Winning by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch

Winning by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch

This book is about business and how to succed in business. It is very candid. There is a certain hard edge to the book despite its very positive presentation. Jack Welch likes to differentiate the top 20% best players, the 70% in the middle, and the 10% on the bottom on the way out. A lot of this book is about how not to be in the bottom 10% despite being advertised as being how to win.

A lot of the basics of business are covered; mission statements and values, what makes a winner, how to succeed in your career, and how to have a positive energetic attitude that will lead to success. Jack Welch was very successful in his career; at the same time some people described him as being too candid and willing to fire people too quickly.

He warns people against complaining and resisting change. The best way to get out of a hard situation is to either buy in to change or move on somewhere else. He tells you that a sure way not to get a new job is to complain about your current job, underperform, and sent out resumes to everyone in existence. According to him, the best way to find new work is to improve your performance so you stand out.

There are many insightful ideas in this book which I found quite useful. Jack Welch says that many of his ideas came from working at General Electric as well as teaching and consulting after retirement. He describes how he has learned from many different people, not just fellow CEOs.

One of his ideas is that organized people automatically have better work life balance. This is because they are more able to do more at work and at home. Organization and time management are something I am working on.

The book is well organized and easy to follow. Winning was a bestselling business book. It will remain a mainstay of business reading for a long time. If you are interested in the basics of how to succeed in a career or business this book offers a lot of insight.

Good Morning, Good Evening

Hans Holbein The Younger, Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam Writing 1523

Good Morning

Library journal has a nice short article on personal finance books. I think I will add some of the titles which I have not ordered yet to my financial literacy order.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6608058.html?nid=4683&rid=#reg_visitor_id_2#&source=title

A large portion of this morning has been spent going through my desk throwing out old things and sorting things into files. The piles are slowly disappearing from my desk. I also am clearing some old work, mostly discards which I hadn't made the final decision on. My desk should be cleaned out by tomorrow or the next day.

I also have been clearing things from the reference desk. There is some older material than needs to be put away or discarded. It might take me a little while to look through everything.

There was a pile of magazines Publishers Weekly, New York Times Book Review, and Library Journal which had been routed to me this morning. I spent a portion of my lunch time reading through them. There wasn't anything particularly striking in the library news today.

I am still working on doing more discards in the social science books. It is a job which will take me a very long time to do.

Good Evening

Today was one of those days where nothing went quite the way I expected it to go. I got a chance to work a little more on cleaning up my desk, but did not get far. I still have quite a bit to do. I'll have to work on it some more tomorrow.

I compiled a list of films for my boss to order of animation, anime, and martial arts films. There are a couple of films that I really want to see which I ordered, Ong Bak, Once Upon A Time In China, some early popeye cartoons, and a collected Max Fleischer Superman.

Some books came in for to read through the interchange, Winning by Jack Welch with Suzy Welch. I am on the second chapter of the book. I stopped reading Winning, and finished reading Dororo Volume 3 by Osamu Tezuka. The finish of the story is excellent. My favorite part of the story is when Hyakimaru fights the shark demon. The Van Rijn Method by Poul Anderson also came in. I am going to read it after I finish reading Winning.

I rather like reading practical books sometimes. I still have not finished using Organizing for Dummies. I think of books as tools for self-education. That is one of the primary purposes of libraries. I am still doing the simple yoga exercises from Yoga RX as well.

I never did get a chance to order any of the personal finance books. I was too busy. Sometimes work gets like that. There were a couple other things which I did not finish as well.

Winning The Answers Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions In Business Today by Jack and Suzy Welch

Winning The Answers Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions In Business Today by Jack and Suzy Welch

This book consists of 74 chapters. Each chapter is headed by question related to business and success. The questions cover all aspects of business from resistance to a new boss, what to do if you are promoted, when you should leave a company, and how to win in the world. Here is an example question.

"Do tough bosses get more out of people? Of course they get short term results -- but do they really help a company win in the long run?" The answer is complicated, the Welch's ask what is tough? Being tough can make things go wrong if it is purely spiteful or pushy.

Some of the answers are not what you would expect. There is a consistent theme about resistance to change and complaining a lot being very bad for your career. In any career people prefer people who are positive and upbeat.

I definitely do not meet the Welch's definition of what a good salesperson or entrepreneur is. I don't have an incredible new idea or am constantly seeking new ways to expand my market share. Well, I sort of am with this blog. I also realize that I have to improve my organization and scheduling skills before I go anywhere else.

There are some excellent tips on goal setting in this book. The Welch's believe in incremental goal setting. Setting goals which you can reach in a practical, systematic manner. This is what separates the winners from the losers. Being able to reach life goals in a clear consistent way whatever they are is what makes a winner. It does not matter whether it is helping the homeless, becoming a published poet, or starting a successful business. Those who win set goals and achieve them consistently.

This book is a useful, practical book. It is very easy to read. The writing is very direct. There is no obfuscation or jargon. I recognized some of my own strengths and weaknesses in many of the questions. Many of the questions are universal in nature and would be useful to people anywhere in the world.

I didn't focus on the questions on China, Russia, and international business which I am sure would help some people. I focused on the questions which would help me in my own career. The book makes me want read the first book, Winning by Jack.