He's there in the flesh. Jack Welch, the legendary chairman and CEO of General Electric Co.

    Well, maybe not exactly in the flesh. But certainly live, unplugged, and on a computer screen, with his trademark tell-it-like-it-is persona, a trace of the Salem, Mass. accent still in his scratchy voice at the age of 78.

    Sitting in front of a camera with an open blue shirt and a sports jacket, he's fielding questions from his MBA students.

    "What would be a winning strategy for helping to get the U.S. economy growing at a faster pace?"

    "What does it really mean to provide exceptional customer service?"

    "Can you discuss skills on listening to and accepting candid feedback?"

    Welch handles each question with casual self-confidence and personal anecdotes, often drilling down with follow-up questions.

    Welcome to the Jack Welch Management Institute. This is Welch's online MBA program, and each quarter he shows up on webcam for little more than an hour to engage with students. All told, the executive MBA program consists of a dozen required courses, each 10 weeks long, delivered online with "synchronous opportunities" (Translation: You can do the class in real time if you're able to). Besides the quarterly Q&A videoconferences with Welch, video messages from him populate the school's website and he'll often respond to half a dozen messages on the bulletin boards two or three times each term.

    At a time when many business schools are reporting declining enrollment in their full-time MBA programs, Welch's Management Institute is doing a brisk business. The institute currently has 538 active students, up by a healthy 36% in the past year. But Welch is far more ambitious, having a stated goal to enroll 5,000 students within five years, far eclipsing Harvard's 1,800 MBA candidates or Stanford Graduate School of Business' 800 students.

    Students say they are drawn to the program because of Welch's name and reputation, the flexibility of studying online, and the low cost of the program. At $36,000, it's considerably less expensive than the online offerings of highly ranked business schools, such as Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, and Carnegie Mellon, where the total cost ranges between $60,000 and $118,000.

    Steven Scott, chief engineer for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, says it wouldn't be possible for him to get an MBA any other way. Scott works long hours and travels frequently, making commitment to a traditional MBA program impossible. The same is true of Kathleen Thompson, 31, director of acquisition and integration for PGi, a web conferencing company. Thompson says she has taken classes from hotel rooms in Dallas, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, New York, and Orlando -- as well as from numerous airplanes 35,000 feet in the sky. "Thank God for GoGo Internet," she laughs.

    What differentiates this online program from many others is its emphasis on the pragmatic. The curriculum is infused with Welch's core beliefs and ideas on business, from the importance of candor in managing employees to the more controversial differentiation policies he made famous at GE (GE). Welch wants the students, as he puts it, to "learn it on Monday, apply it on Tuesday, and share it on Friday."

    The courses most heavily influenced by Welch's teachings are Leadership In The 21st Century, Strategy, and People Management. Those so-called signature courses come early in the curriculum, which ends with a capstone business simulation done with virtual teams of students. The program can be completed from a computer anywhere in the world -- from a hotel room to an airplane flight -- in two years. Most students, however, take one course at a time, requiring anywhere from 15 to 20 hours of work a week, which would allow them to pass through the program in two-and-a-half years.

    美国商界传奇人物、通用电气公司（General Electric）前总裁兼CEO杰克•韦尔奇现在就真真切切地坐在我们面前。

    对了，这可能还算不上完全的“真真切切”，但的确是活灵活现地出现在一块电脑屏幕前面。尽管今年已经78岁高龄，但他依旧是一幅招牌式的坦诚直率，沙哑的语调中带着一丝马萨诸塞州萨伦地区的口音。

    摄像机前的他穿着一件蓝色衬衫和一件运动夹克，正回答着他的MBA学生们的问题。

    “有没有一种致胜之策，能帮助美国经济更快速地增长？”

    “‘提供超群的客户服务’到底意味着什么？”

    “你能说一下关于倾听和接受坦率的反馈的技巧吗？”

    韦尔奇回答每个问题时都带着轻松和自信，偶尔举一些他本人的例子，他的深入讲解经常还会引起进一步的问题。

    欢迎来到杰克•韦尔奇管理学院。这是韦尔奇创办的一个在线MBA项目，每个季度他都会通过视频会议的方式与学生进行一个多小时的座谈。这个MBA项目包括十几门必修课程，每门课都有十个星期，可以在线上同步授课。（也就是说只要你的时间方便，就可以在线同步上课。）除了每个季度韦尔奇会参加一次视频会议之外，这个学校的网站上还有很多来自韦尔奇的视频信息，而且他每个学期都会抽两三次时间回复公告栏上的消息。

