I got hold of Jack Welch's book "Straight from the Gut" at an unusual place. From a charity fundraiser shelf at the local Stop n' Shop. "One more book !" my wife objected so I moved some others to the basement and promptly congratulated myself displaying 2 of the 4 E's (Edge and Execution)!
Interacting with numerous executives,students and alumni of GE , its customers and suppliers makes Jack Welch's stuff resonate with me. How can you possibly make an elephant like GE dance ? Well apparently you can and Jack did and I believe Jeff Immelt continues to do. For leadership and "high pot" ( read high potential) GE started with evaluating managers for high personal Energy (E1); Ability to Energize others (E2) ; Having Edge or ability to decide quickly (E3). Yet despite high scores on all three E's , some managers still did not get results and the numbers they were supposed to achieve. So Jack Welch figured that there was a 4th E ie Execution that was vital. You needed to deliver the first three E's or it really did'nt matter! Threading all of this is Passion – (the P) to get things done. Graph and more on 4E's and one P in a recent post.