Teaching Welch's way to MIT class is easy task for this guy

Teaching Welch's way to MIT class is easy task for this guy

By Mark Jewell
The Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — "Don't fall in love with your workers," a business instructor tells a student starting a small startup. "If you've got 16 employees, at least two are turkeys."

It's not the only piece of blunt, politically incorrect advice the charismatic teacher dishes out in a windowless basement classroom filled with 30 MBA candidates, many hoping to eventually become chief executives.

Wearing a blue blazer and checked shirt, the bald instructor stands in front of a lecture table, rather than behind, through most of the 90-minute session, sharing his management ideas with a preacher's fervor.

If it sounds as if the instructor is copping an I've-seen-it-all attitude, it's because he has reason to. He's Jack Welch.

While Welch's 20-year run as chairman and chief executive at General Electric generated criticism he was too quick to cut jobs — leading to the nickname "Neutron Jack" — he also won many followers who regard him as a management guru with unparalleled leadership abilities and business acumen.

John Francis "Jack" Welch Jr.


TITLE: Retired chairman and chief executive, General Electric.

AGE-BIRTH DATE-LOCATION: 70; Nov. 19, 1935, in Salem, Mass.

EDUCATION: B.S. in chemical engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 1957; M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering, University of Illinois, 1960.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: Joined General Electric in 1960 as a junior engineer in Pittsfield, Mass. Rose through the ranks at GE, becoming vice president in 1972; senior vice president in 1977; vice chairman in 1979; and chairman and chief executive in 1981, positions he held until his retirement in 2001.

PERSONAL: Married to his third wife, Suzy Welch, née Wetlaufer. Lives in Boston.

There's also his record of increasing GE's market value by more than $400 billion before he retired in 2001 as head of the industrial, financial-services and media conglomerate.

Recently, Welch, 70, began his first classroom job, teaching an eight-session weekly course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, across the Charles River from his town house in Boston's ritzy Beacon Hill.

The course, "Conversations with Jack Welch," is aptly named.

Although Welch eagerly solicited students' ideas during a recent Wednesday afternoon session, the management ideas he discussed throughout the class were his alone:

• Pairing a young employee with a single mentor "is one of the stupidest ideas around in management," the instructor said, because the mentor "may be a turkey."

• When negotiating a deal, tell your rival what you want the moment you sit down at the negotiating table. "It gets the deal done faster," he said. "You totally disarm them by putting your cards out on the table. You take all the cleverness out of the game."

• Don't bother trying to improve the performance of underachievers in the bottom 10 percent of the company's work force, he said. Tell them they're not suited to their jobs and give them a way out.

"The theory is his, the opinions are his, and we are here to hear what he has to say," said Tal Ben-Shahar, 34, a former major in the Israeli Air Force who hopes to return to his home country to run a company.

Welch's wisdom


Quotes from Jack Welch during a recent session of his course at MIT's Sloan School of Management:

On the dilemma managers face in finding out which employees aren't performing:

"You're the last person to know who the jerks are, because they're all putting on a face for you."

On the importance of telling underperforming employees where they stand:

"As long as the turkeys aren't being told they're turkeys, they don't mind. But you have to tell them about it, and the earlier you tell them in their careers, the better."

On the business impact of globalism and information technology:

"The candor in companies today is 10 to the sixth power what it was 20 years ago."

"I still don't think integrity is a value. How can you measure integrity? It's either right or wrong. ... If you have a value that isn't measurable, it's not worth having a value."

The Associated Press

"He has a lot of experience, much more than the average professor."

The class's only required textbook is "Winning," a management guide he co-wrote with his wife, Suzy Welch.

Students don't seem to mind that the class focuses so heavily on Welch.

"I sense no arrogance, or even a hint of his experience being crammed down our throats," said Paul Scearce, 42, a Lockheed Martin executive attending MIT on a midcareer fellowship. "It's much more about making us think and sharing his personal experience."

Amid stories of his successes, Welch doesn't overlook ill-chosen acquisitions and other setbacks from his 41-year career at GE.

"This is a guy who's succeeded, but he also failed, and he doesn't mind saying it," said Ashley Prisant, 28, a former Navy officer who hopes to manage a product-distribution center.

If there's any negative about the class, it's Welch's large personality, Ben-Shahar said: "It's quite intimidating to sit in class with Jack Welch."

The 30 students — including six midcareer students like Scearce — were picked from 96 applicants who submitted résumés and wrote essays. The class is offered on a pass-fail basis.

Teaching outside the classroom is nothing new to Welch, a frequent lecturer to business leaders and students around the world.

His goal is "to give students real practical stuff that they could go out when they leave here and use, not just theoretical stuff," Welch said.

"I hope I have enough wisdom here to impart," Welch said during a recent interview.

"Some of it they will throw away. Some of it they will think, 'It's not all perfect.' It worked for me, it might not work for them. But I believe in this system."

When Sloan School of Management Dean Richard Schmalensee approached Welch last spring about exposing students to real-world management lessons, Welch quickly agreed.

He receives no compensation from MIT to teach; he sees the class as a way to gain insight from tomorrow's business leaders.

"A lot of these questions they ask may make it in some of the articles I write," he said.

The Welches co-write a regular column on management in Business Week magazine.

MIT isn't Welch's only recent move into education. He also lectures at schools such as Salem State College, north of Boston.

Welch also is crossing over into sports and television. Last spring, he began appearing on the regional cable channel as a regular commentator on the Boston Red Sox.

"I have a fan's knowledge, not an expert's knowledge," he said.

He's noncommittal about whether he may continue teaching at MIT after his current assignment. "I don't know about that, but this is a kick for now."

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company