The Introverted Jack Welch
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Rhetoric speaks. Jack Welch used a speech writer to put into words all the things he was thinking when he ended up CEO at GE.
Sometimes, we think all of strategy is a team effort. Lane makes the case that Welch, working all by himself, decided what to say. He just needed help in saying it. Welch realized that without "world-class" (Lane, 108) communication, GE wouldn't grow the way he wanted it to.
Unsaid in the review of Lane's book is any mention that Welch is normally an introvert. Maybe he wasn't. But he was smart enough to know that everything he said and forum he said it in, had to be properly scripted.
Interestingly, in the Welch's column this month is BusinessWeek they talk about how deleterious being an introvert can be to your career. Their advice? Fight it. Present every time you are able. Ask for advice on how you did. Don't be a wall-flower.
Welch is just giving advice he received in the early eighties. It seems to have worked for him.
Reference
Lane, Bill. Jacked Up: The Inside Story of How Jack Welch Talked GE into Becoming the World's Greatest Company. http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/08408a?pg=0 . Best Business Books 2008. Strategy+Business. Winter 2008. Page 108.
Welch, Jack and Suzy Welch. Release Your Inner Extrovert. BusinessWeek. 8 December 2008. 092. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111092962041.htm