Confidence: “Instilling confidence” and “spreading it” around the organization was the most important thing he did, Welch insisted. After making so many dramatic changes in his hardware phase of the 1980s (layoffs, restructuring, divesting), Welch knew that he had a demoralized workforce. Through initiatives like Work-Out, he sought to instill confidence into the psyche of GE employees and managers. Confidence has been a constant theme throughout Welch’s tenure, and many of his initiatives had the added benefit of instilling self-confidence into the organization. Six Sigma, for example, gave GE employees far more confidence in the quality of their products and services. The e-Initiative added speed and confidence to the organization, as workers became more secure in the knowledge that an upstart dot-com would not steal sales or market share from GE. Declared Welch: “A manager’s job is to fundamentally pump self-confidence into people so they have the courage to dare, the courage to dream, the courage to reach and do things they never thought possible.”

自信

韦尔奇坚持认为，他所做的最重要的事情，是在组织中“灌输自信”并让它“遍地广布”。在20世纪80年代硬件变革阶段中经历了许多的巨变后（裁员、重组、撤回投资），韦尔奇知道他的员工队伍士气低落。他希望通过“群策群力”这类倡导行动来培养通用电气公司的员工和管理人员的自信。自信是韦尔奇任期中一个持久的主题，他的许多倡导行动也附带产生了为组织增加自信的益处。例如，“六西格玛”计划就让通用电气公司的员工们对自己的产品和服务信心大增。“电子商务倡议”使组织加快了速度、增加了自信，因为员工们更加坚信，暴发的网络公司不会从通用电气公司夺走销售额或市场份额。韦尔奇宣称说：“管理人员的工作根本上就是为员工灌输自信，使他们有勇气去敢作敢为，有勇气去幻想、去达到和完成他们认为绝不可能的事情。”

 

Welch says that he started to build self-confidence at an early age and often gives credit to his mother for being so well grounded. His mother certainly instilled a sense of reality into her son, Jack. Months before his retirement, Welch spoke of how she taught him early on to see things as they are:“Never see the world the way you wished it would be. Always see the world as it is.” In other words:“Don’t kid yourself.” It was a common retort from Jack’s mother, and his first lesson in facing reality.

    韦尔奇自信的来源

    韦尔奇说，他早年就开始建立起自信，而且往往把这点归功于他母亲的务实。他母亲肯定为儿子杰克灌输了一种现实感。在他退休之前几个月，韦尔奇说起早年母亲教导他要正视事情的本来面目：“绝不要一厢情愿地按照自己的愿望来看待世界。始终要看到它的本来面目。”换句话说：“别糊弄自己。”这是杰克母亲惯常对他的一句回驳，也是教会他直面现实的第一课。

 

 

Welch also regales interviewers with his boyhood tales of the “Pit.” That was where he played sports and learned lessons that would prepare him for the world of business. One journalist called the Pit a “Darwinian laboratory of sorts,” since that was where “Welch and his buddies learned to win, lose, fight, compromise, and charm.”Welch has often decreed “sports are everything” and attributes his early years to shaping his leadership abilities.

    韦尔奇还向他的访谈者讲述童年时“坑地”的故事，那是他玩体育活动的地方，他从那儿学到了许多东西，让他为日后进入管理世界做好了准备。有位记者将这个“坑地”叫做“达尔文物种实验室”，因为它是“韦尔奇和伙伴们学会获胜、认输、奋斗、折衷和感染他人”的地方。韦尔奇时常宣布“体育即一切”，并且说是他早年的生活炼就了他的领导能力。

 

 

 

Another factor Welch pointed to in building confidence was his attending a state school rather than a more rigorous institution like MIT: “I’m a firm believer that all of these experiences build these self-confidences in you: your mother’s knee, playing sports, going to school, getting grades.”After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, he received his master’s and Ph.D. before starting at GE. He was in a small lab with only one other person, and he thought it more like “a family grocery store.” There was no bureaucracy, just excitement, as Welch built the business.

    在说起他培养自信时，韦尔奇提到的另一个因素是他就读的是所州立大学，而不是像麻省理工学院那样更严格的学术机构：“我坚信所有这些经历都会在你心中培养起自信：在母亲膝下受教、体育运动、上学、取得成绩。”在从麻萨诸塞州大学毕业后，他先取得了硕士和博士学位后，才到通用电气公司参加工作。那时他相当于身处一座小型实验室，与他相伴的只有另外一个人，他觉得这地方更像“一间家庭杂货店”。那儿没有官僚主义，只有兴奋，因为他自己创建了这家公司。

 

 

Later, at age 33, he would become an executive responsible for a $1.5 billion components and materials group. Once he moved up the GE ladder, he was exposed to all of the things he would fight later on, including bureaucracy, layers of management, turf battles, etc. By working in such a small operation in his earliest days at GE, Welch knew that it was possible to work for a vast corporation and still have it run like a small store. Throughout his career, Welch felt that “pumping self-confidence into people” is one of the fundamental tasks of every manager.

