Jack Welch - The Real-Life MBA - The no-nonsense guide to winning the game, building a team and growing your career

Copyright Copyright Introduction Part I: It’s About the Game 1 Taking the Grind Out of the Game 2 Getting Whacked—and Getting Better 3 You Gotta have Growth 4 Globalization: It’s Complicated 5 Fear of Finance . . . No More 6 What to Make of Marketing 7 Crisis Management: Welcome to the Coliseum Part II: It’s About the Team 8 Leadership 2.0 9 Building a Wow Team 10 Geniuses, Tramps, and Thieves Part III: It’s About You 11 What Should I Do with My Life? 12 Getting Unstuck 13 It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over List of Searchable Terms Also by Jack & Suzy Welch Acknowledgments About the Publisher

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by Thorsons 2015

FIRST EDITION

© Jack and Suzy Welch 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Ben Baker

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Jack and Suzy Welch assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008137892

Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780007594382

Version: 2015-03-17

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Copyright Introduction Part I: It’s About the Game 1 Taking the Grind Out of the Game 2 Getting Whacked—and Getting Better 3 You Gotta have Growth 4 Globalization: It’s Complicated 5 Fear of Finance . . . No More 6 What to Make of Marketing 7 Crisis Management: Welcome to the Coliseum Part II: It’s About the Team 8 Leadership 2.0 9 Building a Wow Team 10 Geniuses, Tramps, and Thieves Part III: It’s About You 11 What Should I Do with My Life? 12 Getting Unstuck 13 It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over List of Searchable Terms Also by Jack & Suzy Welch Acknowledgments About the Publisher Thorsons An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk This edition published by Thorsons 2015 FIRST EDITION © Jack and Suzy Welch 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Ben Baker A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Jack and Suzy Welch assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green Source ISBN: 9780008137892 Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780007594382 Version: 2015-03-17

Introduction

Part I: It’s About the Game

1 Taking the Grind Out of the Game

2 Getting Whacked—and Getting Better

3 You Gotta have Growth

4 Globalization: It’s Complicated

5 Fear of Finance . . . No More

6 What to Make of Marketing

7 Crisis Management: Welcome to the Coliseum

Part II: It’s About the Team

8 Leadership 2.0

9 Building a Wow Team

10 Geniuses, Tramps, and Thieves

Part III: It’s About You

11 What Should I Do with My Life?

12 Getting Unstuck

13 It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

List of Searchable Terms

Also by Jack & Suzy Welch

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Introduction

Hello and congratulations—congratulations on getting it.

No, not on getting this book, although we’re very happy you did.

Rather, congratulations on getting the fact that no one should do business alone.

Business is the ultimate team sport. Doesn’t make any difference what size your company is, five people, or 5,000, or 150,000, for that matter. Doesn’t matter if it’s in Gary, Indiana, churning out steel, or in Palo Alto cooking up code. Doesn’t matter if you’re three days into your first job in a windowless cube about 10,000 light-years from the action, or if you run the whole enchilada from a corner office on the forty-fifth floor of headquarters.

Business is not a “me” thing. It’s a “we” thing.

It’s an “I’ll take all the advice and ideas and help I can get” thing.

Which is where our congratulations come in. If you’re reading The Real-Life MBA , we figure you’re with us on this one. When it comes to business, you can never stop learning. Business is just too vast, too multifaceted, too unpredictable, too tech-driven, too human-driven, too global, too local, too everything to ever be able to say, “Been there, done that.” For goodness’ sake, we’re still learning, and between us, we’ve been in business for a combined 81 years, with the last ten being the most mind-expanding of all.

Yes, the last ten have been the most full of learning for us, and here’s why. After our last book, Winning , was published in 2005, we hit the road, launching a decade of speaking, writing, teaching, and consulting that has brought us inside scores of companies, each one facing fascinating marketplace and management challenges. We’ve worked with an entrepreneur in China building a firm to link foreign companies and local manufacturers, a winery in Chile transitioning away from family-owned leadership, and a young aerospace venture in Phoenix in the midst of figuring out when and how to go public. These experiences, and many more, have been windows into the nitty-gritty trials and opportunities of business in today’s world. At the same time, our speaking engagements to upwards of a million people, mainly in Q&A sessions, continually allow us to hear what businessmen and women are really thinking—and worrying—about. Add to that the work that one of us (Jack) has been doing in private equity and advising CEOs since 2002, evaluating, guiding, and growing dozens of companies, in industries ranging from health care to water treatment to online dating. Finally, it was in this period that we successfully launched our own online MBA, the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University, now 900 students strong. Their richly varied experiences as working professionals around the world have broadened, deepened, and informed our understanding of business today in new and exciting ways.

If we knew something about business when we wrote Winning , the fact is, we know more now. More that’s relevant. Because business has changed, and we’ve been lucky enough to be in the thick of it. That’s not to say what we’ve learned in the past decade has negated the principles and practices of Winning ; quite the opposite. But what we’ve learned since 2005 has expanded, updated, and augmented them, in some cases just a bit, and in others, radically.