Download or read book Men and Volts written by John Winthrop Hammond and published by . This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prologue By Philip D. Reed And Charles E. Wilson.
Download or read book Lights Out written by Thomas Gryta and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its founding in 1892, General Electric has been more than just a corporation: it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers. GE electrified America, from lightbulbs to turbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America's most valuable corporation. Gryta and Mann examine how Welch's handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to fix flaws in Welch's profit machine, while stumbling headlong into mistakes of his own. In doing so, they detail how one of America's all-time great companies has been reduced to a cautionary tale for our times. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book The Man Who Broke Capitalism written by David Gelles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.
Download or read book At Any Cost written by Thomas F. O'Boyle and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-01-12 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "O'Boyle has researched and written a monumental book that should be mandatory reading for all CEOs and anyone concerned with business ethics." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Superb . . . a spirited study of General Electric, and of its sometimes brilliant, sometimes bungling, but always ruthless boss, Jack Welch." --Chicago Sun-Times With convincing passion and meticulous research, Thomas F. O'Boyle explores the forces behind General Electric's rise to the top of Wall Street, questioning if GE, with chief executive officer Jack Welch at the helm, is still "bringing good things to life." Welch--explosive, profit-hungry, and pragmatic--catapulted GE's stocks to the top, up 1,155 percent from 1982 to 1997. O'Boyle argues that these astounding results have come only with the heavy price of employees' lives, blighted under the tyranny of "Neutron Jack" Welch, so named for his bomb-like ability to eliminate staff without disturbing surrounding operations. During Welch's reign, hard-nosed success tactics--unblinking downsizing, ruthless acquisition negotiations, and the virtual abandonment of manufacturing in favor of the more glamorous entertainment and financial services industries--coexist with scandals like price-fixing, pollution, and defense contract fraud. Sure to spark controversy, this gripping, comprehensive account begs the greater question: Is Jack Welch's GE a model company for business in the next century, or is it time to change the way the world does business? "Smoothly written and thoroughly researched." --USA Today "This book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of corporate America. . . . Thomas F. O'Boyle persuades you that GE--Jack Welch's GE--brings bad things to life. In abundance." --Washington Monthly
Download or read book If Harry Potter Ran General Electric written by Tom Morris and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2006-05-16 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: However important the magic of wands, brooms, cauldrons, potions, and spells might be to the vivid story telling of [the Harry Potter] books, it is merely incidental to their philosophy of life…. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone in a business context say something like “I wish I could just magically solve all these problems” or “I’ll try my best to deal with this, but remember, I’m no magician.” What is particularly interesting is that the most difficult problems that the people in Harry’s world face are rarely solved with just magic, but rather by the use of intelligence, reasoning, planning, courage, determination, persistence, resourcefulness, creativity, fidelity, friendship, and many other qualities traditionally known by the philosophers in our world as virtues…. The meaning of life is not to be found in elixirs or incantations, secret words or exotic objects with esoteric powers, but in real moral virtue and the magic of what it can help us do….” J. K. Rowling’s novels about Harry Potter and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have captured the imaginations of people everywhere. In IF HARRY POTTER RAN GENERAL ELECTRIC, bestselling business author Tom Morris (IF ARISTOTLE RAN GENERAL MOTORS) uncovers the values and timeless truths that underlie Rawling’s hugely popular books and illuminate the lessons they offer to all of us in our careers and daily lives. But, you say, Harry Potter lives in a world of magic? What can we possibly learn to apply to our own careers and everyday lives? Morris shows that the most difficult problems Harry and his friends face are rarely solved by the use of magic alone. Rather, they are conquered by intelligence, reasoning, determination, creativity, friendship, and a host of other classic virtues–the very qualities, in fact, that make for success in every aspect of our lives. Blending an array of provocative examples from the novels with thought-provoking commentary on contemporary management practices, IF HARRY POTTER RAN GENERAL ELECTRIC offers readers a master’s course on leadership and ethics, told in an engaging and insightful way.
