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“Greatest Manager of the 20th Century?”
Posted: 08/09/2007, 12:10 PM PT
You may not be familiar with HSM, but they put on some pretty good executive
education events, including the World Business Forum. They get great
speakers—this October’s World Business Forum in New York has names like Alan
Greenspan, Kofi Annan, Herb Kelleher and Michael Eisner on the program—and are
generally well attended, a sure sign that people are hungry for business insight
and wisdom.
A staple of the World Business Forum is Jack Welch,
the former General Electric CEO who seems to be the go-to guy for management
wisdom. In fact, Welch is such a big draw that the people at HSM have done a
spinoff conference where, for $10,000, you and 99 other executives get to spend
two days hobnobbing and listening to Jack up close and personal.
I’ve never been to one of these special “Two Days With Jack Welch” events,
but I get lots of marketing materials about them from HSM. What struck me this
week was that they’re now marketing Welch like this: “20 Years as Head of
General Electric, Greatest Manager of the 20th Century, Bestselling Author and
Business Icon.” Greatest manager of the 20th century????? I like Jack Welch and
respect his wisdom, but is he really the “greatest manager of the 20th century?”
Is that a demonstrable fact, or just marketing hype and hyperbole?
What do you think? I’d love to hear if you believe he is, or if not, whom you
might suggest as the greatest manager of the past 100 years. Send me comments at
jhollon@workforce.com. I will publish
as many of them as I can.
Next Post: 4. In Defense of Nose Picking and Boorish Behavior
Whenever I think that I’ve seen just about everything in the way of management practice and behavior, I get shocked by something so outlandish, ridiculous or just plain unbelievable that even my jaded and cynical soul is shaken by it.
This one hits close to home (more on that in a bit), and is something you won’t see taught to MBA students anytime soon: An impassioned management defense of an employee’s boorish behavior, and his right to embarrass the company by picking his nose in public, on television.
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John Hollon
Workforce Management editor John Hollon is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years' experience as a newspaper, magazine, Internet and business journal editor. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from California State University, Long Beach, and an MBA from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.
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Previous Posts
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It’s hard to do business in 21st century America without encountering a call center. If you’re like me, more often than not this turns out to be a less-than-satisfactory experience, talking with some company’s outsourced workforce that is struggling mightily to help you from some foreign land many time zones away.
2. “Greatest Manager of the 20th Century?”
3. In Defense of Nose Picking and Boorish Behavior
Whenever I think that I’ve seen just about everything in the way of management practice and behavior, I get shocked by something so outlandish, ridiculous or just plain unbelievable that even my jaded and cynical soul is shaken by it.
This one hits close to home (more on that in a bit), and is something you won’t see taught to MBA students anytime soon: An impassioned management defense of an employee’s boorish behavior, and his right to embarrass the company by picking his nose in public, on television.
4. Message in a Book List
I asked, "What does this list of the top-selling books purchased at last month's Society for Human Resource Management annual conference in Las Vegas tell you about the HR professional in the 21st century?"
5. Responding to ‘The Talent-Shortage Myth’
Responses to the "Talent Shortage" posting.
6. The Talent-Shortage Myth
7. Why You Always Need a Plan B
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