Free Winning by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch

about a decision, a proposal, or a piece of market information has to be filled with you saying, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “How come?”
    When I was first made a manager, in 1963, I was running a start-up with a product that went to market through a large pool sales force. I knew we weren’t getting enough attention from the people in the field. So every weekend I would take home carbon copies of the sales reports filed after every customer visit—piles of them. On Mondays, I would make a pest of myself with a round of phone calls, asking the salespeople or the plant manager to explain everything I didn’t understand. Why, for instance, were we giving truckload pricing to one customer for small lot sales? Why was another customer getting a product with black specks?
    These questions got the sales team to give our product the attention it needed and increased my understanding of how it was sold.
    Questioning, however, is never enough. You have to make sure your questions unleash debate and raise issues that get action.
    Remember, just because you are a leader, saying something doesn’t mean it will happen.
    That was the case back in the early ’90s when I was pretty much obsessed with the idea of an MRI machine with a larger opening. If you have ever had an MRI, you’ll know what I am talking about. You lie on your back and are slid inside a tunnel containing a spinning magnet.
    At the time, the tunnel—or bore, as it was called—was very narrow, and patients were experiencing claustrophobia during the forty-minute MRI process. Word was that Hitachi was coming up with a machine with a much wider bore, but some members of our medical business dismissed the product. Hospitals, they said, would never accept the low-quality images such large-bore machines produced. *
    Having experienced an MRI myself, I just wasn’t convinced. The machines did make you feel claustrophobic! Every chance I got, I asked the medical team to look at the situation again. Won’t hospitals compromise image quality for patient comfort, especially for simple procedures, like elbows and knees? Won’t the technology eventually improve?
    In response, the medical team gave me the all-too-common business head fake. “We’ll look into it,” they kept assuring me. Of course they didn’t. I was a know-nothing, meddling pain in the neck, and they were just trying to mollify me.
    A year later, Hitachi rolled out a large-bore machine and captured a significant piece of the market. We spent two years playing catch-up.
    The last thing I want to sound like with this story is a hero.
    Just the opposite.
    I should have pushed a whole lot harder with my questioning. In fact, I should have insisted we put resources into developing our own large-bore machine. All we were left with at the end was me thinking, “I knew it,” and wanting to say, “I told you so.”
    Both of those sentiments are worth nothing. You would assume that was obvious, but I’ve seen more leaders believe that second-guessing absolves them from responsibility when things go wrong. Years ago, I used to see a well-known CEO socially on a fairly regular basis. Whenever his company had been in the news for screwing up, he’d always say something like, “I knew they shouldn’t have done that.” For some reason that made him feel better, but what did it matter?
    We’ve all been guilty at one point or another in our careers of boasting of perfect hindsight.
    It’s a terrible sin.
    If you don’t make sure your questions and concerns are acted upon, it doesn’t count.
    I realize most people don’t love the probing process. It’s annoying to believe in a product or come into a room with a beautiful presentation only to have it picked apart with questions from the boss.
    But that’s the job. You want bigger and better solutions. Questions, healthy debate, decisions, and action will get everyone there.
     
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RULE 7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the