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Letter from the Editor – Why I’m Excited
Do you ever have those days where EVERYTHING seems to be going your way? I’ve had two solid WEEKS of those days! There are lots of reasons why I’m excited:
- Business is booming! It feels like the first time in five years that the economy turnaround has finally hit the training industry. (It seems that training is the first to feel the impact of an economic turn-down and the last to recover.)
- Projects are finally under control! We’ve had a number of projects kick off and end simultaneously. And while it’s exciting to be putting in 36-hour days, it feels good to get back to the normal 20-hour days!
- We’ve got some really fun work going on! We’re working on a customer service training program for an established company migrating to cross-selling. For anyone who’s tried to change an established culture of customer service reps to embrace cross-selling as a logical extension to good customer service knows the challenges – and the opportunities – that lie ahead. We’re also doing a professional trainer development program and it’s ALWAYS enjoyable working with fellow trainers!
 Autumn is coming! While I’m not a winter person (and autumn means winter is coming), change is good. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful season than fall in New England.
- My older daughter, Katie, hasn’t found a job yet! Okay, that’s sounds bad. But with her background in marketing/public relations and her outstanding writing skills, I’ve been able to use her on some of Entelechy’s projects. Plus, she lets me win at cribbage every once in a while! (And, she’s just fun to have around!)
- I hired Donna Iacopucci as my new VP of Business Development! Donna’s a former employee who has returned to the Entelechy team. I was sad to see her go three years ago and am absolutely thrilled she’s back! See the blurb below for more info.
I’m feeling lucky. And that’s exciting!
Terry
Entelechy adds Donna Iacopucci to the Team
Donna Iacopucci is VP of Business Development responsible for new business acquisition, client relations, and business-based needs assessment. Additionally, she functions in a project management role, often responsible for the design, development, and delivery of customized training programs. Donna has over 23 years of business experience with a concentration in sales and marketing management. Her corporate background also spans the areas of finance; quality assurance; high tech and management.
Donna has designed, developed and facilitated an extensive array of customized training programs in the areas of Customer/Client Focus, Sales, Management Development, Communication Skills and Leadership Development. Together with her extensive business background, Donna brings an energy and relevance to her work in customization and training design, development, facilitation, performance consulting, and project management. Donna’s broad business expertise and intuitive business and communication skills greatly enhance the effectiveness of each role she plays in Entelechy.
Donna is a former member of the adjunct faculty at Boston University and has completed the Dale Carnegie Train the Trainer program. Donna holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management from Bentley College.
Entelechy Speaks to Jack Welch about Execution
 As faithful readers of The Key know, I have had the opportunity to interview and work with some of the world’s top leaders and management gurus, from Tom Peters to Sir Richard Branson, from Sherron Watkins (Enron whistleblower) to General Tommy Franks, and from Warren Bennis to Henry Mintzberg. Recently, I had the opportunity to create training materials for Jack and Suzy Welch. I’m featuring an article on execution and a leadership inventory based on my work with the
Welches.
“It turns out you can have positive energy, energize everyone around you, make hard calls, and still not get over the finish line.
Being able to execute is a special and distinct skill.
It means a person knows how to put decisions into action and push them forward
to completion, through resistance, chaos, or unexpected obstacles.
People who can execute know that winning is about results.”
~ Jack and Suzy Welch, Winning, p. 87
Jack Welch is known for his ability to execute. From a brash upstart engineer to becoming the youngest CEO at GE in 1981, Welch worked to streamline GE and make it a more competitive company. He also pushed the managers of the businesses he kept to become ever more productive. Welch worked to eradicate inefficiency by trimming inventories and dismantling the bureaucracy that had almost led him to leave GE in the past. He shut down factories, reduced payrolls, cut lackluster old-line units. Although he was initially treated with contempt by those under him for his policies, they eventually grew to respect him. Welch’s strategy was later adopted by other CEOs across corporate America.
