Throughout the lecture, he seemed to particularly emphasize the importance of confidence and loving to compete - being a competitor. Most of the points Immelt covered were pretty sound concepts though I was slightly questionable with his weight on being competitive because competition entails striving to win at the expense of someone else's loss. He is indeed a global leader, building networks in hundreds of countries so rather than solely being competitive, I think the key is to learn how to foster collaboration where the philosophy is based on a win-win equation.
Immelt described business to be similar to jujitsu, the Japanese martial art. He explained that jujitsu revolves around learning how to utilize an opponent's momentum to against them. Similarly to business, he expresses that a leaders must learn how to reinforce and empower peoples' passions.
To get things done, he would explain that building confidence is first. Building Momentum is second. And third, is to build excellence. Times and circumstances are different throughout history so he believed that it would be erroneous to listen to "old-timers." Only people who understand your context have the ability to give good advise. "I believe there are two types of advise in the world;" Immelt explained - "things you should do and things the adviser would do."
He ended the lecture by saying that business is fun and meaningful, consisting of people who can create competitiveness, wealth and prosperity.
