Quotes by Jack Welch

• We've only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?
• 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.
• 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.
• Number one, cash is king... number two, communicate... number three, buy or bury the competition.
• 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.
• The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.
• 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.
• The Internet is the Viagra of big business.
• If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
• We bring together the best ideas - turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies.
• The team with the best players wins.
• Change before you have to.
• Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.
• If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.
• Be candid with everyone.
• Control your own destiny or someone else will.
• Don't manage - lead change before you have to.
• Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.
• Give me a highly successful unionized industry.
• Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.
• 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.
• I was afraid of the internet... because I couldn't type.
• I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.
• An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.
• Success doesn't come from what you do occasionally; it comes from what you do consistently—in pajamas or not!