Never miss out on an opportunity like a good recession.

My job is to find great ideas, exaggerate them, and spread them like hell around the business with the speed of light...And to put resources in to support them. Keep finding ideas. That's the job of just about all of our CEOs.

I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

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.

Some think that it is cruel or brutal to remove the bottom 10 percent of our people. It isn't. It's just the opposite. What I think is brutal and "false kindness" is keeping people around who aren't going to grow and prosper. There's no cruelty like waiting and telling people late into their careers that they don't belong - just when the options are limited and they're putting their children through college or paying off big mortgages.

Excellence and competitiveness aren't incompatible with honesty and integrity.

Trying to get people to face reality and see the world the way it really is is an absolutely critical aspect of leadership, in my view.