Jack Welch quotes

“An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

— Jack Welch

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

— Jack Welch

“Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.”

— Jack Welch

“Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.”

— Jack Welch

“Change before you have to.”

— Jack Welch

“You've got to eat while you dream. You've got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that.”

— Jack Welch

“Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.”

— Jack Welch

“I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that's a big deal. And if you're going to be a leader - if you're a leader and you're the smartest guy in the world - in the room, you've got real problems.”

— Jack Welch

“A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.”

— Jack Welch

“You can't grow long-term if you can't eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.”

— Jack Welch

“Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.”

— Jack Welch

“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.”

— Jack Welch

“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. Jack Welch Reality, Wish, Face Control your own destiny or someone else will.”

— Jack Welch

“Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.”

— Jack Welch

“The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don't like to use the word efficiency. It's creativity. It's a belief that every person counts.”

— Jack Welch

“There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

— Jack Welch

“My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.”

— Jack Welch

“Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.”

— Jack Welch

“Culture drives great results.”

— Jack Welch

“If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.”

— Jack Welch

“You got to be rigorous in your appraisal system.”

— Jack Welch

“The biggest cowards are managers who don't let people know where they stand.”

— Jack Welch

“The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important - and then get out of their way while they do it.”

— Jack Welch

“I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.”

— Jack Welch

“Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.”

— Jack Welch

“Be candid with everyone.”

— Jack Welch

“The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don't have to work hard.”

— Jack Welch

“If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you're stuck.”

— Jack Welch

“In order to lead a country or a company, you've got to get everybody on the same page and you've got to be able to have a vision of where you're going. America can't have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations - can't have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It's got to have a vision.”

— Jack Welch

“One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot.”

— Jack Welch

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