Rating: 
Summary: Jack Welch, a great American hero? I don't think so.
Review: Jack Welch made GE prosperous by laying off tens of thousands of American workers and transferring those jobs abroad for the sole purpose of exploitation of poor peoples and countries. His last year as CEO for GE, he earned over $200 million plus another $57 million in stock options. That is FOUR TIMES the COMBINED SALARY OF GE's 15,000 MEXICAN WORKERS. Who couldn't run a profitable company that way? Jack Welch is the kind of person that is killing our economy in the long run; by taking jobs away from American workers and by threatening our relations with other countries that GE, and many others just like it, have continuously, mercilessly exploited for cheap labor. The wages some of these workers receive makes their labor tantamount to slavery.
Rating: 
Summary: Business Traveler's delight
Review: If you spend a lot of time on planes or commutes, this CD is a great opportunity to get an inside look at motivation, success, and the climb to the top. It also makes the time fly by. I would recommend this to any business person.
Great job !!
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Summary: Agressive Business Strategy / Without The Suit....
Review: Jack Welch used his business knowledge, a slight attitude and a few contacts to climb his way to the top. The most interesting thing about this book is that you will learn that he did it without the politics. He didn't play them and he beat the odds and happily proved many people wrong. I applaud him for his contribution to GE and sharing his insight of the company and his career.
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Summary: The Business Jock
Review: Welch's craving for competition, for debate, for new challenges, comes through in his book. The best way to describe Welch: he's a business jock. "Business is a game" (p.267) and at that game, profits is the score. He wants his team to be the best, number 1, the "Olympians of the business world". And he is at once the star player, the coach, the trainer, the cheerleader...! He brings to the game of business the fierce desire to win, the ruthlessness, the intolerance for weak players, which make great sport teams. His book is full of sport metaphors as befits a baseball nut, a golf fanatic, a former hockey player. For those who have followed and monitored GE over the years and who have read some or all the numerous books about GE and Welch, the basic outline of the story is familiar. Welch does not deviate from that story line; but he does add color and a few zingers along the way. e.g.:
-"There are more mediocre people making more money on Wall Street than any other place on earth" (p.221).
-"When all is said and done, teaching is what I do for a living" (p.176).
- "I had a strong prejudice against most of the headquarters staff. I felt they practiced what could be called 'superficial congeniality' - pleasant on the surface, with distrust and savagery roiling beneath it" (p. 96). The inner man
Welch also provides a glimpse of the persona behind the business leader. Welch, we learn, is a hypochondriac, traveling with a pharmacy of pills, pestering the company physician with real or imagined ailments. He is superstitious, carrying the same leather briefcase for the last 24 years, a briefcase he has named "Mr. Lucky"! We learn of his failed first marriage, although that episode comes through as a mild inconvenience, quickly superseded by what is described as a successful second marriage. His children make cameo appearances and, judging from their pictures and curriculum vitae are healthy, successful young adults. Perhaps, he is more revealing of his inner self, of the sources of his extraordinary drive, when he describes his relationship to his mother. She was for her only child a disciplinarian and a cheerleader, a motivator and a guide; to this day, he quotes as mantras her words of counsel. Without indulging in psychobabble, one can still feel the simmering desire of a son who wants to make his mother proud. Introduced to Queen Elizabeth at a state diner at the White House in 1990, he reflects: "I always regret my parents missed these amazing moments".
In an oblique way, Welch is also revealing about himself when he admits that after having done well early on, he turned out to be too small and too slow to really excel in hockey, baseball or football, the all-american team sports. He took up varsity golf in college (having been a caddy in his youth) as a consolation sport, decidedly not a team sport, a jock sport.
I wonder how often in America this thwarted desire to excel in team sports has fuelled a burning desire to excel in some surrogate team sport, such as politics or business. Richard Nixon comes to mind here as a decidedly ungifted but insistent football player in high school! What are Jack Welch's motivations in writing this book:
1.Cashing in (for the benefits of his favorite charities, as we are told right at the outset) on his towering popularity ("The Tiger Woods of management" says Warren Buffett in the book's blurb);
2.Imparting some of his hard-earned wisdom to his fans (about which more later on);
3.Trying to set the record straight about several allegations made in Thomas F. O'Boyle's curmudgeon book "At any cost: Jack Welch, General Electric and the Pursuit of Profit" (Knopf, 1998; Vintage, 1999). At any cost?
Although O'Boyle is never mentioned in Welch's book, clearly he rattled Welch. All the cases in point, all the "causes célèbres" in O'Boyle's book get some coverage in Welch's book, usually brief and dismissive; in a few occasions there's a clear admission of grievous mistakes on Welch's part.
Welch wanted to testify in his defense, to give the lie to O'Boyle's somber assessment.
