Talk:Jack Welch

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Propose cutting a little

I've reorganized the "LEGACY" segment and added a little sourced matieral to update the thing and add perspective.

The little bit I want to cut is below:

An article from The New York Times highlights the fact that General Electric after the era of Jack Welch is more focused on core businesses after a spin-off of its North America retail finance business. After selling a fraction of its business, Immelt planned, as of 2014, to use the proceeds to build the capital as a "standalone company", resulting in "a boost for shareholders".[90]

Please mention here any objection -- which are fine. 2601:405:4A80:8CE0:0:0:0:8AEE (talk) 01:02, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

NYT

From a couple days ago, I haven't looked at it yet. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/business/jack-welch-ge-ceo-behavior.html 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:738F (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Just read it. "How Jack Welch’s Reign at G.E. Gave Us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed; The onetime ‘manager of the century’ paved the way for C.E.O.s to moonlight as internet trolls." By David Gelles, a Times reporter, author of “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” New York Times, May 21, 2022.

This Wikipedia entry is pretty good. This NYT story covers roughly the same material, sometimes confirming and sometimes taking a slightly different perspective -- for example, Gelles says that Welch's proteges at Boeing turned Boeing from an engineering company into a financial company, which resulted in the 737 Max disasters. Welch's critics say that his changes destroyed the culture of American industry, sacrificed workers and the local economies -- and didn't even provide a good return for their investors. --Nbauman (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Bad source

Note 17: https://web.archive.org/web/20160315154648/http://jpkc.uibe.edu.cn/jingpin/jpkc2004/courses/eng451j/download/gjswja10.pdf

I don't immediately see what it is, but can see "how" it is. Not reasonable. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:E4BB:4952:6F37:F702 (talk) 22:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Improper deletion?

This was deleted with comment that it was from "non-scholarly source."

In 2022, a New York Times business reporter whose book on Welch had recently been published, said, metaphorically, that Welch is "on the Mount Rushmore of men who screwed up this country."

The source citation is a "blog" transcript or whatever, in which Anand Giridharadas interviews David Gelles a NYT reporter and columnist concerning his book “The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Stole the Soul of Corporate America — and How to Undo His Legacy,” published by Simon & Schuster in 2022.

Yeah not a "scholarly" source -- although neither are most other sources cited in this article. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:7DC2:BE23:796E:4F87 (talk) 17:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I see your point; the reversion edit comment is not a good one because a source does not have to be scholarly to be reliable. But I have to agree with the reversion itself. Anand Giridharadas can really publish anything he wants to (true, false, or a mixture) in his blog without anyone fact-checking him and consequently that blog is not, in general, a reliable source for Wikipedia. The relevant policy is WP:RS and in particular WP:USERGENERATED.

Dieter.Meinertzhagen (talk) 04:48, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps that's "fair enough" (although in this actual instance, it's a silly point. I'll substitute comparable material from Gelles book, or from a review of his book published on a non-blog. 2602:252:D6A:B2C0:412:E915:BB18:E5D5 (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Long Term Effects of GE Policy and Practice

More attention needs to be focused on the long term economic effects of Welch's management theories. Welch was credited with saying that he supported the working class, but at GE everyone below the rank of department manager were treated like disposable furniture. The elimination of thousands of hourly and non-exempt jobs contributed to the short term misery of many people. Non-management salary exempt employees were at risk as well. This destruction of the working and middle class was the opposite process by which our economy grew after WWII. And when other companies followed GE's example it started a downward spiral from which our economy may not recover. As for improving productivity.

It seems that arbitrarily trimming ten percent of headcount does not cause people to try to excel, but rather to exhibit behaviors which create division and distrust within the organization. Also, decreasing headcount at an arbitrary rate, while it does reduce costs, is like losing weight by cutting off parts of your body. It has been observed that reducing staff and the associated threat caused only a temporary increase in productivity. Until exhaustion overcomes fear. 50.51.247.214 (talk) 02:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Runway

i have read that jack welch choose the executives on the basis of runway 110.224.240.66 (talk) 20:17, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Early life

This sentence makes no sense, may have been subject to an edit:

"Welch attended Salem High School, where he participated in baseball, football, and captained the hockey team and became second lieutenant right after graduating."

Second lieutenant of what? Assuming it is some branch of the military it seems very unlikely that he would be given that rank straight out of high school. MyIP19216811 (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Concur. Looks like it was added here by a IP in Pakistan in 2022, inserted into the existing high school summary without an additional source. The "Gut" biography material does not mention any military service or "lieutenant" anything - just a passing mention of a possible ROTC scholarship that the Navy declined. I'm going to remove it for now, since the addition was pretty sketchy. No objections if someone has a better source and can re-word it in way that makes sense. Sam Kuru (talk) 17:30, 30 March 2024 (UTC)