Book Recommendation: Lights Out
During my MBA, GE was a textbook example across multiple topics, evident from numerous cases and articles across various courses. Fast-forward to today, GE is now used as an example of how management hubris and short-term thinking ruin a business
Reading Lights Out, you can infer that the very reasons for success during the Jack Welch era set the stage for downfall during Immelt’s tenure. GE’s much-appreciated diversification became a liability in a market that rewarded specialisation.
Jeff Immelt utilised a similar financial engineering approach as Jack Welch but never met with the same success. Rather than rethinking the strategy, he did what most people do when faced with failure:
- Claim Bad Luck
- Blame it on poor decisions by prior management
The book explores multiple stories of poor governance within GE. However, one could argue that such practices could have been the norm but came to light when the business started falling apart
Key takeaways:
- Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems
- Beware of oversimplified narratives.
- Factors behind success or failure are often more complex than they appear