Winning - Jack Welch [33]
But friendship and experience are never enough. Every person you hire has to have integrity, intelligence, and maturity. Once you’ve got those, look hard for people with the four Es and passion. Beyond that, at the senior level, look for authenticity, foresight, the willingness to draw on others for advice, and resilience.
Put it all together, and those are the people who win.
7
People Management
* * *
YOU’VE GOT THE RIGHT PLAYERS. NOW WHAT?
YOU’VE GOT THE RIGHT PLAYERS on the field—that’s a great start. Now they need to work together, steadily improve their performance, be motivated, stay with the company, and grow as leaders.
In other words, they need to be managed.
There are libraries of books on people management, not to mention plenty of courses in business schools. There are training programs, magazines, and Web sites, many offering sound advice. And then there is experience.
That’s mainly what this chapter draws on. During my years at GE, once I was out of the laboratory at Plastics, managing people was really what I did. After all, I didn’t have the expertise to design jet engines, build CT scanners, or create a comedy program for NBC. Obviously, as CEO, I got involved in everything: strategy, new products, sales, M & A, and the like. But in that job, I always believed the people part was how I could help GE the most.
People management covers a wide range of activities, but it really comes down to six fundamental practices.
No person can undertake these activities alone—far from it—so let me phrase them as company-wide practices. To manage people well, companies should:
1. Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy in the organization, and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers build leaders and careers. In fact, the best HR types are pastors and parents in the same package.
2. Use a rigorous, nonbureaucratic evaluation system, monitored for integrity with the same intensity as Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance.
3. Create effective mechanisms—read: money, recognition, and training—to motivate and retain.
4. Face straight into charged relationships—with unions, stars, sliders, and disrupters.
5. Fight gravity, and instead of taking the middle 70 percent for granted, treat them like the heart and soul of the organization.
6. Design the org chart to be as flat as possible, with blindingly clear reporting relationships and responsibilities.
After being on the road for several years, I realize that some people may read these practices and wonder how, if they adopt them, they’ll ever get any real work done.
I always thought they were real work! But many Q & A sessions have left me with the impression that at lots of companies, people management is what’s done when there’s time left over.
In the hope that that might change, here are the practices in more detail.
* * *
PRACTICE 1: Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy in the organization, and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers build leaders and careers. In fact, the best HR types are pastors and parents in the same package.
* * *
About three years ago I was in Mexico City, speaking at a convention of five thousand human resource executives. As usual, the event was set up as a Q & A session with two seats on the stage. In this case, the interviewer was Daniel Servitje, the thoughtful and engaging CEO of Grupo Bimbo, one of the country’s largest food companies.
Daniel and I spent the first forty-five minutes talking about strategy, budgets, global competition, and other business topics before the microphone went into the audience for their questions. The first person to speak identified herself as the head of personnel for a Brazilian manufacturer. With an urgent voice, she asked me about the role of HR in a company—what did I think it should be?
My answer was immediate, and to be honest with you, even though I have been making this point publicly for years,