...9-399-150 REV: MAY 3, 2005 CHRISTOPHER A. BARTLETT MEG WOZNY GE's Two-Decade Transformation: Jack Welch's Leadership On September 7, 2001, Jack Welch stepped down as CEO of General Electric. The sense of pride he felt about the company's performance during the previous two decades seemed justified judging by the many accolades GE was receiving. For the third consecutive year, it had not only been named Fortune's "Most Admired Company in the United States," but also Financial Times' "Most Admired Company in the World." And, on the eve of his retirement, Fortune had named Welch "Manager of the Century" in recognition of his personal contribution to GE's outstanding 20 year record. Yet while the mood at GE's 2001 annual meeting had clearly been upbeat, some shareholders wondered whether anyone could sustain the blistering pace of change and growth characteristic of the Welch era. And specifically, many worried if any successor could generate the 23% per annum total shareholder return Welch had delivered in his two decades leading GE. It would be a tough act to follow. (See Exhibit 1 for financial summary of Welch’s era at GE.) The GE Heritage Founded in 1878 by Thomas Edison, General Electric grew from its early focus on the generation, distribution, and use of electric power to become, a hundred years later, one of the world’s leading diversified industrial companies. A century later, in addition to its core businesses in power generation, household appliances, and lighting...
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...GE’s Two-Decade Transformation Case Analysis March 17, 2005 For: Anne Becker From: Scott Ashby 999004953 _ Phil Parkinson Judy Lee 04003094 Gianni Liburdi 049003649 Executive Summary This report’s objective is to provide analysis of the leadership challenge that General Electric (GE) is currently facing, and to recommend solutions. The primary problem is determining what kind of candidate is required to replace retiring CEO Jack Welch. This has left GE to question how much does the company want to change policy over the previous era, and where does the company want to be in future? Detailed examination of the impact Jack Welch has had as CEO over the past twenty years reveals a leadership style that is the driving force behind a successful transition from a corporate model that was highly centralized and bureaucratic to one that is dynamic, flexible, and many times more profitable. If GE wishes to sustain and build upon the progress of the Welch era, it would do well to nominate a new CEO from within the organization who is familiar with his brand of leadership, and who can continue to provide it for many years to come. 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3 Statement of Problem ...............................
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...CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business/ Responsible Business) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders. The term "corporate social responsibility" came into common use in the late 1960s and early 1970s after many multinational corporations formed the term stakeholder, meaning those on whom an organization's activities have an impact. It was used to describe corporate owners beyond shareholders as a result of an influential book by R. Edward Freeman, Strategic management: a stakeholder approach in 1984. Proponents argue that corporations make more long term profits by operating with a perspective, while critics argue that CSR distracts from the economic role of businesses. Others argue CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations. CSR is...
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...GE’s Two-Decade Transformation Case Analysis March 17, 2005 For: Anne Becker From: Scott Ashby 999004953 Phil Parkinson _ Judy Lee 04003094 Gianni Liburdi 049003649 Executive Summary This report’s objective is to provide analysis of the leadership challenge that General Electric (GE) is currently facing, and to recommend solutions. The primary problem is determining what kind of candidate is required to replace retiring CEO Jack Welch. This has left GE to question how much does the company want to change policy over the previous era, and where does the company want to be in future? Detailed examination of the impact Jack Welch has had as CEO over the past twenty years reveals a leadership style that is the driving force behind a successful transition from a corporate model that was highly centralized and bureaucratic to one that is dynamic, flexible, and many times more profitable. If GE wishes to sustain and build upon the progress of the Welch era, it would do well to nominate a new CEO from within the organization who is familiar with his brand of leadership, and who can continue to provide it for many years to come. 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3 Statement of Problem ...........
