Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Der Manager als siegessicherer Coach: Er gibt die Ziele vor, stellt sich ein Siegerteam zusammen und spornt seine Leute dann an wie kein anderer. Go! Go! Go!

So konsequent kann Management sein, wenn man den Einsichten von Jack Welch folgt: Alles, was es braucht, ist der Siegeswille, ein klares Ziel (im Falle von GE: Erster oder zweiter in jedem Geschäftsfeld), konsequente Entscheidungen und klare Prinzipien (z.B. Six Sigma). Den Rest erledigt dann das Team in Eigenregie. Der Erfolg ist quasi vorprogrammiert.

Was dieses Buch darüber hinaus auszeichnet, ist, dass Welch auch umstrittene Thesen ausführlich erläutert und man so erkennt, was wirklich dahintersteckt. Warum müssen zum Beispiel die schlechtesten 10% der Mitarbeiter gehen? Dahinter verbirgt sich keine Hire-und-Fire-Politik, denn ein verantwortungsbewusster Manager hat vor dem Rauswurf zigmal mit den entsprechenden Mitarbeitern gesprochen, so dass diese in der Regel wissen, wie es um sie steht, und Chancen hatten zu reagieren. Gleichzeitig bietet sich aber für die Firma die Chance, neue Mitarbeiter ins Spiel zu bringen.

Fazit: Das Buch überzeugt durch seine Klarheit und Einfachheit. Auch wenn sein persönliches Sieger-Image in den letzten Jahren ein paar Kratzer bekommen hat, ist und bleibt er der wohl beste Manager seiner Generation. Und schon deshalb ist dieses Buch ein absolutes Muss für jeden (künftigen) Manager.

Mir hat das Buch besodners gut gefallen. Herr Welch hat einen direkten Stil und basiert seine Managementtheorie auf ganz klare Prinzipien, die man auch überall umsetzen kann. Das einzige Problem ist das viele der Themen die da behandelt werden (z.B. Aquise oder Fusionen) nicht so relevant sind, wenn man nicht mit einem multinationalen Unternehmen zu tun hat. Allerdings ist es ein ganz gutes Management How-to Buch.

Most authors will tell you that they don't understand what their book is about until about four years after the book comes out. What happened in the meantime? They were asked sincere questions by readers that revealed the metamessage buried within the text.

Jack: Straight from the Gut wasn't a very good book as my review on September 11, 2001 suggested.

Winning is a pretty good book that covers much of the ground that was missed in the earlier book. What happened in the meantime? Mr. Welch has answered hundreds of questions from bewildered readers who didn't understand how to apply what the said in the first book . . . and he married his third wife, who helped him with this book. Ms. Welch is a former editor of Harvard Business Review and her fingerprints are all over this book. Thank God!

The book begins with a defense and explanation of his basic approach to business based on investing in star businesses and performers, keeping the next 70% motivated and dumping the bottom 10%. It's a much better explanation than in Jack. You may buy his argument . . . or you may not. Most will not.

The second section is about leadership, Jack Welch style. It will remind you of books you've read about general managers, coaches, and heads of player personnel management baseball teams. Unless you plan to devote your life to climbing to the top of a large company, you'll probably opt for the Free Agent Nation instead.

The third section is quite well done. I recommend it to you. Chapter 11 on how to develop a strategy is worth the price of the book. I have already started recommending this chapter to my graduate business students. Chapter 12 on budgeting is a solid contribution to the subject. Chapter 14 is a tell-it-like-it-is description of how M & A goes wrong and how to avoid it. Nice!

For those starting out careers, I recommend Chapter 16. It's good advice.

Chapter 19 was a disappointment. But what does a work-a-holic know about work-life balance?

The structure of each chapter was well designed. After a brief introduction, Mr. Welch outlines a few key points. He then puts a little more perspective on the problem with an example (often from GE) and goes on to explain each of the key points with one or two examples. A number of insightful questions from his conferences and public appearances are included.

His tone is much improved from Jack. He acknowledges his weaknesses throughout . . . which he only did concerning his early years in Jack. He also candidly shares an insider's view of what is said behind closed doors in many major companies. It's that candor that makes this book special.

A famous management guru once told me about meeting Mr. Welch when he was a young executive. The other GE people knew that Mr. Welch would make a great CEO, but they were afraid that he would antagonize too many people along the way. Instead, Mr. Welch learned how to use his energy and candor to stimulate useful action. And now, in this book, he seems to have learned to start to see himself more objectively.

For me, the main disappointment about this book was that again he doesn't explain much about the success of GE Capital, which was the major achievement while he was at GE that drove the company forward. I learned more from one answer on this subject that Dennis Dammerman gave me at a conference than from reading two books by Jack Welch. Perhaps that suggests that Mr. Welch doesn't really know why it worked. In this book, Mr. Welch acknowledges that Mr. Dammerman was his mentor in all things financial, even though Mr. Dammerman was his subordinate.

But compared to the usual "didn't I do a great job" book by large company CEOs, this one is worth reading . . . both for what it says and what it doesn't say.

Draw your own conclusions about how much of this advice you feel is relevant for the future. I suspect that much of the advice won't hold up. For example, there's almost nothing in here about business model innovation beyond pushing geographical expansion by putting top performers in charge and being willing to set up new organizations.