Executive Development Quotes

'One Minute Mentoring' is written in the parable style Spencer Johnson and I popularized in 'The One Minute Manager.' It's an entertaining story about the mentorship between a young salesperson, Josh, and a seasoned executive named Diane. As the characters learn about mentoring, so does the reader.

Steve [Jobs] and I spent months getting to know each other before I joined Apple. He had no exposure to marketing other than what he picked up on his own. This is sort of typical of Steve. When he knows something is going to be important, he tries to absorb as much as he possibly can.

Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.

I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself.

The thing that's confusing for investors is that founders don't know how to be CEO. I didn't know how to do the job when I was a CEO. Founder CEOs don't know how to be CEOs, but it doesn't mean they can't learn. The question is... can the founder learn that job and can they tolerate all mistakes they will make doing it?

Just because you are CEO, don't think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization. I've never forgotten that.

I don't believe in the coach-in-waiting thing. I don't think that works.

I've been told I'm a good midcareer manager.

To have a Welch-caliber C.E.O. is impressive.To have a century of Welch-Caliber C.E.O.'s all grown from the inside - well, that is one key reason why G.E. is a visionary company.

There's no doubt that I'm a better president now than when I first took office. This is not a job where there's a manual, and over time you get a better sense of what's important, what's not, how to see around corners and anticipate problems, as opposed to just managing problems once they've arrived.

I bobbed and weaved through my career. And in hindsight, though I'd like to say it was a plan - it was not - the bobbing and the weaving gave me a broad base from which to become an executive who could say, 'OK, I've done this, and I've done this, and I've done this.' And nobody could BS me, because I'd done most of it.

if you wish to train yourself for higher executive positions, the first thing for you to decide is what you are training for. Ability to dominate or manipulate others? That ought to be easy enough, since most of the magazines advertise sure ways of developing something they call 'personality.' But I am convinced that the first essential of business success is the capacity for organized thinking.

I joined 3G when I was 24, but I didn't really have much of a management role there. I became C.F.O. when we acquired Burger King, so that was my first time managing people. I had just turned 30.

One thing the military does far better than business is train its own leaders. I can't go to IBM and hire a battalion commander. They don't have any.