Business Intelligence

by Jack Welch (13400)

What does it take to win?

This is the sole question everyone in business should be focused on each day. When your business wins, there are many great flow-on effects and benefits¡Xpeople have the opportunity to grow, move jobs are created, more taxes are paid, shareholders get a return on their investment and the list goes on and on. Winning companies are literally the engine of a healthy economy, and the pinnacle of the free enterprise system.

Pure and simple, companies and people have to find a way to win day-in and day-out. There are no easy formulas that can be used, or any exotic or mysterious shortcuts involved. Winning can be brutally hard to achieve but when everything comes together and you win, great things happen.

There is a roadmap to winning that anyone can follow to achieve success in business and in life.

A personal business philosophy

Mission, Values: Great leaders get their mission straight and have concrete business values. They ensure both their organization¡¦s mission statement and values are mutually reinforcing and see there is no disconnect between what¡¦s said and what¡¦s done.

Candor: Always speak your mind, and create conditions where everyone else can say what they think. More than anything else, this alone will unclutter your organization and let everyone operate better and faster.

Differentiation: Companies win when they create strict meritocracies ¡V when only the best ideas and people are allowed to rise to the top while the weak are culled. You simply have to differentiate the way you allocate resources to make gains.

Voice, Dignity: Every person in the world wants their voice to be heard at work. They want to be respected for their individuality. It makes good sense to do exactly that because in business, you want every brain available to you to be in the game.

Your company

Leadership: Leadership is all about growing others and helping them be successful. It¡¦s also a balancing act ¡V like generating short-term results while also investing for the future. More than anything, however, the best leaders really care about their people.

Hiring: It¡¦s very difficult to hire great people but you have to find a way to do so. Getting the right people on board is the one thing that can make or break anything you try to do. Find great people and get them to work and everything else can be worked out.

People: Once you hire the right people, you have to manage them just as competently. In essence this means helping them work together, consistently improving their performance, staying motivated and growing as leaders in your enterprise.

Firing: Firing people ¡V either for poor performance or as a result of economic downturns ¡V is never much fun. It comes with the territory, however. The best you can do is to make the process tolerable for everyone involved.

Be a change agent: To stay in business today, you have to be prepared to be in more or less a constant state of change. Use this to your advantage. Always look for ways to benefit from changes rather than bemoaning the death of something familiar.

Managing a crisis: Sooner or later, you¡¦re going to have a business crisis on your hands. The challenge is to put energy into addressing the crisis while at the same time you carry on with everything else as if nothing is wrong. That¡¦s a difficult balancing act to pull off.

Your competition

Strategy: Business strategy is not rocket science. You decide the direction you want to go and then focus intensively on implementing. You then revisit your course of action regularly and update it to reflect changing market conditions.

Budgeting: It¡¦s time to reinvent the budgeting ritual in most organizations. Financial planning is good, but the current budgeting process wastes too much time and energy. Instead, do something completely different that puts fun back into the process.

Organic Growth: Starting a new line of business is exhilarating. To pull this off, managers have to act against their instincts, meaning it¡¦s difficult to actually do. When you see something new start from scratch, and become successful, you¡¦ll like it.

Mergers: To make a merger or an acquisition work, there are seven pitfalls to avoid. If you get carried away in the excitement of the moment and avoid dealing with these realities, chances are your M&A activities just won¡¦t create the synergies you¡¦re looking for.

Quality: Every company needs a quality improvement program like GE¡¦s Six Sigma. You have to have something in place that will improve your customer¡¦s experience, lower your costs and build better corporate leaders.

Your career

The right job: If you find the right job, it won¡¦t even feel like you¡¦re working. If not, you won¡¦t be able to get to work and make your contribution. Choose something you love to do, alongside people you like, and give it your all.

Getting promoted: Taking into account the fact that luck will always play a part in getting promoted, do all you can to be in the right place at the right time with the appropriate list of achievements to your name. Don¡¦t try and look for shortcuts because there aren¡¦t any in this area.

Managing bosses: If somehow you find yourself working for a bad boss, don¡¦t start thinking and acting like a victim. That won¡¦t help you at all. Instead, face the issue head-on and find ways to either accept the situation, fix it or end it.

Balance: Achieving the perfect work-life balance is exceptionally difficult, but not impossible. It really comes down to a few choices you have to make. Everyone wants to have it all, but if that¡¦s just not possible, what do you want more than anything else?

Winning by Jack Welch

(16408) Dave Lakhani says:

People defend their beliefs with passion. To increase your ability to persuade others, take the time to understand what their personal belief systems are. Then focus on presenting ideas that build on those beliefs as far as possible rather than trying to change them.

People are most likely to be receptive to changing their beliefs when the current situation has caused them stress, concern or confusion. If you present new ideas with conviction and credibility, you create an environment where the person accepts the new ideas. The most successful persuaders let the other party make up their own mind and reach their own conclusions. To be able to persuade others, at times it will be necessary to put your own beliefs aside and focus on the belief systems of the people you are attempting to persuade.