Jack Welch was a chemical engineer who thought he was the world’s greatest CEO. Many of his admirers agreed, but in hindsight he was a terrible executive. Like the far less accomplished Trump, Welch’s actions were extremely destructive.
To me, Welch’s management ideas were bogus on their face, especially the annual culling of the ranks, based upon the “stacked ranking” of employees. If a company lets go of the bottom 10% of its staff every year, even assuming valid criteria are used, competent employees will be lost. All you’re doing is providing talent for other companies to hire, and lowering morale in the process. Ultimately, productivity will decline, and that was exactly what happened at General Electric.
No, I don’t get any money if you buy Gelles’ book. I have no relationship with Amazon, other than being a customer for the past 26 years.