GE did well under Welch. It was his successor that killed it.
Granted the work environment was toxic, but that’s pretty much normal in industry.
Under Welch, the innovations stopped. Robotic production was rewarded while thinking, creativity, and engineering was discouraged as those qualities are difficult to measure. Short-term financial performance is usually the outcome of a Welch approach, while long term business goals suffer. MBA schools like to teach that businesses should worry about today and get as much profit as possible now. Welch was one of those people that changed business schools into this type of lazy thinking.