One MBA’s Full Circle Professional Moment

“It’s a choice that you make and there’s consequences. It’s something you have to own.” – Suzy Welch

On Monday April 27 Suzy and Jack Welch spoke at Cleveland’s Intercontinental Hotel. A Cleveland Clinic event, Dr. Cosgrove, its CEO and president, interviewed the business power couple.

The two have a new book out, The Real-Life MBA: Your No-BS Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team, and Growing Your Career. Additionally, there’s the Jack Welch Management Institute, an online program with Strayer University. Plus frequent speaking engagements, an active online and media presence, advisory board responsibilities and their eight kids.

Mr. and Mrs. Welch spoke to a packed room that night. Not only were all seats full and several folks had to stand in the back, but two additional rooms handled the overflow and showed the event on screen. That’s because Suzy and Jack Welch to us business people have the same impact as when Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr recently performed here at the Rock Hall Induction ceremony. The Welch’s live the barometer for what good business can and should look like.

Jack Welch first set that standard as a PhD engineer newly hired by GE. When, a year into his job, his boss gave him the same pay raise as Welch’s peers, the company’s future CEO threatened to leave: he demanded to get paid on merit — on his contribution to the organization’s bottom line. And thus planted the seeds for the 20-70-10 employee tiering system. Many companies have since replicated it — or mistakenly think they have. The two key elements missing? Welch endorsed an open idea/frank discussion culture and employee-to-manager feedback.

Welch lives and breathes his tiering process. The couple spoke on a myriad of topics, including employees (focus on the middle 70), our next president (shouldn’t cater to the top 20 or the bottom 10, but on the middle 70) and the business school (non-tenure faculty tiered by students who are consumers; those instructors in the bottom 10 for two semesters are out). You get the point. There’s a consistency in message and that message works.

They also discussed work-life balance (it doesn’t exist; all you have are choices and consequences). And one of the best anecdotal stories of the night came from Suzy Welch, who shared how she was helping her son carry a couch up the stairs and when he asked her why she’s doing that, she replied with, “I’m still making up for all those wrestling meets I didn’t make it to.”

I took about eight pages of notes that night. So many brilliant quotes to take in and live by.

Hearing them both speak was a full-circle moment in a variety of different ways. Suzy and Jack Welch first entered my life nearly fifteen years ago. I left Chicago for the Simon Business School at University of Rochester in August 2001, just two weeks prior to 9/11. And everything about our world has since changed. During my two years at Simon we studied and discussed Jack Welch in almost every single class. He is the greatest CEO of the twentieth century. Additionally, almost every business case we ever read originated from the Harvard Business Review, where Suzy Welch was editor.

Between late 2001 and mid 2003, the year of my graduation, the economy was, at best, tepid. I had applied for 100 jobs, was invited for ten interviews and received two job offers. And that’s considering I had a decade of leadership experience prior to earning my MBA. One of the two job offers was in healthcare. The other came from a company in Cleveland whose history and industry overlapped with my background. But I needed more than just that to get my foot through the door.

How did I get that job offer? By carefully and methodically seeking out the ultimate decision maker in my functional area, which was marketing and sales. Upon researching this person’s background, I discovered that he’d just started himself. His prior company? GE. Boom. I had my third connection with the Cleveland firm. In May 2003, I wrote this VP a personal letter, attached my resume and the next morning he wrote HR, saying, “Find something for her.” Four months later they invited me for an interview. By early October, 2003, I was working at the firm and living here in the 216.

It’s been over six years since I exited corporate life and navigated into the career coaching/writing /educating trifecta. These days one of my key roles is as adjunct faculty, teaching the next generation of MBA students at the CSU Monte Ahuja School of Business. We study Jack Welch. A lot. In fact, he’s an exam question. Not only was it one of my students, Rothy Rim, who first texted me about the Clinic event, but once there, so many showed up! It was marvelous seeing them, taking in every single word. And where I specifically sat? On my left was Jenn Brophy Wulff, the first work friend I made when arriving in Cleveland. On my right, Navneet Singh, a current student.

The two highlights of the evening also included my students. Deena Kassouf, up last to the microphone during the Q&A session asked, “How do you mitigate the risk of losing associates that rank 21-25 but are likely comparable to your top performers using a 20-70-10 vitality curve?” Jack Welch looked right up at her and said, “That’s a very good question!” And later in the night, Navneet emailed me a series of photos, including the one here of me shaking Mr. Welch’s hand. He also sent me one with him standing side-by-side with Welch. He waited until the entire book signing was over and captured the once-in-a-lifetime moment. I could not be more proud of either of them.

When I saw my entire class two nights later and asked them what they felt were the highlights of the evening, they too expressed how much they loved the frankness of Mr. and Mrs. Welch. And their chemistry. And how dynamic and present and genuine they are. Mostly, they were excited to see someone come alive off of the pages of their textbook.

The personal connection with Suzy and Jack Welch doesn’t stop there. Like Suzy, my mom is a working woman who raised her two daughters to lead educated and independent lives. She, as both of my late grandmothers, all my aunts and female cousins, made her own money and taught us by example the importance of that. And just a few days ago when I spoke with my dad, who, once we moved to America in the late ‘70s, made his living climbing within the manufacturing sector, he shared with me that he too has heard Jack Welch speak.

“It was about 20 years ago at a business conference. If American corporations would have listened to his ideas then, we’d all be in better shape now.”

I’m still absorbing the full energy of that night. The Real Life MBA sits on my nightstand, so I get to close out my days with Suzy and Jack. Like they are my new best friends, even though, for the past fourteen years they have been quite present in my life.

Mr. and Mrs. Welch work, teach and live the Top 20 standard. And while I’m grateful for my students’ ongoing, generous reviews of their teacher and my clients’ professional successes, I left the event wanting to be better — a better career coach, a better educator, a better writer and a better human.

Thank you, Suzy and Jack.

Dr. Cosgrove, Jack and Suzy Welch photo: A. Sukhoy
Jack Welch, Alex Sukhoy photo: Navneet Singh

Reprinted with permission and gratitude from CoolCleveland.com.