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“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’” —­Dave Barry



That assessment by the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author is right on. A <a href="https://public.otter.ai/reports/The_Cost_of_Unnecessary_Meeting_Attendance.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2022 Otter.ai survey</a> of over 600 employees from 20 industries found that, “on average, employees have 17.7 meetings (totaling 18 hours) per week,” numbers which increase as “management level and number of direct reports increases.” Additionally, non-management employees reported that only 11.9 hours of those weekly meetings were critical, leaving just under six hours of unnecessary meeting time that could have been put to better use.



In hard dollars, the price of meetings that aren’t productive is enormous. The same Otter.ai survey found that “for companies of 100 people, cutting unnecessary meetings would save nearly $2.5 million each year and for companies of 5,000 that savings rises to over $100 million.”



<h2 id="h-ground-rules-for-more-productive-meetings">Ground rules for more productive meetings</h2>



Meetings <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/6-ways-great-leaders-give-rise-to-great-ideas/">can generate ideas</a>, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-you-need-clarity-to-achieve-your-goals/">provide clarity</a> and facilitate action. But how can business owners and managers turn around the proverbial time-suck? Follow these ground rules to have more productive meetings.



<h3 id="h-1-just-say-no">1. Just say no.</h3>



The biggest problem with meetings is that there are too many, says Kathleen Allen, an expert in entrepreneurship and Professor Emerita of Clinical Entrepreneurship at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. “So many leaders do it for show,” she says. If the intent of a meeting is to have people report what they’re doing, have them write a memo instead.



<h3 id="h-2-watch-the-clock">2. Watch the clock.</h3>



One major time-waster is <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/9-early-bird-tips-for-the-habitually-late/">waiting for people to arrive</a>. Some executives encourage promptness by scheduling meetings at weird times, such as 8:47 a.m. Have a time limit (preferably no more than an hour) and stick to it, even if you don’t discuss all agenda items. Never waste time telling stragglers what was discussed before they arrived.



Paul Tronsor, vice president of global network planning and business analytics at FedEx, says FedEx officials value daily operations meetings in which they evaluate business efficiency from the previous day and make continual improvements.



As <a href="https://fortune.com/company/fedex/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one of the largest</a> package-delivery companies in the U.S., FedEx meetings involve a recap of the night’s performance, and key representatives from around the globe report on their operations with a fire drill-like urgency. The meeting has a set time; it’s fast-paced and action-oriented.



What began as a small junk-removal service has turned into a household name with presence in <a href="https://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en/about/our_company" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">roughly 200 locations</a> across three countries. Brian Scudamore, founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?—and its parent organization, O2E Brands—says efficiency is key to effective meetings.



“At any given day our staff is closing franchise deals, booking customer jobs and working with the media,” Brian Scudamore says. “We are a fast-paced, high-energy company. To stay on top we have to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/7-mental-techniques-to-improve-your-time-management/">manage our time</a> very efficiently. That means scheduling meetings for a half hour, 15 minutes or five minutes if that’s all that’s needed.



“Consider the total time spent in meetings for any professional person, from sales to strategy to on-the-fly important meetings. The percentage of time we spend in meetings can be staggering. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/12-efficiency-secrets-of-the-worlds-busiest-people/">To be efficient with time</a> is critical. Conducting meetings with a start and end time, and sticking to those, is key.”



<h3 id="h-3-set-a-clear-agenda-and-objectives-for-a-productive-meeting">3. Set a clear agenda and objectives for a productive meeting.</h3>



One ground rule to avoid the meeting-for-meetings’-sake syndrome is to establish objectives upfront, Allen says. Set an agenda and stick to it.



Strategies FedEx incorporates include following a checklist, using audio/visual material <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/rohn-8-ways-to-master-the-art-of-communication/">for clearer communication</a> and using a “post-game” philosophy in which issues that can’t be resolved in the meeting are given an action item and a deadline.



