I’ve never been a big fan of Jack Welch, nor GE. Not to say they aren’t really smart and good at what they do, but suffice to say they are not people orientated at all, and seem to be somewhat anti-family. All one needs to do is look at the various heads of their differing divisions to see what kind of folks are running that company.
As someone who markets LTC insurance I’m always amazed when someone has bought GE (now called Genworth).
Today GE/Genworth is almost always in the top 7 but seldom in the top 3.
Apparently, some people don’t mind paying more for a ‘brand name’.
The first management fad was "six sigma" named after the statistical term sigma, the measure of one standard deviation. The idea that six sigma is the measure of a very rare event, one that happens (assuming a normal distribution) approximately 3.4 times per million events. This is management speak for getting processes down to a T, to eliminate defects and rework.A repair guy I know told me he wouldn't recommend a GE appliance to his ex-mother-in-law.
No cheers, unfortunately! A great column though.