29 Leadership Secrets From Jack Welch

LEADERSHIP SECRET 15SPARK PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH THE “S” SECRETS: SPEED, SIMPLICITY, AND SELF-CONFIDENCE

FROM THE FILES OF JACK WELCH

It takes enormous self-confidence to be simple, particularly in large organizations. Bureaucracy is terrified by speed and hates simplicity.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jack Welch began to outline a new vision for GE’s future. In September 1989, for example, he noted:

The biggest mistake we could make right now is to think that simply doing more of what worked in the ’80s will be enough to win the ’90s. It won’t.… We have to turn in the ’90s to the software of our companies—to the culture that drives them. ...