Winning - Jack Welch [38]
Now to the negotiating table. Make every effort not to have your first date there. A war zone is no place to get acquainted.
Almost every time I traveled to the businesses with Bill Conaty, we met with local union representatives. These sessions were mainly to get to know one another better and lay out positions without any immediate agenda. Everyone would get a chance to talk, and even better, in these settings, we were all more inclined to listen. Bill and I always learned a lot, and it served Bill and the company well in every national negotiation.
Let’s look at another charged relationship to manage: with stars. One thing is certain. You need stars to win, and I have always advocated identifying your stars—that top 20 percent—and stroking and rewarding them in an outsize way.
But stroking can backfire. A star’s ego can be a dangerous thing.
I’ve seen talented young people promoted too quickly and their ambition spin out of control. I’ve seen terrific financial analysts, engineers, and network executives get told one too many times that they are irreplaceable, and they start swaggering around to the point that their teams resent them. I’ve seen smart, capable individuals come to believe they are so indispensable that they should not be bound by anything, including the company’s values.*
Stars can become monsters if you let them.
That’s why someone has to be on the lookout, namely the star’s boss, with support from HR, if you have it. This job cannot fall through the cracks. The minute a star seems to be getting arrogant or out of control, someone has to call the person in to have a candid conversation about values and behaviors. You can never be afraid of your stars; they can’t hold a company hostage.
Now, sometimes stars surprise you and up and leave. That can be a defining moment. Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. That’s right, eight hours. This immediate reaction sends the message to the organization that no one is indispensable. It shouts out that no single individual is bigger than the company.
One morning in the summer of 2001, just as Jeff Immelt was about to take over as CEO, Larry Johnston, who was CEO of our appliances business, came to headquarters to tell us he was taking the job as CEO of Albertsons, the large West Coast food and drug chain. Larry was a big presence in GE, with a strong track record and great reputation. Even though the announcement of his departure knocked the wind out of us, we moved quickly. By four o’clock that afternoon, we appointed Jim Campbell, the sales manager in Appliances, to the job. Albertsons got a great CEO, and we never missed a beat. Jim was off and running from day one.*
The only way to be able to replace a star swiftly is to have a slate of people ready to do so. That’s where good evaluation systems come in, in particular, career development planning. That process can surface one or two in-house candidates to replace any star who departs.
Just don’t wait until the star leaves to start the replacement process. By then it’s too late to make the point.
A third complicated relationship is with what I call sliders. These are employees who were once good performers but have hit a wall for some reason or another, ranging from a midlife crisis to a job-related disappointment.
A slider, while generally well liked, now just shows up at work and goes through the motions. In most cases, no one knows what to do about it. In fact, the situation is usually so awkward, people look away.
You can’t. Sliders need to be reenergized, either with new jobs or training. Otherwise, they fossilize in their jobs, and they often grow bitter, slowly but surely infecting their groups with disaffection. Often, managers take a long time to let these individuals