Jack Welch - Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today

CONFRONTING 74 OF THE TOUGHEST
QUESTIONS IN BUSINESS TODAY

Introduction

GLOBAL COMPETITION
On the Brave New World

1. Taking on Chinaand Everyone Else

2. Is China for Everyone?

3. Regarding Russia

4. Why Paris Burned

5. Vive lEuropeJust Not Yet

6. Outsourcing Is Forever

7. Getting Global Before It Gets You

8. The Home Field Advantage

LEADERSHIP
On Being a Better Boss

9. Are Leaders Born or Made?

10. The Leadership Mind-Set

11. Tough Guys Finish First

12. The Ultimate Values Test

13. When to Cut the Cord

14. The Courage to Become a Change Agent

15. Wrestling with Resisters

16. Building Trust from the Top Down

17. The Perilous Promotion Trap

18. Keeping Your People Pumped

19. How to Get Elected Boss

20. Winning the Whining Game

21. New JobOld Team?

22. The Smarter They Are

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
On Running a Business to Win

23. Getting the Best People

24. The Fight Against Phoniness

25. The Limits of Candoror Not

26. The Case for DifferentiationEven in Sweden

27. Strategy for Big and Small Alike

28. The Consultant Conundrum

29. The Danger of Doing Nothing

30. How Healthy Is Your Company?

31. The Real Job of HR

32. Staff Functionariesand Other Filters

33. Stopping Job Cuts Before They Happen

34. No More B.S. Budgeting

35. Not Invented Where?

36. Making Sense of Matrixes

37. The Uses and Abuses of Gut Instinct

38. What Becomes a Salesperson Most

39. The Slippery Slope of Open Books

40. Preventing a Corporate Katrina

41. Whats Holding Women Back

42. Paying Big-Time for Failure

CAREERS
On Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Promotion

43. What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life?

44. Picking the Right Path

45. I Am Who I Am

46. Does an MBA Really Matter?

47. Dear Graduate

48. Big Company or Start-up?

49. It Starts with Self-Confidence

50. The Truth About Mentoring

51. The Bad Boss No-Brainer

52. Weve Just Been Acquired and I Hate It

53. From Hero to Zero

54. Am I an Entrepreneur?

55. A Case of Embedded Reputation?

56. Why Cant I Get Hired?

57. Theyre Telling You Something

58. Welcome to the Government, Kid

59. Knowing When to Fold Em

60. Are You a Boss Hater?

61. Looking for a Second Act

62. Can You Hear It?

PRIVATELY HELD
On Working for the Family

63. But What About Tomorrow?

64. The Nitty-Gritty on Nepotism

65. The Consequences of Cashing Out

66. Bringing the Outside In

WINNING AND LOSING
On Why Business Is Good

67. The Wages of SOX

68. The Cocktail Party Conspiracy Theory

69. What to Tell the Grandchildren

70. Good-Bye, Genghis Khan

71. And the Losers Are

72. Whats Right About Wal-Mart

73. The Real Verdict on Business

74. What Do You Call Winning?

About the Authors

Credits

Cover

Copyright

About the Publisher

I n April 2005, we published a book called Winning . To our minds, its purpose couldnt have been more straightforward: we wanted to codify our thinking about the myriad insightful, probing, and often urgent questions we had received while traveling around the world for three years, speaking to hundreds of thousands of people about their work, career, and life challenges. We wanted, basically, to write a book that was both a philosophical treatise on fundamental business principles and gritty how-to manual in one, and in doing so, pretty much wrap up what had felt like a great, extended conversation.

Little did we know that Winning wouldnt wrap up anythingjust the opposite!

There was the book tour, of course, and you expect some action doing thatyoure out looking for it! But along with the usual TV and radio appearances, we also visited thirty-seven business schools across the United States and in Europe, and spoke to more than one hundred business groups in cities around the world. Winning , we quickly discovered, wasnt the Hmm, very well then, thank you summary event we had anticipated. It was a Hey, wait a minute, what about kind of affair.

Winning , in essence, proved to us once again that people have an insatiable thirst to talk about work. They want to understand it better, debate its every nuance, and find a way to do it better. Even after the book tour ended, the questions kept coming.

In the past year alone, we have heard several thousand questions. It is an understatement to say the topics run the gamut. There is the very macro, as in, How can developed nations compete with China? and What is the role of Wal-Mart in society? And the very micro, as in, How do I overcome my fear of public speaking? and How do I manage the team I was a part ofuntil yesterday? An IT manager in Michigan asked us about the future of the European Union, and a CEO from New Jersey asked us to list the most important characteristics to look for when hiring a sales force. Hundreds of people have asked about how to get ahead in their careers, dozens about surviving a difficult boss, and two about the appropriate use of candor with elderly workers. Weve heard from scads of employees at family-owned companies frustrated with an incompetent aunt or cousin at the helm, or otherwise at the end of their rope with nepotism. In a letter filled with poignancy, a recent college graduate from South Africa asked us how to acquire self-confidence. She said she was starting from zero. In another filled with bittersweet reflection, a British correspondent asked us how he could regain his, which hed lost after being fired for poor performance. Some letters have been amusing, like the one from the Indonesian manager who asked us how she could stop her team from explaining all their decisions with the excuse It was gut instinct! And others dead serious, like the one from the Milwaukee engineer who said, The time has come for me to advise my grandchildren what to do with their lives. So, what is the next big thing out there?

Indeed, there has been so much give-and-take since Winning s publication that weve often been reminded of what a Dutch entrepreneur told us during a visit to Amsterdam in 2002. Every day in life, she said, there is a new question.

She was more right than we could have ever predicted!

About a year ago, we realized that we had actually fallen in love with the continuing conversation sparked by Winning . For two people who get a kick out of talking and meeting people, it was pure fun. But more than that, it was fascinating. With every new encounter, we learned what peopleyoung, old, and in betweenworking in completely different kinds of businesses and in vastly different parts of the world, cared about most passionately. We learned that in Africa, for most people, its about starting anew. People are desperate to find ways to launch companies and careers; they dream of breaking out of the survivalist lifestyle. In more developed nations, the concerns more commonly come from deeply dug trenches, with questions like, How do we take the nonsense out of the budgeting process? and What can we do to make our HR department more effective?

The continuing conversations after Winning also pushed us to delve into our own thinking more deeply and to explore more than a few business and career issues that we hadnt included in the book. Both were mind-expanding activities, to say the least. And finally, opportunities to talk to global audiences that followed Winning allowed us to keep spreading a message we think isnt proclaimed nearly enoughthat business is the great engine of society. It creates jobs, pays taxes, and opens up economic opportunity like no other institution. Yes, government plays a huge supporting rolewe couldnt live in a civilized world without its services. But with its ability to provide for families, build careers, and give back, business, we believe, is the foundation of a thriving world.