Interviews
Author Essay
It is likely that 50 years from now, most business textbooks will contain more listings under the name "Welch, John Francis" than under the name of any other CEO. In his 21 years at the helm of GE, Welch did more to advance the body of leadership knowledge than perhaps any business leader in history. While other extraordinary leaders are remembered for mastering one or two aspects of leadership, no CEO has proved as adept in mastering all four dimensions of the leadership agenda: people, process, strategy, and structure. Welch's record is chock-full of examples of how he mastered each in launching his many revolutions, and The Lexicon is intended to provide a guided tour of each of Welch's crusades.
One of the advantages I had in writing The Lexicon was the benefit of the full Welch record (he was at GE from pre-Camelot 1960 through September 2001). While other books have covered various aspects of the Welch years, this book is a complete, yet concise, examination of the Welch accomplishments. It includes references from the pre-Welch CEO through the second week of July 2001, and it even includes a detailed post-mortem on the ill-fated Honeywell acquisition.
Having spent more than a decade chronicling the GE chairman (I edited four books on this celebrated leader), I was well positioned to put his strategies and signature concepts in perspective. The Lexicon was crafted for business enthusiasts, irregardless of their particular knowledge of Welch's record and terminology. My book provides an ideal platform for learning about Welch or for gaining a fresh perspective on his accomplishments. For example, "Boundaryless," Welch's term for an open, learning organization, free of bureaucracy and turf wars, is described in depth, as is "the significance of Boundaryless," "the road to Boundaryless" and "Boundaryless lessons." All of Welch's seminal concepts, which are marked with the "Six Sigmas" icon, are given a similiar level of in-depth treatment.
I believe one of the more valuable contributions of The Lexicon is that it chronicles the evolution of Welch as a leader. For managers who want to implement the Welch initiatives, this is a critical element. Welch launched five companywide initiatives between 1987 and 1999, and each built on the initiative that preceded it. For example, Welch said he could not have implemented Six Sigma without Work-Out, the cultural revolution that he waged in 1989. ("As boundaryless has defined how we behave, Six Sigma quality will...define how we work," declared Welch). Similarly, digitization, Welch's fourth and final growth initiative, would not have been possible without the lessons gleaned from Six Sigma.
The Lexicon is intended to be a hands-on reference book that can be read cover to cover (as in a mystery novel), or simply kept and referred to when the need arises (e.g., turn to "acquisition strategy" to understand Welch's four criteria for buying a company). (Jeffrey A. Krames)
