I believe that there are two fundamental reasons that I share in this episode of Way of the Quality Warrior podcast: lack of imagination and lack of alignment.

There is a reference to the book The Power of Positive Parenting by Dr. Glenn Latham. It’s not just for parents—authority figures can use this, too.

I talk about GE and Jack Welch. Much of what I think is expressed by David Gelles in his book Jack Welch: The Man Who Broke Capitalism . Gelles was interviewed by Jeffrey Pfeffer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2022. Here’s the link: David Gelles Interview–Stanford 2022 (YouTube)

I also talk about Boeing (a company that has had multiple leaders from GE who worked under Jack Welch). John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight (HBO) episode about Boeing’s history and decline is entertaining, thorough, and sound.

You can contact the podcast host, Keith Fong, at the website Way of the Quality Warrior

In a world where too many problems are described and explained more by opinion and emotion rather than by meaningful data and information, this episode provides a couple of examples of how to leverage managers need for numbers. Also, there are a couple of examples where using the wrong numbers or using numbers wrong is self-defeating.

There is a reference to Paul O’Neill, CEO of Alcoa from 1987 to 1999. The YouTube video where he talks about improving the financial book closing process in 1991 is . The comments specific to the financial book closing happen at 27:38 in the video. I highly recommend watching the entire video. O’Neill is one of the greatest corporate leaders ever.

All episodes are at Way of the Quality Warrior website . There are also downloadable copies of the annotated slide decks of presentations made by Keith Fong in the last couple of years. There is also a contact form if you’d like to get in touch.