Both FedEx and 1-800-GOT-JUNK believe in establishing a clear objective for all meetings. Define the type of meeting for all participants ahead of time. Is it a reporting session? Brainstorming? Problem-solving? Give context and a goal, not just a meeting time. Make sure regularly scheduled meetings also have clear objectives. When adhering to a plan for effective, productive meetings, people will begin to perceive meetings as an opportunity to make significant progress at work.



Preparation and clear communication can make or break a meeting. Use an agenda, outline or plan of action for every meeting. An agenda can keep participants focused and be used as a frame of reference.



“It’s up to the meeting facilitator to determine what needs to be done in advance of the meeting so that time spent in the meeting is used wisely,” Scudamore says. “The facilitator also should prepare the participants and communicate what the objectives and expectations are.”



<h3 id="h-4-tailor-the-invitation-list-for-more-productive-meetings">4. Tailor the invitation list for more productive meetings.</h3>



Steve Jobs was famous for kicking people out of meetings if he didn’t think they needed to be there. Being in a meeting shouldn’t be a status symbol. Instead, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/12-productivity-tools-and-strategies-to-help-you-seize-the-day/">the key to productivity</a> is to invite only those who are really necessary to tackle an issue or problem.&nbsp;



Another ground rule for meetings is that participants should be contributors, problem-solvers and decision-makers. “One of the things we have done is to consider who really needs to be at meetings,” Scudamore says. “Does it make sense to use up this person’s time if it’s not critical they be at the meeting?”



Greg Smith, a software business consultant, says if speed is of the essence, you may need to bring in more people to get a project moving quickly. However, in the normal course of business, smaller is better. “Five people can take us 90% there,” he says. “We try to balance how far we can go with the least amount of people so we don’t waste time and money tying everyone up.”



<h3 id="h-5-make-meetings-uncomfortable">5. Make meetings uncomfortable.</h3>



Smith is a disciple of agile project management, a standard among software development firms. One of its cornerstones is the daily scrum or daily standup, which is exactly what it sounds like—a meeting sans chairs. Smith says making people stand assures that meetings will be short (never exceeding 15 minutes) and to the point.



If the meeting isn’t focused to begin with, removing chairs may not do much good. There are other options, though, for more productive meetings.



<h3 id="h-6-turn-a-meeting-into-exercise">6. Turn a meeting into exercise.</h3>



Thought leader Nilofer Merchant got a lot of buzz in 2013 for <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/nilofer_merchant_got_a_meeting_take_a_walk?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">her TED Talk</a> extolling the virtues of the walking meeting. “Sitting has become the smoking of our generation,” says Merchant, whose book <a href="https://amzn.to/3jW9KOS" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The New How</a> explains ways of <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/combat-collaboration-overload/">collaborating for better business outcomes</a>.



Rather than sacrifice her health for her career, she got off her duff and began walking 20 to 30 miles a week while discussing business. “There’s this amazing thing about getting out of the box that leads to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/18-out-of-the-box-ideas-to-spark-creative-inspiration/">out-of-the-box thinking</a>,” she says.



While the walk-and-talk meeting might not work for large corporate meetings, Allen says getting out of the office—a kind of mini-retreat—can be a plus. “If it works for a group and a group feels better walking and talking, why not?” she says.



<h3 id="h-7-visualize-a-better-more-productive-meeting">7. Visualize a better, more productive meeting.</h3>



Using a whiteboard to let people express their ideas is a good way to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/3-practices-to-come-up-with-new-ideas/">generate new ideas</a> and keep the meeting focused, Allen says. “In my ideal meeting room, all the walls would be whiteboard.”



<h3 id="h-8-use-cutting-edge-video-conferencing">8. Use cutting-edge video conferencing.</h3>



Once seen merely as a way to save money on travel, video conferencing has become key to business communication, says Proofpoint CEO Ashan Willy.



