Jack Welch photo in GE's Annual Report (2000)

Relishing change

Quotes

Jack Welch in General Electric’s Annual Report, nearly two decades ago:

We’ve long believed that when the rate of change inside an institution becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight.

The only question is when.

Learning to love change is an unnatural act in any century-old institution, but today we have a Company that does just that: sees change always as a source of excitement, always as opportunity, rather than as threat or crisis.

We’re no better prophets than anyone else, and we have difficulty predicting the exact course of change.

But we don’t have to predict it.

What we have to do is simply jump all over it!

Source: Welch, J., 2000. General Electric Annual Report 2000 (Annual Report). General Electric, Fairfield, Connecticut, USA.