Jack Welch was for many years the CEO of General Electric, and the phrases of the former CEO of one of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world are relevant. Thanks to a very effective management style he managed to grow the company impressively during his tenure. He has left us some very powerful quotes that can inspire more than one businessman.
1. Jack Welch phrases about human resources
Putting the right people in the right jobs is much more important than developing a strategy.
Aspiring entrepreneurs must be clear about one thing: it is more important how the business idea is going to be launched than the idea itself. And how people determine it. If you choose your staff well and put each one in a place where they can express their potential, great things will be achieved.
The team with the best players wins.
Taking the best ideas from each one and transmitting them to others is the secret, there is nothing more important.
We had already seen with Akio Morita that creativity was the key factor in the industry. And where does creativity come from? Precisely the best ideas of each one. If each person keeps their occurrences to themselves, we will not achieve anything, so we must look for tools that allow us to share those ideas.
In the end, all business operations can be boiled down to three words, people, product, and profit. Unless you have a good team, you don’t have much to do with the other two.
Again the insistence on the importance of having good professionals.
2. On change and success
Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than the result of being able to respond quickly to real changes as they happen.
Adapt. That’s what most of business life is all about. The world is changing faster and faster. Of course, it is important to plan, you cannot go randomly, but in the end, the situations will never go as planned, and the ability to respond quickly will be crucial.
Change before you have to.
Sooner or later, you will have to change. It is better to anticipate and not become forced by circumstances.
Control your destiny or someone will control it.
It is the same idea, said in other words.
When the rate of change inside the company is outpaced by the rate of change outside, the end is near.
A few months ago we saw a phrase by Jeff Bezos who said: the dangerous thing is not to evolve. Jack Welch goes further. It is not only necessary to change but to do so at a rate higher than the evolution of the world.
Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.
One of the great resistances to change is precisely that sometimes we can refuse to see the world as it is. It happens with some entrepreneurs with very good business ideas in theory, but when they face the market they fail because they accepted too many hypotheses as true. That is why it is so important to test the concepts and correct them based on reality.
I have learned that mistakes can be as good a teacher as success.
Failure is something very formative for many of the great entrepreneurs that we have mentioned in these articles. For example, Henry Ford stated that ” failure is the opportunity to start over in a more intelligent way “. The undertaking is taking risks, and you have to accept not only the risk but also having to go through failures. It is only useful to make mistakes if we learn from them.
3. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
I think it’s a very powerful phrase. When you are preparing your business model, one of the most important questions you have to ask yourself is “What is my competitive advantage?”. If you don’t have it, either you redesign the project or you abandon it.
It sounds very obvious, but unfortunately, many entrepreneurs limit themselves to opening a business (bar, restaurant, shop, etc.) without any competitive advantage, that is, without providing customers with this differentiating element, this added value that will make them choose our business before That the others.
4. Jack Welch phrases about quality
Quality is our best guarantee of customer loyalty, our strongest defense against foreign competition, and the only path to growth and profit.
It is a phrase very adapted to the current situation in, Europe and in general most Western countries. Faced with low-cost competition from emerging countries, the only solution is to add value, creating quality products and services.
5. Vision and action
Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is just passing time. Action with vision is making a positive difference.
Talking about vision is the same as when Akio Morita mentioned goals. To move forward you have to set a course and a destination AND act to achieve it. How many people have a business project, or a business idea but don’t dare to launch it? They are dreamers. And how many entrepreneurs work day and night without knowing why? They are passing the time.
Do you have a good idea? What are you waiting for? Get going!
Are you immersed in work? For a moment! Take some time! Reflect. Are you clear on why you are doing it? Nope? Then redesign yourself.