    虽然目前很多商学院都出现了脱产MBA项目入学率下降的情况，但韦尔奇的管理学院却可谓门庭若市。这个学校目前有538名活跃的学生，与去年相比增长了36%。但是韦尔奇的雄心要比这个数字大得多，他计划在五年内招收5000名学生。相比之下，哈佛商学院（Harvard）的1800名学生和斯坦福商学院（Stanford Graduate School of Business）的800名学生显然相形见绌。

    学生们表示，他们之所以参加这个项目，主要就是被韦尔奇的声誉所吸引，再就是网络学习的灵活性以及费用的低廉。它的学费只有36000美元，比印第安那大学（Indiana University）、北卡罗莱纳大学（the University of North Carolina）、卡耐基梅隆大学（Carnegie Mellon）等知名大学的商学院要便宜很多，这些老牌知名商学院的费用普遍都在6万到11.8万美元之间。

    美国国家航空航天局戈达德宇宙飞行中心（NASA Goddard Space Flight Center）首席工程师史蒂芬•斯科特表示，如果不是通过这个项目的话，他也不可能以别的方式读MBA了。因为斯科特平时的工作时间很长，而且经常出差，所以不可能参加传统的MBA项目。网络会议公司PGi的收购与整合总监凯瑟琳•汤普森也是如此。31岁的她表示自己经常在达拉斯、圣路易斯、堪萨斯城、丹佛、芝加哥、纽约和奥兰多等地的酒店房间里上课，甚至是在离地面35000英尺的飞机里也能学习。她笑着说：“感谢万能的互联网。”

    这个项目与其它MBA项目最大的区别就是实用性。它的课程中灌输了韦尔奇本人的核心商业理念，比如在管理员工时坦诚的重要意义，以及他在通用电气公司使用过的著名的差异化战略等。韦尔奇希望学生们“周一学的东西周二就能用，到了周五就能把它分享出去。”

    21世纪的领导艺术、战略课、人力管理等课程是受韦尔奇影响最深的几门课，它们也是在整个项目中打头阵的课程。课程结束后，学员们还要组成虚拟团队进行模拟商战。学员在两年之内只需要通过一部电脑，就可以在全球各地完成全部课程——不管是在酒店的房间还是在飞机的机舱里。大多数学生一次只选一门课，每周大概需要投入15到20小时进行学习，这样的话就需要两年半左右的时间才能完成全部课程。

    The institute itself is run like a business, not an academic enterprise. Welch is constantly asking students what they think of the program and how it can be improved. He treats them as customers as well as students. He also keeps close tabs on the institute's "net promoter score" (NPS) -- used to gauge the loyalty of a firm's customer relationships. The institute claims a highly impressive score of 65% which would put it in a class that includes such companies as Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG). The average is 10% to 15%.

    Customer satisfaction surveys at the institute are as common as final exams. "They ought to know that when they fill out a survey we are all over it," insists Welch. "We look at that NPS score like an animal. We want to find out every detail about it and we want to fix something whenever we have a score that is not at the top of the range. Everybody at our school is measured on it."

    The latest satisfaction survey, completed on Oct. 31 by a sample of 94 current students, found that 93% said it was highly likely that they would recommend the program to others, while 98% said it was a valuable investment (with 27% saying it was the most valuable investment they have ever made). Perhaps even more surprising, 54% of the responding students said they have received a promotion, a raise, or some professional recognition since they started the program. One in four students said they are achieving significant career advancement since starting the Welch MBA.

    From 2012 to 2013, the institute says that the average salary of its graduates has increased 20% since graduation to $122,984. Based on the average pay boost, Backman says that the payback time for the Welch MBA degree is about 1.8 years.

    Welch initially started his institute in 2010 with for-profit education provider Chancellor University. After two years, he moved the institute to Strayer Education Inc., a stronger player with deeper resources in the for-profit education market. So far, there are more than 130 graduates of the program.

    It goes without saying that this is not anything like a two-year MBA with a summer internship that lines up a student for a new job at graduation. Online MBA programs are best suited for managers who want to learn the business basics and who generally want to advance in their own organizations. A Welch MBA won't have the cache of the imprimatur of a Cornell, Dartmouth, Yale, or Harvard degree. After all, applicants to Welch's institute do not have to take the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) to get into the program, although they must have five years of professional experience and a 3.0 undergraduate GPA.

    What of the often-stated notion that online learning is hardly equal to on-campus study? "Even the best schools are moving into the online space," argues Andrea Backman, dean of the institute, who has worked in the distance learning at DePaul University and the University of Virginia. "People aren't going to want to sit in a lecture hall for two years."

    When Welch recruited Backman from the University of Virginia, where she was director of online and off-grounds programs, earlier this year, she asked him why he was so interested in online business education. "I'm not in it to make money," she recalls Welch saying, "'but I want to rid the world of bad managers and I don't think there is a program out there that does this."

