395 Quotes by Jack Welch

Tell them to grab on to the career that engages their brain and heart and soul and gives them meaning. Tell them that eventually, the money will come, and if it doesn’t, in time, they will find themselves rich with something money can’t buy. And that, obviously, would be happiness.

Trust is enormously powerful in a corporation. People won’t do their best unless they believe they’ll be treated fairly. The only way I know how to create that kind of trust is by laying out your values and then walking the talk. You’ve got to do what you say you’ll do, consistently, over time.

No one can guarantee you a job other than satisfied customers. That’s the only thing that works. Nothing creates work other than products and services you provide that create satisfied customers.

That’s all managing is: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.

The value decade is upon us. If you can’t sell a top-quality product at the world’s lowest price, you’re going to be out of the game.

Stretch targets energize. We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.

When you are an individual contributor, you try to have all the answers. That’s your job – to be an expert, the best at what you do, maybe even the smartest person in the room. When you are a leader, your job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room. Every conversation you have about a decision, a proposal, or a piece of market information has to be filled with you saying, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “How come?

You never know how diverse your career can be. I think it’s wonderful. My life has always been the next page, not the last page.

In difficult times your best must be hugged, loved, kissed, rewarded, paid – everything. And your worst must be the people that leave, because your best are going to take you to the next game.