Rating: 
Summary: If You are in Business (Any Size) or Like Bio's Read This
Review: What has happened to Jack post GE in his personal life has detracted from a great career. Still this is a good book that traces his climb up the ladder. Four to five stars.You will not become Jack when you read this book. There is only one Jack. But the book is entertaining and gives a sniff of what he did and what he thought. He definitely expected performance from all - and fired the weak performers each year. In a nutshell that was his core philosophy. He has a tracking and evaluating system for rewarding performers and weeding out the bottom performers. Do that and you are following Jack's method - and the rest takes care of itself (simplified). Of course he carried a huge corporation on his shoulders up and up for years with a lot of hustle and gusto while he played golf along the way. The modern corporate man. I will not comment on what I think of Jack, the book speaks for itself. It is still a good buy even after three years. Jack in Toronto
Rating: 
Summary: Jack Welch's book is great
Review: Just a few notes from "Jack straight from the Gut" book which is primarily focused on Jack Welch's 30 years with General Electric. PhD IN CHEMISTRY: earned this from University of Illinois before starting his career in business which ended up being primarily focused on working for and managing General Electric.
This allowed him to really understand many of GE's products when needed during his 41 year tenure. DO THE RIGHT THING: even when you have to put your job at risk. Doesn't make sense to do the wrong thing just so as to not "rock the boat" CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OF THE WORKFORCE; one way to do this is to fire the bottom 10% of employees on a yearly basis. This earned him the nickname of "Neutron Jack" even though he always tried these workers other positions within the
company and not with competitors. QUINTUPLE HEART BYPASS: was performed just a few years ago after suffering angina pains for about 15 years. AVID GOLFER: all of his life with a very low handicap. EMBRACED QUALITY: throughout the company with a 6 Sigma program. CONTINUALLY DEVELOP WORKERS to maintain productivity. Hired outside talent as needed. MEASURE ALL BUSINESS UNITS using ROI calculations in addition to revenue and profits. BUY OR SELL BUSINESS UNITS: in order to grow a business or cut losses as needed GE PURCHASES: over $50B worth of goods and services on a yearly basis OVERHEAD EXPENSES: reduced by 30% or $10B by fully implementing
digital control of all processes including the use of the Internet. EMPLOYMENT: over 300,000 workers worldwide. MARRIED 3 TIMES: currently living in Boston with a young wife and her 4 children. FUTURE PREDICTIONS: China represents the biggest competitor which will drive most non performing companies out of business.
Rating:
Summary: good book to learn lessons to live by
Review: This book is for anyone who wants to improve him or herself. I read the book as a med student hoping to land a residency in dermatology. I read the book because I wanted to learn about the personal traits of a man succesful enough to climb through about 100,000 competitors and land the top job at one of the world's most successful companies. A couple of salient points: 1)You must somehow "get out of the heap" by differentiating yourself in some positive manner. Just sitting around being average will not do. 2) You must strive to improve yourself in multiple dimensions--even dimensions that you may not consider "weaknesses." For example, I have to learn to communicate with my patients better, I have to learn more by reading more about my patients diseases, etc., etc. 3) It takes a life time to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to wreck it. Actually, this is an expression of Warren Buffett, but it applies here because Mr. Welch virtually overnight tarnished his rep when his excessive pay package was revealed during proceedings of a bitter divorce. One must anticipate what might destroy oneself and work ahead to prevent disasters.
Rating:
Summary: Very fascinating!
Review: "Jack: Straight from the Gut" written by former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch is an interesting insight into the mind of a CEO. The first quarter of the book deals with his childhood and his college years and I find this part very interesting. He provided information on what motivates him, his education and how he became he is today. The main chunk of the book deals with his early years at GE, starting from the plastic business and later the CEO of the entire corporation. Reading the book, you can the feeling that Welch is extremely ambitious, driven and smart. I enjoy this book because it gives good insights into the life of a CEO, the difficult decisions that he had to make, the importance of people and culture, and the lesson that I learn from him is that, never be afraid to change. Change is inevitable and Welch was not one who is afraid to implement change. He also provided some discussions of some the the decisions that he made and what were the issues that affected businesses. If you are looking for like point to point statergy on how to run a business successful, then this is not what you are looking for. He did provide some advice on that but mostly he provided insights in terms of understanding organizational behaviors and culture. In terms of his personal life, he did not write much about that and I wish that he did. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about decision-making and business in general. It is an easy read, and not much of difficult business jargons.
