CONTROL YOUR DESTINY OR SOMEONE ELSE WILL

When Jack Welch became Chief Executive Officer of General Electric in 1981, the company was quickly approaching the grim fate that has overtaken GM, IBM, Sears and so many other blue-chip American corporations. Decades of bureaucracy had produced piles of red tape, unnecessary paperwork, muffled chains of command, and a culture that rewarded loyalty regardless of performance. Welch sold superfluous businesses, cut out layers of management, and pushed decisionmaking as far down the corporate ladder as possible, giving GE the quickness of a small business while retaining the advantages inherent in one of the ten largest companies in the world. Finally, he began reshaping the culture from one of complacency to one of bold innovation. In the process he revolutionized the art of management and led the most sucessful corporate transformation of all time. The books draws on the authors' years of work in and around General Electric and their unprecedented access to the CEO, Jack Welch, and many other GE employees.

It is a dramatic narration of watershed events in the history of the business it offers many practical insights that apply to enterprises of any size, and defines a new paradigm for American business in the 1990s and beyond.