Once featuring faceless voices crackling out of spaceship-looking devices in the middle of conference tables, video technology now allows workers to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/zoom-etiquette-101-8-tips-to-put-your-best-face-forward-during-virtual-meetings/">actively participate in meetings</a> thousands of miles away. “Technology that we use can actually detect a person’s sound and movement and zoom in on the face” so that everyone’s facial expressions are easily read, Willy says. “That makes the remote person feel like they’re part of the meeting.”



<h3 id="h-9-be-a-good-meeting-leader">9. Be a good meeting leader.</h3>



The leader of the meeting should ensure that everyone is heard. That no one is dominating exclusively and there are no extensive side discussions happening between people. Put someone in charge who is respected by everyone. Remember: It is sometimes more effective to encourage individual reports than to focus solely on group discussions.



<h3 id="h-10-success-breeds-success">10. Success breeds success.</h3>



A meeting is of little use without results. “Follow-up is crucial, because this is where we get to the results of the meeting,” Scudamore says. “The question is asked, ‘Who will do what by when,’ and then single-point accountability is assigned to each person.”



Following these ground rules and hitting goals will set the tone for future meetings. “If you have a consistent history of productive outcomes, then people will have an interest in attending your meetings,” Willy says.



This article was published in April 2011 and has been updated. Photo by bbernard/Shutterstock

Let’s face it: A lot of meetings are pointless. Follow these 8 ground rules to have more productive meetings, saving you time and money.

Let’s face it: A lot of meetings are pointless. Follow these 8 ground rules to have more productive meetings, saving you time and money. | SUCCESS

10 Ways to Avoid Pointless Meetings

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Want to Have Productive Meetings? 10 Tips You Need | SUCCESS

