2. JOHN FRANCIS "JACK" WELCH,
JR. (BORN NOVEMBER 19, 1935) IS
AN AMERICAN CHEMICAL
ENGINEER, BUSINESS EXECUTIVE,
AND AUTHOR. HE
WAS CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF GENER
AL ELECTRIC BETWEEN 1981 AND
2001. DURING HIS TENURE AT GE,
THE COMPANY'S VALUE ROSE
4000%.
3. Ali Al-Khelaifi
Fahad Al-
Ansari
Fahad Zainal
Team Khalid Al-Horr
Khalid Al-Naimi
Nasser Al-
Hayki
Saleh Aseel
4. Introduction
• The reason for writing this book is due to the massive of questions from
people “what does it take to win”
• Dealing with people is more complicated than dealing with figures
• Winning is great because it provides people better opportunity in life
qualities & growth
• Have positive attitude and spread it around.
• The Book is divided into 4 chapters
– Underneath it all
– Your company Talks about the Organization
– Your Competition
– Your Career Talks about Joining a Company
5. Mission & Values
• Mission is where you are going to and values are the behavior which gets
you there
• Mission statement should be clear to every body and not only to
executives and basically answers one question: How do we intend to win
in this business?
• Effective mission statements balance the possible & impossible
• Give people a clear sense of the direction to profitable and the inspiration
to feel they are part of something big and impartment
• Setting missions is top management responsibility and everyone in the
company should have something to say about values.
• Company should understand their strength & weakness
• Easier to debate your own thoughts in smaller organization
• Values & behaviors should be backed up with rewards
6. Candor
Lack of candor basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people
contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.
•Candor leads to winning
– Gets more people in the conversation which richer further the ideas
– Generate speed in business by debating rapidly on the ideas
– Cut costs by eliminating meaningless meetings & reports
•Why people don’t use candor
– Easier not to speak your mind
– Creates anger, pain & confusion
– Curry favor with other people.
•To get candor
– Reward it, appraise it & talk about it
– Introduce it in a positive manner
7. Lessons Learned
• Underneath It All
– Chapter 1 (Mission and Values)
• Values and Behavior backed by reward
• Setting mission is top management responsibilities but the values should be
bottom up.
• Mission should be clear to everyone
– Chapter 2 (Candor)
• How to apply Candor
– During appraisal performance
– During Budgeting
– Leading by Example
– Introduce open annual forum
8. Differentiation
Is a way to manage people and business and people discussed differentiation
vigorously but over the years, most people came to strongly support it as our way
of doing business.
•In Business
– Companies win by making clear and meaningful distinction between strong
business from the weak
– Requires a frame work that every one understand & follow
– Differentiation cannot, and most not, be implemented quickly
•With People
– High performer with highest bonus (20% top)
– Majority & enormously valuable (70% middle)
– Minority who should go to where they belong and can excel (10% bottom)
9. Differentiation Continue
• Differentiation’s main criticisms
– Unfair due to favoritism
– Mean & bulling
– Puts people against each other & undermined team work
– Belongs only to places the culture accepts
– Benefits mainly the only top 20%
– Favors people who are energetic & extroverted and under values
people who are shy & introverted
10. Voice & Dignity
• People want voice & dignity regardless of their age &
background.
• Listen to all ideas regardless from whom it comes from
• Management judgment decides which ideas should go to
practice from those which should not
• Choose the right system you believe would work in your
company ensuring every one is heard & respected
“Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter
or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be
heard and respected”
11. Lessons Learned
• Underneath It All
– Chapter 3 (Differentiation)
• Differentiation is a good concept but this concept does
not have proven record to work
– Chapter 4 (Voice and Dignity)
• Team Building
• Offsite meeting
• Forum
• Suggesting Scheme
12. Leadership
This chapter look at how each one should run an organization using 6 principles
First Principal is LEADERSHIP “It’s Not Just About You”
Leadership requires distinct behaviors and attitudes
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself, When you become a leader, success is all about growing
others
Leader helps others realize their full potential as human beings
Leader should have enough insight, experience and rigor to balance the conflicting demands of short and long term results.
Based on Welsh there are Eight (8) Leadership rules ;
Rule 1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-
confidence.
Rule 2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.
Rule 3. Leaders get into everyone's skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.
Rule 4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.
Rule 5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.
Rule 6. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with
action.
Rule 7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.