Download or read book Swope of G E The Story of Gerard Swope and General Electric in American Business written by David Loth and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2023-04-19 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] sympathetic but objective biography... Swope the man was quite typical of the executives who managed great American business enterprises a generation or so after their establishment. He had the necessary talents — the total commitment to the job and company, the forceful drive, the passion for reliable data, the ‘fondness for figures’, and the precise and analytical way of thought. He differed in that he was more aware of the needs of his employees and the role his enterprise played in the larger society. More like the present generation in this respect, he was still not an organization man. At G.E., no team fashioned policy. Swope alone made the decisions.” — Alfred Chandler, The Economic History Review “[A] decidedly valuable and creditable [book]... the author very skillfully unfolds the basic facts of Swope’s career... [he] adroitly and succinctly unfolds Swope’s career against the background of the times... It is a tribute to Loth’s ability and courage that he has succeeded in conveying so much information in so short a study... one of the best businessman biographies of the past decade.” — George S. Gibb, The Business History Review
Download or read book The Education of Ronald Reagan written by Thomas W. Evans and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-29 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In October 1964, Ronald Reagan gave a televised speech in support of Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. "The Speech," as it has come to be known, helped launch Ronald Reagan as a leading force in the American conservative movement. However, less than twenty years earlier, Reagan was a prominent Hollywood liberal, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, and a fervent supporter of FDR and Harry Truman. While many agree that Reagan's anticommunism grew out of his experiences with the Hollywood communists of the late 1940s, the origins of his conservative ideology have remained obscure. Based on a newly discovered collection of private papers as well as interviews and corporate documents, The Education of Ronald Reagan offers new insights into Reagan's ideological development and his political ascendancy. Thomas W. Evans links the eight years (1954-1962) in which Reagan worked for General Electric—acting as host of its television program, GE Theater, and traveling the country as the company's public-relations envoy-to his conversion to conservatism. In particular, Evans reveals the profound influence of GE executive Lemuel Boulware, who would become Reagan's political and ideological mentor. Boulware, known for his tough stance against union officials and his innovative corporate strategies to win over workers, championed the core tenets of modern American conservatism-free-market fundamentalism, anticommunism, lower taxes, and limited government. Building on the ideas and influence of Boulware, Reagan would soon begin his rise as a national political figure and an icon of the American conservative movement.
Download or read book The Organization Man written by William H. Whyte and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regarded as one of the most important sociological and business commentaries of modern times, The Organization Man developed the first thorough description of the impact of mass organization on American society. During the height of the Eisenhower administration, corporations appeared to provide a blissful answer to postwar life with the marketing of new technologies—television, affordable cars, space travel, fast food—and lifestyles, such as carefully planned suburban communities centered around the nuclear family. William H. Whyte found this phenomenon alarming. As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status. Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.
Download or read book Jack written by Jack Welch and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The CEO of General Electric looks back on his distinguished career with the corporation and shares his personal philosophy of business and innovative managerial style.
Download or read book The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse written by Marianne M. Jennings and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2006-08-22 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you want to make sure you · Don't invest your money in the next Enron? · Don't go to work for the next WorldCom right before the crash? · Identify and solve problems in your organization before they send it crashing to the ground? Marianne Jennings has spent a lifetime studying business ethics---and ethical failures. In demand nationwide as a speaker and analyst on business ethics, she takes her decades of findings and shows us in The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse the reasons that companies and nonprofits undergo ethical collapse, including: · Pressure to maintain numbers · Fear and silence · Young 'uns and a larger-than-life CEO · A weak board · Conflicts · Innovation like no other · Belief that goodness in some areas atones for wrongdoing in others Don't watch the next accounting disaster take your hard-earned savings, or accept the perfect job only to find out your boss is cooking the books. If you're just interested in understanding the (not-so) ethical underpinnings of business today, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse is both a must-have tool and a fascinating window into today's business world.
