Massachusetts. General Electric was attractive because it was close to his family's home in Massachusetts, as well as a $10,500 income. With the coveted 30,000 had to wait a bit.

Welch did not fall in love with General Electric at first sight. After a year on the job, he wanted to move from Pittsfield to International Minerals & Chemicals in Skokie, Illinois. The young, headstrong Welch was horrified by the corporate bureaucracy. But Welch did not want to let go. His boss promised to rid him of the bureaucracy. (He did, but since then, Welch has consistently rebelled against any manifestation of bureaucracy, wherever he found them.)

So Welch began a fast and spectacular career at General Electric. In 1968, at 33, he became the company's youngest general manager. Then - senior vice president and manager of the consumer products and services sector and at the same time vice chairman of General Electric Credit Corporation. By 1979 he was Vice Chairman and Executive Director. In the meantime, he made an impressive $2 billion business in plastics; improved the medical diagnostic equipment business. He acted firmly and confidently.

The last jump to the top of the General Electric hierarchy came in 1977, when General Electric chairman Reg Jones suggested that Welch move to the Fairfield, Connecticut headquarters in order to compete for his position. Jones knew what he wanted to see in his successor. Soon enough, he realized that Welch was in charge of all his requirements.

“We need business people who are willing to take deliberate business risks—and at the same time know how to work in harmony with large business communities,” Jones said, while being honest enough to recognize his own limits. “The intellectual requirements we have are incomparably higher than the requirements in simpler organizations.”

This does not mean that Jones immediately made a decision. However, he began to think about a successor in 1974 and drew up an initial list of almost 100 selected General Electric executives. It was reduced to six, which included Welch. “The successful management organization that placed General Electric in Welch’s hands exemplifies the best and most important aspects of traditional General Electric culture,” write Noel Tichy and Stratford Sherman in Hold Your Destiny or Someone Else Will. - Jones insisted on a long, very careful and careful consideration of the candidacy of each applicant, not relying on the best qualifications as the only selection criterion. The result of the selection is among the best examples of successful corporate planning in history.”

In December 1980, Welch was announced as the new CEO and chairman of General Electric. It was a record: forty-five-year-old Welch became the youngest manager in the history of the company. However, he was only the company's eighth chief administrator in its 92 years of existence.

He led the company, which was at that time the standard of American corporate power and modern management methods. General Electric has always changed over time, usually with a slight delay. Changing direction and learning new things were not easy. At General Electric, everyone weighed before taking the next step, minimizing the risks, but still moving forward. While hierarchical and bureaucratic in structure, it was still more democratically run than many other corporate giants.

When Jack Welch became CEO, General Electric had a net income of $1.7 billion. The company grew at a good pace - 9% per year. Everything seemed to be great. With the advent of the new chief, no special shocks were expected. After all, Welch knew the company well. He would hardly cheat the expectations of an organization that has invested so much in it. What happened next?

The path of General Electric and its leaders

So what company did Jack Welch run? General Electric was and is one of the greatest corporations in history. She withstood all the vicissitudes of fate with enviable fortitude.

In 1878, Thomas Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company. It became the Edison General Electric Company and merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892 to become the General Electric Company. In 1896, when the Dow Jones index was introduced, General Electric was listed. This is the only one of the first companies on the list that still remains on it.

But the company, unfortunately, is as mortal as the person. “The average lifespan of a corporation can be long—two or three centuries,” writes Arie de Geus in Living Company, noting several thriving “dinosaur” companies such as the Sumimoto Group and the Scandinavian company Stora. The main difference is that companies do not retire. They usually die young. General Electric is an exception, and a very large one.

De Geus cites a Dutch study of corporate life spans in Japan and Europe. It assumes that the average life of a conventional firm is 12.5 years. And the average life expectancy of a multinational corporation is 40-50 years. De Geus also notes that one-third of the largest Fortune 500 companies from 1970 disappeared by 1983. De Geus explains this sad trend by the fact that managers focus on profits and performance more than on people.working in the organization.

Wanting to get to the bottom of this mystery, De Geus and a few of his colleagues at Shell did a little research to determine the conditions for corporate longevity. As you might expect, the first tip is to minimize unnecessary activity. Ronald Reagan is preferable to James Dean. Humanity promotes abstinence, caution and moderation, the same applies to companies. The excellent Shell team has identified four key characteristics for them. These are: “lack of detachment from reality”, “cohesion”, “tolerance” and “conservative approach to financing”. (These conclusions are repeated by Jerry Porras and James Collins in Built to Last, with such similar reflections that it can be considered a companion edition to De Geus's book.)

De Geus' key point is that the characteristics he outlines are more important to companies - and to their longevity - than simply making money. “The contrast between profitability and longevity is false,” he says. His logic is immediate and straightforward. It was not capital that became the main value, but the skills, abilities, and knowledge of people. Hence the conclusion: "A successful company is one that is able to learn effectively." Education is an investment in tomorrow. De Geus sees learning as preparation for continuous change.

General Electric is one of those companies that De Geus sympathizes with. The growth of the company had a really serious basis. It made $3 million in its first seven months of existence and has since moved cautiously and prudently. One generation of managers smoothly replaced another. Gradually, everything changed - in one way or another. “The genius of General Electric lay in the selection of successful administrators who, as one, sought to smooth out the extremes of their predecessors,” Richard Pascal concluded after studying the history of the company in his work “Managing on the Edge”.

GE's success has been steady. Jerry Porras and Jim Collins, in Built to Last, point out that Welch's accomplishments in his first decade were not the best in the history of General Electric. In fact, the famed chairman ranked fifth out of seven in terms of success, as measured fairly by profits. “Welch's ability as an administrator is impressive. The fact that over the course of a century the company has grown all the administrators of this level itself is the main reason why General Electric is called a fantastic company, ”say Porras and Collins. This is a significant achievement. No other major organization has been so successful in training its people, and no other has been so exceptionally successful for so long.

Another reason for General Electric's success is its simple and down-to-earth corporate culture. No quirks. No sensations. No special tricks. “We are very pleased with our employees, and although we are the same people as employees of other companies, nevertheless, I think there is something special about us,” said the former administrator Fred Borch in 1965 - And I think we owe our uniqueness to this special climate; we respect each other and work as cheerfully as possible.”

Senior staff turnover at General Electric is significantly lower than that of its competitors. In 1991, Don Hambrick and Greg Fucotoni testified that, according to the Fortune 500, about 19% of directors since 1960 have been in the same position for less than three years. General Electric rarely recruits from outside. The company's extensive experience has shown that it is better and cheaper to educate talents and promote them within the company. Notably, General Electric executives are enthusiastically hired by other companies.

List of General Electric chairmen

• Charles Coffin. Chairman of the board of directors in 1892-1922. Coffin was the leader of the group that bought Edison's patents. He was the first to start a serious business development.

• Gerald Swope. Swope (1872-1957) joined General Electric in 1919 as the first president of International General Electric. He became president in 1922 with Owen Young as chairman. By the end of the 20s. The company had 75,000 employees and had sales of $300 million. The company began to deal with home appliances. Swope emphasized that the direction of the company is engineering and manufacturing, with an important role of progressive workforce management, in accordance with the requirements of the times. The Swope Plan of 1931 was one of the cornerstones of Roosevelt's New Deal. In 1939, Swope retired, but returned for a time when his successor was transferred to military work.

• Charles Wilson. Wilson's work from 1940 to 1952 was interrupted by the war, leaving his contribution and legacy less than that of his predecessors.

• Ralph Cordiner. Cordiner was president of General Electric from 1950 to 1963. He was an