Jack: Straight from the Gut

I'm giving it to you "jack-straight". This is one of my two all-time favorite books on character and leadership in America. And, I think that over the past 30 years I must have read all the major offerings. So, my advice to everyone is, don't miss this book. Like the second of my two all-time favorites, "West Point" by Norman Thomas Remick, it's wonderfully inspiring. In fact, the two books compliment eachother. Together, you get the whole picture. Get the picture? That's the jack-straight truth.

For those reviewers who criticized this book, I suggest you couple your reading it with reading "West Point" by Norman Thomas Remick. You'll see, and more important, understand the virtues Jack Welch is expounding. And, most important, it will help your economic lifestyle as it helps you slide down the bannisters of life that have all the splinters pointing in the other direction.

I have read other books done on Jack Welch and thought they were good, but NONE compared to this one!! Jack Welch worked his way to the top of GE, but you can read how to be a better manager in less than a week with this book. I picked up a lot from this book and encourage everyone to read it!!

I was attracted to this book for two reasons. First, of course, Jack Welch is the most celebrated CEO of an American-based company of the past half decade. Second, it was written with John Byrne, and I believe that Byrne, after 1,000 hours of interviews, and past books on the early brain trust at Ford, Scully at Apple; the evil Al Dunlap, and a book on cancer causing product defects, knows the salient issues for a CEO book. And so, last week, I completed two books on life at General Electric. In both, the narrators became so frustrated by the firm?s bureaucracy and sloth that they tendered their resignations. In ?In Good Company? by James Martin, he leaves GE to become a Jesuit priest. In ?Jack? by Jack Welch, he is talked out of his resignation, stays, and becomes the firm?s celebrated CEO and Chairman. I approached ?Jack? warily; I was so disappointed with other recent CEO books by Viacom?s Redstone and Disney?s Eisner. I was even more wary of the book when the first chapter opened with the story of Mr. Welch?s seventh consecutive high school hockey team loss and followed with his humble origins (just as Iacocca started with his firing at Ford, Redstone?s began with his surviving a hotel fire, Al Dunlap injures a muscle, and Eisner?s has chest pains) But my cynicism was proved wrong. This book is the best since Sam Walton?s autobiography. Welch is honest. He admits that he is extremely competitive, loud, impatient, and abrasive. And he lies to himself about his height (saying that he is 1.5 inches taller than he is). There is even a glimpse of sex and death in the book, when, as a doctoral student, he is caught by a cop on a car-date with his pants down, and when he is having a heart attack, he runs into a hospital, hops on a gurney and starts screaming emotionally. He also spends a whopping 2 short paragraphs on his divorce from his first wife.He writes that he got the top job at age 44 even though the HR head felt he had significant limitations, was detailed, arrogant, and emotionally overreacted. Welch discusses his impatience, brashness, his proactivity of asking for promotions and assignments, his audacity to ask to remain in Pittsfield even though all senior staff had to move to the NYC area, and his penchant for BOTH kicking and hugging his staff (his advice to one underling was to fire 5 of his 6 direct reports). The other reviews posted here tell you what you need to know. My only addition is that I found Part 2 to be the most valuable section, especially Chapters 11 and 12. In them, the reader learns about how Welch took control of GE. We learn the source of the ?Sell, Fix, or Close to be #1 or #2 in high margin growth businesses? philosophy (Drucker), and his sale of three businesses, including GE small appliance housewares. He discusses how he thought of boundarylessness while on a vacation island and he discusses how he forced his managers to face realities and contradict other?s forecasts (How could they belie