UNDERNEATH IT ALLHave a positive attitude and spread it around, never let yourself be a victim, and for goodness' sake -- have fun.MISSION AND VALUESEffective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible.Setting the mission is top management's responsibility. A mission cannot be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.Example Value Statement: "We treat customers the way we would want to be treated" translates into:*** Give customers a good, fair deal. Great customer relationships take time. Do not try to maximize short-term profits at the expense of building those enduring relationships. Always look for ways to make it easier to do business with us.Communicate daily with your customers. If they are talking to you, they can't be talking to a competitor.Don't forget to say thank you. ***Example Value Statement: "We strive to be the low cost provider through efficient and great operations" translates into:*** Leaner is better.Eliminate bureaucracy.Cut waste relentlessly.Operations should be fast and simple.Value each other's time.Invest in infrastructure. ***We should know our business best. We don't need consultants to tell us what to do.In the most common scenario, a company's mission and its values rupture due to the little crises of daily life in business.CANDOR, VOICE AND DIGNITYLack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer.To get candor, you reward it, praise it, and talk about it. Most of all, you yourself demonstrate it in an exuberant and even exaggerated way.Some people have better ideas than the others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.DIFFERENTIATING PEOPLEA company has only so much money and time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.Differentiate 20% top, 70% middle and 10% bottom performers. It may be demotivating for the 70% but revs the engines of the others.LEADERSHIPWhat leaders do:*** 1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence.2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.3. Leaders get into eveyone's skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.6. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action.7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.8. Leaders celebrate. ***Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.Leaders never score off their own people by stealing an idea and claiming it as their own.You are not a leader to win a popularity contest. You are a leader to lead.If you're left with that uh-oh feeling in your stomach, don't hire the guy.Just because you're the boss doesn't mean you're the source of all knowledge.Work is too much a part of life not to recognise moments of achievment. Grab as many as you can. Make a big deal out of them.HIRINGLook for positive energy, ability to energise the others, edge (the courage to make tough yes-or-no decisions), the ability to get the job done and passion.For the top look for authenticity, the ability to see around the corners, the strong penchant to surround themselves with people better and smarter than they are, heavy-duty resilience.Do not hire someone into the last job of his career, unless it's to be the head of a function or CEO.PEOPLE MANAGEMENT1. Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers build leaders and careers. In fact, the HR types are pastors and parents in the same package.2. Use a rigorous, nonbureaucratic evaluation system, monitored for integrety.3. Create effective mechanisms: money, recognition, training -- to motivate and retain.4. Face straight into charged relationships -- with unions, stars, sliders, and disrupters.5. Fight gravity, and instead of taking the middle 70% for granted, treat them like the heart and sould of the organisation.6. Design the org char to be as flat as possible, with blindingly clear reporting relationships and responsibilities.Good evaluation systems are:1. Clear and simple2. Meare on relevant, agreed-upon criteria that relate directly to an individual's performance3. At least one evaluation a year, preferably twice in format, face-to-face sessions4. Should include a professional development componentIdeally, a star wil be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company.Make the company flatter. Managers should have ten direct reports at the minimum and 30 to 50 percent more if they are experienced.FIRINGNo surprises. No humiliation. Every person who leaves goes on to represent your company. They can bad-mouth or praise. Integrity violations are no-brainers. Don't hesitate for a moment and let everyone know why.Layoffs are more complicated. They shouldn't come as a surprise. Every employee should know how a company is doing.Firing for nonperformance is delicate. It shouldn't be a surprise. Use your instincts.CHANGE1. Attach every change to a clear goal.2. Hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-it types.3. Ferret out and remove the resisters, even if their performance is satisfactory.4. Look out for wrecks and exploit change.CRISIS MANAGEMENTDon't deny there's a problem, act. Implement change to prevent this in the future. The organisation will survive, ultimately stronger for what happened.STRATEGYStrategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. Ponder less, do more:1. Come up with a big aha for your business -- a smart, realistic, relatively fast way to gain sustainable competitive advantage.WHAT THE PLAYING FIELD LOOKS LIKE NOWWho are the competitors in this business, large and small, new and old?Who has what share, globally and in each market? Where do we fit in?What are the characteristics of this business? Commodity or high value or