A Gut feeling on the real Jack Welch. (Book Review).

CEOs and their stories have become so cliche over the last decade, that whenever a new executive volume is published, the temptation is to pigeon-hole it as another rags-to-riches biography, or a master class in management strategies. Just by its title, Jack: Straight From the Gut by former CEO of General Electric (GE) Jack Welch (with John A. Byrne, Warner Business Books, $29.95 hard cover, pp. 479) suggests an unusual combination of both elements.

Given that much has already been written about Welch's contribution to GE since the book's release last year, reading between the lines to find the man behind the accomplishments becomes key, both through his own words and through personal impressions. The reviewer's father and his friends worked under Jack Welch and witnessed his rise to the top. While many from that generation have long since retired, their views are a mixture of wariness regarding Welch's personality and staunch satisfaction with his performance as a leader, the latter implying that the book might be a good read.

Inevitably the book must be analyzed chronologically, because understanding Welch's business ideals means understanding his roots and how his value system developed. "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I had something better -- tons of love." He's no Frank McCourt, but Welch attributes his inner compass to a solid Irish-Catholic upbringing by a working-class father and a strict-but-loving mother. "Perhaps the greatest single gift she gave me was self-confidence. It's what I've looked for and tried to build in every executive who has ever worked with me." Thankfully she doesn't appear to be hovering over every board meeting and acquisition through the book. Welch's account of how she followed him into the locker room after a hockey game to chastise him for being a sore loser is sufficient evidence of her commanding position in his life.

Initially, Welch's colloquial tone illustrates an effort to hide his lack of confidence rather than truly reveal himself. "I was lucky... Reg Jones came into my life and gave me the hug of a lifetime." At times it's almost as if he is trying to convince his readership that if they give him 400 pages or so, they'll see how he's made good by rising above his station in life to become liked and revered.

After opening with a recap of how he passed the torch to Jeff Immelt with the same sentiment as it was passed to him by Reg Jones 20 years earlier, he quickly reveals his PhD status only to dull the edge with less-than-scholarly style: "I was pouring everything I had into what I was doing and having a helluva good time doing it." Aside from the absence of editing (maybe his editor cowered under the outspoken style which earned the author the nickame "Neutron Jack" although he did insist that the working title "Jack Bites Back" was too defensive.), we would expect more from a PhD. "I was a good student who worked hard for his grades, but no one would have accused me of being brilliant," he admitted. "I wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a star.

It's the imbalance of self-deprecation weakly disguised as humility, and outspoken style that makes it hard to find the real Jack throughout the book. He admits that what others perceived as a volatile temper and brutal honesty 

got him into trouble with bosses and underlings alike. But he also insists that he got. the job done by being tough on his brightest employees and aggressively demanding changes that would benefit the company.

By the end of the book, the reader has struggled to garner an impression of Welch out of the brief glimpses of personality he weaves into the extensive narrative of GE'S growth under his leadership. But strung together, the instances of self-deprecation and affected modesty really show that outside of his work, Welch doesn't have a very good opinion of himself--he clearly feels he's the sum of his accomplishments at GE. The man is his work, and conversely, while he was there, GE was Jack Welch.

The question then becomes, is he right about himself? Can we judge him according to his works? The changes he made for GE need no confirmation - it's all there in black and white on Wall Street. Old-school executives like my father and his contemporaries didn't take to Welch's new management style (team participation vs. authoritarian), but they sure liked what "Uncle Jack" was doing for their IRA stock. The relinquishment of the small appliances division to Black & Decker, the success of the aircraft engines division, and GE's acquisition of NBC not only make for good reading, but undeniably helped GE become a global contender (enter "Global Jack").

And many of Welch's radical business models and personal mantras have not only survived his command at GE, but they are still on the lips of thirty-somethings who made their corporate debuts at the company right out of college in the '80s. "Boundarylessness" was Welch's vision of an infrastructure with no barriers between the different sectors and functions of the company. "I was not shy about this vision," he writes. And his motto of being "#1 or #2" in any given market or selling the sector that represents it, is said by some to have brought the company unprecedented growth. Presumably it's those people who crowned him "No. 1 or No. 2 Jack"

The company itself certainly has a good impression of him -- CNBC's flagship morning show Squawk Box brought him on as a special contributor in February. And here comes that humility again: even as a quarterly guest host, Welch won't be pulling down a paycheck to hang out with his old employees.

Supporting evidence is what saves this book in the end, and proves Welch to be a credible source in telling his own story. And maybe it's confirmation he was looking for in writing the book. Either way, for a guy with more nicknames than your average basketball star, we can gather that he transcended his shortcomings to remain a hard-working man who managed to get a "helluva" lot done on the job.