后来到33岁时，他成为一名执行官员，为一家价值15亿美元的零部件和材料单位负责。一当他在通用电气公司的职级阶梯中攀升，他便接触到了日后他会奋力打击的一切事情，包括官僚主义、管理层级、地盘之争等等。他在通用电气公司最初的日子是在一家非常小的业务单位中工作，这份经历使他认识到，对待巨型企业也一样可以把它当做小店铺那样来执掌。在他的全部职业生涯中，韦尔奇觉得，“向人们灌输自信”是每个管理人员根本的任务之一。

 

In placing such a premium on confidence, Welch helped instill a sense of pride and ownership into the fabric of GE. Before Welch, no one had bothered to ask employees what they were thinking. Few workers felt that confidence was important, and it was a scarce commodity at GE. So much of what Welch did was designed to add confidence to the organization. Even in the early 1980s, by firing strategic planners and handing the reins back to the business leaders, Welch was giving his vote of “confidence” to the people who ran the businesses. Later, with his software phase, Welch sent another important message: not only do we want to hear from you, we want to make General Electric more engaging, and we will need you to make that happen.

韦尔奇对自信给予了如此高度的重视，从而帮助通用电气公司上上下下培养起了一种自豪感和主人翁感。在韦尔奇之前，无人肯劳神去问问员工的想法。很少有员工觉得信心有多么重要，而且信心在通用电气公司也很稀贵。韦尔奇所做的工作中，许多都是为了给组织增加信心。即便在20世纪80年代初，韦尔奇裁掉了战略规划员、将控制权交回企业领导人手中，其实也是在给执掌企业的人员投信心票。之后，韦尔奇通过他的软件变革阶段而传达出了另一条重要精神：我们不仅想要听取你的意见，而且希望让通用电气公司更加积极活跃，我们需要你的参与来实现这一目标。

 

With boundarylessness and the focus on GE values, Welch put more emphasis on the individual, infusing more confidence into the company. Over the years, confidence has been of immense importance to the GE chairman, as he felt that only an organization rich in confidence would perform at extraordinary levels. Welch felt that genuine confidence was quite rare, but that never stopped him from working tirelessly to embed it deeply into the psyche of General Electric.

通过“无界限”观念以及对通用电气公司价值观的重视，韦尔奇还更进一步强调了个人的作用，使公司更加增添了自信。这些年来，信心对于韦尔奇极为重要，因为他认为只有充满自信的组织才会有非凡的表现。韦尔奇觉得真正的自信相当罕见，但这从未阻止他不知疲倦地让自信深深植根到通用电气公司的精神中。

 

 

关于培养信心的经验教训

 

1. Build strong businesses: Welch spent his first years as CEO rebuilding GE’s portfolio of businesses. He knew that employees would never have confidence unless they worked for a company that was competitive and winning. The hardware revolution was a crucial step in laying the foundation for the global juggernaut that GE would become in the 1990s. It was during this period that Welch built strong, stand-alone businesses that could compete on a global basis.

1. 建设强大的企业：韦尔奇把担任首席执行官后第一年的时间用来重构通用电气公司的业务组合。他知道，除非是在具备竞争力、能够获胜的企业工作，否则员工们就绝对不会自信。在为通用电气公司到20世纪90年代成为全球巨头而奠定基础的工作中，硬件革命是至关重要的一步。正是在这一阶段中，韦尔奇建设起了能够参与全球竞争的强大、独立的众多下属企业。

 

 

2. Let employees know that you value their ideas: In implementing Work-Out and making GE’s values such prominent parts of the culture, Welch was sending a vital message: things had changed. Although it hadn’t always been the case, GE was now interested in hearing from every employee. Thanks to Work-Out, someone on the shop floor could come up with an idea that would transform a process or help the company win a new contract. That was a powerful and important sea change, and almost all of Welch’s initiatives were designed to harness the collective intellect of the organization.

2、让员工们知道公司重视他们的主意：在实施“群策群力”计划、以及让通用电气公司的价值观成为公司文化中突出部分的同时，韦尔奇传达出了这样一条关键的信号：事情已经改变了。通用电气公司如今想要听取每个员工的意见，尽管过去不常这样。得益于“群策群力”计划，如今车间工地的人员也可以拿出个能改变流程或帮助公司赢得一份新合同的主意。这是一种强劲、重要的巨大变化，而韦尔奇几乎所有倡导行动都着眼于发挥组织中的集体智慧。

 

3. Push decision-making down the hierarchy: The effect of many of the Welch ideas was to empower people, putting more authority into the hands of those closest to the work. Before Welch’s hardware phase, GE was awash in layers and approvals and red tape. After simplifying the organization, the people who ran the businesses could control “their own destinies.” By having P&L responsibility over businesses that were growing, Welch instilled self-confidence into the GE management team. Welch always wanted employees who would have enough confidence to make their own decisions.

    3、推动决策制定的过程从上到下转移：韦尔奇所出的创意中，许多都是为了增强员工的力量，让最熟悉工作的人手中握有更多的权力。在韦尔奇的硬件变革阶段之前，层级、审批手续和官样文章在通用电气公司中泛滥成灾。经过对组织的精简，经营企业的人员方能控制“自己的命运”。韦尔奇让通用电气公司的管理团队为不断增长的企业承担盈亏责任，从而使他们建立了自信。韦尔奇始终希望任用那些有足够的自信来自己作出决定的员工。

 

4. Use learning to build confidence: Welch’s learning culture ensured a steady diet of new ideas and initiatives. By viewing GE’s businesses as hundreds of “business laboratories,” he was creating an atmosphere that nurtured good ideas and pursued Best Practices. That high involvement culture enhanced the company intellect, thereby fostering self-confidence.

4、通过学习来培养信心：韦尔奇的学习型文化确保公司随时都能拿出新的创意和倡导行动。他将通用电气公司的下属企业看作是数百家“经营实验室”，从而创建了一种孕育良好创意、追求最佳做法的氛围。这种高度参与的文化提高了公司的智识水平，从而也就增强了自信。

 

 

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