something in between?Is it long cycle or short?Where is it on the growth curve? What the drivers of profitability?What are the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor? How good are their products? How much does each one spend on R&D? How big is each sales force? How performance-driven is each culture?Who are this business's main customers, and how do they buy?WHAT YOUR COMPETITION HAS BEEN UP TOWhat has each competitor done in the past year to change the playing field?Has anyone introduced game-changing new products, technologies, distribution channels?Are there any new entrants, and what have they been up to in the past year?WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TOWhat have you done in the past year to change the competitive playing field?Have you bought a company, introduced a new product, stolen a competitor's key salesperson, or licensed a new technology from a start-up?Have you lost any competitive advantages that you once had -- a great salesperson, a special product, a proprietary technology?WHAT'S AROUND THE CORNERWhat scares you most in the year ahead -- what one or two things could a competitor do to nail you?What new products or technologies could you competitors launch that might change the game?What M&A deals would knock you off your feet?WHAT'S YOUR WINNING MOVE?What can you do to change the playing field -- is it an acquisition, a new product, globalisation?What can you do to make customers stick to you more than ever before and more than to anyone else?2. Put the right people in the right jobs to drive the big aha forward.3. Relentlessly seek out the best practices to achieve your big aha, whether inside or out, adapt them, and continually improve them.BUDGETINGLink it to strategy, and focus on two questions:How can we beat last year's performance?What is our competition doing, and how can we beat them?ORGANIC GROWTH1. Spend plenty up front and put the best, hungries, and most passionate people in leadership roles.2. Make an exaggerated commotion about the potential and importance of the new venture.3. Err on the side of freedom; get off of the new venture's back.MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONSWhen done right 1+3=3. Seven pitfalls:1. Believing that a merger of equals can actually occur.2. Ignoring cultural fit.3. "Reverse hostage" situation, where the acquired ends up calling all the shots afterwards.4. Integrating too timidly. A merger should be complete within niety days.5. Conqueror syndrome where the acquired talent is lost.6. Paying to much.7. Resistance of the acquired teamSIX SIGMASix Sigma is a way to improve a copmany's operational efficiency, raise productivity, and lower costs.A huge part of making your customers sticky is meeting or exceeding their expectations, which is exactly what Six Sigma helps you do.Six Sigma is about variation and removing it from your customer's interface with you.THE RIGHT JOBWorking for some companies is like winning an Olympic medal. For the rest of your career, you are associated with great performance.Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your chances or shut them down.Working to fulfill someone else's needs or dreams almost always catches up with you.If a job doesn't excite you on some level -- just because of the stuff of it -- don't settle.Authenticity may be the best selling point you've got.If you are let go don't let yourself spiral into inertia and despair.The job is for you if:*** You like the people a lot -- you can relate to them, and you genuinely enjoy their company. In fact, they even think and act like you do.The job gives you the opportunity to grow as a person and a professional and you get the feeling you will learn things there that you didn't even know you needed to learn.The job gives you a credential you can take with you, and is in a business and industry with a future.You are taking the job for yourself, or you know whom you are taking it for, and feel at peace with the bargain.The "stuff" of the job turns your crank -- you love the work, it feels fun and meaningful to you, and even touches something primal in your soul. ***The job isn't for you if:*** You feel like you'll need to put on a persona at work. After a visit to the company, you find yourself saying things like, "I donj't need to be friends with the people I work with".You're being hired as an expert, and upon arrival, you will most likely be the smartest person in the room.The industry has peaked or has awful economics, and the company itself, for any number of reasons, will do little to expand your career options.You are taking the job for any number of other constituents, such as a spouse who wants you to travel less or the sixth-grade teacher who said you would never amount to anything.The job feels like a job. In taking it, you things like, "This is just until something better comes along", or "You can't beat the money". ***GETTING PROMOTEDDo deliver sensational performance, far beyond expectations, and at every opportunity expand your job beyond its official boundaries.Don't make your boss use political capital in order to champion you.Do manage your relationships with your subordinates with the same carefulness that you manage the one with your boss.Do get on the radar screen by being an early champion of your company's major projects or initiatives.Do search out and relish the input of lots of mentors, realising that mentors don't always look like mentors. There is no one right mentor. There are many right mentors.Do have a positive attitude and spread it around. You can win without being upbeat -- if every other star is