UNCLE JACK

In 1985 RCA was taken over by a lightbulb company. That’s how we looked at General Electric. We had no idea how the television culture was going to function under this new arrangement. By the end of 1986 Grant Tinker, who transformed NBC into a quality network, was gone and in his place was Bob Wright, a GE executive who made it clear to all of us that broadcasting was dead and the future was cable television. GE brought a more analytical culture to the network. I was a numbers guy and was practicing Moneyball before I knew what it was so I bought into the transition.

Wright turned out to be a solid leader, well-schooled in GE culture. Eventually he will be right about the broadcast business but so far it keeps evolving. My favorite thing about Bob and GE culture was that I discovered that they encouraged critical thinking and self-initiative. They would give you all the rope you needed to hang yourself. I often took the rope.

The master mind behind GE culture was Jack Welch. This morning I woke to the news that he has passed. During my entire run at NBC Jack was at the helm and I had several opportunities to interact with him. They were all memorable and I thought I would celebrate his life by sharing some of them with you.

My first encounter with Jack was at the NBC Management Meeting in February 1993. It was the second year of my tenure in scheduling the network. We were turning things around but it was a slog and Jack and Bob decided to bring Don Ohlmeyer in as President of NBC West Coast. In addition to the uncertainty of a new leader we had to trek to upstate New York to the GE compound in Croton where we froze our asses off while being told that we were doomed. Our News Division had just blown up some GM trucks and we were about to lose a sweep because Oprah got a Michael Jackson interview. We woke up to those ratings and went in for more abuse.

As the Management Meeting was coming to an end, and we figured we’d get back to Burbank and work on our resumés, Bob told us there was someone who wanted to say a few words to us and in walked Jack Welch.

Here’s what he said:

“You guys are doing a great job! Seinfeld (we had just moved it) is working on Thursday and you are a hit away from turning this around.”

….and he left. We did not know what to think after three days of doom and gloom. Those two sentences inspired us to go back and git ‘er done. It turned out Jack was right and the MUST-SEE-TV years began.

A while after Don arrived, and after he had figured out who the team moving forward would be, he invited Jack out to sit and talk with us. Jack made us feel very comfortable and he knew who each of us was, what our role was and some things about our backgrounds. He made us feel like we mattered.

The thing that impressed me the most about Jack was that he made everything feel like common sense…there was never a need to overthink things and if you can find the essence of the problem you will find what you need to know and remove all the noise from the equation. I saw him do this at several NBC President’s Council meetings which included the top execs on both coasts. While everyone was arguing an issue Jack would be writing on a pad, or the back of an envelope, and at some point, simply say “Tell me this and we’ll have our answer”. Another lesson I learned from him.

I was a big proponent of Six Sigma which was really just another term for Moneyball. Jack pushed this throughout the various GE companies and I used it quite often as an analytical tool. It was especially handy when we decided to cancel one of our movie nights. This was not a decision embraced by all and we had some ugly sessions debating the merits but, in the end, the data was hard to dispute and the move added a substantial amount of money to our bottom line.

By January 1998 we knew that Seinfeld would not be returning to the schedule. One day Warren Littlefield called to tell me that we were flying to New York to meet with Jack at 30 Rock. He wanted to know what our post-Seinfeld plans were. About five of us attended the meeting in Jack’s office. After some small talk Jack took out a brown packet and emptied it into his hand. It contained diamonds and he told us of a process that GE was developing to make real diamonds. He suddenly sneezed and the diamonds flew all over his shag rug. There were six of us on the floor for a good twenty minutes looking for the diamonds. After we found them all. Jack looked at us and said “Don’t do anything without telling me.” That was it. Meeting over.

That May, when we announced the schedule in New York, we had a reception after the presentation and Jack came over and asked me about a scheduling move. It was a move that I did not agree with and I pointed over to Warren or Don and said “You would be better off asking them because I disagree with it.” Jack’s mood changed and he put his finger on my chest and said “You are the head of scheduling. I’m asking you.” That was the last time in my career that I tried to pass the responsibility to another executive.

Here's the interchange before it got ugly. That's a young David Nevins between us about to see me get reamed out.

Look, politically I am the polar opposite of Jack Welch. The same holds for my relationship with Rupert Murdoch. These are powerful men and if you have the opportunity to learn from them you take it and I did. I wish his family well. We called him Uncle Jack.