Jack Welch: Ranked and Yanked

[Aqua Buddha 14654]

Jack Welch has been laid off by God:

 

[crash_davis 23158]

Shareholder value and vitality curve.

It'll be interesting to see how history treats him. But would the stock market be what it is if it were for his thinking and doing?

[RollLeft 5045]

Meh.  

[Asithappens 974]

You know what's good about this? 

Jack Welch is finally in hell. 

Fuck you, Jack. 

Fuck you hard.

[closetojumping 63156]

I won't pretend to have any depth to my understanding of Jack Welch's pros and cons, but it's odd to immediately see things like "it'll be interesting to see how history treats him" and "meh" as first posts on this thread. Hell, even the top post is sarcastic about him. 

Seems to me like this guy was a pretty amazing leader for his shareholders. He laid off 100,000+ employees during his time at GE. Okay. Is that on him? Or is that on the bloated infrastructure that decades of corporate bureaucracy created and he dismantled? It is not a CEO's job to either keep payroll expanding or ensure that anyone gets to keep their job forever. I type that as a guy that enjoys being involved with starting and growing businesses and payrolls. It's not a fucking promise though. Want to keep your job and make lots of money? Kick maximum ass and help build something the world needs.

So what besides lay people off did Welch do to deserve mediocre thoughts about his time on the planet and his contributions to the business world? Started fucking a reporter while married? Okay. The ex-wife received $170million, no children were involved and the dude married the reporter. What else? Was he a closet racist? Did he beat women? Was he a bad neighbor? Maybe there's something there that I missed while observing his legend at the surface, I guess.

The next time someone on here is even vaguely involved with turning around a Fortune 100 and then growing revenues in the billions by more than 30x will be the first. The guy was an amazing fucking capitalist. He made a fuckton of people a whole lot of money. As far as I know, he did so without personally murdering or raping anyone.

The revisionist history around guys like this is bullshit. If he was a flawed man, he just joins the party with the rest of us. He was better at what he did than damned near anyone else on the planet at what they did. I'd take the second coming of that dude in any business I'm invested in right now over anyone running any of those companies, including my day job. Fire me and make me some money, please. 

Anyway, I've always dug the 6 maxims attributed to hisleadership while running the show at GE:

1. Face reality as it is; not as it was or as you wish it were.
2. Be candid with everyone.
3. Don't manage, lead.
4. Change before you have to.
5. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
6. Control your destiny, or someone else will.

[crash_davis 23158]

I have the utmost respect for him. His thinking and doing are always the company's bottom line first, employees a distant something as I'm not sure he'd consider employees as second. Not ideal if you are the bottom 10% but his ideas work. I think the many companies' and the stock market's successes are a direct result of his teachings.

I worked for a company whose exec leadership followed his playbook almost to a T. We stressed shareholder value in every town hall. We pretty much average annual layoffs of at least 5% to trim the fat. It kept every on their toes to deliver and execute. But they backed it by holding execs accountable. Most execs had a 2-3 year run at any exec position. If they executed, they continued on the path towards Senior VP and C level, if not, they were let go. Accountability was preached at all levels.

Compare that to my current company where exec management is where old dudes go to coast. Company is a mess, no accountability, no emphasis on shareholder value. Getting anyone to do anything takes an act of God.

Stark contrast to how the two companies are run.

[Continental Op 3934]

I won't pretend to have any depth to my understanding of Jack Welch's pros and cons, but it's odd to immediately see things like "it'll be interesting to see how history treats him" and "meh" as first posts on this thread. Hell, even the top post is sarcastic about him. 

You are surprised by smartassery on Surly?

[XYZ 2154]

Fuck that guy.

[Royalfan5 2355]

I would of figured that GE would have beaten him to the grave given how things are going for them. 

[elfenix 34387]

26 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

what besides lay people off did Welch do to deserve mediocre thoughts about his time on the planet and his contributions to the business world?

https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/04/ge-immelt-sec-earnings-business-beltway-ge.html#1e6dbcd35047

[Fudge Nuggets 19276]

1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

But would the stock market be what it is if it were for his thinking and doing?

Probably not, but a lot of companies would probably be in better financial shape and not relying on smoke and mirrors.

[closetojumping 63156]

21 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

I have the utmost respect for him. His thinking and doing are always the company's bottom line first, employees a distant something as I'm not sure he'd consider employees as second. Not ideal if you are the bottom 10% but his ideas work. I think the many companies' and the stock market's successes are a direct result of his teachings.

I worked for a company whose exec leadership followed his playbook almost to a T. We stressed shareholder value in every town hall. We pretty much average annual layoffs of at least 5% to trim the fat. It kept every on their toes to deliver and execute. But they backed it by holding execs accountable. Most execs had a 2-3 year run at any exec position. If they executed, they continued on the path towards Senior VP and C level, if not, they were let go. Accountability was preached at all levels.

Compare that to my current company where exec management is where old dudes go to coast. Company is a mess, no accountability, no emphasis on shareholder value. Getting anyone to do anything takes an act of God.

Stark contrast to how the two companies are run.

Thanks for the response to my questions. I've been a part of both types of environments and my experiences mirror yours.

I was part of a turnaround at a place akin to what you're referencing about your current place. I was given a flaming sword to slice through a ton of bullshit, but I was not the head guy. It was a fulfilling but brutal experience. Watching some of the bloat attempt to find dark corners and less visible building floor levels where the lights wouldn't shine quite so brightly was simultaneously fascinating and nauseating. Anyway, we didn't get to complete the transformation in North America because of a leadership change at the top in Europe and they went right back into the decades long nosedive that I was part of walking in to in the first place. They'll be sold to PE in the next few months and I think that dismantling is going to be something to behold. 

