Quote

Stretch targets energize. We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible and even when we don't quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.

Jack Welch

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Jack Welch
Age: 84 †
Born: 1935
Born: November 19
Died: 2020
Died: March 1
Author
Businessperson
Engineer
Journalist
Manager
Writer
Peabody
Massachusetts
John Francis Welch
Jr.
John Francis Jack Welch
Jr.
Better
Appears
Done
Reaching
Even
Wind
Much
Quite
Energize
Make
Impossible
Targets
Would
Actually
Stretch
Often
Inevitably
Found
Target

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Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.
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We have built a company with a business mix and operating system that will allow us to deliver record results in any foreseeable economic climate, ... We have just completed a very successful management transition and I've never been more confident about the company's future.
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Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.
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People who are coaches will be the norm. Other people won't get promoted.
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If we get the right people in the right job we've won the game.
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Face reality as it is, not as it was, or as you wish it were. Be candid with everyone. Don't manage, lead. Change before you have to. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete. Control your own destiny, or someone else will.
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I believe that in any initiative, you can't have a flavor of the month. When you believe something is profound in a company, you can not be a logical leader. You have to go to the lunatic fringe. There is no way that logic is what you need to change people.
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Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It's that simple.
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Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren't just satisfied, they're so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.
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Don't make the process harder than it is.
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I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.
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Some people have better ideas than others some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.
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Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence.
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It is better to act too quickly than it is to wait too long.
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You can't behave in a calm, rational manner. You've got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.
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The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people.
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Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood……. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple.
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There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.
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Give me a highly successful unionized industry.
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Managers can waste a lot of time at the outset of a crisis denying that something went wrong. Skip that step.
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