The Education of an Accidental CEO by David Novak

Author:David Novak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307405654
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2007-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

12

How We Would Work Together

Setting Expectations

One of my all-time heroes is Jack Welch, and shortly before our launch as a new company, Andy arranged for me to meet him. We went to his offices in Rockefeller Center, and over lunch, after I had furiously scribbled down almost two hours’ worth of notes, I asked him one last question: “If you were me, what would be the single most important thing you’d focus on?”

“You know,” Jack said, “when I think back to my early GE days, one of the things I wish I had done was talk more about who we wanted to be, what our values were, how we were going to work together, and how we were going to define ourselves as a company. Later we did define ourselves with one word: quality. Everyone could get behind quality. But back then I did a lot of cost cutting without first taking the time to explain what I was trying to do—to give people the larger picture.”

Wow. It was like he validated everything I had been thinking about starting a new company. I’d been thinking really hard about what was going to make our company special and how I was going to spread that gospel like wildfire to our people. I loved the idea because it played to my strength. And once I get excited about something, I won’t let up until everyone else is excited as well.

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