Top 258 Quotes & Sayings by Jack Welch - Page 3

Get the best player because whether it's soccer or whether it's anything else the team with the best players wins. So focus your energy on getting the best and getting rid of the weakest.

So every time you think about your work-life balance issue, remember what your boss is thinking about - and that's winning. Your needs may get heard - and even successfully resolved - but not if the boss's needs aren't met as well.

People aren't the same. Business is, in my opinion, all about the team that fields the best players. It's not about an idea. An idea goes away. Somebody catches up with it. It's not about a widget.

Just because you are the boss doesn't mean you are the source of all knowledge.

If we wait for the perfect answer, the world will pass us by

If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow.

For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple.

Take the middle 70 percent and tell them what they need to do to get into the top 20 percent.

In the future, those who are not coaches will not be promoted.

When all is said and done, teaching is what I try to do for a living.

The hero is the one with ideas.

It is better to act too quickly than it is to wait too long.

Not surprisingly, work-life moaners tend to be a phenomenon of below-average performers.

I believe social responsibility begins with a strong, competitive company. Only a healthy enterprise can improve and enrich the lives of people and their communities.

We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies-in the minds of those closest to the work. It's been there in front of our noses all along while we've been running around chasing robots and reading books on how to become Japanese-or at least manage like them.

If you managed a baseball team, would you listen more closely to the team accountant or the director of player personnel?

Nothing is worse than the person in their 40s who says, 'I'm not going to learn this.' 'I don't carry an iPad.' That will label you and put you right in the corner. Some people do it as a badge of honor. I've seen them myself, they walk around bragging [about not knowing much about technology].

We bring together the best ideas - turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies.

If we get the right people in the right job we've won the game.

Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.

The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.

Leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. it is not just about you. It's all about them.... everyone deserves a chance.... you can never let yourself be a victim.

Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important.

Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren't just satisfied, they're so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.

This shows you are never too old to get surprised.

Real communication is an attitude, an environment. It is the most interactive of all processes. It requires countless hours of eyeball to eyeball, back and forth. It involves more listening than talking.

You have no right to be a leader if someone who works for you doesn't know where they stand.

Without doubt, there are lots of ways to measure the pulse of a business. But if you have employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow right, you can be sure your company is healthy and on the way to winning.

Good leaders have a generosity gene.

Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company.

Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas.

All of management is about self-confidence

There is no straight line to a dream.

We have built a company with a business mix and operating system that will allow us to deliver record results in any foreseeable economic climate, ... We have just completed a very successful management transition and I've never been more confident about the company's future.

You hang around with good people, you play a lot of golf, and you have a pretty good life. That's what success is all about. It's getting people you like, who want to take the hill with you, who want to win, who have the passion. This is not rocket science.

The art of managing and leading comes down to a simple thing. Determining and facing reality about people, situations, products, and then acting decisively and quickly on that reality. Think how many times we have procrastinated, hoped it would get better. Most of the mistakes you've made have been through not being willing to face into it, straight in the mirror that reality you find, then taking action on it. That's all managing is, defining and acting. Not hoping, not waiting fro the next plan. Not rethinking it. Getting on with it. Doing it. Defining and doing it.

If you want risk taking, set an example yourself and reward and praise those that do.

An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.

If you don't deliver, you don't earn the flexibility.

If your CFO is more important than your CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officer) you're nuts!

The best thing workers can bring to their jobs is a lifelong thirst for learning.

You talk about seeing around corners as an element of success. That's what differentiates the good leader. Not many people have it. Not many people can predict that corner. That would be a characteristic of great leaders.

The value decade is upon us. If you can't sell a top-quality product at the world's lowest price, you're going to be out of the game.

The last thing you want to do is be a bore. When you wake up in the morning, give yourself a good mirror test. If you look like you’re going to be a sulking, pouting bore, slap yourself in the face before you go out to the office.

When the amount of change externally exceeds the amount of change internally, the end is in sight.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of all employees are in the pile because they don't think.

One of the things about leadership is that you cannot be a moderate, balanced, thoughtful, careful articulator of policy. You've got to be on the lunatic fringe.

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy?.?.?.?Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

Failing to differentiate among employees — and holding on to bottom-tier performers — is actually the cruelest form of management there is.

The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders - people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those whom they lead.

Its a marathon, its not a sprint. Ten years. Fifteen years. You've got to get up everyday, with a new idea, a new spin, and you've got to bring it to work, every day

...I think that ideally that is how a company works. It becomes a place of ideas, not a place of position.

My job is to find great ideas, exaggerate them, and spread them like hell around the business with the speed of light...And to put resources in to support them. Keep finding ideas. That's the job of just about all of our CEOs.

Getting candor right - with your reports, your peers, and your boss - is a skill that can make or break your career.

Common mission trap for companies: trying to be all things to all people at all times.

Shun the incremental and go for the leap.

Drucker said: 'If you weren't already in this business, would you enter it today? And if not, what are you going to do about it?' ... Simple, right? But incredibly powerful.

Don't take a job because your mother wants you to. Don't be a victim. You own your decision.

I’ve learned in a hundred ways that I rarely regretted acting but often regretted NOT acting fast enough.

People always overestimate how complex business is. This isn't rocket science. We've chosen one of the world's simplest professions.