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Jane Musgrave

Sandra Bienkowski

The National Football League season is winding down. The best teams are separating themselves. A champion will soon be crowned. Legends hang in the balance, daring to take their place with those of long ago.Don Shula is a true football icon now above the fray, a conquering general who long since retired. Almost two decades ago, he left the league holding the all-time record for wins by a head coach. His emblematic silver hair now completely white, Shula grins while sitting in a wood-paneled office in his sprawling waterfront home on the exclusive Indian Creek Island north of Miami.The former boss of the Baltimore Colts and longtime coach of the Miami Dolphins has lived an entirely new life since stepping away from the game, although it&rsquo;s not the one he expected. &ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d be using my expertise in some way,&rdquo; he says, recalling the career prospects he envisioned when, on Jan. 5, 1996&mdash;one day after his 66th birthday&mdash;he bid farewell to the sidelines forever. &ldquo;I spent so many years as a player, an assistant coach and then a head coach. I felt that I would continue to be involved in the game. Just to a lesser extent.&rdquo;Instead, Shula is well-known today not only as a gridiron god, but also as a successful restaurateur. In a culinary landscape where most restaurants, particularly those launched by celebrities, fold faster than a pair of Joe Namath&rsquo;s notorious pantyhose, the chain of eateries Shula lent his name to while still pacing the sidelines isn&rsquo;t just surviving, it&rsquo;s thriving. In the fall, having expanded from its roots as a high-end steak house to a restaurant stable that includes burger joints and fast-service airport stalls among other concepts, &ldquo;Shula&rsquo;s&rdquo; celebrated 25 years in business.In his years as a coach, Shula was known as both a brilliant tactician and <a href="https://Are Your Goals Tough Enough? Or Too Tough?" target="_blank" title="Are Your Goals Tough Enough? Or Too Tough? | SUCCESS.com">an unrelenting taskmaster</a> who once subjected his players to four-a-day practices. But when it came to the restaurant business, the Hall of Fame leader left the heavy lifting to others. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just a pretty face,&rdquo; says the man known for his distinctive square jaw of his role as pitchman for the chain that boasts 35 locations and counting as the brand expands through franchising.Still, had it not been for the prestige of his name, the respect commanded by his presence, his key connections and the ability to lure top talent, success might have proved elusive. But in truth, establishing successful restaurants isn&rsquo;t that different from fielding winning football teams, according to Shula and his eldest son, Dave, a former NFL coach in his own right who now runs the day-to-day operations of <a href="https://www.donshula.com/history/coach-don-shula" target="_blank" title="History | donshula.com">Shula&rsquo;s Steak Houses, LLLP</a>.&ldquo;The thing I enjoy most is the team concept and how it relates to things I&nbsp;believed in as a coach,&rdquo; Don Shula says, a Super Bowl VII ring glinting from his porterhouse-thick right hand. &ldquo;You have to have good leadership, good players and a good organization. There are so many similarities between football and what we try to do in the restaurant business.&rdquo;Dave Shula agrees. &ldquo;In football you have to have a game plan, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/john-maxwell-have-a-plan" target="_blank" title="John Maxwell: Have a Plan | SUCCESS.com">a sound fundamental game plan</a>,&rdquo; he says. He points to his father&rsquo;s reputation for fielding teams that posted the fewest penalties season after season. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same thing in the restaurant business. You make sure you&rsquo;re staying true to your fundamentals. But then you&rsquo;ve got to continue over a period of years to innovate, to create around the edges, but still stay true to your core. For a football team, throughout the course of a 16-game regular season, you can&rsquo;t run the same game plan every week. You&rsquo;ve got to change up things while still staying true to who you are.&rdquo;Given their shared background, it&rsquo;s not surprising that father and son use football metaphors in describing their business philosophies. Also not surprising, given their close relationship, shared passions and history, they often finish each other&rsquo;s sentences.&ldquo;I coached under my father for seven years, and obviously I grew up with him,&rdquo; Dave Shula says. &ldquo;All the things that he taught me about football and life&mdash;it&rsquo;s very similar to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/how-to-business-in-a-box" target="_blank" title="How To: Business-in-a-Box | SUCCESS.com">the franchising business</a>, especially. What&rsquo;s a franchise? You buy intellectual property, ideas, standards, recipes, operating procedures, a design package and such. We then have to train you so that you, in turn, can train somebody else. And that&rsquo;s what coaching is all about. You bring in players. You bring in all these rookies and get them to play within the system and maximize their talents so they can be successful on game day.