Copyright
Thorsons
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
This edition published by Thorsons 2015
FIRST EDITION
© Jack and Suzy Welch 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Ben Baker
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Source ISBN: 9780008137892
Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780007594382
Version: 2015-03-17
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
Part I: Its About the Game
1 Taking the Grind Out of the Game
2 Getting Whackedand Getting Better
3 You Gotta have Growth
4 Globalization: Its Complicated
5 Fear of Finance . . . No More
6 What to Make of Marketing
7 Crisis Management: Welcome to the Coliseum
Part II: Its About the Team
8 Leadership 2.0
9 Building a Wow Team
10 Geniuses, Tramps, and Thieves
Part III: Its About You
11 What Should I Do with My Life?
12 Getting Unstuck
13 It Aint Over Till Its Over
List of Searchable Terms
Also by Jack & Suzy Welch
Acknowledgments
About the Publisher
Introduction
Hello and congratulationscongratulations on getting it.
No, not on getting this book, although were very happy you did.
Rather, congratulations on getting the fact that no one should do business alone.
Business is the ultimate team sport. Doesnt make any difference what size your company is, five people, or 5,000, or 150,000, for that matter. Doesnt matter if its in Gary, Indiana, churning out steel, or in Palo Alto cooking up code. Doesnt matter if youre three days into your first job in a windowless cube about 10,000 light-years from the action, or if you run the whole enchilada from a corner office on the forty-fifth floor of headquarters.
Business is not a me thing. Its a we thing.
Its an Ill take all the advice and ideas and help I can get thing.
Which is where our congratulations come in. If youre reading The Real-Life MBA, we figure youre with us on this one. When it comes to business, you can never stop learning. Business is just too vast, too multifaceted, too unpredictable, too tech-driven, too human-driven, too global, too local, too everything to ever be able to say, Been there, done that. For goodness sake, were still learning, and between us, weve been in business for a combined 81 years, with the last ten being the most mind-expanding of all.
Yes, the last ten have been the most full of learning for us, and heres why. After our last book, Winning, was published in 2005, we hit the road, launching a decade of speaking, writing, teaching, and consulting that has brought us inside scores of companies, each one facing fascinating marketplace and management challenges. Weve worked with an entrepreneur in China building a firm to link foreign companies and local manufacturers, a winery in Chile transitioning away from family-owned leadership, and a young aerospace venture in Phoenix in the midst of figuring out when and how to go public. These experiences, and many more, have been windows into the nitty-gritty trials and opportunities of business in todays world. At the same time, our speaking engagements to upwards of a million people, mainly in Q&A sessions, continually allow us to hear what businessmen and women are really thinkingand worryingabout. Add to that the work that one of us (Jack) has been doing in private equity and advising CEOs since 2002, evaluating, guiding, and growing dozens of companies, in industries ranging from health care to water treatment to online dating. Finally, it was in this period that we successfully launched our own online MBA, the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University, now 900 students strong. Their richly varied experiences as working professionals around the world have broadened, deepened, and informed our understanding of business today in new and exciting ways.
If we knew something about business when we wrote Winning, the fact is, we know more now. More thats relevant. Because business has changed, and weve been lucky enough to be in the thick of it. Thats not to say what weve learned in the past decade has negated the principles and practices of Winning; quite the opposite. But what weve learned since 2005 has expanded, updated, and augmented them, in some cases just a bit, and in others, radically.