Back in 1981–2001, Jack Welch was the chair and CEO of General Electric (GE). Welch raised GE’s market value from $14 billion to $410 billion, which is a huge jump. People thought he was one of the best CEOs ever. He was named “Manager of the Century” by Fortune in 1999. Welch’s retirement pay from GE when he quit was the biggest ever—about $417 million. Welch passed away on March 1, 2020. He was 84 years old and had kidney failure.

Early Years and School

J.F. Welch Jr. was born in Peabody, Massachusetts, on November 19, 1935. His parents were John and Grace Welch. He got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and got his Ph.D. in engineering.

From 1960 to 1962, Welch worked as a junior engineer for GE. Between 1981 and 2001, he was chair and the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). He worked his way up through the ranks. In his early years at the company, Welch threatened to quit more than once because of how inefficient the bureaucracy was. As the company’s boss, he tried eliminating red tape and boosting growth.

Important Achievements

In the 1980s, Jack Welch simplified GE’s many different businesses. Then, he bought other companies and forced them to use better management styles so that GE could make more money.

Closing plants and letting people go was part of his plan for “growing fast in a slow-growth economy,” which was the topic of a speech he gave in 1981, not long after becoming chair. As part of this, the government cut back on what started as nine levels of management. An air of casualness was also something he worked to achieve. The goal was to make GE look like a small business instead of the vast combination of companies it became when Welch was in charge.

Welch believed managers who did their jobs well could turn around almost any business, so GE tried everything from TV to fake diamonds. Strangely, this caused GE to grow, making it naturally a company again, albeit worse managed.

Fortune called Jack Welch “Manager of the Century” in 1999. He left GE in September 2001. An estimate of his retirement pay was $417 million.

Because he killed people while leaving buildings standing, like a neutron bomb, during this time of significant change, people called him “Neutron Jack.”

Written Works On Sale

Welch was busy writing and speaking in public after he retired. His autobiography, Winning, came out in 2005. The book is mostly about business and management. Suzy Welch, Welch’s wife, helped write it. A 2020 story from The New York Times says it sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. Besides this book, the husband and wife wrote another book called The Real Life MBA. The book came out in 2015 and is primarily about business, leadership, management, and getting ahead in your job.

Jack Welch joined a business group that former President Donald Trump set up so that people could get tips on handling economic problems.

The Past

Welch’s most significant achievement is still his leadership. For GE and other companies, he said, they should either be the best at what they do or not do it at all. He was in charge of getting GE to use Motorola’s Six Sigma program to make the company more productive. He devised a way to deal with managers and employees who weren’t doing their jobs well: he would make precise cuts to staff based on how they ranked against other employees and divisions.

But what happened at GE after Welch left makes his impact a little less clear. Welch quit the company right before the dot-com bubble burst, which hurt some of GE’s growing business lines. For GE’s primary profit sources to stay focused, his replacement, Jeffrey Immelt, had to get out of many businesses that were not his responsibility.

Immelt was also in charge when GE shares went down during the 2007–2008 financial crisis, which hurt GE’s finances. The plan Jack Welch left behind was good at getting big companies to make more money. However, it made GE less able to handle changes from outside and develop new businesses and ideas that would help the company move forward. To sum up, GE’s success was mainly due to lucky timing, which made it hard to keep up in the long run.

Welch might have been the first CEO whose performance primarily depended on the company’s performance on the stock market. Most investors like this view of businesses, but it makes managers focus on short-term results. If companies focus too much on short-term results, it can hurt their ability to stay in business in the long run.

Life in general

There were three marriages for Jack Welch. His wife, Carolyn B. Osburn, died in 1959. They split up in 1987 after having four kids together. 1989, he married Jane Beasley, but they split up in 2003. In 2004, he married Suzy Wetlaufer, who was his third wife. Welch died in 2020 from deficient kidneys.

What did Jack Welch do to be a good leader?

People thought Jack Welch was a good leader because he saw fast growth even when the economy was slowing down. As chair and CEO of GE, he saw where things didn’t make sense and improved the company’s operations. He eliminated useless departments and management staff who weren’t doing their jobs. He also tried to create a relaxed atmosphere to get rid of the rules of business.

How did Jack Welch change GE?

In 1960, Jack Welch started working at GE as a junior engineer. Over time, he moved up in the company, and in 1981, he was named chair and CEO. He used bold methods to get short-term results as CEO of GE, where he made significant changes to the company and how it worked. He changed how the company was set up by getting rid of whole sections and organizing the businesses it ran. To make the company more profitable and productive, he also found and fixed wasteful practices like shutting down plants and firing workers.

What happened to GE after Jack Welch left the company?

In 2001, Jack Welch resigned as chair and CEO of GE. Jeffrey Immelt took over after him and called his rule “controversial.” His time as CEO was different from that of his predecessor in that the company’s share price dropped a lot. When Immelt was in charge, the company’s market value dropped by as much as $150 billion. When Welch was in charge, it went from $14 billion to $410 billion.

In Short

People in the business world saw Jack Welch as a giant. When he took over GE in 1981, he changed the company by using aggressive tactics to focus on short-term wins. People say Welch turned GE into a strong business by eliminating waste and buying other companies. Shareholders at GE saw the company’s market value rise while he was in charge. In 2001, Welch stepped down and gave the job to Jeffrey Immelt. Welch died in 2020, but his work as a boss at GE is still his most important achievement.

Conclusion

• From 1981 to 2001, Jack Welch was the chairman and CEO of General Electric.
• Welch shut down plants, fired workers, and laid off people while laying out a plan for fast growth in an economy that was growing slowly.
• Welch spoke in public and wrote books. He and his wife, Suzy Welch, wrote two books together.
• He quit his job at GE in 2011 and gave Jeffrey Immelt the reins.
• At the age of 84, Welch passed away on March 1, 2020, from heart failure.