Here is the two opening paragraphs to The Wall Street Journal's review [sub. needed] of Winning by the Welches:
Books of a certain genre, notably those written by celebrity coaches or businessmen, tend to serve gruel to readers who really want to know the author's secret sauce. "Winning" (HarperBusiness, 372 pages, $27.95) is no exception. "For goodness sake -- Have fun. Yes, have fun," advises Jack Welch, the retired chairman of General Electric and certainly the most successful CEO of his time. Further on he confides: "Managers at every level have to make hard choices and live by them." And: "Your job as a leader is to fight the gravitational pull of negativism."
There is plenty of such oatmeal in "Winning" (written with Suzy Welch, a former editor of the Harvard Business Review and now Mr. Welch's wife). Luckily there is nourishment, too. Mr. Welch offers knowing descriptions of dilemmas and problems that are all too common in American business life, and he proposes a few ideas for solving them, though with mixed results.
Oatmeal?
Posted by Todd S. at April 8, 2005 10:18 AM | TrackBackY'know what, Todd? Given what Jack Welch has to say about balancing family and business life, I am quite uninterested in his advice about leadership and winning. The cost of his style of winning is just unacceptably high for someone who wants to have a family, wants to be involved with their children, and wants to define themselves as more than a business person.
Check out my latest article at http://www.apparenting.com/ and you'll see what I mean.
Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 8, 2005 11:29 AMIt appears the three other comments from this weekend have been lost. What happened?
Posted by: Laurence Haughton at April 11, 2005 01:20 PMI am the reason for the missing comments. Todd made a post about. I am sorry.
Posted by: Jack Covert at April 11, 2005 01:54 PM