Talk:Jack Welch/Archives/2014

Welch's views on climate change
On December 26 User IHaveAMastersDegree made an edit changing "is also a global warming skeptic" to "rejects the scientific evidence for global warming". Since the cited source says skeptic and does not say rejects-the-scientific-evidence, and since a recent arbitration ruling about IHaveAMastersDegree's activities said one must use the terms that the sources use, I reverted that. Today IHaveAMastersDegree changed again to say about Welch: 'He has described global warming as '...the attack on capitalism that socialism couldn't bring," and called it a form of "mass neurosis.' The comment on the edit is: "I used actual quotes from the cited reference to describe his views on global warming". Yes, those are actual quotes, but ... they are not quotes of what Welch said. The words "mass neurosis" were from the headline of a Wall Street Journal article by Bret Stephens, and the stuff about an attack was what Welch said was an argument made by others. This time I didn't revert. I'm through with protecting Jack Welch. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Update: IHaveAMastersDegree has now been blocked. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Welch's views on climate change
On December 26 User IHaveAMastersDegree made an edit changing "is also a global warming skeptic" to "rejects the scientific evidence for global warming". Since the cited source says skeptic and does not say rejects-the-scientific-evidence, and since a recent arbitration ruling about IHaveAMastersDegree's activities said one must use the terms that the sources use, I reverted that. Today IHaveAMastersDegree changed again to say about Welch: 'He has described global warming as '...the attack on capitalism that socialism couldn't bring," and called it a form of "mass neurosis.' The comment on the edit is: "I used actual quotes from the cited reference to describe his views on global warming". Yes, those are actual quotes, but ... they are not quotes of what Welch said. The words "mass neurosis" were from the headline of a Wall Street Journal article by Bret Stephens, and the stuff about an attack was what Welch said was an argument made by others. This time I didn't revert. I'm through with protecting Jack Welch. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Update: IHaveAMastersDegree has now been blocked. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Change from
Opinions== to ==Legacy== section ==

I propose simply deleting the whole ==Opionion== section, which is misleadingly regurgitation, nearly vertabim, of other sources' quotes, including from one unformatted reference. In my view, reflects poor, pointless piece of editing.Cblambert (talk) 19:02, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * On reflection, ==Opinions== section could be salvaged by recasting it into a more meaty ==Legacy== section covering major issues in his tenure including:
 * Welch and PCB environmental issue
 * Welch and relation with media issue
 * For example, a more balanced view of Welch's controversial BLS tweet would point out that Welch and wife resigned as Fortune and Reuters after being criticized by Forture.
 * Welch and globalization issue
 * Welch and executive compensation issue
 * Welch and management education issue
 * And so on.
 * Open-ended opinions as now written are useless; what is needed is to bear down on Welch legacy along major issues lines such as above. Cblambert (talk) 16:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Article Edits / Expansion
This article will be edited for a class assignment (COMM 3460) at Cornell University by users Kateheinle,  sjoo446,  Mzw3, and  The_Da_Crook. More information about the class as a whole can be found here.

We definitely want to work on expanding the “Early life and Education” section on his Wiki. A source for a lot of this information could be found in his auto-biography “Straight from the Gut”. As of now, there is no mention that he even wrote an auto-biography but the Wiki does mention it in passing and reference it. Another thing mentioned only in passing is his work starting the MBA program with Strayer, so we would like to expand on that as well.

With more information from sources such as interviews and various appearances on television, we could also flesh out the “Personal Life” section as well as the “After GE” section. We want to add more information about his rise to CEO and his beginnings as a chemical engineer, as there is a noticeable gap between his time at GE, the time he blew the roof off of the lab, and when we was appointed VP.

There is also a proposal on the talk page to change the “Opinion” page to a “Legacy” page, so we can look further into that as well as expanding that section overall. We could also explore the possibility of adding a “Controversy” section (or changing up the “Criticisms” section) due to his comment about Obama messing with unemployment numbers that people were upset about.

On a last note, we would also like to add more to the "See also" section and link to General Electric, other CEOs, etc. As of now, the only links are to Vitality curve and Steve Jobs.

Sjoo446 (talk) 01:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Interesting choice of article! I suggest that you do more in-depth research into finding sources beyond this person's autobiography. You are stating what kind of information you would like to add, but you need to be more specific about where you are going to get the information from. Make sure you follow the policy of biographies of living persons. LeshedInstructor (talk) 16:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Recent We Are in the Post Industrial Economy article provides dramatic graphical insights into manufacturing employment's precipitous decline from the peak in 1979 to 2011. Given Neutron Jack's reputation, it is ironic that President Obama would have chosen GE CEO Jeff Immelt as chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Obama created in 2011. Cornell students might think of showing comparative stats over time of top organizations granted patents over time (of which GE was once was No. 1 or 2).Cblambert (talk) 16:21, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Sources
This particular article is for the Post-GE section and contains information regarding the Twitter backlash Jack Welch received after his response to unemployment in the United States. Following this backlash, Welch terminated his contract and stopped writing for Thomson Reuters Corp and Fortune magazine. .