Download or read book Winning written by Jack Welch and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A champion manager of people, Jack Welch shares the hard-earned wisdom of a storied career in what will become the ultimate business bible With Winning, Jack Welch delivers a wide-ranging, in-depth, no-holds-barred management guidebook about the tough strategic, organizational, and personal challenges that face people at every stage of their careers. Loaded with candid personal anecdotes, hard-hitting advice, and invaluable dos and don’ts, Jack explains his theory of business, by laying out the four most important principles that form the foundation of his success. Chapters include: How to Get Promoted, How to Think about Strategy, How to Write a Budget that Works, How to Work for a Jerk, How Find Work-Life Balance and How Start Something New. Enlivened by quotes from business leaders that Welch interviewed especially for the book, it’s a tour de force that reflects Welch’s mastery of execution, excellence and leadership.
Download or read book Willis R Whitney General Electric and the Origins of U S Industrial Research written by George Wise and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Jamestown, New York, Willis R. Whitney (1868-1958) was the longtime director of General Electric’s Research Laboratory and is widely considered one of the fathers of industrial research. He graduated from MIT in 1890 to become assistant professor of chemistry there. In 1896, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig under Wilhelm Ostwald. Having grown dissatisfied with purely academic work, he jumped at the opportunity, provided by Elihu Thompson in 1900, to become director of the newly created GE Research Laboratory. The laboratory was “to be devoted exclusively to original research.” “It is hoped,” a 1902 report stated, “that many profitable fields may be discovered” and so it was: when Whitney took over, GE needed more economical lamp filaments and the laboratory developed a new form of “metallized” carbon which gave 25% more light for the same wattage, the first radical improvement in Edison’s incandescent carbon filament. Millions of the new lamps were sold in a single year. The laboratory’s many other contributions include the tungsten lamp, several applications for wrought tungsten (replacing platinum targets in X-ray tubes and platinum contacts in spark coils, magnetos and relays) and the Coolidge X-ray tube in a wide range of sizes. Whitney’s broad scientific knowledge, ability as a chemist and resourcefulness as an experimenter lay the basis for all the work of the laboratory. He stepped down as director in 1932. He was a member of numerous institutions including the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, American Society of Electrochemical Engineers, National Academy of Sciences, British Institute of Metals, and National Research Council, and he received many honors, such as the Willard Gibbs Medal in 1920, the Perkin Medal in 1921, the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences in 1928, and the AIEE Edison Medal in 1934 for “his contributions to electrical science, his pioneer inventions, and his inspiring leadership in research.” “Whitney invented modern industrial research... George Wise re-creates much of the anxiety and excitement of the decades when business discovered science and vice versa.” — David Diamond, The New York Times “Wise has not simply written biography and a story of the research laboratory at General Electric but also a great deal of General Electric history and history of technology as well... The author’s technical and scientific presentations are generally lucid and accessible to the layperson.” — Martha M. Trescott, Journal of Economic History “[A] book of many strengths. Most immediately apparent is the very high quality of the writing. As a skilled biographer, Wise succeeds in bringing the reader into the life of an interesting and important individual... Wise does not neglect the personal side of Whitney’s life, including his unhappy family situation and his personal illnesses... The primary focus, however, is on his work at GE, work the author expertly fits into broader patterns of science, industry and society in early twentieth-century America.” — James H. Madison, Journal of American History “[A] thoroughly researched and lucidly written book... Wise’s book makes important contributions to the understanding of the origins of industrial research and the development of science in the American context.” — John K. Smith, Technology and Culture “George Wise effectively develops the foundation for an interesting and in-depth view of a man who made an outstanding contribution to industrial research, while at the same time suffering personal disappointments and fighting a continuing battle with recurring mental depression... Wise’s book is warm, personal, and rich in historical background; it provides a view into the life of the individual who set the stage for industrial research in America.” — Alfred A. Bolton, Academy of Management Review “[An] important book... Wise’s portrayal of Whitney is acute and sensitive. Moreover, it demonstrates that the depiction of industrial scientists as either alienated and unhappy academics-in-exile or mindless minions of the giant corporation is overly simple... Wise has produced a first-rate study of a pioneering establishment that should be read by anyone interested in the crucial relationships between science and modern industry.” — Larry Owens, Business History Review “[A] turning point in the long-neglected history of industrial research. [N]ot merely outstanding... [a] definitive work that