11 minutes ago, Continental Op said:

You are surprised by smartassery on Surly?

 

I don't think the first two responses were smartassery. They seemed sincere and I was curious about the reasoning.

6 minutes ago, elfenix said:

https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/04/ge-immelt-sec-earnings-business-beltway-ge.html#1e6dbcd35047

I skimmed this, but it looks like shit that occurred on Immelt's watch. I've never heard that Welch was involved in creative accounting. Either way, seems like a stretch to think that would lead to people wanting him to burn in hell forever, as some sentiments here and elsewhere otherwise seem to indicate.

[crash_davis 23158]

I worked for GE. After my experience with my previous company who championed Welch's management philosophy, I was extremely excited to join the company that Jack Welch built. Also I was excited to joining the company that pretty much invented Lean Six Sigma. My hiring exec warned me to temper my excitement as she stated that the GE I'd be working for is not the GE of Jack Welch.

Holy shit that place was a mess. Just mentioning Immelt was akin to squeezing a fart in church. There's a reason GE tanked. The company was/is rotten from top to bottom. Everyone is a Six Sigma Black Belt. There are no PMPs. So everyone is great in creating new ideas and holding workouts. No one has experience in delivering on those ideas to closure or making sure the process involves all Stakeholders. There are so many silo'ed processes from everyone having their own specific Fast Works ideas and going off and POC'ing for esoteric customers and processes.

Yea, GE is a fucking mess.

[RollLeft 5045]

1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

Seems to me like this guy was a pretty amazing leader for his shareholders...

The next time someone on here is even vaguely involved with turning around a Fortune 100 and then growing revenues in the billions by more than 30x will be the first. The guy was an amazing fucking capitalist. He made a fuckton of people a whole lot of money. As far as I know, he did so without personally murdering or raping anyone.

The revisionist history around guys like this is bullshit. If he was a flawed man, he just joins the party with the rest of us. He was better at what he did than damned near anyone else on the planet at what they did. I'd take the second coming of that dude in any business I'm invested in right now over anyone running any of those companies, including my day job. Fire me and make me some money, please. 

Anyway, I've always dug the 6 maxims attributed to hisleadership while running the show at GE:

1. Face reality as it is; not as it was or as you wish it were.
2. Be candid with everyone.
3. Don't manage, lead.
4. Change before you have to.
5. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
6. Control your destiny, or someone else will.

Being a an amazing leader and being an amazing capitalists are two different things. 

While i only know of his leadership thru books i honestly never read anything of his that i hadn't heard before or read somewhere else.   Its not like he came up with the shit he preached.  I think people, especially the pull yourself up by your own bootstrap types, like to hear him talk because he pandered to that shit.  Its no different than every other mfer that has preached "hope" to the poors.  It works every time.  It worked out for him, so good for him.  I do find it fking ironic that he preached to lead and not merely manage yet had a "management" institute, Wtf?  To earn my esteem in leadership your cause/work most time has to be greater than growing a fucking corporation.    

What he did as a capitalist certainly gets more of my respect in that by most accounts he was quite effective at it.  That said what he did has no bearing on who he was.  I certainly don't know what type of man he was nor do i care.   T o me he's just another dude who worked his way up a company already doing well and made it a lot more money.  I have some idea of what that entails and i can say few have the opportunity to do it, fewer make their opportunity to do that and even fewer make the best of that self made opportunity with their soul in tact.  

So like many men, whom no one remembers their names, who have done the same shit Jack has done and like the many men who will do the same thing after him, there's nothing new under the sun. 

If I disrespected someone you respect, no offense, but to me he passed and my true response was meh.  

Ps. if he was a better capitalist he would not have let that mfucker Roger Ailes go.  What a colossal fucking management and capitalistic blunder that was.  

 

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by RollLeft

[Bateshorn 9958]

I don't know about him, per se but the guys that adopted his "all that matters is the shareholder" leadership style is exactly what got Boeing into the mess it's currently in. It was a bunch of former McDonnell Douglas GE Welch Acolytes that took an engineer lead company that produced steady profits and uber safe planes and squeezed every dollar of share holder value out of it. 

Edited March 2, 2020 by Bateshorn

[elfenix 34387]

I skimmed this, but it looks like shit that occurred on Immelt's watch. I've never heard that Welch was involved in creative accounting. Either way, seems like a stretch to think that would lead to people wanting him to burn in hell forever, as some sentiments here and elsewhere otherwise seem to indicate.

It started under Welch which Lowenstein goes into in his book "The End of Wall Street"

[TwiceHorn 31686]

5 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

I don't know about him, per se but the guys that adopted his "all that matters is the shareholder" leadership style is exactly what got Boeing into the mess it's currently in. It was a bunch of former McDonnell Douglas GE Welch Acolytes that took an engineer lead company that produced steady profits and uber safe planes and squeezed every dollar of share holder value out of it. 

I'm not sure to what extent Welch promoted the ascendancy of short-term shareholder value or is a product of it.

As to how history views him, I am reasonably certain that the ascendancy of short-term shareholder value as an ultimate goal will not be viewed favorably.

[Asithappens 974]

6 hours ago, XYZ said:

Fuck that guy.

A true sociopath.