This is one of the best books by far that I have had the priviledge to read. I begin this book on a trip to Gujarat and Rajasthan for a 5 days and every opportunity I got, I found myself reading this book. I just couldn’t let it go! It is so fascinating about how Jack Welch looks at different issues in business and comes up with a common-sense approach to resolving it. The best part about this book is that he admits to a lot of mistakes that he made over his career and how he learned and become better from it.
One of the things that I was always taught was to be perfect and never make a mistake. Everytime I did I got penlized for doing it. I feel that this perfectionistic approach to facing life is ineffective, counter-productive and downright mean. It is refreshing to know that trying to be perfect is not the best way to succeed but making mistakes is! It’s a paradigm shift!
The best way is to succeed in life is to make mistakes and learn from it so that you can move forward swiftly and more expediously than your competitors can. In the process of doing so one can develop more mastery over making mistakes and eventually make lesser mistakes. There is a great saying ’’Continuity of practice of making mistakes is the true secret of success’’ and Jack’s life is a true testament to this quote.
I am not suggesting that one ought to downright go and do absolutely idiotic things but what I am saying is that at times we hold ourselves back because things are so called ’’perfect’’ and don’t give ourselves the opportunity or space to grow and I think that’s exactly what Jack Welch reiterates throughout the book. I like the Nike Shoe maker’s motto ’’Just Do it’’ and that about sums it up!
I enjoyed reading this book tremendously because it gave some great tools to manage the business that I am involved with such as the 20-70-10 rule for dealing with your employees and how to reward them. This is a way to get your best people to enhance performance and good potentials to be moved forward. Overall I found it to be an exciting read and the more you read the more you learn from it. By far this is the best Management book I have read to date. If you have any comments or experiences, please be sure to share with me and on mouthshut.com. I am looking to create or join a business or self-improvement book club and in the event you are interested, be sure to drop me a e-mail at big_cat_diary@yahoo.com