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Jack: Straight from the Gut | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jack Welch, John A. Byrne
Publisher: Business Plus
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  256 reviews
Sales Rank: 303082
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0446528382
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.762138092
EAN: 9780446528382
ASIN: 0446528382
Publication Date: September 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com's Best of 2001
It's hard to think of a CEO that commands as much respect as Jack Welch. Under his leadership, General Electric reinvented itself several times over by integrating new and innovative practices into its many lines of business. In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch, with the help of Business Week journalist John Byrne, recounts his career and the style of management that helped to make GE one of the most successful companies of the last century. Beginning with Welch's childhood in Salem, Massachusetts, the book quickly progresses from his first job in GE's plastics division to his ambitious rise up the GE corporate ladder, which culminated in 1981. What comes across most in this autobiography is Welch's passion for business as well as his remarkable directness and intolerance of what he calls "superficial congeniality"--a dislike that would help earn him the nickname "Neutron Jack." In spite of its 496 pages, Jack: Straight from the Gut is a quick read that any student or manager would do well to consider. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Product Description
It's hard to think of a CEO that commands as much respect as Jack Welch. Under his leadership, General Electric reinvented itself several times over by integrating new and innovative practices into its many lines of business. In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch, with the help of Business Week journalist John Byrne, recounts his career and the style of management that helped to make GE one of the most successful companies of the last century. Beginning with Welch's childhood in Salem, Massachusetts, the book quickly progresses from his first job in GE's plastics division to his ambitious rise up the GE corporate ladder, which culminated in 1981. What comes across most in this autobiography is Welch's passion for business as well as his remarkable directness and intolerance of what he calls "superficial congeniality"--a dislike that would help earn him the nickname "Neutron Jack." In spite of its 496 pages, Jack: Straight from the Gut is a quick read that any student or manager would do well to consider. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Download Description
I gave kicks followed by hugs. That's the basic philosophy of how Jack ran the vast and extraordinarily profitable General Electric company for more than two decades. During his tenure, GE was recognized annually as the best company in the world by Fortune magazine. And in JACK: Straight from the Gut, Welch reveals how his unusual management techniques propelled GE to become one of the most successful corporations of all time. Welch got the job done by constantly pushing his employees to be Number One. That mission statement, along with a keen attention to detail, allowed Welch to refine his management workforce each year so that only the best employees keep progressing. Others were asked to leave. "Yes, I was tough," says Welch, "but for those who produced, the rewards were extraordinary." In this candid business memoir, Welch runs through the entire ascent of his amazing career, including a retelling of all of his own career miscues, and reveals how he still managed to get to the top.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 251 more reviews...
 Corporate growth strategies August 18, 2008
Ilya Grigorik (Toronto, ON, Canada)
What makes an 'A performer'? Jack's years at GE have seen their share of successes, narrow escapes, and missteps along the way - and it is Jack's treatment of the former that makes this an incredibly insightful book to read. You cannot be right all the time, nor should you expect your peers or subordinates to be, but at the same time, it is your role as a leader to identify and cultivate the best performers continuously. Yes, that means letting go of your bottom 10%, every year.
Aside from being an inspiring and educational read, the book also offers a rare glimpse of the corporate growth strategies and acquisitions made by GE - a side of corporate America that is rarely covered and poorly understood outside of the top financial circles.
Highly recommended for any entrepreneur and business owner out there. (Yes, the lessons apply outside of multi-billion dollar corporate context.)
 Listen to what Jack Wech wants to say May 21, 2008
Dorel Agafitei
I've met Jack Welch in Pasadena few weeks after the book came out. Jack Welch just confirmed his keen intellect," tough" guy fame but he discussed with passion about Six Sigma, one of initiatives he championed together with globalization and e-business. This book though is not the textbook on Welch Style of Management but is a good inside in some of his thinking and approaches. This book is for those who want to listen to what he wants to say.
Straight From The Gut And Straight To The Point April 28, 2008
Joao Cortez (Porto, Portugal)
It's very interesting, entertaining and fun to read the autobiography of Jack Welch, the CEO icon of the 80's and 90's. He's very direct, honest and detailed on his professional life while touching sometimes on his personal one. He explains how hard work, wit and a mix of luck made him the man he has become. It's full of General Electric episodes - the good and the bad - which makes it a very compelling read. I highly recommend it.
Straight from the guts March 25, 2008
P. V. de Metter (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jack Who? People who are in college at this moment might not know the name. Does that really matter? No!
