Even with his shortcomings, the results say Jack Welch.
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Anyone who states Welch (the start of financial manipulation) or I Melt (ultimate destroyer by selling off the cash generation of Capital) is clearly out to lunch. Flannery while not really any good, should have been given more time since Culp is only following that playbook.
The next one. How could they possibly be worse than what we've had??!!
Welch built it, Immelt destroyed it. Apart from 9/11 which was a "black swan" event words he used to describe his failures, was the only thing he had no control over.
2007/08 financial crisis, his idealised view GE was too big to fail.
Losing the AAA rating damaged the company by increasing interest rates. Selling Capital the biggest in a long line of acquistions/divestitures.
IoT remember his forecasts of how much it was worth $23 billion annually.
Immelt"s fist act was to cancel Welch's share of success program were every employee got a bonus depending on how GE and your company performed.
Double digit growth when market conditions and GE beauracracy under Immelt stifled growth.
Fastworks treating a conglomerate like a startup...
I don't need to read up on mutually assured destruction. I lived through it. If the idea is to intertwine economic activity in hope that countries will become homogeneous then the plan will never work. Money as an incentive is only attractive to people who see money as the ultimate goal. Socioeconomic groups have radically different histories and beliefs that are passed down through generations. They fight and die for these views. That is why some leaders just use capitalist ideas to bud up the country and then use the new economic strength to attack others in the hope of wiping out ideas that they find abhorrent. In other words, the economic ties have never and will never prevent war.
@3apv+1fqQzoxL read up on M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction, apply it to the global economy and get back to me. It should help you understand why "outsourcing" has been allowed to occur the way it has over the past 60 plus years.
Many companies do this but not all and it doesn't make it right that "everybody else is doing it" a company has a duty to protect the shareholders from hostile forces coming from communist countries with bloodthirsty tyrants bent on destroying all dissenters. You should have learned this in school-- High School History classes should be teaching it. They aren't and so we are in for disaster. The CEOs don't understand the importance of freedom and so they built up China and Russia who just played them until they were strong enough to attack weaker countries and now the missiles are flying. How foolish could you be.
I think Welch was fortunate that his tenor was during good times and allowed for GE’s expansion. A lot of smoke and mirrors but it worked. Wasn’t real but the stock holders bought it. Unfortunately no one since that time could pull off the same show. Let’s admit all companies do this, unfortunately GE lost its groove.
Any CEO that sent work to China while ignoring the warnings of others is foolish and may have doomed this once great company. It certainly hurt US jobs and world stability as is quickly becoming painfully obvious.
Welch and Imelt did wonderful things
I think that he said, "if there is no umbrella in the drink...."
Hands down. Flannery by far. He did one of the best All Hands Broadcast Town Hall Meetings of all time back in 2017. “Flannery and Friends” as one one prominent high ranking executive once called it, inspired us all as the company was crumbling in a free fall from Two Jets mismanagement of the company. The “cool kids” on that stage, whom all had multi-million severance packages awaiting them by the way, humbled themselves and offered us hope in our time of need. Not to mention the condolences for our worthless stock. The laughter on the stage and compliments towards each other gave us hope. The icing on the cake was when the question was asked to our honorable Power Head Honcho:
Flannery: "So Russell, where do you like to vacation?"
Russell: "Maui. Of course. Because if it doesn't have sun, and palm trees, and sand, it just doesn't count as a vacation."
A treasured moment.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and pick Thomas Edison. With his list of life altering inventions and business developments, he is in a class by himself. I don't know how he got it all done in one lifetime. I suppose government was smaller back then so that helped him and other great innovators like Henry Ford do some amazing things that we should be grateful for today.
I want to put Jones slightly ahead of Welch. Jones did well but played it safe. The 70's were lousy after all. He picked Welch and Welch had the vision to see where the waste was and where the potential was. He was willing to remove the waste unlike Jones and was more than willing to take the huge risks for getting the most outcome. You can hate Welch all you want, but if it weren't for him, GE never would have grown/expanded in the manner that it did and created the jobs/high wages that followed as well. What's unfortunate is that there was nobody at Welch's level to take over.