Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will (Collins Business Essentials) [Paperback]

Noel M. Tichy (Author), Stratford Sherman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Collins Business Essentials | Publication Date: April 5, 2005

Acknowledged as the outstanding business leader of the late twentieth century, Jack Welch made General Electric one of the world's most competitive companies. This dynamic CEO defined the standard for organizational change, creating more than $400 billion in shareholder value by transforming a bureaucratic behemoth into a nimble, scrappy winner in the global marketplace.

Here, Tichy and Sherman extract the enduring leadership lessons from the revolution Welch wrought at GE. Of these, the most essential is the limitless power of learning. Leadership has its mysteries, but it is a skill that anyone can acquire and enhance. Above all, great leaders select great people and lure them into an endless process of learning and adaptation.

Jack Welch's Six Rules

1. Control your destiny or someone else will.
2. Face reality as it is, not as it was, or as you wish it were.
3. Be candid with everyone.
4. Don't manage, lead.
5. Change before you have to.
6. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Noel M. Tichy is a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, director of the school's Global Leadership Partnership, and former head of GE's Crotonville Leadership Development Center. He is the author of the best seller Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will (with Stratford Sherman).

Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060753838
• ISBN-13: 978-0060753832
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons from GE's Revolution, June 8, 2001

By 

Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will: Lessons in Mastering Change-From the Principles Jack Welch Is Using to Revolutionize Ge (Paperback)

'Control Destiny or Someone Else Will' is deeply insightful and comprehensive examination of GE's transformation. It contains detailed, valuable lessons for all those interested in Jack Welch and his GE, as revolutionaries.

Noel M.Tichy and Stratford Sherman write, "The old way, exemplified by Henry Ford's production line, calls for top managers to analyze the work that needs to be done, then devise rules even an idiot can follow. Managers, divorced from the actual work, become bureaucrats, while their frustrated subordinates tighten the bolts...The new way-GE's way-breaks the intellectual framework that defines the limits of traditional management...Instead of seeking better ways to control workers, Welch says he aims to liberate them. As he explains, that goal is based on self-interest: The old organization was built on control, but the world has changed. The world is moving at such a pace that control has become a limitation. It slows you down. You've got to balance freedom with some control, but you've got to have more freedom than you ever dreamed of" (pp.19-20).

At this point, after outlining basic characteristics of old and new ways, Noel M.Tichy describes the difference between them in terms of sports:

1. Old Way-Machine Age: Hierarchical, control-focused, and bureaucratic. He notes, "The old GE resembled a football team: Each player had carefully prescribed roles, yielding a carefully orchestrated pattern. The coach called all the plays. Even the strategic-planning guidebook that governed GE policy were like the playbooks in football."

2. New Way-Information Age: Networks, flexibility, knowledge, and creation. He notes, "The New Way GE is like hockey; roles are blurred, play flows uncontrollably from one side of the rink to the other, there are no timeouts, players adjust to new situations almost every moment and think for themselves while looking out for the team as a whole."

In this context, throughout the book, Tichy and Sherman show GE's process of corporate transformation as three-act drama.

I highly recommend this business classic to all revolutionaries of the new century.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars to be as good as the best in the world, January 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will (Hardcover)

If it ain't broke,don't fix it.....that seems to be the culture in many organisations. Left to themselves, people will ignore warnings of danger and scorn opportunities to change early and with minimum of pain. This book relates how the cultural phenomenon was changed in General Electric (GE), one of America's largest and highly successful blue-chip corporation. This transformation or change revolution was brought about by the never-ending energy of its CEO, Jack Welch. The book successfully highlights some of Welch's thoughts and key considerations as he went about revolutionising GE. The book contains some valuable lessons for all managers who are attempting to drive change in their respective organisations.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Changing the modus operandi of a modern US corporation, July 18, 2000

By 

K. Scott Proctor (Wilmington, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will: Lessons in Mastering Change-From the Principles Jack Welch Is Using to Revolutionize Ge (Paperback)

This book encapsulates how Jack Welch has changed the modus operandi of a modern U.S. corporation. His principles of number-one-or-number-two, integrated diversity, boundarylessness, and speed, simplicity, and self-confidence have become a part of everyday life at General Electric. The basis of these principles -- what drives these principles -- is Welch's view of a strong business, which "...must consistently grow both revenues and profits: increasing revenues through a constant stream of new ideas and product innovations and increasing profits through unceasing improvements in productivity."

Although Welch's view of a successful business may not be new, the techniques and operating procedures employed to attain these characteristics are vastly different than previous practices at GE. This is another way of saying that the modus operandi, or method of operating, at GE has been changed by Jack Welch. This change is summed up nicely by a statement in the book: "This is the story of how General Electric got through the wall, from one man exhorting his subordinates to a team of hundreds of thousands of people working together."