"Greatest Manager of the 20th Century?"

Feature: “Greatest Manager of the 20th Century?”

“Greatest Manager of the 20th Century?”
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.

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.