I read about the legend, Jack Welch, passing away on Sunday, last week. Felt quite sad in that moment but continued through my week. For some reason the news stuck with me and kept me thinking. Like for many of my colleagues, Jack came into my life through his books on management. We were all young, fresh and curious about his success in the 80's and 90's. His bold short sentences and his style of quoting interesting facts, for application, in management, both for business and for people really impressed all of us. And then we were introduced to six sigma! which was an original concept from Motorola but was adopted fiercely at General Electric (GE) under Jack's leadership.
By the end of 90's and early 2000's Jack's stardom in management industry was at its peak and I remember reading, him being crowned as 'manager of the century' and with many other titles.
Jack was a strong man, and was known for taking quite unpopular decisions and some went to the extent of calling him, cruel. I personally never met him or worked with him but as a student of management in my early career I derived a lot of inspiration from Jack on performance management.
I remember reading this or similar somewhere where Jack quoted "What would happen if for years and years you don’t tell someone that they are underperforming, not giving them the chance to try to improve, check whether they can do something else in the company, or alternatively look for somewhere else? And then a recession comes, and you need to fire the person, older and unprepared, in a much tougher market? Which is crueller?”
The quote in the above paragraph stuck with me for many years, I even remember firing a couple of my team members in Sitel while servicing our client DELL computers back in 2004. The above philosophy guided me through some hard decisions. In this particular example; looking back today, I can definitely say, that both people whom I had to let go, are doing extremely well and that decision was the right decision to take- as their core strengths were very different to what was needed on the job.
The other thing that I clinch upon, are his early years as a kid; Jack would always talk about his mother and how he derived learnings and inspiration from her. In an interview Jack shared that his mother said to him often "If you don’t know how to lose, you’ll never know how to win!” which is one of the most powerful things I had heard during those early days of my customer service career.
During the 2008/09 financial crisis I again discovered another quote of Jack, which made me laugh, instantaneously...it was “There are more mediocre people making more money on Wall Street than on any other place on earth,”
Dear Jack this post is a tribute to you for the contributions you made to me as a person, through your actions, thoughts and more so through your books and your story. For a man who came from a background that you came from and for a young man who stuttered in his early life, your story was about; overcoming situations, working hard, making tough decisions and succeeding at any cost. Today's world is different and not all your strategies would work in this hyper connected age. The world back then needed you and you did the best you could with your passion.
The last one for this article; and my current favourite quote, especially when I work with young entrepreneurs around the world. “If we wait for the perfect answer, the world will pass us by.” so I interpret that the key is to start fast, fail fast, learn fast and build again and again until you succeed.
Jack you had an interesting life and you made a lot of impact on this world. Now rest in peace great man. Thank You.
Also published on LinkedIN here: www.Linkedin.com/in/talk2tahirkhan
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