Quotes By Jack Welch

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.

Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.

You can't grow long-term if you can't eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.

Culture drives great results.

In order to lead a country or a company, you've got to get everybody on the same page and you've got to be able to have a vision of where you're going. America can't have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations - can't have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It's got to have a vision.

The Internet is the Viagra of big business.

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don't like to use the word efficiency. It's creativity. It's a belief that every person counts.

The story about GE that hasn't been told is the value of an informal place. I think it's a big thought. I don't think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.

CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.

If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you're stuck.

You've got to eat while you dream. You've got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.

If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.

Change before you have to.

We've only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?

My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.

Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.

Give me a highly successful unionized industry.

I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that's a big deal. And if you're going to be a leader - if you're a leader and you're the smartest guy in the world - in the room, you've got real problems.

If you don't have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don't take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It's crazy.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.

Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.

The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.

There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.

I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

Be candid with everyone.

I was afraid of the internet... because I couldn't type.