&ldquo;We get people. We train them into our system while acknowledging their differences. They&rsquo;re obviously going to perform within their own personality styles and their experience. Coupled with what we teach them, they&rsquo;ll hopefully have the tools to be successful.&rdquo;Any coach or manager will acknowledge that some players or employees don&rsquo;t fit into every system. In 2013, as a <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/bullies-at-work" target="_blank" title="Bullies at Work | SUCCESS.com">bullying scandal</a> tarnished the standard Don Shula set with the Dolphins, the longtime coach explained to the Miami Herald that &ldquo;you win with good people on and off the field&hellip;. They took a chance on a guy with a bad reputation, and it backfired on them.&rdquo;Having come of age in the 1940s and 1950s, Shula was no stranger to the macho culture that later spiraled out of control in Miami. As a younger man, he experienced the customary ribbing from teammates and fellow coaches, for instance having to stand on his chair during a team dinner and sing the fight song of his alma mater, John Carroll University outside Cleveland. But Shula says leadership must step in to prevent an organizational structure from rotting from the inside. Moving forward, the coach said, he hoped the franchise could regain its credibility.The NFL has changed a great deal&mdash;in many ways for the worse, as this fall has shown&mdash;since Shula first became an assistant with the Detroit Lions in 1960. But the two-time Super Bowl champion believes he would be just as effective today as he was generations ago.&ldquo;I have the courage of my convictions,&rdquo; Shula says. &ldquo;I had a way of doing things that I thought was right, and I would make sure nothing stood in my way. Hire the best people and give them a job to do. Every night we would end up in a coaching staff meeting, and each coach would talk about the four, five or six people he was responsible for. And that&rsquo;s why this bullying thing wouldn&rsquo;t have happened with me. That would have been talked out, and we would have made sure we eliminated it. You can&rsquo;t let that happen.&rdquo;Shula counts preparation and accountability as the keys to his team&rsquo;s success.&ldquo;We just took a lot of pride in being the team that had the least mental errors,&rdquo; the former coach says. &ldquo;If something happened in practice&mdash;if someone grabbed ahold of somebody else [a penalty]&mdash;I would have stopped practice. I would make an example of them. &lsquo;If this happened in a critical play in the game, the play would be nullified, and we&rsquo;d end up not winning the game because of that.&rsquo; You stress to them the importance of doing it the right way. But if you let it go in practice and then it happens in the game, it&rsquo;s your fault that you didn&rsquo;t make the correction in practice.&rdquo;Needless to say, the family tradition of leading young men on the football field carries on. Shula&rsquo;s youngest son, Mike, is the offensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers. Dave&rsquo;s middle son is the defensive coordinator at John Carroll, where the team plays in Don Shula Stadium. Further, Dave&rsquo;s oldest son is a receivers coach at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and his youngest son is an intern for the Dolphins.And Don Shula rarely misses a Dolphins game. He can&rsquo;t help himself.&ldquo;I miss the dedication, the hard work and most of all the <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/decisions-decisions" target="_blank" title="Decisions, Decisions... | SUCCESS.com">decision-making</a>. On game day, you can&rsquo;t imagine the things that go on along that sideline, the critical situations.&rdquo;The game allowed him to meet people far removed from athletics. During his Super Bowl years of the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon called him regularly. With a home in Key Biscayne, often referred to as the Florida White House, Nixon became a Dolphins fan. In 2013 Shula and other members of the 1972 Dolphins were honored by President Barack Obama as the only NFL team of the modern era to finish the season undefeated.During the White House ceremony, Obama admitted he had previously invited the 1985 Chicago team to the White House and dubbed those 18-1 hometown Bears the best team ever despite the blemish on their record.&ldquo;Who beat &rsquo;em?!&rdquo; Shula shouted, stopping Obama midsentence. Obama knew the answer: Shula&rsquo;s Dolphins.It&rsquo;s a rhetorical question that would fit a medium-rare filet as well as it does his greatest coaching achievement. &ldquo;How can you be better than perfection? Explain that to me,&rdquo; Shula says, spreading his arms wide and shaking his head.These days the coach is taking it easy. He had a health scare several years back when a blood clot ruptured in his left leg, shooting to his heart and lungs.But now, he says, all is well.&ldquo;I feel like the bottom of a stove,&rdquo; he says, pausing for the punch line. &ldquo;Smoking hot.&rdquo;<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/4-leadership-lessons-from-this-nfl-season" target="_self" title="4 Leadership Lessons from This NFL Season | SUCCESS.com">Check out 4 leadership lessons taken from this NFL season.</a>

