Getting The Most From Your First Year

Jack Welch

Jack Welch

Jack Welch on the MBA

Jack Welch may be the ultimate Rorschach when it comes to management. For supporters, he represents no-nonsense excellence. To critics, his rank-and-yank and headcount reduction policies were heartless and short-sighted. Regardless, no one can argue with his success. In two decades as CEO, Welch turned GE from a $25 billion dollar company into a $130 billion dollar company. In that same time, the company became one of the most respected and recognizable brands in the world.

Such success has also turned Welch into a brand associated with Darwinian efficacy, decisive speed, and clear-eyed realism. That means business students worldwide want to understand and apply his methods. As a result, he founded the Jack Welch Management Institute, an ACBSP accredited online MBA program that emphasizes the practical application of business knowledge.

With Welch’s skin in the game, it was surprising to learn his tepid endorsement of the MBA as a whole in a recent Wall Street Journal Q&A. Rather than promote the degree’s merits (or even his program for that matter), Welch applied his trademark candor.

If you’re looking for someone to back your decision to start an MBA program, you’re probably better off not going to Welch. When asked what advice he’d give to a 26-year-old about going to business school, Welch pulled no punches.

“If you can afford it—if you have wealthy parents, if you want to spend $300,000—and here’s how I get to that: $100,000 salary, two years gone, plus tuition. If you can afford to do that, it’s a good investment, if you get into a top school.”

No, don’t expect that quote on his institute’s next brochure. However, did you notice the qualifier of  “top school” in his response? That’s key. In the coming years, Welch doesn’t anticipate a big shakeup among the top schools. However, there will be plenty of disruption below those schools.

“The elite, top 10, whether it be [Northwestern University’s] Kellogg, Stanford, Harvard—it won’t be touched,” Welch tells the Wall Street Journal. “And if you go further down you see that applications are down. But I think the marginal school with the overpaid and underworked faculty—below the top 25 [M.B.A. programs]—they’ve got to get their act together. They’d better start providing more value to the student.”

And that value, says Welch, comes with enhancing soft skills in the curriculum. “If traditional M.B.A.s are missing anything, they miss a lot of the human equation about building teams, about being generous managers who love to see their people succeed, who love to give their people raises and promotions.”

Welch – who holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering – doesn’t necessarily believe an MBA is required to be a CEO. However, he cited several MBA-related skills that would be indispensible to tomorrow’s CEO.

“…he or she will be skilled at engaging his or her employees, and listening to his or her customers, and understand there’s no business without customers—only satisfied customers can provide job security.”

To read the full interview, click on the Wall Street Journal interview below.

DON’T MISS: JACK WELCH’S ONLINE MBA SCHOOLS GAINS TRACTION

Source:  Wall Street Journal

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