Rule 8. Leaders Celebrate “ Work is too much a part of life not to recognize moments of achievements. Grab as many as you can
and make a big deal out of them
“You are not a leader to win a popularity contest – you are a leader to lead”
13. Hiring
Second Principal is HIRING “What Winners Are Made Of”
What is the one thing you should ask in an interview to help you decide?
Hiring good people is hard, hiring great people is brutally hard
Getting the right people on board is a key to success
Clever strategies and advanced technology are all nothing without great people
Hiring right is so important and so challenging! There are various methods to successfully
recruiting leaders that need to be considered.
The 3 acid tests
- Integrity, Intelligence & Maturity
4-E and 1-P framework
- Positive Energy, Ability to Energize, Edge, Execute and Passion
Hiring for the top "What does it take"
• The various characteristics
- The first characteristic is authenticity.
- The second characteristic is the ability to see around corners.
- The third characteristic is a strong penchant to surround themselves with people better, smarter than
they are.
“Don’t beat yourself up if get hiring the wrong some of the time. Just remember, the mistake is yours to fix”
14. People Management
Third Principal is PEOPLE MANAGEMENT “You’ve Got the Right Players. Now What?”
You have the right team! They need to work together, improve their performance, be motivated,
and grow as leaders! They need to be managed
Help your people work together, grow and stay motivated
To manage people well, companies should follow the following six fundamental practices;
Make Human Resources HR a priority by making them one of the most important departments in
the company.
Use a rigorous, none-bureaucratic and clear evaluation system where employees understand how
well they have performed and how they may be able to improve.
Motivate people where they become more productive, provide training, and recognize employees
when they perform well.
Face straight into charged relationship with unions, starts, sliders, and disrupters
Treat the middle seventy percent of employees as most important
Creating a flat organizational chart with blindingly clear reporting relationship and responsibilities
“Very few companies have meaningful evaluation systems in place. That’s not just bad-it’s terrible!”
15. Lessons Learned
• Your Company
– Chapter (Leadership)
• How to develop others and get the best out of them
– Chapter (Hiring)
• Be confidence bring top performance people, better, smarter than they are.
• Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy in the organization
• Apply rigorous evaluation system to bring the best out of the employees
– Chapter (People Management)
• Lean Organization (flat Chart)
16. Parting Ways
Fourth Principal is PARTING WAYS “Letting Go is Hard to Do”
Work is not paradise, sometime difficult decision has to be made “let go”
Always work to make the process tolerable for all involved
How to manage parting ways with as little pain and damage as possible
There are three different reasons to “fire” or let employees go:-
The first is to fire because of integrity violations
Second is to lay off because of economical reasons
The final reason to fire an employee is because of poor performance
How to manage parting ways with as little pain and damage as possible:-
- No Surprises
- Minimize Humiliation
“Yes , the employee has done a poor job. But until he departs, your job is to make sure he doesn’t feel as
if he is in a leper colony”
17. Change
Fifth Principal is CHANGE “Mountains Do Move”
Change is an absolutely critical part of a business, at times you do need to change before
you have to.
Implementing change can be incredibly difficult and resisted, however managing change
can be incredibly exciting and rewarding with the results
Managing Change can incredibly exciting and rewarding, particularly when start to seeing
results
Be a change agent find ways to use a constant state of change to advantage
Different reasons for implementing change:
First, there should always be a clear reason for change
Second, make sure you hire and promote individuals who accept change and want to work
Third let go individuals who dislike and try to stop the change, even if their performance is
satisfactory
Lastly, seek for other opportunities that may arise from other business failures.
“Managers often old on to resisters because of a specific skill set or because they’ve been around for a
long time. Don’t!”
18. Crisis Management
Sixth Principal is CRISIS MANAGEMENT “From Oh-God-No to Yes-We’re-Fine”
Any businesses can experience a crisis, and they often happen unexpectedly.
Crisis Happen as long as companies are made up of human beings, there will be mistakes.
Don’t forget to run your business, even during a crisis
Leaders reaction/act to crisis should be balanced
Managers can waste a lot of time at the outset of crisis denying that something went
wrong! Skip that step.
Crises are never good for businesses and can hurt an organization if it is not handled well
The five assumptions to follow when dealing with a crisis:
First is to assume the situation is worse than it really is
Second is to be honest with everyone and expose information before opinions and
assumptions are made.
