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Jack Welch has died

wsj.com

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Re: Jack Welch has died

#121

Post by asveikau »

amyjess wrote: post #107
optimiz3 wrote: post #34

Steve Ballmer revered Jack Welch's rank-and-yank management style. During the 2000s and early 2010s Microsoft's stack-rank reviews were infamous for the internal politics created. Didn't matter if you had a full team of top-tier engineers, the bottom 15% WAS going to get managed out. Savvy managers would hire low-tier performers to protect the productive ones. That's the only lens through which I have to view Mr. Wel…

IIRC Welch came up with rank-and-yank because he needed to lay people off and decided he wanted to be "fair" about it and not lay off his best performers. And somehow that got cargo-culted into "we should continuously get rid of the bottom X% of people all the time".

Well, at some point in American business culture it does seem like a number of people did lose sight and become convinced that the only way to deliver shareholder value is to lay off continuously.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#122

Post by mytailorisrich »

bena wrote: post #77
mytailorisrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never liked or understood the popularity (at least for a time) of the 'vitality curve'. Indeed, if you think that 10% of your employees must be fired every year then, to me, it is a sign that something is horribly wrong and you should really focus on that, not to mention the horrible effect this practice has on company culture and atmosphere.

I think the core idea makes sense, at least intuitively. Remove the worst performers. Make room for better people. The issue is that you will always have "worst performers". There needs to be a minimally acceptable performance level. And you also need enough slack so that the churn isn't affecting overall performance.

Removing the worst performers is the issue, as you somewhat suggest.

You don't want to remove the worst performers. You want to remove those don't do their jobs or don't fit in the company. This is very different.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#124

Post by russellbeattie »

HN needs a obituaries section. Seriously. Until then, stop upvoting these constant "... has died" links!

It's morbid and unenlightening. There is a large demographic that is reaching mortality age. HN is going to be filled with nothing but daily "has died" items for the next several years.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#125

Post by neves »

asveikau wrote: post #121
amyjess wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC Welch came up with rank-and-yank because he needed to lay people off and decided he wanted to be "fair" about it and not lay off his best performers. And somehow that got cargo-culted into "we should continuously get rid of the bottom X% of people all the time".

Well, at some point in American business culture it does seem like a number of people did lose sight and become convinced that the only way to deliver shareholder value is to lay off continuously.

It looks like this became the basis of American economy. And you can't loose your job, because you'll miss your mortgage or education payments and loose your health care. So you must do anything your employer tell you to do.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#126

Post by rhizome »

axaxs wrote: post #21
dayofthedaleks wrote: post #4

My impression is that he was no management genius but rather fortunate in the timing of moving his company into the FIRE sector. All of that goodwill evaporated in the 09 crisis. Can someone speak to his lasting major contributions? I guess he also deserves the credit/blame for the ubiquity of Six Sigma.

The first paragraph is basically how I'll always remember him. Stack ranking is a farce. He was incredibly fortunate, but insisted it was his ideas instead. It's the equivalent to a vice heavy person winning the lottery, then writing a book claiming that if you want to be rich, you need to smoke and drink daily, and the proof is that I'm rich.

The post hoc fallacy rears its head everywhere, if you look closely enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Re: Jack Welch has died

#127

Post by unlinked_dll »

sgt101 wrote: post #112
salawat wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You are reading it right. The best way to describe the management style of the 80's onward would be a financially engineered pump-and-dump characterized by putting workers through the meat grinder, and shirking any social responsibility that could be conceivably avoided by any means possible. Those are the basis of the hidden costs. Each person that got sacked took more institutional knowledge with them, and eac…

>If you have to sacrifice long-term stability for short-term growth, you're misreading the landscape Or eyeing your bonus pot and the golf course / opera house. Shareholders are holding for 3-6mths, executive incentive is aligned to those time spans.

Most shareholders are interested in holding for more than a year because they get 7-10% more money for free due to tax incentives.

But regardless there are many kinds of investors. The bottom feeders interested in 3-6month time spans are just one of them.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#128

Post by rumanator »

hristov wrote: post #74
Ididntdothis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“he gave himself an A for his execution of its operations, and an F for his choice of successor.” That alone disqualifies him as a leader “I did everything right but others screwed it up”.

And to be clear he was absolutely lying about that. Immelt was certainly a problematic leader, but a lot of the problems with GE happened under Welch. The biggest issue with GE was massive insurance liabilities for assisted living insurance which drastically exceeded anything GE predicted. Well Welch started the insurance business in GE and took on a lot of these liabilities. And while Immelt certainly had his proble…

> And to be clear he was absolutely lying about that.

So his legacy is not only a management style that imploded and dismantled a collosal corporation but also him being the kind of person that throws people under the bus, including his closest associates and hand-picked successors.

Re: Jack Welch has died

#129

Post by teslaberry »

welch's shitty leadership is beside the point, he was doing what the group think of short term profiteering wall street wanted.

h8 the player not the game. wall street and our political system is the problem, not a lone bullshit artist.

also he was a handsome man, so cut him some damn slack. after all . he is dead. forever part of the ethos. what is there to really learn from one piece of art?

Re: Jack Welch has died

#130

Post by rumanator »

michaelt wrote: post #98
Ididntdothis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you don’t complain publicly about the people you hired. Especially while loudly proclaiming how good you are at hiring.

The quote does say "according to friends" - so maybe he only complained privately.

The problem isn't his choice of audience, but his choice of message.
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