A few years ago, a colleague and I were in a conference room discussing Jack Welch’s Values vs. Production model. I drew the following diagram on the white board and explained how the model worked:

We talked about how to apply this model in our company. We discussed the performance of each of our top managers (“did they make their numbers?”), and how each lived the values. And of course, we started filling in the grid. It looked something like this, with each “X” representing a manager:

A few years ago, I happened upon a Jack Welch interview on C-Span while flipping channels. Jack was asked, “How do you evaluate people at GE?” Note that this was before publication of his autobiography (Jack, Straight From The Gut). Before I knew much more about him than his role as CEO of one of the world’s largest companies. I also knew of his reputation as a leader, but none of the details.

Jack explained that he always asks two questions about each person: Continue reading ‘Management by Values’