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...GE’s Two-Decade Transformation Case Analysis March 17, 2005 For: Anne Becker From: Scott Ashby 999004953 _ Phil Parkinson Judy Lee 04003094 Gianni Liburdi 049003649 Executive Summary This report’s objective is to provide analysis of the leadership challenge that General Electric (GE) is currently facing, and to recommend solutions. The primary problem is determining what kind of candidate is required to replace retiring CEO Jack Welch. This has left GE to question how much does the company want to change policy over the previous era, and where does the company want to be in future? Detailed examination of the impact Jack Welch has had as CEO over the past twenty years reveals a leadership style that is the driving force behind a successful transition from a corporate model that was highly centralized and bureaucratic to one that is dynamic, flexible, and many times more profitable. If GE wishes to sustain and build upon the progress of the Welch era, it would do well to nominate a new CEO from within the organization who is familiar with his brand of leadership, and who can continue to provide it for many years to come. 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3 Statement of Problem ...............................
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...Organizational Change of the 20th Century “Jack Welch the Man With the Plan” By: Schavalia A. Holmes HR587, Professor: M. Luckett TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 JACK WELCH BECOMES GE’s CEO 4-5 JACK WELCH ON GLOBALIZATION 5 JACK WELCH, LEADER, HIS MANAGEMENT STYLE REVEALED 5-7 JACK WELCH OUTLOOK ON WHAT MAKES A GOOD LEADER 7-11 JACK WELCH METHODOLOGY INCORPORATES KELLER’S MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE COURSE TCO’S ……………………………………………………………………………………………………12-13 JACK WELCH BEST CEO (MANAGER) EVER, OR IS HE THE “GRINCH WHO STOLE MASSIVE EMPLOYEES LIVELIHOODS? 14-16 CONCLUSION 16-17 BIBLIOGRAPHY 18 INTRODUCTION How do you take a company through restructuring and enable it to sustain the change and make it one of the largest multinational corporations in the world? Well, John F. Welch Jr. (Jack Welch) succeeded in doing just that. Welch climbed the corporate ladder and became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GE. Jack Welch (Welch) used integration techniques, well developed strategies, and made many acquisitions, while selling off or closing down its less productive companies and divisions. His task was to reinvent GE’s culture and change business operation by converting managers into leaders. He empowered his employees, gave them special rewards, devised training programs and opened the door for employees to acquire stock options. Welch’s mission was to transform the GE organization into a “boundary-less company...
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...Fall 2011, Term 1 Modern Business Leader Analysis Project JACK WELCH By Chad Wilson Lucy Ebanja Renee Wingfield Sheng Wang Ying Zhang Instructor: Dr. Constant Beugre Content Jack Welch’s accomplishments Jack Welch joined General Electric (GE) in 1960 and became vice president (1972) and then vice chairman (1979). In 1981 he became chairman and CEO of GE; at 45, he was the youngest person ever to have held that position. Having taken GE with a market capitalization of about $12 billion, Jack Welch turned it into one of the largest and most admired companies in the world, with a market value of about $500 billion, when he stepped down as its CEO 20 years later, in 2000. (Reference for Columbia Encyclopedia) Welch took bold actions to improve GE's ability to compete globally before it ran into serious difficulty. Welch leads two different "revolutions" in his tenure as CEO. The first revolution had to do with hardware: what businesses GE should be in and what businesses it should divest. Welch quickly changed GE's approach to strategic planning. The matrix approach developed under Reginald Jones was replaced with Welch's Number One Number Two strategy. If a GE business wasn't first or second in its markets worldwide, or couldn't be made' so, it would be sold. At the start of Welch's tenure GE administration was built around three hundred separate businesses, a recipe for inefficiency. Welch tore into the ossified corporate structure with a vengeance and...