aligned -- but why would you want to try?Don't let setbacks break your stride.A BAD BOSSGenerally speaking, bosses are not awful to people whom they like, respect, and need. Think hard about your performance.In any bad boss situation you cannot let yourself be a victim.WORK-LIFE BALANCEThe reality:1. Your boss's top priority is competitiveness. Of course he wants you to be happy, but only insasmuch as it helps the company win. In fact, if he is doing the job right, he is making your job so exciting that your peronal life becomes a less compelling draw.2. Most bosses are perfectly willing to accommodate work-life balance challenges if you have earned it with performance. The key word here is: IF3. Bosses know that the work-life policies in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes and that real work-life arrangements are negotiated one-on-one in the context of a supportive culture, not in the context of "But the company says ..!"4. People who publicly struggle with work-life balance problems and continually turn to the company for help get pigeonholed as ambivalent, entitled, uncommited, or incompetent -- or all of the above.5. Even the most accommodating bosses believe that work-life balance is your problem to solve. In fact, most know that there are really just a handful of effective strategies to do that, and they wish you would use them.Best practices:1. Keep your head in whatever game you're at, i.e. compartmentalise.2. Have the mettle to say no to requests and demands outside your chosen work-life balance plan.3. Make sure your work-life balance plan doesn't leave you out.
I started this book as I was developing the concept of what would become my recently launched business. Many of the the principles Jack discusses have already been put into action and others I'm looking forward to implementing. My biggest takeaways:-My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now that my GE career is over, I'm telling you that it was my candor that helped make it work. It just felt natural to speak openly, argue and debate, and get things to happen fast.-What leaders do: -relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence -make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it -get into everyone's skin, exuding positive energy and optimism -establish trust with candor, transparency and credit -have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls -probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action -inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example -celebrate -Self-confidence energizes, and it gives your people the courage to stretch, take risks and achieve beyond their dreams; it is the fuel of winning teams.-Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can't cut bait.-Every leader makes mistakes, every leader stumbles and falls. The question with a senior-level leader is, does she learn from her mistakes, regroup, and then get going again with renewed speed, conviction and confidence? The name for this trait is resilience, and it is so important that a leader must have it going into a job because if she doesn't, a crisis time is too late to learn it.-Any candidate you hire in a managerial role must have the first two Es, positive energy and the ability to energize. Edge and execution can be developed with experience and management training.-If you've hired the right people, they will want to grow. They will be bursting with the desire to learn and do more. A company that manages people well helps make that happen.-When it comes to strategy, ponder less and do more.-Companies and their people - if they're not direct competitors, of course - love to share success stories. All you have to do is ask.-Annual strategic planning: how can we beat last year's performance? what is our competition doing, and how can we beat them?-If you want real work-life balance, find a company that accommodates it as part of its everyday business.
What do You think about Winning (2005)?
When Warren Buffett says that - "No other management book would ever be needed", he is right on the money. Jack Welch, the most celebrated CEO of the corporate world, lays down a water-tight blueprint for winning in business. A striking feature of this book is that he always gives you his perspective as black and(or) white. There is no grey area when he tries to justify his point thereby not leaving any scope for ambiguity. Probably, this stems from the fact that at the outset he declares that his work is entirely based on the experiences he had while attending/chairing multiple Q&A sessions on - How To Win! Jack has provided multiple frameworks for many facets of the business that would definitely help you WIN. A fantastic read for a management disciple !
—Vishal Shaw
Easy to read, extremely useful and full of practical advises you'd like to apply once you read them. This is a must read directional guide not only for former executives, but also for those who are going to be a leader. Author enreached his book with plenty of stories and real life examples illustrating each advise or principle.
—Elina Ishchenko
I would recommend this book to anyone no matter if you are a business person or not. I really loved this book and kept talking to Shawn about it. I think his theories can apply to everyone in whatever they are doing in life. I kept thinking about the characteristics of a "winning person" and what I can do to improve. Basically his take home message is that a "winning person" is one who helps others succeed in life. What a great message. He gives lots of great practical advice for self-improvement.
—Martianngray
