No other management book will ever be needed. – Warren E. Buffet

When I was studying my MBA, several teachers recommended to me reading the book Winning. During a couple of years, I was looking for this book in every single bookshop of my current city (Valencia, Spain). I was also looking for it on the Internet in both languages, Spanish (my native tongue) and English. I was not able to find it, all the editions were sold out.

One day, my wife said we could go to the United States to improve our English. Like she wears the pants, her advice was mandatory (just kidding). I had to change the core capital of my own business from real estate to consulting business, taking advantage of that moment, I took a break in my job and we went to New York City to do a Business English course for three months (and to Galway (Ireland) for three months more).

In New York City, at last, I found the book in my favourite bookstore, McNally Jackson (at Prince Street).

The author

Jack Welch was the CEO and Chairman of GE from 1981 to 2001. During this time, GE became the world’s most valuable corporation.

He is the author of other best-seller Straight from the gut. Welch runs his own advisory business and he travels around the world giving conferences.

Winning

The book is structured in five parts:

1.- Underneath it all

Where Jack Welch talks about the importance of workers’ identifying with the mission, the vision and the values of the company.

The benefits of talking and acting always with candor and the advantages of differentiation in business are also demonstrated in this chapter.

Jack Welch defends at the end of this part of the book that everyone at the company should be heard and respected.

2.- Your company

This part of the book is dedicated to talk about leadership, hiring, how to manage people, how to fire people respecting his or her integrity, the way to be ready for the change and how to perform in a crisis management.

3.- Your competition

The third part of the book is about strategy and budgeting. Here Jack Welch writes about the growth’s importance for the company and the ways to get it, mergers and acquisitions included.

4.- Your career

In these chapters the author addresses the issue of the importance of finding the right job, if you find it, says Welch, you will never really work again.

Despite he confesses that he was not a good example of it, Welch gives us some advices about how to get work-life balance.

5.- Tying up loose ends

The final part of the book is dedicated to some remarkable questions that Jack Welch has answered during his speeches around all over the world.

I strongly recommend reading this book. I totally agree with Warren Buffett, this is, without any doubts, the best business book ever written.

Winning

Jack Welch and Suzy Welch

HarperCollins. New York 2005

David Torija

davidtorija@hotmail.com