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Apple is continuing to invest and do well in their core business though. GE had a policy during Jack's tenure that if GE were not number 1 or 2 in a business s

Apple is continuing to invest and do well in their core business though. GE had a policy during Jack's tenure that if GE were not number 1 or 2 in a business segment, they'd get out it. This caused GE to shed many of their traditional capabilities.

breck 4y ago
Ah I vaguely remember this from reading his autobio a long time ago. Seems like a non-sensical rule.
- kamaal 4y ago
  In hind sight, yes. While aiming to be at the top 1 - 2 of the stack is always a nice thing to do. Shutting down established revenue streams to achieve it is equally bad. In many ways it is also lazy. If you won't work on a business to make it the top 1 - 2, you just shut it down. That says better people need to be CEO, especially for a conglomerate like GE. You are supposed to make money by expanding existing businesses, not by tuning the knobs and dials of the existing ones.
- PaulWaldman 4y ago
  I read the book too and thought it was ironic that both businesses and employees were subjected to stack ranking within GE, yet Welch was praised while failing to maximize long-term shareholder value.
  - tkk23 4y ago
    From that book I vaguely remember that he negotiated a deal with his wife that he was proud to break while she maintained her part. It was something like he visits art installations with her if she plays golf with him. He didn't seem to realize that he most likely killed his marriage with that attitude. He was winning while losing.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  I don’t like Jack Welch but you need to consider that policy in context. GE was a weird company with a professional management class that were sort of like military officers. They were lifers and would travel around the country to run factories or whatever. You lived in your little GE town, and the location and size of your house was based in your corporate stature. You may be a plant manager building turbines in upstate ny, and then be promoted to some new role making washing machines in Kentucky. The problem, like the military, it that it creates an insular and sort of incestuous culture that is hard to control centrally. It was similar to IBM in some ways. Alot of the “genius” of Jack Welch was reverse engineered as some visionary nonsense but was really about killing the old GE hierarchy.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    If that was the goal then he completely failed. That company's manager class mindset is burned in and they will passively ignore the CEO or whatever manager is above them. This mindset trickles down through the hierarchy and makes the place immovable. It's passive aggressive power play all the way down.
ksherlock 4y ago
Shed businesses and narrowly define their business segment, eg #1 in servicing GE nuclear reactors vs #3 in servicing all nuclear reactors

breck 4y ago

Ah I vaguely remember this from reading his autobio a long time ago. Seems like a non-sensical rule.

kamaal 4y ago
In hind sight, yes. While aiming to be at the top 1 - 2 of the stack is always a nice thing to do. Shutting down established revenue streams to achieve it is equally bad. In many ways it is also lazy. If you won't work on a business to make it the top 1 - 2, you just shut it down. That says better people need to be CEO, especially for a conglomerate like GE. You are supposed to make money by expanding existing businesses, not by tuning the knobs and dials of the existing ones.
PaulWaldman 4y ago
I read the book too and thought it was ironic that both businesses and employees were subjected to stack ranking within GE, yet Welch was praised while failing to maximize long-term shareholder value.
- tkk23 4y ago
  From that book I vaguely remember that he negotiated a deal with his wife that he was proud to break while she maintained her part. It was something like he visits art installations with her if she plays golf with him. He didn't seem to realize that he most likely killed his marriage with that attitude. He was winning while losing.
Spooky23 4y ago
I don’t like Jack Welch but you need to consider that policy in context. GE was a weird company with a professional management class that were sort of like military officers. They were lifers and would travel around the country to run factories or whatever. You lived in your little GE town, and the location and size of your house was based in your corporate stature. You may be a plant manager building turbines in upstate ny, and then be promoted to some new role making washing machines in Kentucky. The problem, like the military, it that it creates an insular and sort of incestuous culture that is hard to control centrally. It was similar to IBM in some ways. Alot of the “genius” of Jack Welch was reverse engineered as some visionary nonsense but was really about killing the old GE hierarchy.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  If that was the goal then he completely failed. That company's manager class mindset is burned in and they will passively ignore the CEO or whatever manager is above them. This mindset trickles down through the hierarchy and makes the place immovable. It's passive aggressive power play all the way down.

ksherlock 4y ago

Shed businesses and narrowly define their business segment, eg #1 in servicing GE nuclear reactors vs #3 in servicing all nuclear reactors