Winning
by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
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Book Reviews of Winning
Book Review: A great book by a great CEO
Summary: 4 Stars
Oftentimes, before I read a book, I do a little research on the writer. Typically, you want to learn from someone with credentials. This way, you can be assured that you're receiving sound advice. Well, I didn't have to look up the author of this book. For those of you who don't already know, Jack Welch was the longtime leader and CEO of General Electric. In his long stay at GE, he helped grow GE into the half trillion net worth company it is today.
Now, about the book. Although the book doesn't introduce any novel, ground-breaking ideas, it does present some timely business principles that have proven to work time and time again. Essentially, Welch expounds upon the principles that he feels have proved to be most important to the success of GE as well as numerous other companies.
He covers a diverse range of topics ranging from corporate strategy to the infamous 20-70-10 differentiation rule (read the book). He also includes eight leadership principles that cover soft skills (communicating vision, building trust, motivating others) and character attributes (making the tough call, being positive, being nurturing to the core). The book's front cover reads, "No other management book will ever be needed." Although this may not be entirely true, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who sees themselves running a corporation in the future.
Book Review: Management and Employee Point of View
Summary: 4 Stars
If your the CEO of one of the most influential global companies in the world, then its safe to say that what you have to say has got to be good. It's pretty true with Jack Welch's book, Winning.
This guy has a ton of experience, albeit, mostly all with GE (General Electric). Nonetheless, he's able to offer a lot of advice, insight and direction for the rest of us.
The book is broken down into several sections but for me personally, its basically two sections, management and non-management. The management section mostly discusses the role of management, how to be an effective manager and what qualities to look for in managers. The non-management talks about how to deal with not being in management, how to work hard enough to become a manager and finding the right fit for yourself so you can excel.
It is a bit ironic because some of the ideas shared regarding management is contradictory to the advice on non-management.
This book is a bit boring as many things hasn't applied to me but if you look deeper, taking notes, in the general scheme of things, Jack Welch offers sound advice.
In the end, this book strongly support capitalism and embraces it. Nonetheless, if your reading this book, your probably trying to look ahead to put yourself in a position to be more influential and to make more money.
Book Review: Winning is (a) Great (book)
Summary: 5 Stars
Jack Welsh is considered by many to be one of the greatest managers of the 20th century. This praise is well deserved, considering his track record as the CEO of GE - growing GE's market capitalization from $4 billion to half a trillion dollars. In the process he developed some excellent management practices. This book has the essence of Jack Welsh's wisdom.
The book is amazingly easy to read. The language is simple to understand and Welsh does not resort to buzzwords or fads to make his principles sound cool. Don't let the simplicity fool you. This book is packed with wisdom. Welsh explains some of his controversial principles - Candor (the importance of being frank) and Differentiation (the famous "bottom 10% have to go"). I truly enjoyed his 8 rules of leadership and his chapter on Hiring where he talks about his 4-E (and 1-P) Framework.
The 4-E (and 1-P) are:
1. positive Energy,
2. ability to Energize others,
3. Edge, the courage to make tough yes-or-no decisions,
4. Execute, the ability to get the job done and
5. Passion.
The book covers a lot of other subjects such as Crisis Management, Strategy, Budgeting, M&A, 6 Sigma and has an eighty page section dedicated to "Your Career". Each chapter is packed with knowledge that can be transformed into skills that you can apply to add value to your career.
Book Review: Extremly well written, excellent info about managing people
Summary: 5 Stars
I liked the style of the book. It's extremly well written--very easy to read. I couldn't put it down.
Jack writes in a very direct way ('no fluff, just stuff'). He provides very useful experiences about managing people.
The whole book is written from a practical and pragmatic view. You will not find any graphs or formulas here. For example, though a thick book could be written about Six Sigma and it's mathematical bases.. no, Jack admits, he never studied in depth the statistical part, morover he explains the basics of it on one A5. So you 'get it' instanly, and you can decide, whether SS is appropriate for you, or not.
I think the best value of this book is how to handle people. There are dozens of valuable examples. It goes into details (how does the private-life of employer impact the organization?) while he remains interesting.
Jack has a great self-reflection, he admits, he made mistakes, even exposes parts of his private life.
After reading comments at amazon about this book, I can say the reviewers fall into two groups: those who hate the book, and those who love it. Those, who wrote critical comments about book, always adressed J.Welch, not the book itself. I think, no matter you hate Jack or love... the contents of this book will undoubtly help you.
Book Review: Unimpressed
Summary: 2 Stars
Welch is everywhere touted as a managerial genius, but nothing in this cliche-filled book demonstrates genius to me. This book is tired, superficial, and a bit cheesy. The "insights" it offers can be found in dozens of other business books. Whatever Welch was as a manager, if he was a genius his brilliance is not apparently reducible to the written word.
Here are some deep insights: "Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit." (Gee, thanks for that.) "Attach every change initiative to a clear purpose or goal." (Uggh.) "Create effective mechanisms...to motivate and retain" (Uh, thanks, Jack.) God it is so tired and DULL.
A book written by Welch, in plain English, without gloss or MBA jargon or a view to his legacy, may have been useful. But the clumsy cliche-heavy hand of former HBR-staffer Wetlaufer (now Mrs. Welch) is apparently all over this thing (I cannot believe Jack Welch used all this tired jargon-speak in his day-to-day dealings as a boss). I don't know if Welch was a great manager or lucky or a good self-promoter or all three; but I DO know this book left me feeling like I wasted my money.
If you work in a big corporation where jargon matters, then maybe this book is OK. If you are an entrepreneur, I do not believe it has much value.