Famous "Work-Out" change-management tool explained by the people who helped develop it. GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GEoften working directly with CEO Jack Welchdiscuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE. Filled with effective assessment and decisionmaking tools, The GE Work-Out provides concrete and realistic guidance for anyone who wants to implement Work-Out and break down bureaucracy and hierarchy within an organization.

Since its founding in 1892, General Electric has been more than just a corporation: it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers. GE electrified America, from lightbulbs to turbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America's most valuable corporation. Gryta and Mann examine how Welch's handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to fix flaws in Welch's profit machine, while stumbling headlong into mistakes of his own. In doing so, they detail how one of America's all-time great companies has been reduced to a cautionary tale for our times. -- adapted from jacket

TWO PROVEN TOOLS FOR SUCCESS IN ONE STEP-BY-STEP POCKET GUIDE Whether you've been using Six Sigma for years or are just starting to, you know it takes hard work to get it right. But WorkOut, developed by General Electric, can increase Six Sigma's success. Rath & Strong's WorkOut for Six Sigma Pocket Guide shows you how, with an action-ready game plan that you can apply to your initiative - right now. Learn how to: Set the stage for Six Sigma's success Find out if you're in trouble - and get back on track Make a good Six Sigma initiative even better See actual results--in less than three months "If you want to bring the power of WorkOut to Six Sigma, this pocket guide is an invaluable tool."--Ron Ashkenas, co-author of The GE Work-Out Six Sigma: A data-driven approach to meeting customer requirements, solving process problems, and achieving bottom-line results. WorkOut: The revolutionary problem-solving program that brings management and workers together to bust bureaucracy. Companies worldwide use Six Sigma to measure and improve performance. Others use WorkOut to get quick bottom-line results and empower their workforce. But few enjoy the enormous success General Electric achieved by combining these approaches. Rath & Strong shows you how to get that synergy, with a handy pocket guide full of charts, checklists, assessment tools, and cases that help you: Prepare for, reenergize, or enhance a Six Sigma initiative Use a fast, simple alternative to Six Sigma Make your culture more participative, data-driven, and customer-focused Engage your front-line workers in Six Sigma

"If management is an art, then surely Jack Welch has proved himself a master painter." - BusinessWeek Boardroom legend Jack Welch is widely regarded as one of the most effective CEOs in business history. Welch’s groundbreaking programs—including Six Sigma and Work-Out—along with his numerous strategies on business leadership have helped transform GE into the global benchmark for maximized productivity and labor efficiency. Now, The GE Way Fieldbook explains how you can implement the same programs that helped turn GE into a $100 billion juggernaut. Drawing from his unprecedented access to GE’s top-level corridors of power—including a never-before-published full-length interview with Jack Welch—veteran business author Robert Slater packs innovative strategies, easy-to-use diagnostic exercises, detailed questionnaires, and more into the most hands-on, applications-oriented book ever written on General Electric. Only in The GE Way Fieldbook will you find: "The Boca Raton Speeches"—Never-before-seen excerpts taken from Jack Welch’s internal speeches to GE employees More than 100 exercises, overheads, and exhibits from the files of Jack Welch and GE The most complete treatment of GE’s Six Sigma program ever published Step-by-step action plans that are blueprints for implementing Six Sigma and Work-Out—and creating the boundaryless organization The fieldbook has become one of today’s most popular, effective teaching tools—but never before has one focused on the inner workings and strategies of a specific company. The GE Way Fieldbook gives you an inside look at the stunningly successful Jack Welch era at GE, provides the techniques and tools you need to focus every worker in your organization on progress and growth, and outlines a strategic roadmap for implementing GE’s business practices—and removing the boundaries to success—within your own organization.

Behind the scenes with the legendary CEO Jack Welch’s innovative leadership strategies revived a lagging GE, transforming it into a powerhouse with a staggering $300 billion-plus market capitalization. In writing Jack Welch and the GE Way, author Robert Slater was given unprecedented access to Welch and other prominent GE insiders. What emerged is a brilliant portrait that tells you what makes Jack Welch tick. Learn how to work the Welch magic on your own company as you find out how he dismantled the boundaries between management layers, between engineers and marketers, between GE and its customers to streamline the process of getting products and services to market. Get details on Welch’s far-reaching Six Sigma quality initiative, and discover how its principles and standards can save billions of dollars...how and why he has made GE a truly global company (and why you must think global as well)...and all the other Welch "midas touch" strategies you can put to work in your organization, at every level!

A champion manager of people, Jack Welch shares the hard-earned wisdom of a storied career in what will become the ultimate business bible With Winning, Jack Welch delivers a wide-ranging, in-depth, no-holds-barred management guidebook about the tough strategic, organizational, and personal challenges that face people at every stage of their careers. Loaded with candid personal anecdotes, hard-hitting advice, and invaluable dos and don’ts, Jack explains his theory of business, by laying out the four most important principles that form the foundation of his success. Chapters include: How to Get Promoted, How to Think about Strategy, How to Write a Budget that Works, How to Work for a Jerk, How Find Work-Life Balance and How Start Something New. Enlivened by quotes from business leaders that Welch interviewed especially for the book, it’s a tour de force that reflects Welch’s mastery of execution, excellence and leadership.

New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.