[watwut]

You grandfather was not only one working for Jack Welch. He might have benefited, plenty of others did not. Jack Welch laid off a lot of loyal hardwoking capable people in his days. GE cut all businesses in which the company could not dominate the market in first or second positions and I doubt those all were slackers. Were your grandpa be employed there, his treatment would be much different.

He used "fire 10% management" strategy for years, maybe even started that thing. I find suspect that someone who is not particularly ambitious man working 9-5 survived long in that stab back otherwise you will be one of fired 10% environment. Maybe he retired before or was stable due to connections?

There were bound to be many many people who worked hard, did their best, achieved a lot and then fired cause somebody had to be fired no matter objective absolute performance.

Jack Welch contributed his share to dropping loyalty. Whether the "old high loyalty" was better or not, Jack Welch is among those who destroyed it.

[hagbardgroup]

Quite possibly. My grandfather's working life stopped in the mid-1980s. I had hoped to communicate that the search for human villains and heroes tends to be misleading. Our actions are often reactive to larger, more complex trends in politics and finance.

It is easier to say "Jack Welch, big badman, such fat meanie" than it is to track all the myriad complex changes in tax policy, central banking, technology, society, and in other fields.

"I find suspect that someone who is not particularly ambitious man working 9-5 survived long in that stab back otherwise you will be one of fired 10% environment."

You're entitled... to your feelings. I would describe someone who worked for over 30 years without attempting to reach an executive position as 'not particularly ambitious.' I could also be lying. Or paid off by GE. I could even be Jack Welch.

Don't trust what you read on the internet.

[watwut]

I did not meant that you are lying, sorry to come across that way. I referred to system of hires/fires and culture that forms after fire x% every year is going on.

Your grandfather working life stopped in the mid-1980s, so it was all in the making. He had maximum few years of that. GE after Jack Welch was not exactly known for 9-5 easy going non-ambitious culture.

It is quite possible that GE had enough "fat" for someone working 9-5 without much ambitions to make to the top 20% who were getting large bonuses. Then, once they fired lazy, only ambitions and non-ambitions people remained. That is the point everybody complains about, cause non-ambitious follow and then it is fight about politics between remaining ambitions.

However, your grandfather retired a millionaire, so he must have been high enough in hierarchy or be outlier in some other way. Regular GE workers in that era did not retired millionaires.

[CamperBob2]

GE cut all businesses in which the company could not dominate the market in first or second positions and I doubt those all were slackers.

(Shrug) The ones who weren't slackers did better somewhere else. The ones who were slackers, Welch was right to fire. What's the problem here, exactly?

I'm not defending stack ranking -- it's stupid and counterproductive. But the notion that GE owes somebody a lifetime career at their shareholders' expense is unsustainable in a world that (rightfully) doesn't work that way anymore.