This piece will be included in the Post-GE section of the article because it includes information about the shares for GE since the departure of Jack Welch as CEO. It is stated that shares for the company are down by 40% after Jack Welch left GE.

In the CEO section of the Jack Welch article this source will provide information about the revenue records during Jack Welch's term as CEO. One point that should be added to this section is the surprise technique Welch used by using unannounced visits to offices and plants every week. Additionally, this source will add information about the way he ran his company from being a "management theorist, strategic thinker, business teacher, and corporate icon." Kateheinle (talk) 14:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The first two sources for the Opinion section are explaining the situation where Jack Welch in 2012 tweeted an implication that the Labor Department could be fixing job numbers. He had a lot of criticism and also attention from the Obama campaign, but told WSJ that he should have used a question mark in the original tweet because he wanted to raise a question about the legitimacy of the job numbers. He states in his own words that the debate has led to people looking at unemployment data more carefully and skeptically. Quote: “The coming election is too important to be decided on a number. Especially when that number seems so wrong.”

The NYT source talks about the future of GE as it “gets past the Jack Welch Era” and the fate of GE Capital enterprise as a spin-off many years after Welch has left.

The current article mentions very little about the Jack Welch Management Institute, but the WiredAcademic article provides a direct interview with Jack Welch where he discusses the school and his view on digital learning. The article provides a lot of details about the Institue as well as his opinions.

Sjoo446 (talk) 04:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

For the Early Life and education section, the main source will likely be Jack Welch's Autobiography, where much of his early days both as a student and golf caddy as well as many more details of his childhood are explored. In addition to the autobiography, an entry in the online "Business Encyclopedia" contains a good deal of information on Jack's early career at GE in addition to his childhood. This information could be used to help flesh out the early portions of the GE section as well as the Early life and education section. While it does cite Jack's autobiography as a source, it does take information from a number of other articles, interviews, and books with and about with Mr. Welch. Hopefully both of these sources will be helpful in helping make Jack's early life become better documented here. I will continue searching for more sources though to make sure I get the full picture. - Mzw3 (talk) 05:01, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Ideally the information will fall under Post-GE but I am contemplating starting a new smaller section just about Jack Welches Management Institute The first source gives a good summary about Jack including some interesting statistics. This website talks about the Online MBA program he has started and why he wanted to start such an institution. It also gives insight on some of the courses that are offered. The second source talks about the program gives critiques and praise and also points out some of Jack Welch's involvement in the site. I will continue to find sources that not only point out the good about the institute but also the critiques. I also hope to find more about what inspired the starting of the institution. The Da Crook (talk) 16:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Good work getting sources, I look forwards to seeing your additional sources. Might I suggest organizing your sources and plans into lists/tables. Maybe something like this:

I hope that's helpful! Nebelmeister (talk) 18:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Additions to After GE
Very helpful! I picked these two sources because one is a bit older that emphasis the institutions goals and plan for the future and a focus of it kicking off. The other article is a much more current article that briefly talks about the institute its ranking or lack there of, and its reputation compared to other institutions.

I added to the After GE section because that is where the current information about the Jack Welch Management Institute is currently located. The content added is about the current standing of the institute and some information from when it was started.

I also checked our sources to make sure they fit wiki standards.

The Da Crook (talk) 01:05, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Changing Opinions to Personal Opinions, Adding Legacy Section
On the talk page, there was mention from a user to change the "Opinions" Section to a "Legacy" section. Instead, I think we should just make a new section called "Legacy". Hopefully week by week we will try and tackle this section to make it more comprehensive. The same user suggested we use this source to create a chart and highlight the top organizations with patents over time, especially since GE used to be #1 or #2. Although nothing has been changed on the actual Wiki page yet, we hope to do this by next week

Also, in the same "Opinions" section, I generally fixed up some grammar and wording. There is also not much information about the controversial tweet Jack Welch sent out that raised a question of legitimacy on job numbers. Using these sources, I attempted to make that portion more comprehensive.

Sjoo446 (talk) 02:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Added to and reformatted Early Life and Education
This is the source I used for the "Early life and education" section as it is really the only detailed account of this time in Welch's life. I added details on his early summer jobs and college time. I also did a good amount of reformatting of the section to make the added info flow smoothly with the older content. I read over my work several times to check from any errors in my grammar but if I slipped up, please let me know. The section will likely continue to receive improvements as the class project continues. - Mzw3 (talk) 05:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Source & Proofread Article & Additions to After GE Section
This source adds additional information about the criticized tweet sent by Welch regarding the labor system that resulted in Welch no longer contributing to Fortune magazine. The article also offers an explanation for the nickname 'Neutron Jack Welch.' We might consider adding a 'Criticism' Section that is not a sub-section under GE.

