Jack Welch

     Throughout my 41 years at GE, I’ve had many ups and downs. In the media, I’ve gone from prince to pig and back again. And I’ve been called many things.

     In the early days, when I worked at our 1)fledging plastics group, some called me a crazy, wild man. When I became CEO two decades ago, Wall Street asked, “Jack 1 who?”

     When I tried to make GE more competitive by 2)cutting back our 3)workforce 2 in the early 1980s, the media 4)dubbed me “Neutron 4 Jack.” When they learned we were focused on values and culture at GE, people asked if “Jack has gone soft.” I’ve been No. 1 or No. 2 Jack, Services Jack, Global Jack, and, in more recent years, Six Sigma Jack and e-Business Jack.

     When we made an effort to acquire Honeywell in October 2000, and I agreed to stay on through the transition, some thought of me as the Long-in-the-Tooth Jack hanging on by his 5)fingertips to his CEO job.

     Those 6)characterizations said less about me and a lot more about the phase our company went through. Truth is, down deep, I’ve never really changed much from the boy my mother raised in Salem, Massachusetts.

     When I started on this journey in 1981, standing 5 before Wall Street analysts 6 for the first time at New York’s Pierre Hotel, I said I wanted GE to become “the most competitive enterprise on earth.” My 7)objective was to put a small-company spirit in a big-company body, to build an organization out of an old-line industrial company that would be more high-spirited, more 8)adaptable 7, and more 9)agile 8 than companies that are one-fiftieth our size. I said then that I wanted to create a company “where people dare to try new things - where people feel assured in knowing that only the limits of their creativity and drive, their own standards of personal 10)excellence 9, will be the ceiling on how far and how fast they move.”

I’ve put my mind, my heart, and my gut 10 into that journey every day of the 40-plus years I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of GE.CE

18、杰克·韦尔奇

    全不球第一CEO

纵观我在通用电气的41年，我经历了许多起伏沉浮。按照媒体的说法，就是从王子到猪猡，然后再反过来的过程。我曾得到过多种称呼。

早先，当我还在初成立的塑料集团工作的时候，就有人说我是一个疯狂野蛮的人。而我20年前当上CEO时，华尔街有人问道：“是哪个杰克？”

二十世纪八十年代初期，当我试图通过裁员使通用电气更具竞争力的时候，媒体授予我“中子弹杰克”的称号。而当他们随后发现我们主要关注的是通用电气的价值和文化时，他们又说，是不是“杰克软下来了”。我曾经是“数一数二的杰克”、“服务的杰克”、“全球化的杰克”，近年来，又变成了“六西格玛杰克”和“电子商务杰克”。

2000年10月的时候，我们几经努力收购了霍尼韦尔，而我又同意留下来完成这次过渡，于是乎有些人把我看成死皮赖脸占着CEO职位不撒手的“老不死杰克”。

我说这些不是为了表现自己，而是想借此描述我们公司这些年来经历过的一些阶段。事实上，我——一个在马萨诸塞州的塞勒姆由母亲带大的小男孩——本质上从来没有过太大的改变。

1981年起步的时候，我站在纽约的彼埃尔大酒店里接受华尔街专栏分析家的采访。当时我说过，我希望通用电气能够成为“世界上最富竞争力的企业”。我的目标是将一种小公司所拥有的精神注入到通用电气这样的大公司中去，建立起一个摆脱传统企业保守思维的组织，从而使之比只有我们五分之一大的公司更有活力、更灵活、适应性更强。同时我还说，我理想中的公司能够做到“每一位员工都勇于尝试一切新鲜事物——即每一位员工都可以确信，除了他们自身的创造力和主动性以及个人价值标准的限制外，没有任何阻力能够妨碍他们奋斗前进或前进的速度”。

我是如此有幸成为通用电气的一份子，并将我的头脑、我的热情、我的勇气投入到了这40多年生命历程中的每一天。CE

1) fledging [5fledVliN] a. 羽毛初长的（雏鸟），刚建的（公司）

2) cut back 削减，缩减

3) workforce [5wE:kfC:s] n. 工作人员

4) dub 3 [dQb] v. 授予称号

5) fingertip [5fiNgEtip] n. 指尖

6) characterization [kAniktErai5zeiFEn] n. 描述

7) objective [Eb5dVektiv] n. 目标，目的

8) adaptable [E5dAptEbEl] a. 能适应的，可修改的

9) agile [5AdVail] a. 敏捷的，灵活的

10) excellence [5eksEns] n. 优秀，美德