Jack Welch regretted his choice of successor
There are techniques that can help us make the right choice even when someone is trying to charm us
Since I write so much about leadership, I wanted to share this article from the New York Times, about Jack Welch, and how he mismanaged his own succession:
Jack Welch, one of the most celebrated corporate chieftains of his time, spent the last few years of his life profoundly regretting what he believed was the most important decision of his career: his choice of successor.
This angry admission came flying at me before I could even sit down to join Mr. Welch, who was the chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric from 1981 to 2001, for lunch at a Nantucket golf club in August 2018. For all of his much-celebrated prowess, he believed he had made what may be one of the most common management mistakes around: falling for a candidate’s charm and political skills rather than choosing the person who was likeliest to do the best job. Choosing the wrong C.E.O. was a theme Mr. Welch returned to often during our many conversations before his death in March 2020, at 84.
…When it was his turn to choose his successor, Mr. Welch allowed the three finalists to keep doing their jobs in the field. It wasn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that whenever the three men did meet with Mr. Welch, they were in overdrive suck-up mode. The most polished politician was Jeff Immelt, a former Dartmouth offensive tackle, fraternity president and graduate of Harvard Business School who seemed out of C.E.O. central casting. Some board members warned Mr. Welch against Mr. Immelt, arguing that the more accomplished Jim McNerney would be the better choice.
But Mr. Welch had made up his mind. And he was used to getting his way. Mr. Immelt took the reins of G.E. days before Sept. 11, 2001.
What surprised me most during my conversations with Mr. Welch was how eager he was to share what he thought of as Mr. Immelt’s mistakes running G.E.: He freaked out during the financial crisis and sold G.E.’s majority stake in NBC Universal, which included the television network and Hollywood studio, too cheaply; he overpaid for acquisitions; he dismantled the highly profitable but risky G.E. Capital and failed to replace its lost earnings; he drove away talented executives because he didn’t listen to them. And on and on.
…Mr. Immelt was a “know-it-all,” Mr. Welch told me. “And you couldn’t be a know-it-all and run a company that size. That’s it in a nutshell. He had the answer to everything. He knew who was buried in the unknown soldier’s tomb, OK? He didn’t listen to anybody,” Mr. Welch said. “If you want to pin failure on me, I missed it.”
In business, I see this over and over again: the wrong people end up as CEO, the wrong people get promoted, the wrong people win leadership, because they know how to be charming, and they know how to perform seriousness better than those people who are actually serious.
When I am in a leadership position, how can I protect myself from being charmed? How do I protect myself from the illusion?
While there is no easy solution to this problem, I have found some techniques to help. In particular, in one-on-one meetings, I will sometimes go very deep with people, asking question after question, with some of those questions being repetitive, but asking again and again, boring down into the details, trying to evaporate the defense mechanisms. The repetition borrows an idea from police integration, where they ask the same question over and over again, with slight variations, always listening to see if a person’s answers change. The goal isn’t to be cruel or aggressive, the goal is to get past people’s techniques of evasion and charm. And what I’ve learned is that the most charming people will try to make you feel embarrassed for asking the same question over and over again. But in such situations the charm is a pure defense mechanism, and it is important that you get past it. You’ve got to keep asking questions till you’ve pushed past your discomfort and their discomfort.
Don’t worry about being embarrassed, there is something more important at stake: the truth about that other person’s leadership ability.
I write about this in my book “One-on-one meetings are underrated; group meetings waste time.”