The entire piece was proofread focusing on fixing grammatical errors. A few commas were added, run ons fixed, and general word choice considered to improve the page for readers.

In the After GE section of the Jack Welch page, the content was rearranged by 'time' to allow a better sequence of events for readers to follow. Content was added to the portion of the section about Welch terminating his contract with Fortune magazine because of a critical article they published. Kateheinle (talk) 04:24, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Future Additions
The Early Life and Education seems limited in terms of giving a broad spectrum of Jack Welch's years of development. Perhaps, additional information here would result in a better perspective of his life from early life to life after GE. Additionally, the explosion in the factory that almost got Welch fire could be expanded on. Right now it feels abruptly cut off.

We will continue to proofread the page to ensure that there are limited to no errors.

Kateheinle (talk) 03:10, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I have plans to improve the section on Welch's early career at GE, as I feel that section is lacking signifiantly. In addition to using Welch's autobiography as a source as well as an entry on him in an online business encyclopedia, I think this article will help me to better fill out the details on Jack's time at GE before he was elected VP.

- Mzw3 (talk) 05:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Improvement to After GE
I wanted to add to the section I had been working on because I felt I highlighted aspects of the institute and its reputation but not enough about Jack Welch and his involvement in the institution. The Da Crook (talk) 00:53, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Adding to Legacy, Adding to After GE
Last week, I proposed I would add a comparative stats chart (to highlight the top organizations with patents over time) to the new "Legacy" section, due to a recommendation from a fellow WikiUser. However, I found that it would be more relevant to Jack Welch to just talk about what he had done to GE (management-wise) and what the new CEO has been doing differently from him. Also, I found a source earlier in the semester that discusses the future of GE after Jack Welch and the legacy/impact he left on the company, and I thought that would be very fitting for the "Legacy" section.

Also, I found a source earlier about the Jack Welch Management Institute from an interview with Jack himself, so since someone in my group added extensively to this section in "After GE", I thought I could throw in a couple of quotes and flesh it out even more. It was previously referenced in the article but never really mentioned or discussed. Sjoo446 (talk) 04:23, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Improvement to GE Section
I will add information on the time period between the incident when Welch nearly blew up the chemical plant and his election as vice president. I feel that a decent amount of additions can be made to make more information about the path Welch took to become CEO eventually. I'll be using the above sources as they are really the only comprehensive sources of information on the topic that I have been able to locate. Hopefully with this section more filled out, the page can give a more comprehensive view of Welch's life, not only of his time as CEO of GE. -Mzw3 (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Article Improvements
Article was read over multiple times for grammar issues as well as source concerns. Portions of the piece were deleted for lack of sources and the ambiguous information that limited the reliability of the Wiki Article. Edits and additions were made to the After GE Section and CEO Section including information regarding Welch's effect on the GE enterprise (market value, acquisitions, emerging markets), Welch's policies at GE, and the elements of his leadership that made him unique. Rank and yank was never mentioned in the piece, so information regarding that policy was added, and surrounding information that is unsourced (10% fired each year) are now sourced because information is accurate.

Kateheinle (talk) 15:21, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Organization
Perhaps remove the "See also ... Steve Jobs" at the bottom? I don't see the relevance besides them both being CEOs of big companies. Also, consider dividing the Personal Opinions section by topic. Atinyox (talk) 18:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Content Specifics
Bachelor of science can be linked to the page. Mosammad93 (talk) 18:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

"During his summers in college, Welch found work in chemical engineering at Sunoco and PPG Industries" - this is a passive sentence. Wiki format is more factual and straightfoward Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

In the Early life section, you might want to switch up pronouns. Saying Welch in every short sentence sounds too choppy. Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

"Welch has been actively involved with the curriculum, faculty and students at the online business school since its launch" -awkward phrasing, reword. Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

"However it is seen as gaining reputation in the online education community."- awkward phrasing Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

"....sets this university apart fem others." -spellcheck Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

"teaches Seminars to CEO’s all over the globe" -don't caps seminar, also you can probably link CEO Mosammad93 (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

MIT's Business school can be linked. Mosammad93 (talk) 18:38, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Progress on group feedback
I've done some small edits, fixing the pronoun usage and sentence structure where corrections were recommended. I also made sure to cite the online business encyclopedia in addition to Welch's autobiography. In addition I removed the "Steve Jobs" link in the "see also" section, It was there when we began work but I agree that it doesn't really fit. I've thought about other links to add or remove but I am not totally sure if that section needs more work at the moment. The Da Crook also did some corrections on spelling and grammar in the sections that he has worked on as well as correcting the citation link that was broken. Overall, we have worked on and fixed all of the problems brought to our attention by our peer review group. - Mzw3 (talk) 02:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)