Even his detractors begrudgingly give Welch a nod for his ability to execute. Thomas Boyle writes in his book, At Any Cost:
Welch has many strengths, to be sure. One need look no further than Westinghouse, for more than a century GE’s chief rival in the U.S. electrical-equipment industry and a corporation that has effectively ceased to exist, to understand that even great companies can be extinguished by mediocre management. In Westinghouse’s
case, its two CEOs from 1983 to 1990, Douglas Danforth and John Marous, eager to please Wall Street and to pump up earnings as quickly as possible, followed a strategy that was a virtual clone of Welch’s. It was in the execution of the strategy that Welch succeeded where Danforth and Marous failed. Calamity has not befallen GE, partly because its position was always superior to Westinghouse’s, and partly because Welch was a superior leader. He has been a proactive catalyst of change, anticipating events rather than reacting to them, and he ruthlessly excises the cancer that has killed many large institutions, including Westinghouse – complacency.
Execution is the culmination of a host of leadership activities, from recognizing opportunities, confronting change, and creating a vision, to hiring and nurturing employees who share company values.
Execution is also the beginning of a leader’s job. Once a decision is made, execution is the fulfillment
of the vision, the realization of an opportunity, and the successful journey through difficult change. Execution is the ability to get things done
and, as a leader, it’s the ability to get things done through others. Execution is maintaining a steady course, making difficult decisions when confronted with challenges – and armed with incomplete information, judiciously exercising the power that comes with the position, and shouldering the responsibility for the consequences of those decisions and actions.
In an age where many CEOs seemed unable to take a stance, Jack Welch is known for taking – and defending – practices that have garnered praise and criticism. One of the most lauded and vilified practices is differentiation – clearly distinguishing performers (businesses and people), lavishly rewarding the top 20%, nurturing the middle 70%, and pruning the bottom 10%. In an interview at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Welch explained, “There’s a top 20% and a bottom 10%. You can’t give the bottom 10% a 1-2% salary increase because it confuses the employee. You’re not a kind manager, you’re a cowardly manager.”
Obviously, Welch believes that differentiation is good for the company. “Companies suffer when every business and person is treated equally and bets are sprinkled all around like rain on the ocean. When all is said and done, differentiation is just resource allocation, which is what good leaders do and, in fact, is one of the chief jobs they are paid to do. A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.”
However, Welch further believes that differentiation is good for the low performer as well. Masking poor performance behind vague evaluations and minimal wage increases confuses poor performing employees and actually prevents them from seeking jobs where they could be more successful.
This background reading is not intended to be a treatise on differentiation – or on any of Welch’s values, for that matter. It is intended to illustrate that above all else, Welch is known for his ability to execute strategy, to demonstrate his values through action. It is a call for us to examine our own behavior and ask, “Are we as leaders with values and beliefs executing? Are we making decisions and then effectively
marshalling resources to fulfill on those decisions? In short, are we leading?”
As the railroad adage affirms, “Even if you’re on the right track, if you’re not moving you’ll get run over.”
The above information comes from work Entelechy performed for Linkage, Inc. for their 2006 Excellence in Management & Leadership Series – satellite broadcasts featuring the world’s greatest leaders and management gurus. For more information, check out
http://www.linkageinc.com/learning_events/distance_learning/default.aspx. If you’d like Entelechy to help YOU create engaging and effective training materials, contact us!
A Leadership Inventory based on Jack Welch’s Leadership Attributes
The following is a list of things leaders do, according to Jack and Suzy Welch as outlined in their book,
Winning (pp. 63-80). Rate yourself as leader and list examples of your behavior.
Use the results of the inventory to identify areas for your leadership development.
The above information comes from work Entelechy performed for Linkage, Inc. for their 2006 Excellence in Management & Leadership Series – satellite broadcasts featuring the world’s greatest leaders and management gurus. For more information, check out
http://www.linkageinc.com/learning_events/distance_learning/default.aspx. If you’d like Entelechy to help YOU create engaging and effective training materials, contact us!
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Terence Traut, President of Entelechy "unlocking potential"
ttraut@unlockit.com
phone: 603-424-1237
fax: 603-424-6361
http://www.unlockit.com
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