-understand and practical way with real life examples.


And, you don’t have to live and work in the United States to find the contents of ‘Winning’ applicable to your situation.

I particularly recommend the section titled “Your Career” to new entrants to the corporate and business world as well as students in the final year of higher education. The section contains chapters that offer advice on finding “The Right Job”, “Getting Promoted”, dealing with “That Damn Boss”, and the age-long debate of “Work-Life Balance”.

Happy reading.

This book was much better than I expected, although I have to admit to thinking that I would not like the book at all. Jack Welch has always seemed to be very hyped and guru - like...and the quotes on the dust jacket for the book are just over the top. I halfway expected there to be a story about how "on the third day Jack Welch awoke and..."

Anyway, the book won me over, I have to admit. Specifically, I found his advice and experience to be relevant and clearly presented -- accessible, even though I am not anywhere near being CEO of GE. His advice on what it takes to have a successful career made sense and was helpful. His explanation of the importance of candor, voice, and dignity in the work place was excellent. I highly recommend this book to anyone leading an organization or to anyone interested in successfully managing their own career. Welch provides great, practical advice in an effective format. This book is worth your time.

The book was okay. The scope of it was a bit too wide to be appealing in general. For example, there is a lot of space dedicated to thoughts on handling mergers and acquisitions, etc. These are normally treated from the perspective of management, so most people reading the book won't have a direct need of much of the information in those chapters, and those dead spots can make the book a bit of a slog at times. And if you are management, and the much of the content does directly apply to you, I still think you might be looking for a more specific, thorough treatment than is given here.

Maybe I'm being too hard. Apparently the book, like Branson's Like a Virgin, was inspired by questions Welch answers in speaking engagements. That probably explains the wide scope of it. Still, I tend to tune out during the Q&A portion of speeches, and I was kind of tuning out of a lot of this book.

There is some helpful stuff in here that I haven't read anywhere else. I think particularly helpful are the sections where Welch discusses workplace issues from the manager or executive perspective. An example is his section on work-life balance. Sure, employees need to have a healthy personal life outside of work. But from the management perspective, that's their problem to solve. Management will help for people they're trying to keep, but for low-performers (who Welch notes are disproportionately the ones asking for work-life job allowances like working from home on Fridays), they see work-life issues as a problem of "Maybe you're in the wrong job."

I have two more big complaints. The first is the title of the book. Welch dutifully uses the word "winning" often enough to remind you of the theme(?) of the book, but there's really not much here about competition or winning--just a lot of management principles and other thoughts. The "winning" concept felt like maybe it was added in editing, to sexify the (somewhat confused) aims of the book.

The second is the cover picture. I honestly wanted to let this book languish on the shelf because of how horrible the cover picture is. Welch looks like a smiling corpse trying to scare children away from opening the book.

I've never read much into Jack Welch, but heard of him and ofcourse looked into GE.
His book was well written and captured a good management traits I have come to respect over time. Practice of them are yet to be tested but Jack welch sticking to his candid style presents a good book The chapter on strategy was really interesting and his 5 slides did really offer great way to look/ value any business.

Great read.