The National Football League season is winding down. The best teams are separating themselves. A champion will soon be crowned. Legends hang in the

The National Football League season is winding down. The best teams are separating themselves. A champion will soon be crowned. Legends hang in the | SUCCESS

The Shula Legacy

The Shula Legacy | SUCCESS

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Jane Musgrave has worked for various newspapers for 30 years, including The Palm Beach Post, her current employer.

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When you’re edging toward 80 and you’ve already revolutionized the business world, it’s clearly time to relax. But instead of kicking back, Jack Welch, the revered CEO at the helm of General Electric for 20 years, has reinvented himself again.
While his contemporaries—and, let’s face it, even people half his age—are often bewildered and bedeviled by breakneck technological intrusions, the 78-year-old Welch embraces them all. He has 1.42 million <a title="Twitter.com/Jack_Welch" href="https://twitter.com/jack_welch" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a> followers and more than 2 million devotees to the wisdom he imparts on his LinkedIn web page. He often prefers a teleconference to traveling to New York to meet face to face with private equity portfolio companies.
And education? It’s moved online. The reason? “One word: reach. You get to more people,” says Welch, who formerly taught an elite group of MBA students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now oversees the <a title="The Jack Welch Management Institute | JackWelch.Strayer.edu" href="https://jackwelch.strayer.edu/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jack Welch Management Institute</a> at the comparatively unknown online Strayer University.
The Internet and social media have transformed education as well as the business world, Welch says. One of the most profound changes is that bosses can no longer pretend they know more than their workers. “Knowledge is no longer power because everyone has it,” he says.
That means bosses have to be true leaders. They have to <a title="John C. Maxwell: Looking Upward | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/maximum-leadership-looking-upward-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">show workers where the company is headed</a>, why it’s headed there and why they should follow. “It’s not some stuffed shirt in an office barking out orders anymore. Everybody has the knowledge,” he says.
For the straight-talking Welch, it’s never been about style over substance. And age hasn’t changed him. While many business tycoons settle in Palm Beach, Welch and his third wife, Suzy, looked roughly 10 miles north of the island mecca of the rich and famous when they began hunting for a Florida home seven years ago. They purchased a $7.6 million home in Lost Tree Village, a gated community that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway in North Palm Beach. An undeniably wealthy enclave with a golf course designed by fellow resident Jack Nicklaus, it has none of the glitz, glamour or celebrity of Palm Beach. That, Welch says, is why it was attractive.
“I don’t ever want to wear a tuxedo again,” he says, his raspy voice dripping with the distinctive New England accent he earned growing up in Salem, Mass.
A Meaningful Purpose
It’s vintage Welch. Throughout his career, as he increased the value of GE by an eye-popping 4,000 percent, he was known as a blunt-to-a-fault, unconventional leader. While he stands only 5-foot-8, everything about him seems large: his ideas, his commitment to them and his ability to make others embrace them.
Sitting in the kitchen of the 8,400- square-foot home on the Intracoastal that is filled with comfortable furniture and huge modern paintings by Jim Dine, one of his wife’s favorite artists, Welch displays all the wit, wisdom and verve that kept him in the headlines and at the helm of one of the world’s largest corporations for two decades.
His blue eyes glinting, he occasionally balls his fists as he blasts the ever-popular notion of <a title="Top of Mind: The Value of Mentors for Business Success | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/top-of-mind-the-value-of-mentors-for-business-success" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">business mentors</a>, decries managers who blithely embrace across-the-board raises or across-the-board anything, and insists that running a business isn’t solely about making money.
“If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it’s an ugly life,” he says with a shake of his head. “When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you’ve hit the jackpot for people. When you can make them love coming to work, proud of their work, think it has a purpose, that’s what it’s all about.”
Further, he says, people should <a title="Strut Your Stuff in 3 Steps | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/strut-your-stuff-in-3-steps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pursue their passions</a>. “There’s an area of destiny for everyone. You like doing it and you’re good at it,” he says. To emphasize the point, he crosses his forearms in front of him to form an X. That is the perfect intersection everyone should be seeking. “We all want to end up there,” he says, tapping his arms together.
