People mattered to Jack Welch, GE’s chairman and CEO from 1981 to 2001. He spent more than 50 percent of his time on people issues,2 and together with Bill Conaty, his chief human resources officer, built an acclaimed people management system by stringently ranking employees based on performance, choreographing job changes for top talent every twelve to eighteen months, and building a global training center in Crotonville, New York.
