Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will: How Jack Welch is Making General Electric the World's Most Competitive Company - Softcover

Tichy, Noel M.; Sherman, Stratford

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887306705 ISBN 13: 9780887306709

Publisher: Harper Business, 1994

Synopsis

Control Your Destiny Or Someone Else Will: How Jack Welch Has Made General Electric the World's Most Competitive Company

About this title

Synopsis

When Jack Welch became Chief Executive Officer of General Electric in 1981, the company was quickly approaching the grim fate that has overtaken GM, IBM, Sears and so many other blue-chip American corporations. Decades of bureaucracy had produced piles of red tape, unnecessary paperwork, muffled chains of command, and a culture that rewarded loyalty regardless of performance. Welch sold superfluous businesses, cut out layers of management, and pushed decisionmaking as far down the corporate ladder as possible, giving GE the quickness of a small business while retaining the advantages inherent in one of the ten largest companies in the world. Finally, he began reshaping the culture from one of complacency to one of bold innovation. In the process he revolutionized the art of management and led the most sucessful corporate transformation of all time. The books draws on the authors' years of work in and around General Electric and their unprecedented access to the CEO, Jack Welch, and many other GE employees.

It is a dramatic narration of watershed events in the history of the business it offers many practical insights that apply to enterprises of any size, and defines a new paradigm for American business in the 1990s and beyond.

From the Back Cover

When Jack Welch became CEO of General Electric in 1981, the company was heading towards the same grim fate that had overtaken so many others. Until, that is, Welch set about a revolutionary restructuring programme which was to see GE's share price leap to five times its former level in the biggest, most successful corporate transformation of all time. Drawing on the author's unprecedented access to Welch and GE employees at all levels, 'Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will' distills the wisdom to be derived from GE's experience into a blueprint for success.

The six rules Jack Welch lives by:
· Control your destiny or someone else will
· Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were
· Be candid with everyone
· Don't manage, lead
· Change before you have to
· If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete

‘The first scholarly attempt to pin down the secrets of GE's success... a helpful, clear account with interesting case studies.’
THE FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Fascinating... There is at least as much to be learned here as from... Peter Drucker, John Kenneth Galbraith or Michael Porter’
BOSTON GLOBE

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887306705
• ISBN 13: 9780887306709
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400