When it comes to mission and values, many companies still fall into the trap of creating beautiful phrases that end up forgotten on the wall or in some institutional document. In Winning, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, proposes a much more practical vision. For him, mission and values do not exist to impress clients or investors. They should serve as real guides for decision making, helping people understand where the company is going and how they should act to get there.
The problem with traditional missions and values
According to Welch, many companies create statements so vague that they could fit any organization. Expressions such as “excellence,” “quality,” and “customer focus” become clichés when they are not accompanied by clear definitions of what they mean in practice.
The result is predictable: employees cannot use these statements as a reference for their daily decisions, and the documents lose relevance.
What is a mission, according to Jack Welch?
For Welch, an effective mission must answer a simple and powerful question:
“How do we intend to win in this business?”
This completely changes the perspective. Instead of explaining only what the company does, the mission must make clear how it intends to win in the market, create value, and differentiate itself from competitors.
A good mission has three main characteristics:
- It is clear and objective.
- It defines choices and priorities.
- It inspires people to pursue something relevant.
Welch argues that the mission cannot be delegated. Its formulation is the direct responsibility of leadership, because it determines the strategic direction of the organization.
An example cited by Welch was GE’s mission:
“To be the most competitive company in the world, occupying first or second place in every market in which we operate.”
This mission perfectly illustrates what Jack Welch considers a good statement of purpose: it is specific, descriptive, and concrete. By establishing that each business unit should occupy the first or second position in its market, the company clearly defined the expected performance standard. This guidance eliminated ambiguities and made strategic decision making more objective.
Units that, after periodic evaluations, did not demonstrate the potential to achieve or maintain these leadership positions became candidates for restructuring, sale, or closure. In addition, the mission made it clear that the organization should concentrate its resources and efforts in markets where it could compete for leadership, reducing divergent interpretations of strategic priorities. In other words, it was a clear, objective mission with little room for doubt.
Any decision or initiative must align with the company’s mission. In Jack Welch’s view, professionals who demonstrate, in day to day work, behaviors consistent with the mission and values of the organization should be recognized and rewarded. On the other hand, those whose actions are persistently misaligned with these principles will rarely find space to thrive and remain in the company.
Values: the “how” behind the mission
If the mission defines where the company is going, values define how it will get there. Welch even says he prefers to think of values as “behaviors,” because they must be concrete and observable.
Unlike the mission, whose definition is the responsibility of leadership, values should be built with broad participation from employees. This involvement allows different perspectives to be incorporated, enriches discussions with new insights, and, most importantly, creates a sense of belonging that favors genuine adoption of the expected behaviors.
In addition, the definition of values should be seen as an ongoing process of debate, refinement, and validation. Executives and employees need to collaborate in constructing this set of principles, reviewing and improving their definitions until they make sense to the entire organization. When values are simply imposed by top management, without dialogue or engagement from teams, they tend to become mere formal statements: a nice sign at the entrance, but with no real meaning for those who live the day to day of the business.
In Welch’s words, values represent the means to achieve the mission and win. That is why they need to be specific and precise enough to guide daily actions, leaving little to the imagination.
For example, instead of simply declaring “we work as a team,” a company could describe expected behaviors such as:
- Share information openly.
- Listen to divergent opinions.
- Collaborate across areas to solve problems.
- Eliminate bureaucracy.
When values are translated into behaviors, they stop being abstract concepts and become a guide for real decisions. In addition, according to Welch, details are never too specific when it comes to defining values, because they reduce doubts among employees and increase alignment across teams in the pursuit of organizational goals and the fulfillment of the mission.
Mission and values must move together
One of Welch’s main warnings is that mission and values must reinforce each other. It does no good to have an ambitious mission if internal practices contradict the behaviors needed to achieve it.
Imagine a company whose mission is to provide the best customer experience, but that rewards only cost reduction metrics. In that case, there is a conflict between discourse and practice.
For Welch, this misalignment is one of the main reasons why so many organizations fail to reach their potential.
An example cited in the book is the collapse of Enron, whose mission evolved to become increasingly broad: from transporting gas from one point to another to operating in energy trading and later in trading almost anything. However, according to Jack Welch, the company did not define with the same clarity the values and behaviors needed to sustain this increasingly ambitious mission. As a consequence, the organization lost clear references to guide its decisions and priorities. In Welch’s view, when a company loses clarity about how it intends to win, its mission stops serving as guidance for decisions, investments, and priorities, opening space for strategic dispersion and, in extreme cases, business failure.
This reading can be complemented by the perspective presented in Grit, by Angela Duckworth. In discussing the Enron case, the author argues that organizational environments that encourage employees to be “smarter than everyone else” and to constantly demonstrate their superiority tend to create a culture marked by narcissism and presumption. When the value of image outweighs concern with learning, short-term performance begins to receive more attention than long-term development. In such settings, the pursuit of visibility and immediate recognition takes precedence over intellectual rigor and the patient building of real competence.
Instead of strengthening the discipline, resilience, and humility needed to learn from mistakes, this type of culture encourages aggressive competition and pressure for quick results. Duckworth also notes that the practice of firing people who performed below others reinforced this dynamic. In a system strongly oriented toward looking successful, that policy created an environment especially favorable to fraud, because appearances of success were valued more than integrity and the concrete results the company needed to generate.
Values only work when they are taken seriously
Another central point in Welch’s philosophy is leadership consistency. Values only acquire meaning when they influence promotions, recognition, hiring, and dismissals.
He argues that companies need to reward those who demonstrate the desired behaviors and correct or remove those who act in conflict with them. Otherwise, values are seen as nothing more than pretty words.
Lessons for today’s leaders
Even more than two decades after the publication of Passion for Winning, the message remains current:
The mission should explain how the company intends to win. Values should translate into concrete behaviors. Mission and values need to be aligned. Leadership must set the example every day. Recognition and evaluation systems should reflect the declared values.
Conclusion
Jack Welch’s great contribution to the debate on mission and values is to transform abstract concepts into practical management tools. For him, a strong mission shows the destination. Values or behaviors show the path. And when both are clear, lived, and reinforced daily, the organization creates a culture capable of sustaining long term performance and growth.
More than inspiring phrases, mission and values must serve as a compass for all company decisions.
Did you enjoy the review? Get your copy now: Winning