Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.
My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now my GE career is over, and I’m telling you that it was my candor that helped make it work.
In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.
There is no straight line to a dream.
The best way to support dreams and stretch is to set apart small ideas with big potential, then give people positive role models and the resources to turn small projects into big businesses.
When all is said and done, teaching is what I try to do for a living.
Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren’t just satisfied, they’re so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.
I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It’s got the market. It’s got consumer confidence and it’s got banks throwing – I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.
The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don’t have to work hard.
Above all, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organization to reach people. They don’t stick to the established channels. They’re informal. They’re straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible. They never get bored telling their story.
In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.
People who are coaches will be the norm. Other people won’t get promoted.
In manufacturing, we try to stamp out variance. With people, variance is everything.
Change has no constituency and a perceived revolution has even less.
Getting every employee’s mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone’s best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There’s nothing more important.
Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.
Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.
If you can’t energize others, you can’t be a leader.
A strategy is something like, an innovative new product; globalization, taking your products around the world; be the low-cost producer. A strategy is something you can touch; you can motivate people with; be number one and number two in every business. You can energize people around the message.
The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited. All you have to do is tap into that well. I don’t like to use the word efficiency. It’s creativity. It’s a belief that every person counts.