The Foresight of Jack Welch

Legendary GE CEO Jack Welch once said of businesses, "If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near."  Every city has monuments to this - - the old Blockbuster, Sears, and Macy's buildings constantly remind us of the risk of getting blindsided by the likes of Netflix and Amazon.  The old yellow cab is probably up next - - the outside forces of Uber should be visible in the rear view mirror of every cab in the US.

The Welch observation also holds for politics.  The negative forces of globalization produced a rate of external change (i.e., job loss and community decay) greater than the rate of internal change (i.e., job training and re-investment in regions and communities).  The politics of old is giving way to the politics of new across the globe - - outside > inside is an important inequality to monitor.