After a long read, today I finished the autobiography of Jack Welch, ex-CEO of the legendary firm in corporate America – General Electric. It is his only company, joining as an executive he stayed with GE for 41 years to retire as a CEO. He had three wives, but worked in a single company. Man! he is different from anyone I know.

One principle that hit me was, “Build great people, they build great products and provide great services”. Ever since I read these words, I try hard – it is really hard in a company culture which thinks otherwise – to follow them. I see it working among the six guys for whom I am responsible for.

However, I find it hard to take another of his philosophy. He advocates to eliminate the lower 10% of employees, on the basis of performance. I am not able to comprehend how this would suit Indian software firms, where the biggest population is doing production support. You don’t need to be a genius to do that job. In fact out of 120 members in our project, there are around 5 spectacular developers and one or two managers worth working for. That is less than 10% on the top side!

The book makes an interesting read, how he became a CEO and then after 21 years how he spent sleepless nights to choose his successor out of three of his best boys. In between these pages, there are lots of info about deals, acquisitions, firings and so on and on, typical events of any big company. But the writing style isn’t as mesmerizing as, ‘The beautiful Mind’, the story of John Nash. Probably Jack and his author would disagree, but that is how I feel in my gut!