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It Takes More Than Strategy

Professional Remodeler magazine recently ran an article about the ranking system made famous by General Electric & Jack Welch and discussed in Jack's latest book, Winning. The premise of the system is that you need to create turnover in the bottom 10% of your workforce every year in order to constantly upgrade the quality of your team. The article presents the point-of-view that this system does not lead to the best organizational performance and that perhaps GE could have done far better without the system.

HousingZone.com - Rank and Yank

Scott makes some great observations and quite honestly he's right. Jack Welch was also right. How can this be? Well, before you jump into any management philosophy you have to realize that no strategy wheter financial, operational or talent-based is a stand-alone "Management Module."

The strategy has to fit the leader AND the culture of the company. This is why you cannot simply bolt-on the latest management strategy to a company. First and foremost the leader has to believe, live and love the strategy, second and also very important is that the culture of the company has to generally fit with the strategy and third the leader has to work like crazy to EXECUTE the strategy which Larry Bossidy discusses in his book Execution.

When you look around at business there are millions of ways to make money and be successful and just as many different management styles. Some are more successful than others but there is not a one-size-fits-all management style. Jack Welch had his - it was very successful. It fit his personality and the company and produced phenominal results.

On the complete opposite end of the scale there is SEMCO run by Ricardo Semler. His book Maverick details how SEMCO is loosly run, its culuture and details about himself.

As a business leader or owner you owe it to yourself and your team to read about and talk to as many different people as possible about different programs and leadership styles and then put them together into something that works for you and your company.

If a consultant comes in and claims to have this "toolkit" of solutions for your business you should simply thank them for their time and then RUN!!

Posted by David on December 26, 2005 05:53 PM|Permalink

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