establish[es] critical standards for future research in this field... beautifully crafted... a sensitive and insightful biography of Willis R. Whitney.” — Edwin T. Lawton, Jr., Isis “Wise has accomplished perhaps the most difficult task before any biographer — successfully connecting his subject’s historical significance with the deeper elements of his humanity. This humanity is described with a biographer’s sympathy and a historian’s sophistication... Wise writes with sympathy and often charm, drawing not only from substantial archival records but also from dozens of interviews carried out with Whitney’s associates and workers... This biography will not only be the standard study of Whitney, but it will also provide a useful model and guide for all students of the key institutions of modern science.” — Robert Friedel, British Journal for the History of Science
Download or read book The Power Makers written by Maury Klein and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maury Klein is one of America's most acclaimed historians of business and society. In The Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yet - the "power revolution" that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine; the incandescent bulb; the electric motor-inventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The cast of characters includes inventors like James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs like George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen like J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once. With consummate skill, Klein recreates their discoveries, their stunning triumphs and frequent failures, and their unceasing, bare-knuckled battles in the marketplace. In Klein's hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makers is a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, and business competition at its most naked and cutthroat--a biography of America in its most astonishing decades.
Download or read book Schenectady s General Electric Realty Plot written by Chris Leonard and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Schenectady's General Electric Realty Plot was formed in 1899 when the General Electric (GE) Company purchased 70 acres of land from Union College to provide unique housing opportunities for its executives and scientists and to attract brilliant minds from around the world to work for GE ... Chris Leonard, city historian of Schenectady and historian of the GE Realty Plot, has selected images from the archives of the Schenectady Historical Society, MiSci, Union College, and the Efner History Center and from the collections of GE Realty Plot neighbors to trace the story of the Plot from its beginnings to the desperate efforts to save these homes in the 1970s ..."--Back cover
Download or read book The Automobile written by and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 1004 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The GE Way Fieldbook Jack Welch s Battle Plan for Corporate Revolution written by Robert Slater and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 1999-12-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If management is an art, then surely Jack Welch has proved himself a master painter." - BusinessWeek Boardroom legend Jack Welch is widely regarded as one of the most effective CEOs in business history. Welch’s groundbreaking programs—including Six Sigma and Work-Out—along with his numerous strategies on business leadership have helped transform GE into the global benchmark for maximized productivity and labor efficiency. Now, The GE Way Fieldbook explains how you can implement the same programs that helped turn GE into a $100 billion juggernaut. Drawing from his unprecedented access to GE’s top-level corridors of power—including a never-before-published full-length interview with Jack Welch—veteran business author Robert Slater packs innovative strategies, easy-to-use diagnostic exercises, detailed questionnaires, and more into the most hands-on, applications-oriented book ever written on General Electric. Only in The GE Way Fieldbook will you find: "The Boca Raton Speeches"—Never-before-seen excerpts taken from Jack Welch’s internal speeches to GE employees More than 100 exercises, overheads, and exhibits from the files of Jack Welch and GE The most complete treatment of GE’s Six Sigma program ever published Step-by-step action plans that are blueprints for implementing Six Sigma and Work-Out—and creating the boundaryless organization The fieldbook has become one of today’s most popular, effective teaching tools—but never before has one focused on the inner workings and strategies of a specific company. The GE Way Fieldbook gives you an inside look at the stunningly successful Jack Welch era at GE, provides the techniques and tools you need to focus every worker in your organization on progress and growth, and outlines a strategic roadmap for implementing GE’s business practices—and removing the boundaries to success—within your own organization.
Download or read book The GE Work Out written by David Ulrich and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2002-03-22 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous "Work-Out" change-management tool explained by the people who helped develop it. GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GEoften working directly with CEO Jack Welchdiscuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE. Filled with effective assessment and decisionmaking tools, The GE Work-Out provides concrete and realistic guidance for anyone who wants to implement Work-Out and break down bureaucracy and hierarchy within an organization.
