Jack: Straight from the Gut

Rating:
Summary: "Jack, Straight from the Gut."
Review: Great book. Enlightened and opened my mind to a whole new outlook on business.

Rating:
Summary: time to check the gut
Review: When my teacher showed us the book 'JACK', I thought I could like it. I like the picture on the cover. He is smiling with confidence and achievement. As his picture, he showed me his amazing strategies and accomplishment at his work.
. He has gift at work and treat people. He colored GE, indeed. Above all, his confidence and his decisive personality impressed me. This book can give good lesson that wants to be CEO or businessman like me.
During read this book I keep comparing jack with me. I asked questions to me how many possibilities I have to be a good Businessman several times. Actually, he gave me motivate in business area. Also he gives good lessons but only to businessman but also to who has employees. He shows us good way like hug and kick. It can be helpful to both of them.
On the other hand, Even if his success he has a blind point. At first part of book, he mentioned about his relationship between him and his parents especially his mom. And he said it made his personality in the role of the CEO. I think he could do same things to his children. But, he didn't mentioned about his children and his relationship not only once. Was he too busy to do?
And he failed in his marriage life. He married two times. He even didn't give enough faith to wives. I expected not only his business life but also his beautiful family life. Even though he succeeded at work, he failed at his family and social life. To success at work can't be success in life.
I respect his achievement at work, but I feel sorry to his life. I think he never felt real happiness in his life. I recommend this book others who are interested in business. But I don't think this is the best book for businessman. Almost all of us dream of successful life in family and work but the book 'JACK' can't be help in both ways. If someone wants to get these from JACK, you'd better chose other book.

Rating:
Summary: making the reader work hard...
Review: If you want to learn the names of every person who ever worked at GE during Jack Welch's 40 years there, you'll find this book invaluable. If you want to learn something about what made GE successful, however, good luck picking out the few saplings of wisdom from the thick forest of names.

Golf and tennis fans will also find the book fascinating for its endless catalog of golf and tennis resorts nationwide. Apparently being anywhere near the top at GE requires moving to Fairfield, Connecticut and aping the Lifestyles of the Bland and WASPy.

One interesting thing I learned is that GE went from 0 percent employee ownership to 31 percent during Jack Welch's tenure as CEO, primarily through granting of stock options to top managers such as Jack himself. Jack doesn't talk about this except to say that he's proud of the number. He doesn't get into the question of whether the investors from 1980 are happy now that they own less than 70 percent of the company. Nor does he talk about what would have happened to GE's earnings if they'd accounted for all of these stock options at time of issue.

The useful and interesting content in this book could have been presented in 75 pages if the editors and ghostwriter had been doing their jobs. But they weren't doing their jobs. So the readers all have to "give 110 percent" or "give 1000 percent". Maybe this is what Jack Welch wanted because he uses these expressions numerous times throughout Straight from the Gut.

Rating:
Summary: A bloated 1 Minute Manager
Review: My dad and I can argue about this one all night long! He thinks the sun rises and sets on this book. There are indeed some wonderful tips on how to manage a business at the very back of the book, but the rest of his ghost-authored book is a puffed-up piece of boring golf course self-indulgence that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't finish it!
Review: I listened to the first half of the audio book and I just could not continue. Jack Welsh, is definately an achiever and his story of rags to riches is heartwarming. As his story moves from his life living with his parents; his father a hard working ticket collector on the trains, to getting his PHD in Engineering to becoming CEO of GE his story keeps you tuned in.

I got this audio book because I thought that it would be very motivational. It would give me the attitude that "Anyone can do anything with hard work". What I took away from Jack's story is that "Anyone can do anything with hard work...if they are a man". As Jack tells the story of his career he talks about his collueges and how they played a part in his success. When I quite listening to the tapes...there still had been no mention of any women doing great things at GE. In fact there were no mention of women period! Except his mom and his wife.

I realize that his story starts in a time when women just weren't a strong part of the workforce, but for this hard working professional women I found it too depressing and non motivational to continue to listen. All I could think of was, "Here's another GOOD OLE BOYS CLUB!" The golfing, the male-male bonding, where are the women? I give this one 2 stars instead of 1 because if you are a man you'll probably enjoy his story more than I did.

Rating:
Summary: Thanks Jack
Review: When we started this semester, our teacher showed us this book. I just thought "Holy cow", this book is so big and thick. I won't like this book, and I won't have thirst for read it. First time when I read this book, I felt a heavy pressure. I am not major in business, and I don't know a lot of technical terms. Every time when I read this book, I just feel setback. When we discussed this book in the class, I can't understand at all. It's too hard for me. When our teacher explained some vocabularies and business rules, I started interested in this book.
This book includes Jack's childhood, family, and business. As an autobiography, Jack Welch covered only a minimal amount of his personal life, most of pages of the book are devoted for his life at GE. How does he success in his business and how does he guide his employees. When he felt disappointed, he never gives up. I learned how to be more confident like him. This book had gave some interesting insight into the upper echelons of a large corporation.
Jack Welch is obviously a great businessman. The book clearly points out his many accomplishments in transforming a large multi enterprise organization. He certainly has enough ego to let us know how great he is. He tells how he succeeded in business by really trying.
People skills, financial goals, managerial style, and organizational behavior impacts are all covered in this book and if I were organizing a curriculum for managers from line to senior, this would be a must read.
After reading it you are filled with confidence that you too can be successful with a lot of hard work. So if you are looking for a story to inspire you, read Jack.