Such touchy-feely talk may surprise those who remember Welch in 1981 shortly after he became the youngest person ever tapped to run the company that traces its roots to Thomas Edison. Selling off unprofitable businesses and shedding bureaucracy, which resulted in the loss of about 100,000 jobs, Welch was dubbed “Neutron Jack.”
Welch says he was stunned by the criticism. “I hated it. Hated it. Hurts,” he says. “It’s the last thing I thought I was doing.”
Faced with growing competition and falling profits, he says he had to act. “We were making television sets in Syracuse, N.Y., and the Japanese were selling them in the malls in Syracuse, N.Y., for 15 percent below what we were making them for there,” he says, grimacing at the memory. “So something was wrong, and we weren’t going to survive.”
Fielding the Best Team
And he says his tactics worked. When he took over, GE had 420,000 workers and did $25 billion in business. Twenty years later, it did more than $130 billion in business with 325,000 employees. “Now were we fat?” he asks with a nod, challenging listeners to disagree. “How do you do five or six times the volume with 100,000 fewer people if you weren’t fat?”
But contrary to popular belief, he says he never advocated whacking workers indiscriminately. Unfortunately, he says, that’s how many businesses interpreted the 20-70-10 approach he outlined in his first book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446690686/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0446690686&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=sm0fe-20&amp;linkId=CJE3ZAON7MH7BQBD">Jack: Straight from the Gut</a><img style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=sm0fe-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0446690686" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0">.
His theory was that the top 20 percent of a company’s workforce are the most productive, 70 percent are worth saving, and 10 percent aren’t performing.
“I talked about getting rid of the bottom 10 percent. So some companies fired the bottom 10 percent,” he says, waving his hands dismissively. “The problem was it was the first time anybody knew they were in the bottom 10 percent. That’s just stupid.”
He says he never intended his advice to be interpreted so literally or inhumanely. “You’ve got to have an appraisal system that is rigorous. People have to know where they stand,” he says. “You don’t get rid of them that year. You give them a year to improve. You work on it with them, and you do it hopefully when they’re 30, not 50.”
Firing people without warning, particularly after they’ve spent years toiling at their jobs, is just wrong, Welch says, his voice rising. “That’s the cruelest form of management. It’s cowardice. I hate it.”
He uses the same word to describe blanket management policies, such as 10 percent across-the-board cuts, 7 percent raises or buyouts for anyone over the age of 55. “They’re all cowardly management stunts,” he says. “You treat people as individuals, not with these blanket weak-kneed management formulas.”
Such policies seem to fly in the face of his mantra: “The team that fields the best players wins.” Not so, he insists.
“You believe that you’re fighting every day to get the best team. So how do you have a buyout when you have the best team and you lose three of your best players who happen to be 57 years old?” he asks. “All of a sudden you’ve weakened your team. It makes no sense.”
Create a Learning Culture
A former high school and college athlete, Welch has said success in any endeavor is a team effort, both for a company and an individual. That’s one reason he says he has rejected the popular notion of business mentors.
“I’ve had many mentors. I’d bump into someone who would give me a break, give me a chance,” he says. “But I’m always telling people don’t get yourself hooked on a mentor. Get something from everyone.”
There are unexpected pitfalls of being paired with someone not of your own choosing, he says. “Let’s say I’m your mentor,” he explains, clearly enjoying this story. “I’m a middle manager; you join the company; you’re fresh out of college. I’m assigned as your mentor because I’ve been there five years. But everybody thinks I’m a horse’s ass. What are they going to think of you? You’re hanging around with me. You get everything I’ve got—all of my baggage.”
Instead, he says, absorb lessons from everyone and everything—a newspaper article, a speech, a colleague, a boss, a book, even a competitor. And, as a leader, foster a learning culture. “It totally is in a learning culture that you create an atmosphere where everyone is looking all the time to do things better,” he says.
Welch worked to foster such an atmosphere at GE, and he preaches about the importance of a learning <a title="How To: Create a Culture | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/how-to-create-a-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">culture</a> to his ever-growing number of students at Strayer University. He wants to spread the gospel of <a title="Be a Better Manager with These 4 Tips | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/be-a-better-manager-with-these-4-tips" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">good management</a>—a gospel that he says has peppered the business landscape with dozens of former GE executives who are now running companies that, like GE, are household names. He ticks off their names like a proud parent: David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell International; Frank Blake at Home Depot; David Calhoun at Nielsen; and James McNerny at Boeing. “I &nbsp;can go through 50 of them,” he says. And that’s what he hopes for his students. To give them the practical skills they need to move to the top.
