Winning Jack Welch Book Summary Before giving a summary about the book, I would like to discuss one

e thing, What does winning mean ? As stated by Welch, an answer which I support is that Winning is essentially, being at the position where you wish to be. Winning is a book by Jack Welch, in which he basically tries to answer just one question :What it takes to win. I would like to summarise the book on the basis of how it is organised. It has been divided into three parts, Where the first part, called Underneath it all. Is conceptual and talks about management philosophy. Here, he clearly defines the roles of missions and values in the success of a company, according to him, a mission statement basically answers just one question : How do we intend to win this Business. And values are just the set of behaviours that tell us how do we wish to achieve our mission. One important thing he mentioned here is that mission and values should be clearly defined in an organisation and be so descriptive that they leave little to the imagination. Next he discusses the importance of candor ( Openness ) in business. He highlighted the importance of candor in three primary ways: candor facilitates creativity by getting more people into communication, generates speed in communicating things as ideas can be debated along freely, and cuts cost. Now comes the controversial part: Differentiation. According to Welch, managers should assess their employees and separate them into three categories of performance: the top 20%, middle 70% and bottom 10%, then act on the distinction. The top 20% should be treated as stars, rewarded and nurtured. Management of the middle 70% should focus on training, positive feedback and thoughtful goal setting, including identifying people with potential to move up and cultivating them. The bottom 10% has to go. He sees terminating these people as a humane action that may free these employees to pursue successful careers at companies and in pursuits where they truly belong and at which they excel. The second part is called Your Company , and is about innards of organisations: people, processes and culture. Jack talks about People management and hiring. He believes Human resources as the most important resource for any organisation, and states that the Human Resource Manager should be treated as important as the CFO of a company. He then discusses about things to be kept in mind while hiring people ( energy, ability to energise others, decision making and ability to execute things). He also stated the importance of performance appraisals and how they need to be carried out on a regular basis with full candor. Next he talks about a job that many managers fail to handle nicely: letting people go. He discusse the main reasons behind firing, and the degree to which they should be tolerated, non adherence to a companys values for example should have zero tolerance. Jack then talked about how to carry out this process peacefully in such a way that both the employer and the employee are convinced that it happened for good. Finally he talks about Leadership and the importance of change in the organisation, and how

resistors to change should not be tolerated and the job of the leaders to motivate and convince their teams in adapting to change. The Third part is called Your Competition, and it is about the world outside the organisation. In this part Jack talks about strategy and how it gets arduous. He believes strategy to be very straightforward: just choosing a direction and following it with all your might, and defined strategy to making clear cut choices on how to compete. He shows how to one company strategy could be product, while to some other company it might be service. Next he talks about budgeting and how it sometimes sucks the energy time and fun out of the organisation, and how can we tackle it.(through innovation). Next he talks about organic growth: innovation and initiative within the organisation, and then lists down various techniques to achieve success with such developments : Through spending, allotting leadership roles to the most passionate people and making an exaggerated commotion about the potential and importance of the new venture. Finally he talks about Six Sigma and the effectiveness it promises when it comes to raising a companys operational efficiency, cutting costs and raising productivity. The fourth part is called Your Career, and is about managing the quality of your professional life. In the beginning of this part Jack provides an algorithm to find the right job for oneself: to keep on trying various jobs to learn about your passions and dislikes, and you will eventually find the right job. He talks about on how to get promoted : simply by doing more than what is asked for, by finding the right values, following the companys values and by continuously growing yourself. He finally talks about on how to deal with a bad boss: by talking, and how to balance ones life and career: by compartmentalising your life and by setting priorities. The book ends with a string of questions people have thrown at Welch over the years.