Welch Gets It: Don't Criticize Your Successor

Good on Jack Welch for his loud and public mea culpa both on this morning's CNBC and in Business Week, after he screwed up big time on CNBC yesterday. His criticism of his successor was pretty harsh, but his backtracking is frank, unambiguous, and clearly not forced upon him by some PR guy.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing is as disgusting to me as some old CEO chirping away about how things are not as good under the new guy as they were under him," Welch said in a Thursday appearance on CNBC. "... GE is a great company, with a great model, with a helluva CEO who's reshuffled the business portfolio to make it stronger ... and I'm in 100 percent support of everything going on there."

I'm not by nature a big fan of Welch, but in this instance the likes of Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker should really listen to him. Let the guy in charge be the guy in charge, and don't second-guess or undercut him. You used to be an important leader; don't weaken your successor's legacy and your own by becoming just another media pundit. It might seem unfair for you to be singled out as the one person who isn't allowed to criticize your successor's performance; if it does, then just suck it up anyway. There are worse problems to have.

Of course, if you make too many public pronouncements on such issues, you reveal yourself to be little more than a rentaquote, and at that point you've pretty much lost your credibility. At that point, pundit away, you can't do any harm any more.

Comments

[clown]

When Jack retired, he had the common sense to get off the board and let his successor be his own man. Clearly, Jeff has not lived up to anyone's expectations. All you need to do is look at the resilts to know this. And, clearly, while he might have the respect of his management team, they are not doing the job or they wouldn't have left him out of the loop early last month with regard to not meeting earnings goals. Jack's initial criticism was right on and reflected the Jack we all knew when he was boss. He wasn't known as neutron Jack because of his easy nature and demeanor. He told you as it was or as he saw it. He didn't back down. I guess he is mellowing with age or else he got a load of crap from others about his comments and he decided it was easier to quit than fight.

[Keith123]

What a corporate suck-up Felix Salmon is. Who better to comment on a situation, than someone who's been there - or would you rather have some news flunky with no hands on business experience giving advice? I think comments should be short and well thought out before giving them, but if asked why not give an honest short assessment.

[icandoitdon]

paul volker hasn't been fed chairman for over 20 years. he isn't criticizing his successor...but his successor's successor. and he should "take a lesson" and muzzle himself in the face of the greatest financial crisis since the great depression? i don't think so.

the federal reserve under greenspan never saw a hiccup in the economy that it thought lower interest rates wouldn't cure, while denying that it could either spot or do anything about obvious bubbles that threatened long term economic stability. all the while volker bit his tongue while his self-serving successsor marched us down the prim rose path of disaster with 20 years of easy monetary policy and a blindness to the fed's charter mandate of price stability. inflation was tame during that period you say? get real...that fool was one of the architects of "quality adjustments" that render real inflation data unrecognizeable, though the effects are felt by all.

bernake is left trying to clean up the mess of his predecessor and he's doing it the only way his ilk know how...by making debt capital too cheap to resist. even a dummy like me knows it ain't gonna work this time because risk has been repriced and capital-starved lenders have been forced to recognized it. what kind of fool would loan money they don't have at rates that don't properly reflect the risk of the loan? i bet not even citibank would do that.

deleveraging an economic system built on extreme levels of financial leverage will last years...and those who believe we're closer to the end than the beginning are in for a rude awakening. we'll all feel the pain of this process before it's over.

to add insult to injury, it was all avoidable had our regulators done their job. none of them did...not the fed, not the treasury secretary, not the FDIC, not the SEC....they let the system manage itself until pushed to the brink of collapse by fraud and greed at every level...individual and corporate.

i don't give a damn about whether bernake, greenspan or anyone else who put us in this position has their feelings hurt by being criticized. and i don't respect the views of apologists like this writer who would spare them.

[notsosmart]

the last comment-right on!