Quotees Archive

Life is too short to spend every day doing something you don’t love.

- Jack Welch

Look we gave this thing a good run. We both know it’s not working out. Let’s wrap this thing up.

- Jack Welch

Look, winning and losing can’t be quantified. They are states of mind, and losing happens only when you give up. Seen that way, then, the world can be filled with winners, and there is room for them all.

- Jack Welch

I don’t feel under-taxed in any way at all.

- Jack Welch

I guarantee you it will not be anyone from the outside.

- Jack Welch

I had learned that for any big idea you had to sell, sell, sell to move the needle at all.

- Jack Welch

I kicked but I also hugged.

- Jack Welch

I love the presentation from the more flamboyant guy, who excitedly presents his plans.

- Jack Welch

I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

- Jack Welch

I was afraid of the internet… because I couldn’t type.

- Jack Welch

I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems.

- Jack Welch

I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business, basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.

- Jack Welch

I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

- Jack Welch

I’d always try to remind managers at every level that they had to share my passion for developing people.

- Jack Welch

If a job doesn’t excite you on some level—just because of the stuff of it—don’t settle.

- Jack Welch

If change is happening on the outside faster than on the inside the end is in sight.

- Jack Welch

If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

- Jack Welch

If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

- Jack Welch

If you are not confused, you don´t know what is going on.

- Jack Welch

If you believe in quality, you can’t just tell everybody We believe in quality! You’ve got to pay bonuses based on quality. You’ve got to let everyone in the organization know that they are being judged on quality.

- Jack Welch

If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.

- Jack Welch

If you don’t have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don’t take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It’s crazy.

- Jack Welch

If you don’t have a competitive advantage — don’t compete.

- Jack Welch

E – Energize Others

- Jack Welch

E – Energy

- Jack Welch

E – Executions, how to get things done

- Jack Welch

Effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible.

- Jack Welch

Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information. Little is worse than a manager who can’t cut bait.

- Jack Welch

Every company must deal decisively with people who don’t perform satisfactorily….Great people, not great strategies are what made it all work (GE).

- Jack Welch

Every job you take is a gamble that could increase your options or shut them down.

- Jack Welch

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

- Jack Welch

Facing reality sounds simple, but it isn’t. I found it hard to get people to see a situation for what it is and not for what it was, or what they hoped it would be.

- Jack Welch

Failure to deliver on committments is, in the end, unacceptable.

- Jack Welch

For 20-plus years I looked at thousands of storyboard for corporate and product ads, and I never allowed one advertisement on the air that I didn’t like.

- Jack Welch

GE’s businesses turned in a terrific first quarter. Our products and services are being well received in unusually robust global markets.

- Jack Welch

Getting every employee’s mind into the game is a huge part of what the CEO job is all about. Taking everyone’s best ideas and transferring them to others it the secret. Nothing is more important.

- Jack Welch

Give me a highly successful unionized industry.

- Jack Welch

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

- Jack Welch

Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital – the world’s best talents and greatest ideas.

- Jack Welch

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

- Jack Welch

I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It’s got the market. It’s got consumer confidence and it’s got banks throwing – I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.

- Jack Welch

I always follow 4E’s wrapped in a ‘P’.

- Jack Welch

I believe social responsibility begins with a strong, competitive company. Only a healthy enterprise can improve and enrich the lives of people and their communities.

- Jack Welch

At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.

- Jack Welch

Be candid with everyone.

- Jack Welch

Be candid with everyone. Candor is the biggest dirty little secret in business?

- Jack Welch

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

- Jack Welch

Being a CEO is the nuts! A whole jumble of thoughts come to mind: Over the top. Wild. Fun. Outrageous. Crazy. Passion. Perpetual Motion. The give and take. Meetings into the night. Incredible friendships. Fine wine. Celebrations. Great golf courses. Big decisions in the real game. Crises and pressure. Lots of swings. A few home runs. The thrill of winning and the pain of losing. It’s as good as it gets. You get paid a lot, but the real payoff is the fun…

- Jack Welch

CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it.

- Jack Welch

Change before you have to.

- Jack Welch