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...Entrepreneurial School of Thought This school sees strategy formation as a visionary process and is fell under the descriptive school of strategic management. The chief architect of the strategy is the CEO of a company. This school took formal leadership seriously and CEO is responsible for strategy formulation. It stressed on mental state and processes such as instinctive knowledge, belief, wisdom, experience and insight of a single leader. The leader should be visionary in formulating strategy. The entrepreneurial school promotes strategy as a process which has a clear image and sense of direction which can be termed as a vision. Entrepreneurial strategy often occurs in startup companies and organizations in trouble and needing a turnaround. For any organization to sustain success it must engage in some form of entrepreneurial activity in order to effectively compete in the marketplace and continue to increase stakeholder value. In this school the organization becomes responsive to only one person, the CEO and vision is the central concept of this school. Vision is the mental representation of a leader and it outlines what the organization wants to be or how it wants the world in which it operates to be. It is a long term view and concentrates on the future. It can be emotive and source of inspiration. It serves as a guiding idea and often tends to be a kind of image than a fully clear plan. Visions are often flexible so that the leaders can change them as they like. Visionary...
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...Case 1: Jack Welch at General Electric Bujar Berisha – G1217167 Mirza Zia – G1213229 Nik Badriah Binti Nik Rahimi – G1215608 Nur Auni Afifah Hanapi – G1210096 Nurul Izzah Aziz – G1214870 QUESTION 1 Based on the definition in chapter, GE under Jack Welch was not able to fulfill his duty. Even though he did create considerable wealth during his tenure as CEO, he did so at the cost the societal harmony and environmental well-being. According to the case, during his time as the CEO of GE, he fired a large number of employees due to underperformance, or because of outsourcing. Additionally, it was under his leadership that GE had severely polluted in the Hudson River, and more importantly, lobbied against its clean up at GE’s expense. Furthermore, while he enjoyed a large number of perks during and after his time at GE, he created a pension fund that was unfair to workers at GE. Based on his actions, we believe he did not fulfill his duty, as defined by Chapter 5. We believe he could certainly have done better. The phenomenal growth GE achieved during his time was by prioritizing wealth creation over responsibilities to stakeholders such as employees and the environment. Be believe that there is a middle path that can be pursued, which allowed GE to grow in a much more sustainable manner. We feel he could have paid more attention to employee well-being by being slightly more flexible in their performance evaluation and should have promoted diversity. Based on his actions,...
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...AM FL Y TE Team-Fly® 29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch Abridged from Get Better or Get Beaten, SECOND EDITION Robert Slater McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-141684-6 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-140937-8 All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at george_hoare@mcgraw-hill.com or (212) 904-4069. TERMS OF USE This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors reserve all rights...
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...Transformation: Jack Welsh’s Leadership 1.) How difficult a challenge did Welch face in 1981? How effectively did he deal with it? What major lesson can we learn from his “first stage” that should be incorporated into our general “planned change” framework? Jack Welch faced several difficult challenges when he came into office in 1981. One of his primary areas of concern had to be replacing the retiring CEO Reg Jones. Jones had had great success during his time at GE, particularly in terms of growth of strategic planning with the organization. He restructured the organizational levels of the company to handle the tremendous volume that his strategic planning process was producing. Many of these processes used within the business community as benchmarks to follow. The public perception of Reg Jones was also very high, as he had been recognized with “CEO of the Year” honors multiple times, as well as “CEO of the decade.” Welch had to be up to the task of replacing a man that many in the industry considered a legend. Another major challenge Welch faced that can’t be overlooked is the external environment when he took over as CEO. At the same time he was charged with the task of replacing his successful predecessor, Welch also had to deal with a U.S. economic recession. Additionally, there was an increasing amount of rivalry from global competition that compounded the problems being faced by the sluggish economy. It would be one thing if Welch was entering his new position under ideal...
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...Erica Walker Jack Welch Dr. Kim 6 February 2014 Jack Welch: Icon of Leadership Jack Welch has been named the “Manger of the Century” and has made innovative changes to management practices. He was born as John Francis Jr. on November 19, 1935 in Salem, Massachusetts. He attended Salem High School and then after graduating went to the University of Massachusetts. At the University of Massachusetts, Jack Welch received Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. After getting his bachelor degree he went to the University of Illinois and received his Masters and Doctorate. Jack Welch became a member of General Electrics in 1960. While working at GE, Jack Welch made a significant impact, but his start at GE was shaky. Jack Welch after being at GE for a year was going to leave. He felt under appreciated and the paid was not enough. An executive thought Jack would be important aspect of GE future and convinced him to stay. The executive was right about Jack. In 1972 he was announced vice president of GE. Then five years later Jack Welch rose to senior vice president and in 1981 he took the proclaimed title of CEO of General Electrics. Jack Welch has increased value of General Electrics from $13 billion to several hundred billion. He was able to have such success because of management practices. His lessons that he created on how to run a success business has influence many. Some key lessons taken from Jack Welch especially from his video “Jack Welch: Icon of Leadership”...
