ladies and gentlemen please welcome mr.

Jack Welsh welcome to Copenhagen mr.

will show I think you prefer Jack

Monsieur we are less formal today's

headline is winning strategy and

therefore I'd like to begin by asking

why do relatively few of us really win

big well I think well first of all I'm

not sure that I agree with that but I

never think of strategy is one thing I

think strategy execution and people all

go together and if you don't get the

people right the strategy doesn't matter

and if you don't get the people right

you won't get the execution so you're

dead so for my standpoint strategy sort

of a purist thing it's more academic

execution and getting it done is what

it's all about

but without question that whole idea of

winning and and driving home what you're

going to do and what you're not going to

do is buh-buh-buh decided before we left

that they weren't going to be in cars

and their focus now on buses and trucks

and excavators they can excel in that

and they were in a bad game in cars but

takes a courageous management to get out

of the car business takes a lot of guts

that's a huge decision and the fact that

that company did it 15 10 15 years ago

is a trick of each of the system and G

hired you in 1960 and you got a boss who

let's say was a bit against you how did

that affect your will to win well I I

came there as a fresh engineer the

lowest one on the totem pole and I was

going along quite well and I came in for

my first annual review

and I was making $10,000 and he didn't

just like me he just thought I was sort

of a thorn in his side but I got a raise

I got $1,000 raise which was a 10% raise

and I was quite pleased with that race

until I went back to my bull pen where

were six engineers were in there

together and I happened to because of my

mother's injection of self-confidence

think I was thought I was a better

engineer so I'm back and I sat down and

I we all talked about what we got this

year and every one of us got $1,000 race

so I quit within two weeks and I moved

my family Chicago about a thousand miles

away and I was at the going-away party

my boss was having from me actually he's

quite pleased never going away party for

me and I was at the party and my boss

his boss from New York flew up to this

small town we worked in and convinced me

to stay got me away from this boss gave

me a much bigger raise and I stayed and

it changed my life forever and I feel I

learned something from it yeah I'm a big

lesson differentiation now I'm not sure

this is popular here but I'm gonna say

it anyway differentiation is absolutely

the key to building great teams as I

said in the beginning this thing this

game that we're going to talk about

tonight is this is all about building

great teams

the idea that Jack Walsh could design a

jet engine build a plow pen write a

comedy for television all these things

is silly it's just not doable the only

thing you can do isn't in many ways be a

good orchestra conductor where you hire

great people keep raising the standards

keep getting better people and forcing

yourself to learn from them the idea

that you have all the answers is a joke

you

be as good as the team you get just like

to focus on what happened from 1981 to

2001 because soon you were making

headlines when you became CEO at that

time GE had a very large range of

businesses and you introduced a

controversial strategy you touched upon

it yourself before you called it I think

something like number one fix so or

close it we're not carrying losers

anymore quote Jack Welch how did you

come up with that strategy

well Peter Drucker I've got to give him

credit for this idea and it's a thought

you all ought to think of a Peter

Drucker had a zillion great thoughts but

this was one of them if you weren't

already in this business would you enter

it now and if the answer's no what are

you going to do about it

and from that came fix clothes or sell

so what we did was we put all the

businesses that were that we were number

one or number children and there were a

number than there were 16 of them but we

pride ourselves on having 71 businesses

so we put all the other businesses

outside of the circles we had a services

circle a technology service business and

a manufacturing segment three circles

and then outside the circle were some 63

businesses the people in the outside the

circles were matter than hell where are

we no leper colony what's wrong with us

etc we had some businesses that we were

tearing as losers but decades but that's

who we were we were in those businesses

they no longer made sense we were making

television sets in a town called

Syracuse New York a plant there and I'm

manufacturing cost was 25 percent more

than the Japanese were selling

television sets in Syracuse neon ha ha

ha that didn't take a strategic where's

to get the hell out and that's the type

of thing we went through with all these

businesses

many times when we sold best businesses

to other companies everybody won if you

in fact don't have your people knowing

exactly where they said what they're

doing well what they have to do to

improve and where their futures going

the idea of calling people and guess

what happens when this happens you have

to call people then like I did in the

early 80s and say don't I'm sorry Mary

you have to go and mary says to you why

me

and you have to say to him are you the

worst person that we have here and she

says to you but I've been here 31 years

why didn't anybody ever tell me that's

the sin of management that's what we and

people say I'm too kind to give an

honest appraisal time that's cowardly we

have 26 of the fortune 200 CEOs worked

for me they had a boy ahead of her honey

well these huge companies are my friends

but we didn't have a place for them at

the end and that's what you but they

knew they knew the game transparency all

I've talked about today you can't be too

transparent with your people they must

know where they stand but if you should

ask the CEOs to learn from that lesson

what what would that be if you take a

think about the Michael Jordan quote

what is the most important thing to have

as a CEO the lesson to learn one of the

jobs you have us as a manager for yet

CEO one of the jobs you have a dementia

is to pump every day self-confidence

into your team to make them feel great

to make people like me feel like I got a

full head of hair and I'm six foot ten

yeah that's what you want to do you want

to get into people's skin and excite

them about where you're going and why

are you going one of the things about

change as I'm sure all up to carry this

but when you're that way when you come

in as the new CEO or the new boss even

every new boss has a new

action new change let me get it and they

tell you explain why we're changing

what's in it for the company to change

but they forget one thing people hate

change the people want to know what's in

it for me how did you make sure that

your ideas was understood what do you

think I didn't have the same job that

all that I had all these diff iRiver can

come on so my job was to get broad

things we want to do more services than

we want products we want to have sticky

businesses so my strategy was be sure

you're going for a sticky business what

is the sticky business means it means

that every business every sale you make

is there's a follow on sale you sell a

cat scanner or an MRI machine and you

sell a twenty years service contract we

all learn from mistakes on what would

you stay say was your biggest mistake

and what did it teach you I talked about

blowing up a factory yeah that was

pretty big I learned about how to treat

people yes I also make a really iraq of

an acquisition you know we have this

bound realist behavior we want to share

ideas with everybody we're growing so

fast I had made six big acquisitions RCA

NBC Network etc and I was swelling

rather than growing and we we bought an

investment bank can't get a Peabody now

let me tell you what an investment I

don't want not offend any of us from

bankers here but the investment banks in

America they have one basic if you will

value on that left-hand column I talked

about and it's my bonus my bonus my

bonus don't tell me about sharing ideas

and this culture meant nothing it was

all about money

so we clash constantly we had all kinds

of errors in there we had people

stealing money we had all kinds of fraud

we sold it we got

online UBS eventually bought it all and

we got out home but it was a dramatic

mistake that taught me how accounts you

can do a thousand spreadsheets on

acquisitions but if you don't get the

culture right the numbers might look

good when you put it together and the

cultures are like this the deal is gonna

fall on his face what would be your key

advice for them to remember by if they

want to go out and really succeed really

win you don't have to pick one but I had

to pick one it'd be get the hell out of

the office get out and touch the people

listen listen listen love them to death

and touch them get inside their skin

excite them about what they're doing

give purpose to their jobs in their

lives that's what this is all about we

spend most of our waking hours on these

jobs make them fun make them exciting

and reward the hell out of those who do

the job you're asked them to do thanks a

lot ladies and gentlemen thank you very

much thank you