Jack Welch and the GE way

A recent Fortune poll cited General Electric Company as America's most admired company. Much of the credit went to Jack Welch, GE's chief executive for the past 17 years. During his tenure, GE's revenues and profits have grown enormously. Its share price has soared, making GE the world's most valuable company. And the key to GE's success, according to Jack Welch and the GE Way, is Welch's fanatical devotion to a personal philosophy of leadership. Author Robert Slater has made a growth industry of his own out of Welch, penning two previous books on him, The New GE in 1992 and Get Better or Get Beaten! two years later. The same territory was plowed in 1993 by Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman in Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will.

In this book, Slater draws extensively on Welch's own words to deliver his now familiar message: keep it simple; face reality; embrace change; fight bureaucracy. Bromides these may be, but Slater's account of Welch's fierce efforts to lead a global, multifarious organization of 270,000 people does inspire admiration, even if it does not enable emulation. The book provides fresh insights into GE's shift toward service businesses, as with its takeover and transformation of NBC. Most timely are Welch's closing thoughts on trends in the global economy. Jack Welch and the GE Way is a must for the legions of "Welch-heads" out there and for anyone else interested in this brilliant leader's perspective on the future of business. --Barry Mitzman

From Publishers Weekly
Slater has written two previous books on General Electric chairman and CEO Jack Welch (The New GE, 1992; Get Better or Get Beaten!, 1994), so readers might wonder whether hard-driving Welch, stoic pioneer of downsizing, has anything new to add. Slater does not disappoint in this conversationally written, solid manual that, despite its promotional hype and adulatory tone, distills Welch's business philosophy?an amalgam of Zen-like axioms, bromides and tough-minded pragmatism?in a way that will reward managers at all levels who seek to create a learning environment and transform learning into action. Companies would do well to heed Welch's advice on how to foster an open-ended, informal work atmosphere that will encourage employees to speak out, breaking down the walls of hostility between managers and subordinates. Interweaving snippets of interviews with Welch, Slater (biographer of investor George Soros) competently traces GE's transition from manufacturing to a service-oriented enterprise, its takeover and turnaround of NBC, its expansion into financial services and overseas markets. Editor, Jeffrey Krames; agent, Chris Calhoun at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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