Business is simple

Don't make it overly complicated

Face reality

Don't be afraid of change

Fight bureaucracy

Discover who has the best ideas, and put those ideas into practice

Learn, Learn, Learn

Jack Welch's Gems

Act like a Leader, not a Manager

" Find great ideas, exaggerate them, and spread them like hell around the business with the speed of light"

Embrace Change, Don't Fear It

Stop Managing, Start Leading

"Weak Managers are the Killers of business; they are the job killers"

Cultivate Managers Who Share Your Vision

"What we are looking for...are leaders ... who can energize, excite and control rather than enervate, depress and control"

Face Reality, Then Act Decisively

What are the GE Values inscribed on that Wallet-Sized Card ?

GE Leaders...Always with Unyielding Integrity :

Have a Passion for Excellence and Hate Bureaucracy Are Open to Ideas from Anywhere... and Committed to Work-Out Live Quality...and Drive Cost and Speed for Competitive Advantage Have the Self-Confidence to Involve Everyone and Behave in a Boundaryless Fashion Create a Clear, Simple, Reality-Based Vision... and Communicate it to All Constituencies Have Enormous Energy and the Ability to Energize Others Stretch...Set Aggressive Goals...Reward Progress...Yet Understand Accountability and Commitment See Change as Opportunity...Not Threat Have Global Brains...and Build Diverse and Global Teams

Be Simple, Be Consistent, and Hammer Your Message Home

"The only way to change people's minds is with consistency"

Be Number 1 or Number 2,But Don't Narrow Your Market

"When you're number four or five in a market, you get pneumonia when number one sneezes"

Look for the Quantum Leap !

"I don't think we have moved fast enough and incisively enough"

Take the Boss Element and put the "Boss Element" out of your Company

Take the "Boss Element" out of your Company"

"You've got to balance freedom with some control, but you've got to have more freedom than you've ever dreamed of"

Stretch Targets Energize

Budgets Enervate

Stretch Targets Energize

Dreams Are Exciting; Decimal Points Aren't

Stretching, Welch asserts,

...allows people to constantly reach for the goal. And people are gettingmore and more comfortable with the idea that you get the best out ofpeople not by fighting budgets, which are all about minimal numbers,but by getting people to do the best they can, and measuring their progresstoward it - against last year, against what competitors are doing.

We are in the process of enriching our organization through the stretchconcept. Operating margins are 50 percent higher than they were forthe first one hundred and eighty years of our company, and in a tougher global environment.

Jack Welch's Vision for the Millennium"

"People always overestimate how complex business is. This isn't rocket science"

Dreams Are Exciting; Decimal Points Aren't

Stretch is a concept that would have produced smirks,if not laughter, in the GE of three or four years ago, because it essentially means using dreams to set business targets -with no real idea of how to get there. If you do know how toget there - it's not a stretch target. We certainly didn't have a cluehow we were going to get to ten inventory turns when we set that target. But we're getting there, and as soon as we become surewe can do it, it's time for another stretch.

How Six Sigma Works

Measure : Identify the key internal process that influencesCTQs and measure the defects generated relative toidentified CTQs.

Analyze : The objective of this phase is to start to understand why defects are generated.

Improve : Here the objective is to confirm the keyvariables and then quantify the effect of these variableson the CTQs, identify the maximum acceptable ranges of the key variables, make certain the measurement systemsare capable of measuring the variation in the key variables,and modify the process to stay within the acceptable ranges.

Control : The objective of this final phase is to ensure thatthe modified process now enables the key variables to staywithin the maximum acceptable ranges using tools such asstatistical process control (SPC) or simple checklists.

Measuring Progress

GE has designed five corporate measures to help a business track progress in the six sigma program :

Customer Satisfaction : Each business performs customer surveys, asking customers tograde GE and the best-in-category on critical-to-quality issues. The grade is a five-point-scale, where 5 is the best and 1 is the worst. A defect is defined as either less than bestin a category or a score of 3 or less. GE measures defects per million survey responses.As with all measures in the project, the results are reported on a quarterly basis.

Cost of Poor Quality : There are three components: appraisal, which is mostly inspection,internal costs, largely scrap and rework; and external costs, largely warranties andconcessions. GE tracks the total as a percent of revenues on a quarterly basis.

Supplier Quality : GE tracks defects per million units purchases, where the defective part has either one or more CTQs out of tolerance and therefore must be returned or reworked,or the part is received outside the schedule.

Internal Performance : GE measures the defects generated by its processes. The measure is the sum of all defects in relation to the sum of all opportunities for defects (CTQs).

Design for Manufactuability : GE measures the percent of drawings reviewed for CTQsdesigned to six sigma. Most new products are now designed with CTQs identified. GE hopes to begin designing products and services to six sigma capability. This measure is very important, since the design approach often drives the defect levels.