    Just how involved is Welch in this enterprise? "He is incredibly involved and students have access to him," says Backman. "I was hoping when I made the move that I would have a lot of interaction with Jack and get to learn from him. That has been 100% the case. The ability to get coached by Jack is way more than I anticipated."

    这个学院本身的运作方式也像一家企业而不是学术机构。韦尔奇经常问学生他们对这个项目的看法，让他们提改进意见。他既把学员看成学生，也看成客户。另外他也经常密切关注学院的“净推荐值”（NPS），这个数据通常用来衡量一家公司的客户关系。这家学院称，它的高印象得分是65%，凭此分数，它在客户印象上也比肩苹果（Apple）和谷歌（Google）的水平。一般公司的平均得分只有10%到15%。

    这所学院里的客户满意度调查就和期末考试一样平常。韦尔奇指出：“他们应该知道，他们填写的调查表我们会非常认真地看。我们就像研究一只动物一样仔细研究NPS评分，想找出它反映的所有细节。如果我们的得分不是特别理想的话，我们就要纠正可能出现的问题。我们就是根据它来给每个工作人员打分的。”

    该学校最近的一次满意度调查是在10月31日完成的，它抽样调查了在校的94名学生。调查显示，93%的学生表示，他们很可能会把这个项目推荐给其他人，有98%的学生表示，这个项目对他们来说是一笔有价值的投资（有27%的学生甚至表示，这是他们做过的最有价值的投资）。更令人惊讶的是，54%的受访者表示，他们自从参加这个项目后已经获得了晋升、加薪或是其它某种职业上的认可。四分之一的学生表示，自从参加韦尔奇的MBA项目后，他们的事业都有了突飞猛进的进步。

    这所学校表示，从2012年到2013年，该校毕业生的平均工资增长了20%，达到12.2984万美元。根据这个平均薪金增幅，该校校长白克曼表示，该校MBA学位的投资回报期大概只有1.8年。

    韦尔奇最初于2010年与盈利教育提供商钱斯勒大学(Chancellor University)合作开办了这所学校。两年后，他把合作伙伴换成了斯特雷教育公司（Strayer Education Inc），这家公司在盈利教育市场上的地位更强，也有更深的资源。目前这个项目已经培养了130多名毕业生。

    很显然，韦尔奇的这所MBA学校与传统的两年制MBA教育大相径庭，后者往往有一个夏季实习环节，很多新学生由此在毕业后得到了一份新工作。而在线MBA项目一般最适合那些希望学习商业基础课以及想继续在自己的公司里发展的管理人员。这所学校的MBA学位在认知度上可能比不上康奈尔、达特茅斯（Dartmouth）、耶鲁（Yale）或哈佛等老牌知名商学院，毕竟这所学校不把通过北美研究生管理科学入学考试（GMAT）当成硬性要求。但是它还是要求学员必须有五年以上的专业经验，而且本科的GPA必须要达到3.0以上。

    经常有人认为，在线学习与在校学习的效果不能等同。不过这所学校的校长、曾在德保罗大学（DePaul University）和弗吉尼亚大学（the University of Virginia）从事远程教育工作的安德里娅•白克曼指出：“即使是最好的学校也在往在线领域发展。因为人们不想在学校里待上整整两年。”

    今年年初，当韦尔奇把白克曼从弗吉尼亚大学挖到他的学校时，白克曼曾问他，为什么对在线商业教学这么感兴趣。她记得韦尔奇这样说道：“我不是为了赚钱才做这件事，而是想让这个世界不再有那么多不合格的领导，而且我不认为现在有项目在做这件事。”

    那么韦尔奇对这项事业的投入程度有多大呢？白克曼说：“他的投入达到了难以想象的地步，而且学生们也有联系他的渠道。当初我想，如果我跳槽到这里，我可能会与杰克有很多互动，也有机会从他身上学到东西。现在这个愿望100%地实现了。我能从他身上获得的教导远远超过我之前的预期。”

    The Welch curriculum is filled with case studies, role-plays, podcasts, business games and video snippets of counsel and advice from a number of executives, many of whom reinforce the Welch message and several of whom worked directly under him at GE. They include Boeing (BA) CEO James McNerney, who Welch once considered as his successor at GE, and Nielsen CEO David Calhoun, a former vice chairman of GE.

    Backman says incoming students are assigned a "success coach" who helps students fit the program into their schedules. "We also have writing coaches for students, especially if they come from an information technology background or speak English as a second language." About 30% of the grades at the Welch Institute are based on discussion questions and student responses to them.