Rating: 
Summary: Gary Wendt and Dennis Nayden
Review: What would GE be like without Gary Wendt, Dennis Nayden, and Mike Neal? Nayden the brainpower to structure big complex deal; Neals the people connections negotiator; and Wendt the idea man and acquistion proposing machine. Wendt and Nayden drove GE towards global growth: The 1983 purchase of American Mortgage , 1984 purchase of Employers Reinsurance Corp (Stanger and Dammerman), private label credit cards, commerical finance deals (Wendt), 1994 $12 billion in asset acquistions, 1995 $25 billion in asset acquistions, Banks in Poland and Czech Republic, (Wendt and Nayden close 400 deals involving $200 billion in assets). The numbers are convincing that the acquistions in themselve created wealth. Welsh did not condemn Wendt's asset collection drive with GEs total assets excessing $400 billion. Wendt and Nayden were the real wealth creators of GE. Harvard Business Review would use GE as a model of successfully integrating acquired businesses. GE's exporting Financial services to a global economy drow GEs growth rate. Dr. Welsh seems to believe Six Sigma and eBusiness turned GE around. Lets look at the impact of Six Sigma. Six Sigma is about knowing business processes to reduce variance increasing cost savings; Gary Reiner and Bob Nelson projected a $7-10 billion cost savings; 1996, Six sigma rolled out under Mike Harry; a 60 fixed and 40 percent six sigma bonus was established; in the first year 30,000 employees were trained at a cost of $200 million. Six sigma performance enhancements: 99.99 change of getting a person in a call center, 5.7 Sigma purity standard for Sony CDs, CT scanner improvement from 3 minutes to 17 seconds, from 1996-1997 6,000 six sigma projects achieving a revenue of $320 million, 1998, a $750 million six sigma savings, increasing operating margins from 14.8 percent in 1996 to 18.9 percent in 2000. Customer felt the effects of six sigma: plastic product span from 50 days to 5; aircraft engines from 80 days to 5; and mortgage insurance from 54 days to 1 day. The customer received what they wanted when they expected it. Dr Welsh insightfully explains GE drove customer from traditional outlets and contacts to the internet. GE had the customer demand and purchasing drive and so it was logical to channel that
activity to the internet. GE saw the internet as three parts: the buy, the make, and the sell. In implement the internet, GE did not forget the rule "never let anyone get between you and your customers", meaning they would not destory customer relationships with technology. In summary, I was amused with the life style of the rich and famous Welch, however, I will spend more time following the career of Wendt, Nayden, and Neal, in my opinion the true geniuses of GE, the creative minds behind the wealth creating machine. Its not difficult to understand GE double digit growth, GE recognized globalization strategies early and expanding into india, Japan, thailand, and South America.
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Summary: A curveball
Review: Some may question whether these captains of industry mean us good or ill in the final analysis. I myself just question their phenomenal self-love.
Rating:
Summary: A good enjoyable read
Review: This book is very well written and does a great job of telling the story behind one of the 20th century's greatest executives. While I don't think anyone (except the author) will agree with all of his decisions, he gives his reasoning and thus it is always possible to see his side. And it's impossible to argue with his results. If you're looking from lessons you can apply, I would recommend Edwin Locke's "The Prime Movers" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book, Great Leadership and Values!
Review: By far one of the most interesting and insitful books I've read. The book talks about everything you can imagine. Never a dull moment. I recommend this to anyone intrested in being a great leader, or learning about one.
Rating: 
Summary: a little bit too easy
Review: creating and overseeing an empire seems a fairly easy matter if you read this book. Jack Welsh strolls through live with some disappointments, mostly good choices and in the process creates one of the biggest companies on the planet. I was disappointed that the book didn't really go into the nitty/gritty of the pivotal points in the history of Jacks tenure at GE, the behind the scenes story of negotiations, etc. Reading the book doesn't give you the feeling that you are being coached by the master but is more of a high level overview of Jacks live. It certainly didn't give me any insights. I wouldn't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Should be named "How to be Successful".
Review: In the business world, Mr. Welch nearly epitomizes the meaning of success. His employee-"ranking" system, although challenged by many, has yet to be improved upon. I've read many autobiographies by successful and/or powerful people, and it quickly becomes apparent that the one thing most have in common is that they take risks. This may seem obvious by outsiders, but by reading book such as "Jack" you can see how difficult it must have been to do things with a company that EVERYBODY is telling you shouldn't be done. But Jack explains in detail his reasoning behind many of his decisions and he follows-up be explaining why a certain decision succeeded or why it failed. It is this kind of self-reflection that is evident in only the greatest people, and I was truly inspired as I read this book. I found myself talking about it constantly, and you can easily find yourself quoting him when trying to cheer someone up. Perhaps the best person to read this book is someone who knows a little about business and the players involved. Basically, don't get it for the high-school graduate, but buy it for the MBA wanna-be.
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