General Electric Hero

General Electric Under Jack Welch John Francis Welch, Jr., also known as “Jack”, became the CEO of General Electric in 1981 and maintained this title for the next 20 years until his retirement in 2001. He was widely known as a “national business hero” because he had a different approach on management that provided increasing results. For this very reason, many also despised his tactics. He was very aggressive in cutting out the weak, because he believed that it was holding back the company. One of the main principles that General Electric emphasized was loyalty. After Welch took over, loyalty meant next to nothing. He led General Electric to become a highly profitable and successful firm, but a major question is how successful he was as a
Considering how large the organization is, employees of General Electric make up a large part of society. Welch’s plan of “closing 73 plants, selling 232 businesses, and eliminating 132,000 workers from GE payrolls” made a huge impact on these employees that lost their jobs. Welch did not consider the consequences of his actions, and how they affected the lives of those who dedicated many years of loyalty to General Electric. He made it mandatory to list the lowest performing 10% of each General Electric business, regardless of how successful their business was. This was a horrible way to evaluate the productiveness of each business. Time after time, the lowest 10% of managers were rid
His ideas are similar to Welch’s actions, in that profits are what matters most. During Welch’s era, he increased General Electric’s profits significantly, but also gained countless amounts of hatred. Both Friedman and Welch have a narrow view of what corporate social responsibility really is. Many demands that Welch carried out as CEO has caused harm to many of his own employees. For example, if one worker has been living paycheck to paycheck, and was suddenly let go because he or she happened to be in the lower 10% in the General Electric business, the worker will not have enough money to pay for rent, food, or even take care of a child. Because of these harsh and sudden decisions made by Welch, many people began to suffer. Not only were jobs being outsourced, but General Electric was also causing harm to the environment. This constitutes to the unsafely measures of General Electric during the Welch