Gutoff’s recognition-that he considered me different and special-made a powerful impression. Ever since that time, differentiation has been a basic part of how I manage. Differentiation is all about being extreme, rewarding the best and weeding out the ineffective. Rigorous differentiation delivers real stars-and stars build great businesses.
Some contend that differentiation is nuts-bad for morale.
They say that differential treatment erodes the very idea of teamwork. Not in my world. You build strong teams by treating individuals differently. Just look at the way baseball teams pay 20-game winning pitchers and 40-plus home run hitters. The relative contributions of those players are easy to measure-their stats jump out at you-yet they are still part of a team.
Everybody’s got to feel they have a stake in the game. But that doesn’t mean everyone on the team has to be treated the same way.
Gutoff reinforced that it was no different in business. Winning teams come from differentiation, rewarding the best and removing the weakest, always fighting to raise the bar.
I was lucky to get out of the pile and learn this my very first year at GE-the hard way, by nearly quitting the company.