Third is view the crisis in the worst possible way.
Fourth, crisis always leads to change.
Finally, the fifth assumption is to believe that your organization will survive, recover, and
learn from the crisis.
“With big crises, don’t ever forget you have a business to run”
19. Lessons Learned
• Your Company
– Chapter (Parting ways)
• Staff to be treated with respect, to be informed
– Chapter (Change)
• Change is a process
• Understand when to make
Incremental
• Crises Management
– Cultural change
– Mindset
Radical
20. Strategy
To be a winner, you should have that one thing that you are known for, you own
trademark, and, always try and improve your business, never settle for being good
enough
There are 3 Steps to do so:
•Come up with an "aha" for your business
– What the playing field looks like now?
– What the competition has been up to?
– What you've been up to?
– What's around the corner?
– What's your winning move?
•Put the right people in the right jobs to drive the "aha" forward
– Matching people with jobs. That depends on the statue of the business.
•Relentlessly seek the best practices to achieve your "aha"
– Finding best practices, adopting them, and continually improving them (learning
organization).
So, Strategy is "making clear-cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be
everything to everybody, no matter what size of your business or how deep its
pockets."
21. Budgeting
Negotiated Settlement: when business units set low target goals that are easily
achieved, and management team ask for higher, challenging targets, then both parties
settle for in-the-middle target. This allows the corporation to look good because they
have accomplished their goals and are able to give bonuses.
Phony Smiles: when top management leads individuals to believe their budgeting
ideas are great by giving them a smile and telling them how good of a job they have
done. In reality, top management already has a budgeting plan and disapproves the
new proposal.
Budgeting should be led by the answers of the following two questions:
– How can we beat last year's performance?
– What is our competition doing, and how can we overcome them?
Look at obstacles and opportunities in the real world. Allocating resources becomes
more of an operating plan than a budget.
22. Organic Growth
Three types of errors:
1. Not devote adequate resources, particularly in relation to staff.
2. They do not talk enough about how promising or the importance of
the new business. Actually, instead of promoting their potential,
they tend to hide it and plunge it in discretion.
3. Limit the autonomy of the new business
There are three guidelines for a winning proposition: Just do the
opposite of the notes above.
1. Spend plenty up front, and put the best and most enthusiastic in
positions of responsibility.
2. Make an exaggerated commotion about the potential and
importance of the new business.
3. Grant as much freedom as possible.
23. Lessons Learned
• Your Competition
– Chapter (Strategy)
• Learning Process
• Finding the right People
– Chapter (Organic Growth)
• Finding the right people
24. Mergers and Acquisitions
• Companies merge together or acquire other businesses so that they can
grow and become more profitable similar to ventures.
• When companies acquire others or merge together many factors must be
set into place. In this chapter, Jack Welch talks about seven pitfalls that
could cause businesses to fail when acquiring or merging with other
business:
1. The first pitfall is to assume that two mergers are equal. Mergers should not be equal
because then there would not be any reason to merge together. There is nothing to
gain or lose.
2. The second pitfall is focusing in strategic fit and failing to assess cultural fit between
the two companies. This will cause conflict because employees will be focusing on
different values and will not be targeting the same goals.
25. Mergers and Acquisitions
3. The third pitfall is when the acquired company makes all the decisions as if it were
never acquired. This will definitely cause conflict because each company will be using
different management strategies instead of the acquirers.
4. The fourth pitfall is merging the companies slowly. According to Jack Welch, “The
objective made clear to everyone should be full integration within ninety days of the
deal’s close”.
5. The fifth pitfall is eliminating all management of the business that is acquired. The
acquired business may have managers that are better suited for the job rather than
the acquirer’s managers. Place talent managers where they fit best.
6. The sixth pitfall is spending too much to purchase the company. It may not be
worthwhile to purchase a business that will never be paid off.
7. The final pitfall is to keep individuals that accept the change only and eliminate the
ones who resist with good brain. Talent brains will allow the business to continue to
operate smoothly and successfully.
26. Six Sigma
According to Jack Welch, “Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all said
and done” such as:
•Improve your customer’s experience and satisfaction.
•Lowers your cost.
•Builds better leaders.
Six Sigma is an ongoing program throughout many businesses today to
become more efficient and to continuously improve processes in all parts of
the business.
Six Sigma also teaches how to create better leaders to help lead the business
in the direction it wants to go.