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...Transformation: Jack Welsh’s Leadership 1.) How difficult a challenge did Welch face in 1981? How effectively did he deal with it? What major lesson can we learn from his “first stage” that should be incorporated into our general “planned change” framework? Jack Welch faced several difficult challenges when he came into office in 1981. One of his primary areas of concern had to be replacing the retiring CEO Reg Jones. Jones had had great success during his time at GE, particularly in terms of growth of strategic planning with the organization. He restructured the organizational levels of the company to handle the tremendous volume that his strategic planning process was producing. Many of these processes used within the business community as benchmarks to follow. The public perception of Reg Jones was also very high, as he had been recognized with “CEO of the Year” honors multiple times, as well as “CEO of the decade.” Welch had to be up to the task of replacing a man that many in the industry considered a legend. Another major challenge Welch faced that can’t be overlooked is the external environment when he took over as CEO. At the same time he was charged with the task of replacing his successful predecessor, Welch also had to deal with a U.S. economic recession. Additionally, there was an increasing amount of rivalry from global competition that compounded the problems being faced by the sluggish economy. It would be one thing if Welch was entering his new position under ideal...
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...Jack Welch Biography Jack Welch was CEO of General Electrics for 20 years and known as one of the best business leaders of all time. He made GE one of the most profitable companies in the world. Jack Welch was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1935. During his schooling life he attended Salem High School and after graduating moved on to study for a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts. Next Welch moved on to the University of Illinois to complete his Masters and Doctorate degree’s by 1960. In 1960 after graduation Welch joined General Electrics with a starting salary of just $10,500. Not long after starting his new job Welch wanted to leave the company to take a job offered to him at International Minerals & Chemicals because of his low wage and poor company management. Welch felt unappreciated by his boss but must have made quite an impression on an executive named Reuben Gutoff, with Gutoff taking Welch and his first wife to dinner trying to convince Welch to stay with the company promising big changes for the company and Welch. While working at GE Welch helped invent a new plastic called PPO, and soon after he was promoted to general manager of the plastics factory and soon after promoted again to managing the entire plastics division of GE. By 1972 Welch had made a name for himself and was again promoted becoming vice president after only 12 years at GE. After working as vice president for 5 years, in 1977 he became...
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...Executive summary In this assignment I was able to use relevant leadership theories to critically analyse and evaluate the leadership of Jack Welch. I first provided a brief insight into Jack’s background, outlining what made John F. Welch into the man we know today as Jack Welch. Secondly, shed some light on the financial position and the culture of General Electric (GE) in the early 80’s when Jack assumed the mantle as its Chairman and CEO. Thirdly, I discussed his changing leadership styles over the years. Finally, I give my opinions on how I would have lead differently if I was faced with the same situations. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Welch’s Background 5 3. The situation – GE before Jack Welch 7 4. Jack Welch the leader 7 5. Discussion – How I would lead differently 10 6. Conclusion 11 Reference List 12 1. Introduction Leadership is a complex concept and there are different ways of becoming a leader. Leadership is the process of influencing an organized group toward achieving its goals. (Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy, 2012). Leadership is about influencing and not dominating others, leadership occurs when other people happily accept the goals of as organization as their own (Hogan, 1994). Because the behavioural patterns of employees vary depending on their individual circumstances, it is important that leaders to develop an empathetic approach towards resolving the issues of employees. Leadership theorists associate this ability...
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