I worked for GE in the 80’s and can testify that his story isn’t that far off. Welsh got the nickname of Neutron Jack: wipe out people but left buildings standing. By the end of the 80’s the 2 most profitable divisions of GE were, in order; Finance and Plastics.
Before I went into the Army I worked for GE NED for about 9 months swing shift building and staging and testing control room control modules for nuclear power plants in 1975.
I read Jacks book straight from the gut, great book. The people he fired were dead weight types. Every corp. has dead weight, his six sigma was used to root it out.
His protege Jeffery Immelt is the one who destroyed it. His ego was so big when he flew in the gulf stream 650 anywhere in the world its twin had to follow behind in case of mechanical issues. The other two in the contest to get Jacks job were just as bad. Bob Nardelli was one, can’t remember the other.
I disagree, I worked for GE in the 90’s and 2000’s. Welch focused on stock value and profitability, not the customers or the products. The company was well on the way to divesting things that weren’t profitable enough. At one point, I was told our cost of money was 26%, in other words, to get money to invest in maintenance and repair, I had to show a better than 26% return, or the money would be used for something else where it would make that much.
Welch also started the huberistic trend that good managers could manage anything. However, the good managers from other divisions that didn’t understand our customers or products were accountants; they understood a spreadsheet, and that we wanted profit margin to go up, but they didn’t understand how to make that happen within our industry.
Eventually dropping the 10% was dropped, because it was realized that after you drop 10% a few times, you’re getting rid of good people. Six Sigma was a good program, maybe even great. However, most accountants (executives) don’t understand statistics or industrial psychology, so it never reached its full potential.
Nardelli and Immelt were of the same mold. They didn’t start it, they just carried on.
IMHO
Yep. This crap destroyed Hewlett Packard and it’s doing a lot of the same to Mars Inc.
Yup, big difference between my Dad’s generation and mine (I’m now 60). With my Dad and his friends, once you got on with a big company you were set for life. Solid blue collar, but with benefits and a company that would take care of you. When they wanted to move some of the older people out, they offered retirement packages – 2 weeks pay per year of service plus another several years of insurance and medical benefits too.
My generation? Absolutely no loyalty from the company ever. We were replaceable on a moment’s notice. Simple cogs in the machine. They’d just as soon fire you as offer a package. Penny pinching and spreadsheet management were the rule of the day. I’m getting out. The kids coming in behind me really have no idea of how bad things are.
I’ve spent the past 40 years reporting unit metrics and I’ve never seen, not once, those metrics used for anything other than the excuse to fire people or shut things down. Fuck them.
I worked for GE in the 80’s and can testify that his story isn’t that far off. Welsh got the nickname of Neutron Jack: wipe out people but left buildings standing. By the end of the 80’s the 2 most profitable divisions of GE were, in order; Finance and Plastics.
Before I went into the Army I worked for GE NED for about 9 months swing shift building and staging and testing control room control modules for nuclear power plants in 1975.
I read Jacks book straight from the gut, great book. The people he fired were dead weight types. Every corp. has dead weight, his six sigma was used to root it out.
His protege Jeffery Immelt is the one who destroyed it. His ego was so big when he flew in the gulf stream 650 anywhere in the world its twin had to follow behind in case of mechanical issues. The other two in the contest to get Jacks job were just as bad. Bob Nardelli was one, can’t remember the other.
I disagree, I worked for GE in the 90’s and 2000’s. Welch focused on stock value and profitability, not the customers or the products. The company was well on the way to divesting things that weren’t profitable enough. At one point, I was told our cost of money was 26%, in other words, to get money to invest in maintenance and repair, I had to show a better than 26% return, or the money would be used for something else where it would make that much.
Welch also started the huberistic trend that good managers could manage anything. However, the good managers from other divisions that didn’t understand our customers or products were accountants; they understood a spreadsheet, and that we wanted profit margin to go up, but they didn’t understand how to make that happen within our industry.
Eventually dropping the 10% was dropped, because it was realized that after you drop 10% a few times, you’re getting rid of good people. Six Sigma was a good program, maybe even great. However, most accountants (executives) don’t understand statistics or industrial psychology, so it never reached its full potential.
Nardelli and Immelt were of the same mold. They didn’t start it, they just carried on.
IMHO
Yep. This crap destroyed Hewlett Packard and it’s doing a lot of the same to Mars Inc.
Yup, big difference between my Dad’s generation and mine (I’m now 60). With my Dad and his friends, once you got on with a big company you were set for life. Solid blue collar, but with benefits and a company that would take care of you. When they wanted to move some of the older people out, they offered retirement packages – 2 weeks pay per year of service plus another several years of insurance and medical benefits too.
My generation? Absolutely no loyalty from the company ever. We were replaceable on a moment’s notice. Simple cogs in the machine. They’d just as soon fire you as offer a package. Penny pinching and spreadsheet management were the rule of the day. I’m getting out. The kids coming in behind me really have no idea of how bad things are.
I’ve spent the past 40 years reporting unit metrics and I’ve never seen, not once, those metrics used for anything other than the excuse to fire people or shut things down. Fuck them.