A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion of Fairfield County, Connecticut-based executives. One of the participants was Jack Welch. As you all know, Jack Welch has had an impressive and remarkable record at General Electric, and as Fortune Magazine has said, is "perhaps the most admired CEO of his generation."

Chief Operating Officer Vart Adjemian

The topic of the roundtable discussion was: "Is there a better way" to run a business and make it really successful? Because of his reputation and personality, Mr. Welch controlled the meeting. The ideas, opinions, and vision presented by the participants were clear, focused, and most importantly, simple; indeed, deceptively simple. As the meeting proceeded, I took notes and tried to learn from the experience.

A few years later, I noted that many of the points discussed were refined and presented as "GE Values" and became the basic theme of Mr. Welch's business bestseller Get Better or Get Beaten.

Here are some of these values:

• Create a clear, simple, reality-based and customer-centered vision, and continually renew and refresh its execution.
• Drive cost and speed for competitive advantage. Ensure that the customer is always a beneficiary and use it to accelerate growth.
• Insist on excellence and be intolerant of bureaucracy.
• See change as a growth opportunity ... not a threat.
• Stretch ... set aggressive goals ... reward progress, improvements and achievements. Yet understand commitment and accountability.

Even though these are all strong fundamental values, the real trigger and energizer from my perspective is the "stretch."

Over the years, one of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that most of us, when we set objectives and goals, have the natural inclination to be modest and conservative. We are afraid of falling short, being unable to exceed expectations, or being unsuccessful in overcoming a higher hurdle. We tend to accept the "standard" or the "average" performance. It is more comfortable and wrongly perceived to be less risky. The reality is the reverse. Records are broken, and higher hurdles are overcome when we stretch our objective and set aggressive goals; we never know how good we are until we really test ourselves. A readiness to "stretch" creates excitement and enthusiasm, and energizes everyone involved. It creates the "edge" to think outside the box and make the decisions that will make a difference.

There is however an important caveat. When people achieve aggressive goals, they should be recognized and celebrated. They must also be rewarded well for going beyond the norm and delivering superior results.

After my last article, some people mentioned that I should have cited a real life example. In this article then, let me cite the example of the "stretch" that we achieved with our Poultry Division, Wayne Farms LLC.

Five years ago, our Poultry Division was struggling and the results were marginal. We established a RONA hurdle of at least 7.5%, which at the time appeared to be an unrealistic stretch. A clear strategy was developed and a simple vision and mission statement was established: "The mission of Wayne Farms LLC is to be customer driven while increasing shareholder return."

The results speak for themselves. Five years later, Wayne Farms has moved far beyond its original target, significantly outperformed its competitors, and become the clear industry leader in RONA. Even more importantly, the hurdle rate itself has been doubled from 7.5% to 15%

The lesson learned: do not be afraid and hesitant to stretch your goals. You will be amazed at how good you can be. I am confident that all our units can exceed expectations, if they are challenged and stretched.

Vart