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WINNING What Does Victory Cost? JACK WELCH and SUZY WELCH JACK WELCH was CEO and chairman of General Electric Company from 1981 to 2001. During his tenure, the company's market capitalization increased by $400 billion, making GE the world's most valuable corporation. Since leaving General Electric, Mr. Welch has founded his own business advisory firm and he now consults with a small group of Fortune 500 CEOs and speaks to businesspeople and students. |
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He is also the author of "Jack: Straight from the Gut". SUZY WELCH is a former editor of the Harvard Business Review and the author of numerous articles in the business press on leadership, creativity, change and organizational behaviour. MAIN IDEA What does it take to win? This is the sole question everyone in business should be focused on each day. When your business wins, there are many great flow-on effects and benefits – people have the opportunity to grow, more jobs are created, more taxes are paid, shareholders get a return on their investment and the list goes on and on. |
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Winning companies are literally the engine of a healthy economy, and the pinnacle of the free enterprise system. Pure and simple companies and people have to find a way to win day-in and day-out. There are no easy formulas that can be used, or any exotic or mysterious shortcuts involved. Winning can be brutally hard to achieve but when everything comes together and you win, great things happen. "Business is a game, and winning that game is a total blast!" – Jack Welch1. |
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Mission, Values Great leaders get their mission straight and have concrete business values. They ensure both their organization's mission statement and values are mutually reinforcing and see there is no disconnect between what's said and what's done. A good mission statement shouldn't be a collection of endless platitudes. Instead, your mission statement should be the answer to one simple question: "How do we intend to win in this line of business?" The mission statement should set out how the company will make choices about people, investments, allocation of resources and more. |
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In effect, mission statements hit a balance between what's possible and what's impossible, and therefore, a mission statement for any organization cannot be developed by anyone except the top management. Values define how the business is going to achieve its stated mission. Everyone in the organization should be involved in the iterative process of debating and creating values. Great values are plain rather than cryptic, widely understood rather than kept as closely guarded secrets, and specific rather than vague. |
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Values only come to life within the organization when people start getting rewarded for exhibiting them and punish for failing to use them. The real dynamics and benefits of a mission statement and values come in the connection between the two. If there is a disconnect between what gets said and what gets done during the little crises that crop up constantly in the world of business, everyone in the organization will get the message values and the mission are nice to talk about but are not really to be taken seriously. |
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What the organization does when the going gets tough will speak volumes about what is truly valued. "There is too much to lose by not getting your mission straight and by not making your values concrete. Your company will not reach anywhere near its full potential if all that is guiding it is a list of pleasant platitudes hanging on the lobby wall. Defining a good mission and developing the values that support it takes time and enormous commitment. |
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Take the time. Spend the energy. Make them real " – Jack Welch 2. Candor Always speak your mind, and create conditions where everyone else can say what they think. More than anything else, this alone will unclutter your organization and let everyone operate better and faster. Society trains most people to sugarcoat bad news in order to maintain appearances and avoid conflicts. Sometimes people in the corporate world keep quiet in order to make others feel good. |
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As a result, many good ideas which can and should come to the surface and be debated are lost by the wayside or fail to stimulate the level of real debate they deserve. The fact is unless you get into the habit of expressing your views frankly and forcefully, you won't achieve a fraction of what you could achieve if you acted that way. Candor leads to winning three main ways: 1. Candor gets more people into the conversation – which, in turn, allows better ideas to come to the fore. |
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The more people are open about what they think about an idea, the more learning will take place. 2. Candor generates speed. – Ideas that are debated, expanded and enhanced take on a new sense of urgency. Everyone wants to get with the program and do what's being discussed, which is good. 3. Candor cuts costs – because it eliminates endless meetings where people confirm what everyone already knows. |
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