Rating:
Summary: amazing...
Review: When I heard about Jack, I didn't think that Jack is an ordinary person. Really Jack is a special person and looks like an intelligent person. Most people who work in business will know who Jack is. He was CEO at the GE. Jack is well known for business. He is a person who made improved company. While I was reading a book, named Jack, which was written by Jack, I had new thoughts that not only Jack was a intelligent CEO but also he was a good writer. Although he became a CEO at the GE because of his extraordinary business strategies, if he couldn't write about his own thoughts about business, I might not impress about him. When I was reading, I was surprised several times. Whoever will be hard to write personality thoughts. As he shows his business styles through the book, he might make new business relationship each of his companies. The book shows how he made on business. Jack's management style was to trickle down. For example, as he worked hard, he could encourage employees. His employees could attempt new way to make new stuffs. Other example, when he became a CEO at the GE, as he empowered other CEO, he could also make new styles in the Business. If you choose to read a book, you may not disappoint about your chosen. The book gives chance to you who want to make good deal on own business.

Rating:
Summary: Jack, You Are My Hero!
Review: He is my hero, Jack. He is a super amazing guy. His success is incredible, like a legend. Through the 20th Century, he is one of the best CEO as far as I know. He has a great potential and gut. He made GE one of the most successful companies last century. He is a very creative and imaginative person. His enthusiasm was amazing and powerful. He is a pioneer that stands for 20 Century businesses.
I felt that he really loves GE. In this book, he used the word "I", It refers to all his friends or colleagues. It means " We." For Jack, GE is his life itself. He seriously tried to change GE to be the No1company. He accomplished it skillfully. He always thought about how do it in order to make money, how to make GE strong, and how Jack controlled GE. Before Jack became CEO, GE was ordinary big and old style company. GE really "bureaucracy." He didn't like "superficial congeniality," so he introduced differentiations, actually this idea was Jack's first revolution to change the GE.
He announced his new great ideas one by one; Boundaryless, Six Sigma, Globalization, Growing Services, and E-Business. These were amazing and fascinating business plans. As result of it, these lead to be amazing huge successes and profit for GE. He also has a clear business plan. It is that if GE is not NO1 or NO2 Company, they would "fix, sell or, or close." Also he vigorously did M &A (merger and acquisition) to be stronger and bigger for GE. These also gave GE a huge profit.
Through this book, I learned how to make money, how difficult it is to control the big company, or how attractive a CEO position is. His CEO philosophy was written in Section V chapter 24 "What This CEO Things Is All About." So we can see it, I learned these better and he teaches me that I can do my best in my life.

Rating:
Summary: The Big Boss
Review:

Jack: Straight from the Gut is the autobiography of Mr. Jack Welch, one of the most important businessmen of ever. As the CEO of G.E., he proved what he is able to do. He helped the company to become one of the biggest companies in the world.

The book tells us since his childhood, some of his experiences in college (it's very interesting to know how Jack became a businessman even though he never had studied business in his life), and the begging of his career.

The bottom line in this book is how he did such good work in all the years as a CEO. As the CEO of G.E., Jack describes the company in a way that just a man in his position could do. To show his ideas he tells examples, shows easy graphics and specific experiences about the topics. It's very useful if you want to learn about leadership, work vision and strategies in business.

The book doesn't say a lot about his personal life. It looks like his family is always in second place. It shows that he is not so expert in family relationship as he is in his office.

If you are interesting in business or if want to know better how a big company works and a good example of leader, you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: For those who is interested in business
Review: Jack Straight From The Gut is an autobiography that tells us about a successful business man named Jack Welch. He was the CEO of General Electric (GE) and made profitable business for that company until his retirement.

In the beginning of the book, he starts telling us about his childhood and his family and he shows a sympathetic personality in those chapters. However, after few chapters, when he becomes rich and popular, his emotions are replaced for rational thoughts in order to make important business decisions that made GE one of the most lucrative companies all over the world.

When he talks about his plans and about his life inside of the company, the tone of his writing is like he is in a living room talking to us in a informal way, especially when he uses some "bad words" to describe risky situations. He shows his
personality as a common person as we are and says the same words that we do when we have something difficult to solve. This makes the reader comfortable with the writer because we can identify some similarities between both.

The book is also fascinating because there is some mystery when we think about Jack's choices to negotiate and how much money he gets in his professional field. He doesn't tell us why he makes his choices, he just chooses them and they are right. Certainly, we also can see some mistakes but when we compare his mistakes to his victories, we can consider him a winner.

In addition, in each chapter there is a surprise because he deals with all types of business. From Tv shows to airlines companies , he always tries to take advantage of the best opportunities and invest in diversification.

Another interesting point is the way that Jack works with people and his creativity to work on things such as globalization, control quality and e-business. I think he tries to follow the steps of the development around him and when we
look at him we think about him as an impeccable man. On the other hand, his personal life doesn't seem so impeccable because he doesn't mention much information about his family, and sometimes the same perfect man makes his image to be considered cold because he talks about money and business and forget
the feelings that seemed so important to him in the beginning of the book.

In conclusion, this book focus on people who are interested in how the profitable deals are made and how a company can increase its finances based on good administration. Therefore, if you are looking for this kind of information this is the perfect book but if you want to know how to deal with your family and how to show your feelings to them, try another one.