27. Lessons Learned
• Your Competition
– Chapter (Mergers and Acquisitions)
• Pitfall check list
– Chapter (Six Sigma)
• To have quality program in place and fallow up.
28. The Right Job
People:
It is virtually impossible to know where any given job will take you. Pay is not always
everything.
“If you do not share organization overall values, personality traits and behaviors, then
you are putting on a persona just to get along (what a career killer)”
You need to find your people the earlier the better.
Opportunity:
Join a company where learning is truly a value, growth for every employee is a real
objective, somewhere you can say “I’m going to learn something here”
Any new job should feel like a stretch not a layup.
Options:
Working for some companies is like winning an Olympic medal. For the rest of your career,
you are associated with great performance. Like McKinsey, Microsoft, Wal-Mart.
Obviously employee branding phenomenon should not totally lead you decision. Small
companies offer experiences and exposure you cannot beat.
But remember every job you take is a gamble that could increase your options or shut them
down.
29. The Right Job (Continue)
• Ownership:
Working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up with
you.
• Work content:
Something about the makes you want to come back day after day.
Every job has its ups and downs If the job doesn’t excite you on some level,
then don’t settle.
• Those special cases:
Authenticity may be the best selling point you’ve got.
Never quit a job, it is much, much easier to get a job from a job.
If you are performing well, two outside observers are likely to know,
headhunters and competitors. Don’t be “Perennials”
And if you are let go, then act like a winner and always have
“reservoir of self-Confidence”
“Finding the right job takes time and experimentation and patience,
however it gets easier and easier”.
30. Getting Promoted
• All careers, no matter how scripted they appear, are
shaped by some element of pure luck. “it can zig zag for
reason beyond your control, like an acquisition, or you
might miss it because of politics or nepotism”.
• Never give up:
Deliver sensational performance
Don’t make your boss use political capital.
• The power of positive surprise
Expand your job’s horizons, change your job in a way
that makes the people around you work better and your
boss look smarter. Don’t just be predictable.
• Your own worst enemy.
The most reliable way to sabotage your self is to be a thorn
in your organization’s rear end.
31. Getting Promoted (Continue)
• Other political capital drains
Do not be a kind of person, for people to ask “hold on, can I trust this person”
And do not tear down people around you, insulting or disparaging them in order to make
your own candle burn brighter.
• Furthermore
Be careful, boss-subordinate relationship can easily fall into two career
damaging traps.
• Getting on the radar screen
You can raise your visibility by putting your hand when the call comes.
• Amassing mentors
People always looking for that one right mentor to help them get ahead.
“but there is no one right mentor. There are many right mentors”
• Don’t be a downer
No one likes to work under or near a dark cloud. Even if the “cloud” is very
smart.
• Never let set back break your stride
32. Hard Spots
• Great Boss can be friends, teachers, coaches, allies, and sources of inspiration
all in one, yet in contrast a bad boss can just about kill you. (kill the positive
energy, commitment, and hope)
“The world has jerks. Some of them get to be bosses so deal with it (do not let
yourself to be the victim)”
• Generally speaking, bosses are not awful to people whom they like, respect,
and need. Think hard about your performance.
• What’s the endgame for my boss?
Deliver strong results and have a can-do approach until relief arrives. (act of God, or till
you find another job)
And remember there is a reason why kids don’t tattle on bullies. Unfortunately the same
principle applies in the office
Come to grips with the fact that you are staying with a bad boss by choice, which means
you have forfeited you right to complain.
• And remember exactly what made the bad boss bad and how it made you feel
– so that when the time comes for you to be a boss, you won’t be the same.
33. The Work Life Balance
The work-life balance concept is one of the most important concepts to individuals today
•Priority management
People who put business success first most likely have to give up some level of intimacy with their
kids: it’s a swap – a deal you have made with yourself about what you keep and what you give up.
“Your boss’s top priority is competitiveness (he will want 150% of you) to be
captured for the company.”
“People with great performance accumulate chits.”
“And when push comes to shove at promotion time, bosses will always give the job
to the devil they know.”
•Best Practice 1:
“Draw you boundaries around you activities, when at work, keep your head in work
and do the same at home.”
•Best Practice 2:
“Have the guts to say NO, Not to something large as promotion but to smaller stuff”
•And be careful you can’t live someone else’s concepts of your life in the name of balance
•At times the work-life balance concept may conflict and you must decide what is best for you.