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Nurturing Our Generosity Gene with Jack & Suzy Welch: LinkedIn Speaker Series

Jack & Suzy Welch: LinkedIn Speaker Series

We recently had the honor of hosting Jack and Suzy Welch at our LinkedIn Speaker Series. Their new book, The Real-Life MBA, was just released and we were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of their key insights. And even though Jack had laryngitis, he was still as passionate and articulate as ever on the subject.

Make your team the cool kids’ basement

Your team should be the place where people want to hang out, according to Jack and Suzy Welch. When discussing key metrics on how well a company is doing, focus on three things: 1) employee engagement, 2) customer satisfaction and 3) cash flow. They emphasized employee engagement and how important it is to really make it fun for people to come to work. This is something Jack focused on when he was at GE and employee engagement went from 30% when he started, to 94% when he left.

Find your area of destiny

Another concept that really resonated with me was around finding your area of destiny.  Jack and Suzy describe this as the intersection between something you are uniquely good at and something you love. They encourage everyone to find their area of destiny because that’s where you will be the happiest.

Nurture your generosity gene

The “editor” in Suzy was quick to point out it is not actually a “gene” - but more of a propensity to have a generous spirit and really want the best for the people on your team. Wanting people to grow, to earn more money, to succeed - that’s what comes with the generosity gene. They stressed how important this is and how we can all think of those bosses who had it - and especially those who didn’t.

While I listened to this conversation, I experienced such a feeling of gratitude for my job, my manager, and my company. While I don’t want to jinx it, I feel like I have found an area of destiny job, in the cool kid’s basement with a manager (and team!) that has the generosity gene. I will forever be grateful to Jack and Suzy for illuminating this for me and for giving me a great framework to evaluate my career going forward.

These were just a few of the concepts Jack and Suzy shared. There are many more educational and inspiring nuggets in this talk.  I encourage you to watch the session in the video below and learn from the real masters on the subjects of leadership, teamwork, and career.