This book is about Jack Welch and his amazing story up the ladder of corporate America. It teaches us about guts, hard work and true dedication. It actually reads like 'Once upon a time in America' featuring Robert de Niro.
As Jack begins his journey with childhood memories, it shows how anyone can achieve great things and have an amazing career. It features hard work and some luck, but most of all the book shows there are no shortcuts. As so many books tell you how you can get that promotion as fast as possible, this story shows no 'dot-com millionaire' or 'america's next top model'. These are all longshots.
If you value a career and are ready to learn from someone who's been there and done that, grab your copy. When you want to succeed in business, it'll take more than just a fancy website... it'll take a lot of guts.
A Passion for Excellence & Bringing Out the Best in People March 22, 2008
Intellectual Detective (San Diego)
Jack Welch's life has been about excellence, winning....and having fun. His autobiography, "Jack: Straight From the Gut", tells how he rose from small town roots to become CEO of General Electric, arguably the greatest corporation in America and the world at the end of the 20th Century. During his life's journey, Welch accomplished more than most ever dream of. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering by the age of 25. During his 20 year tenure as head of GE, company revenues soared from $27 billion in 1981 to $130 billion in 2001. GE's annual growth rate averaged 18.9 percent during this period, and its stock rose a staggering 3,098 percent.
Without any formal management training, Welch worked his way up from "process development specialist" in 1960 to CEO of GE in 1981. His management secret? Welch attributes his success in life and business to living the lessons his mother drilled into him during his youth. She taught him early that he had better face the facts of any tough situation if he was to succeed: "Don't kid yourself. It is the way it is." she would tell him repeatedly. "Grace Welch taught me the value of competition, just as she taught me the pleasure of winning and the need to take defeat in stride,"... "If I have any leadership style, a way of getting the best out of people, I owe it to her," Welch writes.
And getting the best out of people, himself included, is what Jack Welch did best. He was such a great manager largely because he focused on bringing out the best in his employees, making GE into a "people factory". He knew that a business cannot afford to be soft-hearted when it comes to grading and rewarding, or punishing, employees based upon their performance. He knew that the value of a business is primarily the talents, skills, and knowledge of its people. Under Jack Welch, GE changed from bureaucracy to meritocracy - focused on grading its people, rewarding the best, encouraging the middle, and getting rid of the rest. As he writes: "Performance management has been part of everyone's life from the first grade. It starts in grade school with advanced placement. Differentiation applies to football teams, cheerleading squads, and honor societies....There's differentiation for all of us in our first 20 years. Why should it stop in the workplace, where most of our waking hours are spent?"
Welch characterized the traits that made him successful and that he sought in others as "The Four E's": 1. Energy of personality, 2. the Enthusiasm to communicate that energy to others, 3. the Edge to make tough decisions, and 4. the Execution to see those decisions implemented. The Four E's were connected by the "Big P: Passion". Welch's integrity to this vision of employee excellence is seen repeatedly in the book when he promotes unrecognized and unrewarded employees because he saw the four E's and big P in them, where others did not. Most of these individuals went on to become successful upper managers at GE and even CEO's of other large corporations.
Whether being blasted in the media as "Neutron Jack" for laying off thousands of employees while building a state-of-the-art management training center, or executing the buyout of other companies, such as RCA with its NBC network, or implementing a system to share best practices among GE companies world-wide (a concept he termed "boundaryless"), Welch dove into each project with seemingly inexhaustible passion and zeal. He brought the same dedication to implementing each company-wide program he initiated: Globalization, Growing Services, Six Sigma, and E-business. Welch loves what he created at GE. The company definitely became his baby - and he was the heart and soul of GE during his time as CEO.
As an autobiography, Jack Straight from the Gut, is a pleasure to read. Welch's A-type, straight talking personality comes through, with the help of co-author John A. Byrne, in a natural, down-to-earth writing style. Jack Welch's rise from small town Irish immigrant roots to chairman of General Electric is one of the most engaging and inspiring business tales you will ever read. Welch is a late Twentieth Century version of Andrew Carnegie: rising to fame and fortune from a humble background. His life is a confirmation of the American virtues of free enterprise system, with its focus on the values of hard work, integrity, ambition and excellence. Jack Welch is a real life Ayn Rand business hero. Like Howard Roark or John Galt, he struggled across his career, and despite numerous set-backs, he ultimately rose up to create a life of great achievements. Welch sought excellence in himself and those around him. As a result, he drove GE, its thousands of employees, and the American economy to unprecedented levels of productivity and prosperity.
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