"The fact that he (Welch) was lionized in his time will matter little to future generations and likely will be seen as indicative of how cutthroat and vicious an era it was, a time when there was virtually no vision in the mainstream of American business. Money is always what matters most to Welch, that and running the most profitable corporation on the planet. History, I believe, will judge him harshly for that." (p.374-375) I don't know about history's judgement but I believe O'Boyle's got it wrong. Welch's motives are not money or bigger profits. These are the scores of the game, the measure of your ranking in the league, your claim to a shot at the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup; but the game itself is all about people, passion and plays. Welch believes there is no greater sense of pride and achievement than to be part of a winning team, no greater thrill in life than to rev up the competitive spirit, engage tough opponents and win.
Welch may be wrong in thinking that his recipe for happiness is universal; the relentless pressure to perform may not be everyone's cup of tea but not everyone is forced to work for GE or for GE imitators.
Welch's book is an unrepentant argument for his brand of leadership. Indeed, in a chapter titled "What this CEO thing is all about", Welch offers 31 caplets of wisdom which, although instructive, do not quite add up to a prescription for success as a CEO.
A close reading of his book however does reveal some patterns, the sketch of a model of leadership in a large modern corporation. That is not a bad model of leadership but one which requires immense energy and a lot of smarts.
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Summary: Better books out there but insightful info. about the guru
Review: I gave this book on CD 3 stars because, while it was refreshing to listen to I didn't really learn alot. The content definitely didn't cause a "paradigm-shifting" moment for me, which is what I am increasingly moving towards for my 5 star ratings. I finished the book on CD awhile ago and really enjoyed it. The Book on CD is about 6 hours, quite long for an abridged version. I haven't read other books on Jack or written by Jack but I felt this one might provide some useful hints on working my way up the corporate ladder and what things he looks for in managing a business. Jack hit on some of those issues but it is primarily a history of his career at GE. He talks about the impact of his mother and father plus provides some comments about his education years. This was mainly a history lesson with some insights here and there. He did dedicate about 20 minutes at the end to provide some people with comments about managing businesses and climbing the corporate ladder for which I was happy. My conclusion: It was a good book but nothing mind blowing here. That is why I will give it 4 stars. I have to respect Welch's career and what he has done with that company. It is truly amazing what this man created, in terms of self-reliant employees, shareholder wealth, an entirely new way of looking at business. I believe the biggest contribution he leaves behind will be the company and its people, not this book.
Rating:
Summary: Jack sparkles in this book the way he did at GE
Review: I have read other books done on Jack Welch and thought they were good, but NONE compared to this one!! Jack Welch worked his way to the top of GE, but you can read how to be a better manager in less than a week with this book. I picked up a lot from this book and encourage everyone to read it!!
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Summary: Aggression + Principle = Conviction
Review: I always sensed that Mr. Welch got a bum rap when he was labeled "Neutron Jack." I didn't think he ever took delight or gloated over laying off people or in cutting loose the C players every year or even in calling people on the carpet. He did so because he felt compelled to honor the belief his mother had in him and the trust that GE as a company placed in him. This book is one of the best guides you will ever find on how to make friends with your (healthy) aggression and how to wed it to principle to create conviction. It proves the validity of the formulae: Aggression + Principle = Conviction; Aggression - Principle = Hostility.
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Summary: Blueprint for any size business
Review: Jack Welch gives us an opportunity to follow a road that he blazed to being number one. If your company is a mega-business or a start-up Jack gives us helpful hints on what it might take to get to the next level, and most importantly, how to stay very, very human in the journey. Thanks Jack!
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Summary: Jack-you did it again-thanks
Review: This book is a must read! Thanks Jack, I have been a keen "Jack" student for several years. I run a summer camp for young people, and have found the "GE Way" full of rich principles, especially in developing our own leadership development program. The wisdom and insight, honed through years of experience, is truly the MBA of the average leader. Yet Jack would just hate it if he read me say that-"average leader". We got the message Jack, A-B or C, we have committed ourselves to pursue the "A' rating. Your book has been the "fodder" to feed and inspire even us in the non-profit world. I hope you come up to Canada some day. (I'll pay your flight...coach- class though!) We are simply thankful for the time you took to write your journey. It is an amazing story, full of insight, and very "applicable." (With sweat of course!) Thanks. 5 Stars. Now write a book on each phase, take us deeper...we are left salivating & hungry for more Jack! Get busy!!
Rating: 
Summary: TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
Review: Jack Welch tells it like it is and reads it like a pro in this resume of his business life. For some 20 years the CEO of General Electric, Welch has become not only one of the most successful but also one of the most admired corporate heads in America. His philosophy is unique and his operating system is his own. He has been a proponent of Six Sigma quality, globalization, and e-business, while in the meantime raising GE's market cap by over $450 billion. His path to the executive suite wasn't without pitfalls, and he relates this rise with good natured candor. No dry business primer, Welch fills his story with humor and rich anecdotal material. Listeners will find the assessment of his last year and the stab at buying Honeywell especially fascinating.
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