He Took Corporate Events and Changed Them
This particular story about Welch I particularly like because he took something that he couldn't really get out of and totally changed it around to use for his purposes.
I'm referring to the corporate events that Welch inherited when he became CEO of General Electric (GE) and which he was expected to attend.
He literally took them and used them to be a springboard of leadership where he could not only set the agenda for the corporation, but change it as well.
Every time there was a corporate event they became levers for Welch to use to do what he does best: challenge everything going on in the company, as well as the people.
It was the legendary give-and-take sessions that made such a profound impact on General Electric that emerged from these ordered events.
What I like about it is Welch simply didn't say "Ok, let's have this event so we can all get out of here and get back to our jobs." He took the opportunity and made them into what he knew was need for his people and the company. It was one of the reasons he was so hard to compete against and led GE strongly for so long.
It wasn't just in these meetings that he did this, he did it everywhere he went. He not only did it himself, but he challenged his people to do the same. He would tell them if they didn't like the way something was going then do something about it; smash it, break it, yell at it ... whatever it took to get the results they were looking for.
The secret is that he took what was handed to him and transformed them into tools that could be used to surge the company ahead and change whatever was needed to be changed across a vast behemoth of a company. He did it successfully!
Other Jack Welch Resources:
How Jack Welch Runs GE
Jack Welch Defends
Jack Welch's advice to MIT Sloan students
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