JackedUP - How Jack Welch Raced GE Managers

Howdy,

Thank you Steve Shulenski for being so Alert - down-under.

Thought I'd share an insight about an IDEA in a book I'm reading for the 2nd time.

**JackedUP** by Bill Lane - former speech writer and Director of Communications for Jack Welch at GE.

Before Jack there was no "GE University."
Jack - literally - spent a billion dollars on educating
and training GE employees.

HECK - Before Jack there was no Director of Communications!

Jack brought in the BEST of his team LEADERS from all over the world to share how they did things.

Which leads to an Insight...

When Jack Welch took over at GE...

I - All meetings were about planning.
II - Quarterly Meetings of the Division Heads - all speakers selected talked about some big Coup or Successful project they'd already completed.
III - 100% of GE get-to-gethers were self congratulatory. Without any specific content or Added Value.

All meetings were about patting
themselves on the back.

Jack quickly decided that the pace of change was
such that GE didn't have time to celebrate past WINS.

Jack spent a great deal of time and effort choosing and planning for a very different Type of Meeting.

ALL TOPICS for meetings AND the Speakers Chosen for the BIG and Small Sales, marketing, Engineering and management meetings were DRAMATICALLY CHANGED.

ONLY TOP Performers at Units were invited to speak.

AND

Jack didn't take it for granted they would share specifics of what they were doing NOW - that allowed them to OUT-STRIP their competitors in whatever market they were in.

OH NO.

Jack forced each manager and speaker to send in the outline of their presentation. Almost all of these outlines were Re-worked. Often Bill Lane would work with the Division Presidents 6 months ahead of the presentation to get the speech Clear, concise and put into terms

Easy to understand and implement - by all the other Division managers.

Major promotions were given to those who
WOWED the audience - and Jack - at these events.

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ACTION SUMMARY -

There are many BIGGER ideas in JackedUp - like how Jack used Invisible Hypnosis to get inside the heads of 100's of Financial Writers. Persuade them to raise their Opinion of the value of GE Stock....

To boost GE stock by billions of dollars.

But...

This idea of Racing the top performers against each other in Public forums.

And

Forcing them to reveal the SECRETS they normally would hide on HOW they are doing it. BRIBING them with More Munny and Promotions.

Is Something ALL of us
in the Information Business
can do.

Google does it by forcing all employees to SHARE something new they're doing each week - or be FIRED. (Not the same Motivation Gambit at all.)

Thought I'd mention this
idea here. Because all of us
who run one employee companies...

Or small businesses with a few employees can Imitate What Jack Welch did
without any extra expense. It's all about Scarce INFORMATION.

Added Value ideas.

Idea Power as a way to get a Huge Advantage over competitors.

Thanks,
Glenn