If you don't want to get depressed, then skip this post. Back in 1989, I read a profile of Jack Welch in Fortune magazine. I must have liked it because I tore out the article's callout box and taped it to the cover of my runner's logbook for the year. Here's what it said:
Jack Welch's Six Rules
- Face reality as it is -- not as it was or as you wish it were.
- Be candid with everyone.
- Don't manage, lead.
- Change before you have to.
- If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
- Control your own destiny, or someone else will.
Fast forward to this morning. In the wake of last week's GM / Delphi employee buyout announcements, MSNBC ran an article from the Washington Post called In Motor City, anger yields to pragmatism. Let that sink in for a minute.
We live in a time of the life-boat theory: Put out or get out. Your markets don't care about you. Your company doesn't care about you. Your customers and suppliers don't care about you. Does anyone argue otherwise?
Thanks to what Pope John Paul II coined the Culture of Death, you are now "worth" the measurable value that you create for those around you. And if you don't create much value -- then you had better be able to work cheap.
So here's a tip: You are a company. Act like one. Don't get mad, get pragmatic. And if you go to work for a big company, take a tip from this article and "get on the ball with Plan B."
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Q: Need the number of a recruiter who "gets it?"
A: Download Harry's contact info for future reference.
