Book Review: Winning

Although Jack Welch is among the most recognized names in business, he was not really on my radar screen until I started to expand my career into project management. In August of 2010, I had the opportunity to see him interviewed by Bill Hybels at the Global Leadership Summit. In that interview, Jack Welch talked about authenticity, energy, and candor. His genuineness was quite apparent as each of these qualities seemed to be at the core of who he really is. When Bill Hybels said that he re-reads Winning  every year, I was convinced to pick it up. Having recently finished reading the book, I can understand why Bill feels this way.

The early chapters set the tone of the book, particularly on the topics of candor, differentiation, and the importance of voice and dignity. He does a great job of clarifying what he means by a lack of candor, and observes that this is something far to common in the business world.

I am talking about how too many people - too often - instinctively don’t express themselves with frankness. They don’t communicate straightforwardly or put forth ideas looking to stimulate real debate. They just don’t open up. Instead, they withhold comments or criticism. They keep their mouths shut in order to make people feel better or to avoid conflict, and they sugarcoat bad news in order to maintain appearances.

As with all topics in the book, he speaks honestly and directly. He does not gloss over challenges, and he consistently provides practical guidance to improve your approach and your results.

With a basis in candor, his outline of differentiation becomes far more understandable and realistic, though still ambitious. He notes that this can be a controversial approach, where:

Companies win when their managers make a clear and meaningful distinction between top- and bottom-performing businesses and people, when they cultivate the strong and cull the weak.

In this chapter, he deals directly with a number of criticisms of the approach, drawing from his experience cultivating this as a key part of the business culture at GE. I found his comment about implementing this across a variety of cultures to be particularly clarifying:

Once we made the case for differentiation and we linked it to a candid performance appraisal system, it worked as well in Japan as it did in Ohio.

Covering a full spectrum of subject areas from leadership & strategy to hiring & firing, from career development to a surprisingly interesting chapter on Six Sigma, this book has earned well-deserved praise from a diverse readership. 

A number of great quotes from the book are presented as sidebars in each chapter, making even a few minutes of reading time worthwhile. I also appreciate that each chapter can stand on its own, though the common core themes established in the opening chapters are woven throughout the book.

I know that I will return to this book many times - whether for a quote or chapter or more - to refresh my thinking and to focus on what winning really means.