By Stan Rosenzweig

There's no end to the number of great business lessons you can learn from reading the books by or about Jack Welch. Twelve are listed on Amazon.com.

The newest, "Jack Welch and the 4E's of Leadership. How to put GE's Leadership formula to work in your organization" is by Jeffrey A. Krames, the best selling author of "The Welch Way" and other award winning books on leadership.

Krames explains the Jack Welch 4E's of Leadership model and shows how you can apply it to your business. The 4 E's of Leadership are:

• Energy, "Love to go, go, go."
• Energizes, "Know how to spark others to perform."
• Edge, "Know how to make the really difficult decisions."
• Execute, "Know how to convert energy into action and results."

It sounds simplistic, but this lesson plan is anything but that. Detailed lessons include how to hire for passion, simplify the organization, cut through complexity and red tape, and even how to jettison products and services that do not fit the vision for success. It details seven steps of dealing with change and links change with energy, as Welch simply states "The status quo is not good enough."

Change initiatives focus energy and the quality of the idea matters most, according to Welch, not the rank or position of the person with the idea. Welch changed the GE environment and made training and learning the cornerstones for growth.

The book is in two parts. Part 1 explains the 4E's of Leadership and how to use them, with numerous examples and checklists, all of which are useful to any size business and Part 2 is every bit as interesting. Here, Krames follows Jeff Immelt as he replaces Welch at the helm and then follows up with the GE senior managers who didn't get the job to see if Welch's methods transfer well.

James McNerney went on to reinvent 3M based on the Welch playbook. Larry Bossidy took the Welch method to Allied Signal and then became CEO and Chairman of Honeywell. Robert Nardelli left GE to become CEO of Home Depot. It is instructional to see how each used these same GE leadership methods to grow their respective new businesses.

Energy and passion are Welch's mantras and Krames's writing reflects that. Considering that it is, essentially, a text book, it's one heck of a page turner.

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Stan Rosenzweig, president of Office Technology Consulting Inc., Stamford, CT, can be reached through www.phoneguru.com, or at (203)323-6070, ext. 82409.