Summary of Jack Welch’s Winning Chapter 2

One of the most important things for a company to instill in its work force is candor. Candor is another word for straight forwardness or being frank. Companies need to realize that lack of candor is damaging; lack of it forces people to spend more time, have more meetings, and waste money. When people arent being candid they are holding back their true ideas therefore the meaningful stuff people are afraid to say takes longer to discover. When people in an organization arent being straight forward about a subject and sugar coating things it takes longer for people to understand and thus wastes time. Therefore being candid can cut costs by eliminating meaningless meetings because time is money.

When people in a company are acting straight forward it leads to success. Candor generates speed. When all these ideas are being put out there they are discussed, bounced back and forth, and then acted upon. And if all these ideas are expressed candidly, then they are a reflection of how everyone actually feels and everyone can share their opinion and help develop and act on the idea. In addition being candid gets more people involved in the conversation; by stating the obvious you generate an abundance of ideas to work with. The more ideas the better; thus more ideas are discussed and improved.

Remember being candid is a hard thing to do because its not human nature. People are taught to keep their thoughts to themselves from an early age and this idea of being candid changes that. However many things arent human nature and we learn to do them, so it is possible. The way people in companies become candid is when they are encouraged to speak candidly, and then rewarded and praised for it.

Candor works because it cuts all the clutter and nonsense. When everyone is straight forward about everything there are no surprises. However, its impossible for everyone in an organization to be candid about everything, so if you can get people to become more candid and begin to encourage a more straight forward way of thinking then this change will most defiantly be for the better.