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GE’S JACK WELCH AND ME A Terrifying Corporate Tale Told Out of School BY JPV OLIVER, GENT
Jack Welch was for 20 years, the feared and fearsome chairman of the General Electric Company and, when he retired, he received a severance payment of $417 million, the largest such payout in history up to then.
In my nearly 20 years as a speechwriter, media spokesman and dogsbody at GE Capital, I encountered Jack more than once. There is, alas, only one story I can reveal without jeopardizing my pension.
A senior HR executive at the company told me the company’s computer programs were incapable of calculating the stunning enormity of his stipend.
Welch was renowned for ruthlessness and a giant brain. Fortune Magazine declared him the greatest corporate manager of the 20th Century and he created a host of practices now commonplace in businesses around the world.
The payments were mind-blowing in their excess (GE paid for his toilet paper, socks, flower arrangements and nail clippers) and he got one of the firm’s Boeing Business Jets for his personal travel - think Air Force 1 for corporate poohbahs. When The Wall Street Journal broke the story, an uproar ensued and much of the money was clawed back.
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The “Force Fit” HR program was one such. It required that managers put staff in one of three groups every year Promote, Develop and Sack - and it was strictly enforced. The number of people in each category was controlled, so every year some group arbitrarily got the boot. In GE-speak, it was, “Rank and Yank.” saratogaTODAYnewspaper.com
