Jack Welch

Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.

The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.

There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.

One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot.

Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

Don't manage - lead change before you have to.

Change before you have to.

What's important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn't satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn't right, or if the offerings aren't right, it's the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don't get hung up on zeros.

CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.

I was afraid of the internet... because I couldn't type.

You got to be rigorous in your appraisal system. The biggest cowards are managers who don't let people know where they stand.