Jack Welch - Publications - Faculty & Research

12 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Waking Up a Sleeping Company

existing culture and adopt your predecessor's style can be irresistible. But as Jack Welch recognized when he became CEO of GE, it is often necessary to evolve a successful company's culture to prepare for a... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

05 Nov 2007
What Do You Think?

Why Is Succession So Badly Managed?

understanding of the organization and its culture, and a good knowledge of its talent that "outsiders" have to accumulate over time, often with some difficulty. Exhibit A among "insider outsiders" is Jack View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

10 Jan 2007
HBS Case

The Challenge of Managing National Security

becomes the centralized provider of the leadership and infrastructure that allow the community to take decentralized yet coordinated action. That's what we see in really effective private-sector firms, like what Jack View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

11 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Women Entrepreneurs Usher in the Next Generation

goal, she said, is to give people a better sense of the variety out there. "If you read business books on leadership, you would see only white American men, literally, and probably the same ones over and over again," she added, citing View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

31 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

You’re Wasting Your Employees! What You Can Do About It

today's managers are trying to implement third-generation strategies through second-generation organizations with first-generation management. In an earlier study we analyzed the evolution of CEO Jack Welch's thinking at General Electric... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

02 Feb 2004
What Do You Think?

Leadership: A Matter of Sustaining or Eliminating Groupthink?

a role that Jack Welch is striving to play in his post-CEO life. Fighting groupthink is probably just as worthy an endeavor as attaining buy in. But what are the risks in fighting groupthink for the leader... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

28 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 28, 2007

Jack Welch emphasized that GE should support only the most profitable businesses in the company's portfolio, a logic that led Welch and GE to phase out GE's consumer... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Jan 2005
Research & Ideas

The Knowledge Coach

another. When e-business burst on the scene, GE's CEO Jack Welch was impressed by the strategy adopted by the CEO of GE's Global Consumer Finance (GCF) division, who realized he was not up to speed in... View Details

Keywords: by Dorothy Leonard & Walter Swap

08 Apr 2015
What Do You Think?

Are Technology Companies Ripe for Disruption?

little of the policy issues, product discussions, and even general news coming out of the tech world. That's my problem. I need to fix it by doing what Jack Welch asked all of his senior colleagues at GE to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Computer; Technology

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

his family. Only at the end of his life did he admit those costs. It is a little like Jack Welch admitting that he should have spent more of those Saturday mornings with his family. Q: Many great German... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Publications