Jack Welch “Winning”
Previously posted on August 26 at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/evandodds/Blog/cns!1phaOgcvNsBxzvBN9Zpx1vbQ!172.entry
Another book report. I just finished “reading” (thanks Audible!) yesterday morning on the bus. This was actually quite a good book, I thought. After you’ve listened to the top couple “best selling” books on improving your management skills, improving the company you run, whatever the career self-help topic happens to be in the top 10 best sellers… they all start to run together a bit.
So, in that spirit, there were a lot of topics covered in this book that were pretty straight forward and familiar; but probably this was mostly because of the number of books I’ve “read” on this topic over the years.
Some notable good points he makes:
- 20/70/10 rules - reap rewards on the top 20% performers, nurture and reward the 70% (they do the bulk of the work and want — reasonably — to move into the top 20 group), and move out the 10% at the bottom… This last one is the part that’s so different than how things are generally done. It seems to me like most companies tend to try and “fix” the bottom 10%, rather than acknowledging that they are not likely to be a good fit with the job if they’re a poor performer who hasn’t improved over some reasonable time period.
- Don’t make your boss spend his political capital to defend you. Ever.
- Great performance on your part buys you “chits” that can be used for things like flexible hours, time off, etc. Demanding these perks because they’re company policy is likely to backfire, and if your performance is good enough, you won’t have to call in the “company policy” argument.
- Always be willing to try new and increased responsibilities, even if they are a “stretch”. You might be surprised how much you are able to stretch successfully!
