The most important executive utterance of 2009

Former G.E. CEO Jack Welch, father of the so-called “shareholder value” movement that said a company’s singular strategic focus should be on creating value for investors, told the Financial Times last spring:

“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy … your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.”