    And the faculty? The institute says that its professors have taught at such places as Cornell, Northeastern, the University of Virginia, and Boston University. They have graduate degrees from Wharton, Harvard, the London School of Economics, and the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

    Students include a wide range of managers and executives from small-to-mid-sized private companies to such major corporate players as Boeing, FedEx (FDX), Home Depot (HD), Marriott (MAR), Nielsen (NLSN), and Verizon (VZ).

    When Thompson signed up for the program, she was initially concerned about whether she could bond with fellow students and faculty who were not in the same room. "It is a virtual experience but it is still intimate," she says now. "I'm a very social person and that was important to me."

    Now into her third course—Financial Management I—Thompson still meets with her original study group at 9 a.m., using web conferencing software. Her fellow students are piped in from Egypt, Florida, Texas, New York, and Illinois.

    Backman came away with several ideas to improve the program after a recent feedback session with students. She says the institute expects to launch shorter five-week courses, introduce more business simulations in classes, and explore the possibility of a graduation ceremony where Welch hands out diplomas in person.

    During the recent videoconference, Welch was asked by one student for advice on how to accept criticism from a boss. In typical Welch tough-love fashion, he told the manager to buck up and take the heat. "You have to sit back and show the person giving you the candor that you are receptive and that you are not trying to get ready on the edge of your chair to combat the arguments," Welch instructed. "The only person that counts in this discussion is your boss. You have to show your boss that you are wide open to suggestions and you really want to learn. Suck it up and try to deal with the criticisms, even if you don't think they are valid."

    Welch paused and reflected. "I got a lot of candid feedback in my career: Most of it was, 'You are too damn abrasive, you are too aggressive, slow down, be patient.' I never got all the way there, but I got a lot better at it."

    这所学校的课程里有很多案例研究、角色扮演、播客、商业游戏等等，而且还有来自一些商界高管的视频咨询和建议。其中有好几位高管还曾经是韦尔奇在通用电气时的下属，比如波音公司（Boeing）的CEO詹姆斯•迈克纳尼，他曾一度被认为是韦尔奇在通用电气的接班人。还有尼尔森公司（Nielsen）的CEO大卫•卡尔霍恩，他曾在通用电气公司担任副总裁。

    白克曼指出，学校还为每个新学生指派了一名“成功教练”，帮助学生尽快适应课程。“另外我们也给学生提供了写作辅导，尤其是如果这些学生来自信息科技领域，或者英语不是他们的母语。”

    这所学校称，授课的教授都是来自康奈尔大学、东北大学（Northeastern）、弗吉尼亚大学、波士顿大学（Boston University）等知名商学院。他们都有沃顿（Wharton）、哈佛、伦敦经济学院（the London School of Economics）或是明尼苏达大学卡洛森管理学院（the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management）等名校的学位。

    而学生的构成也很广泛，既有中小私人企业的管理者，也有波音、联邦快递（FedEx）、家得宝（Home Depot）、万豪（Marriott）、尼尔森和威瑞森（Verizon）等知名企业的高管。

    汤普森最初报名的时候还有点担心自己能不能与其他学生和教学人员熟络起来，毕竟他们不是坐在同一个教室里。不过她现在表示：“虽然是虚拟的课堂，但感觉仍然很亲密。我是一个非常爱交际的人，这一点对我很重要。”

    现在汤普森已经开始上她的第三门课程了——财务管理（一）。汤普森每天早上九点通过网络会议软件登录课堂，与老师和同学们会面。她的同学们则分别从埃及、佛罗里达、德克萨斯、纽约和伊利诺斯等地登录。

    最近在与学生进行反馈后，白克曼又想到了几个进一步提高教学质量的点子。她表示，学校打算推出一些为期五周的短期课目，在课堂中引入更多的商业模拟环节，而且有可能的话还会举办一个毕业典礼，由韦尔奇本人亲手颁发毕业证书。

    有个学生在最近的一次视频会议上问韦尔奇，如果受到老板的批评该怎么办。韦尔奇用他典型的“严是爱松是害”的思路，告诫那个学生要振作起来，勇于承受批评。“你必须坐稳了，让那个勇于坦率批评你的人知道，你不会拍案反唇相讥。在这种讨论中唯一说了算的就是你的老板。你要让他知道，你是个愿意接受意见的人，而且你的确有学习的欲望。所以把气往肚子里咽，想办法面对这些批评，哪怕你认为他说得不对。”

    说到这儿，韦尔奇停了一下，思考了一会儿说：“我在职业生涯中也收到过很多坦率的反馈。大多数都是说：‘你太伤人感情了，你太激进了，慢一点，耐心点。’虽然我一直没达到那种境界，但也好多了。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