Product Description

Jack Welch was perhaps the greatest corporate leader of the 20th century. When he first became CEO of General Electric in 1981 the company was worth $12 billion. Twenty years later it is worth a total of $280 billion. But Welch was more than just the leader of the most successful business in the world. He revolutionised GE’s entire corporate culture with his distinctive, highly personal management style: the individual appreciation of each of his 500 managers, the commitment to an informal but driven work style and the encouragement of candour were all part of the Welch approach. Following John Harvey Jones's Making it Happen and Troubleshooter, Jack has already become the businessman’s bible for the 21st century – an inspiration for a new generation of corporate players.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13337 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's hard to think of a CEO that commands as much respect as Jack Welch. In Jack: What I've Learned Leading a Great Company and Great People, Welch, with the help of Business Week journalist John Byrne, recounts his career and the style of management that helped to make GE one of the most successful companies of the last century. Under his leadership, General Electric reinvented itself several times over by integrating new and innovative practices into its many lines of business. Beginning with Welch's childhood in Salem Massachusetts, the book quickly progresses from his first job in GE's plastics division to his ambitious rise up the GE corporate ladder, which culminated in 1981. What comes across most in this autobiography is Welch's passion for business as well as his remarkable directness and intolerance of what he calls "superficial congeniality"--a dislike that would help earn him the nickname "Neutron Jack." In spite of its 496 pages, Jack: Straight from the Gut is a quick read that any student or manager would do well to consider. --Harry C Edwards

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's hard to think of a CEO that commands as much respect as Jack Welch. Under his leadership, General Electric reinvented itself several times over by integrating new and innovative practices into its many lines of business. In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch, with the help of Business Week journalist John Byrne, recounts his career and the style of management that helped to make GE one of the most successful companies of the last century. Beginning with Welch's childhood in Salem, Massachusetts, the book quickly progresses from his first job in GE's plastics division to his ambitious rise up the GE corporate ladder, which culminated in 1981. What comes across most in this autobiography is Welch's passion for business as well as his remarkable directness and intolerance of what he calls "superficial congeniality"--a dislike that would help earn him the nickname "Neutron Jack". In spite of its 496 pages, Jack: Straight from the Gut is a quick read that any student or manager would do well to peruse.--Harry C. Edwards

About the Author
Jack Welch was born in 1935 in Peabody, Massachusetts, the son of a Boston & Maine train conductor. He joined the General Electric Co in 1960 and was CEO of the company from 1981 to 2001.

Customer Reviews

Not literature, but a great insight
This guy created more shareholder wealth than anyone else ever... this is a great run down of what he did and why he did it. It isn't a management textbook, but if you read between the lines, you can infer what it was that made him great. My take is a complete intolerance of mediocrity and a focus so total it's scary. Read it - it's long, but quick and light and peppered with anecdotes.

A great insight into the Life of a CEO
As a frequent flyer I often look for books that are informative and an easy read ... this fits the bill perfectly.

"Jack" offers a wonderful insight into the life of a CEO.

This book not only provides practical descriptions of how some of GE's great improvement programmes (six sigma, boundaryless behaviour, globalisation) were conceptualised and implemented but also outlines the amazing career of a young man from Irish immigrant parents to arguably one of the worlds' most succesful CEOs.

His frank and candid admissions of the mistakes he made throughout his long career (blowing up a factory, arrogance, hiring the wrong guy) not only represent a refreshing departure from the norm, but are also used to explain much of his later behaviour and success.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking skywards to that CEO spot.

What I've Learned Reading a Great Story from a Great Leader
It's now been almost 6 months since I read "Jack: What I've Learned Leading a Great Company and Great People", and I still almost daily find myself pondering on, and referring to, Neutron Jack's inspirational book. When I started reading the book I obviously expected a lot of american self-glorification and not least justification, but what I hadn't expected was the utter abundance of anecdotes and candid views on anything from the game of golf over family matters to what it's all about: big business! And here's the story from the Jedi-master of Big Business. This book takes you from his childhood days as a caddy for the "suits" at the local golf-club, through the accidental blowing up of a manufacturing unit, to high times with the big boys in business and politics.

And if you, like me, have a degree in business, order this book now. Never before have management tools and ideas been presented to you with such logics and candid hindsight realisation. Jack Welch's 20 years as CEO and Chairman of The General Electric Company, the biggest corporation in the world, proves that his ideas and leadership made the difference!