Book Report: Winning by Jack Welch

Winning: Torgo approves

I didn't choose to read this book. It was homework. And it was ok.

I hate business books, generally speaking. They're like self-help books. They are self-help books, just about money instead of love or sanity.

Winning is very superficial and poorly written. If Welch had a ghostwriter, he or she wasn't very good.

My main gripes:

1) The exclamation point usage is out of control. The exclamation point to non-exclamation point ratio (or, "!:.") for any book that doesn't include dialogue that occurs during a rainstorm and/or Van Halen concert should be approximately zero to everything else. There's no need to shout. We're reading your book. We can hear you.

2) The examples given to back up his points are slight. Each argument is backed up by a story like this: "This policy is good because I knew a guy named Steve and it worked for him and he's rich now."

3) The logical construction of his arguments is weak. This follows with point #2. The problem is he often argues sideways or backwards, then qualifies his arguments by saying "I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna." Pollyanna is referenced about as often as some branches of GE.

But I approve of the book. Why? Because I think the theories are, mostly, good. He's a strong advocate for candor in the workplace. He argues that layoffs should never be a surprise, nor should negative performance reviews, because people should be as candid as possible and employees should always be aware of a company's financial status and they're own standing.

I doubt he fully lived up to that believe, but it's something noble and good and worth aspiring towards.

I also found myself thinking while reading that if I had brought any of his ideas, many of which are just plain common sense, to faculty meetings at a high school or non-profit org meetings, I would have been soundly shot down and laughed out of the room. This is why I quit CoPIRG (partly). No one I met with power in the n/p world or in education has any business sense. It's like they are worlds full of English majors (like myself).

So much more could be achieved and it could be achieved with much more simplicity of people acted with business sense instead of just following their often bad instincts.

I need to qualify that by noting about the final chapter on work/life balance. Here, Welch outs himself as a possible misogynist, as well as a horrible father/husband. He accurately points out that bosses don't want their employees to have outside lives, but his tone and style in this chapter is degrading and offensive.

It's just that one chapter, though. I think more activists and education administrators should read some basic business philosophy like this.