You never know how diverse your career can be. I think it's wonderful. My life has always been the next page, not the last page.

Protecting underperformers always backfires.

I am often asked if leaders are born or made. The answer, of course, is both. Some characteristics, like IQ and energy, seem to come with the package. On the other hand, you learn some leadership skills, like self-confidence, at your mother's knee, and at school, in academics and sports. And you learn others at work-trying something, getting it wrong and learning from it, or getting it right and gaining the self-confidence to do it again, only better.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

If you reward candor, you'll get it.

Nothing of any importance has ever been accomplished by a pessimist.