My bosses cautioned me about my candor. Now my GE career is over, and I'm telling you that it was my candor that helped make it work.

If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it's an ugly life. When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you've hit the jackpot for people.

What's important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn't satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn't right, or if the offerings aren't right, it's the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don't get hung up on zeros.

The quality of an idea does not depend on its altitude in the organization...An idea can be from any source. So we will search the globe for ideas. We will share what we know with others to get what they know. We have a constant quest to raise the bar, and we get there by constantly talking to others.

Take the middle 70 percent and tell them what they need to do to get into the top 20 percent.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

People always overestimate how complex business is. This isn't rocket science. We've chosen one of the world's simplest professions.