Expanding His Reach
Welch readily admits he was initially skeptical about online education. But ever the businessman, he likes the volume. “I now have 650, not 40,” he says of the number of MBA students he teaches at Strayer compared to MIT. “I want to have 5,000. We hope to get to 1,000 in the next 18 months.”
He also likes the practical aspects of the program. Most of the students are already working, either as middle managers or as entrepreneurs. They can immediately put into practice the lessons they learn. They don’t have to leave well-paying jobs to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a degree, he says.
“This allows people to keep their jobs, grow in their existing companies and learn in a parallel universe,” he says. “It’s fabulous.”
While for-profit universities have come under fire from Congress for their high cost, low graduation rates and misuse of federal grant money, Strayer fared better than most in a 2012 report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The report noted that many top companies, including Verizon Wireless, Lowe’s, CarQuest, ADP and Nestlé USA, provide tuition reimbursement for employees attending Strayer. That, the committee report said, spoke well of the rapidly growing publicly traded university.
Welch says he is heavily involved with the faculty and in developing the curriculum of his program. Every six weeks he holds a webcast where he takes questions from students. “The discussions are wide open. All I do is sit there and say, ‘Let’s have at it,’ ” he says. “We might have 300 to 600 online at any given time.”
Not everyone needs an MBA, says Welch, who earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But that’s not to say a higher degree is useless. “It’s another notch on the belt,” he says. “It says you did something; you finished it; you learned how to do certain things. It allows people to deliver the results.”
Welch says he didn’t need an MBA because he had been schooled in the Socratic Method. While pursuing his doctorate, he learned to gather information, analyze problems and find innovative solutions. He grew to understand that the first answer wasn’t always the right one and that it sometimes took several trips down blind alleys to find a solution. Most important, he says, such truth-seeking builds self-confidence. “And this whole thing is about <a title="Got Confidence? 16 Questions to Find Out | SUCCESS.com" href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/got-confidence-16-questions-to-find-out" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">self-confidence</a>: Do you have the ability and self-confidence to take chances, to reach, to probe, and the self-awareness to know what you don’t know?”
“I Never Realized I Was Short”
Welch readily admits he never lacked the self-confidence he credits with his success. He thanks his mother for that. “I was the only child of an Irish mother, and she had me late in life. She was 40. So I was the apple of her eye,” he says. “I have a speech impediment. My mother told me, when people would make fun of me, ‘Just tell them your mind works so much faster than your brain that your tongue can’t keep up with it.’
“And I believed her,” he continues. “A stammer? I could care less.
“I never realized I was short,” he adds with a shrug and a short laugh. His mother convinced him he would reach great heights no matter what he chose to do.
Today Welch’s work is in many ways an extension of what he did at GE, although the businesses he deals with are decidedly different. As senior adviser for the private equity firm Clayton Dubilier &amp; Rice, he reviews businesses in the portfolio every couple of months the same way he reviewed businesses at GE. Quarterly, he does the same with Internet dating sites, search engine companies, a video company and other high-tech businesses as a consultant for IAC/InterActiveCorp, where his longtime friend, former Paramount Pictures CEO Barry Diller, is chairman of the board.
On a daily basis, he’s involved as chairman of the <a title="The Jack Welch Management Institute | JackWelch.Strayer.edu" href="https://jackwelch.strayer.edu/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jack Welch Management Institute</a>, which is similar in many ways to the teaching he did at the GE Training Center, where he led lively exchanges with groups of employees every month for 20 years.
“Now I’m translating what I did at GE into today’s world,” he says. “It’s great fun.”
Welch says he never regretted leaving GE. “The whole idea of people coming to these companies is someday it’s going to be theirs,” he says. “I was running it for 20 years. I &nbsp;was there for 40. It was time to move on.”
Besides, he says with obvious pleasure, he and his wife, a Harvard Business School graduate who was editor in chief of the Harvard Business Review, are too busy with their sundry pursuits. “We travel around the world speaking. I go to New York for private equity company meetings. I go to Washington for our school. I &nbsp;hang out and play golf and go to the gym every morning when I’m here. There are no typical days. I love it.”

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Jack Welch: Straight from the Gut

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