Is Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 Decision-Making Concept the Self-Help Book You Were Looking For?

Most people already know Jack Welch. He’s the former General Electric CEO who now just may be the only septuagenarian with a Twitter feed. But it’s his wife, Suzy, who is capturing the headlines these days.

Suzy Welch has some prior credentials of her own, including being a former editor at the Harvard Business Review. Now, she has a new book that explains her innovative take on decision-making.

The book, 10-10-10, was just recently launched and has already become number one on the Self-Help and Decision Making and Problem Solving lists on Amazon.com. Doris Kearns Goodwin has called the book “a triumph” and countless people have started taking a close look at a simple apparatus that is changing the mechanisms of decision-making. No word on the global implications of 10-10-10, but it’s already being championed for personal decisions.

The Welches have been doing prominent press for the New York Times best-seller, which outlines the snappy formula that Mrs. Welch claims has been the guiding principle in much of her life. The 10-10-10 concept basically requires that people evaluate their decisions in terms of its ramifications over 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. Simple as the idea is on the surface, it’s been almost universally hailed as a breakthrough principle in a time when many people are looking for guidance. The book has also proven popular for its frank discussion of the Welches original meeting when both were still married, eventually forcing Mrs. Welch to retire from the Harvard Business Review.

So is 10-10-10 a legitimately revolutionary guiding tool or just the latest self-help fad? For one thing, the Welches have never been associated with fads. In fact, what has ultimately endeared 10-10-10 is its broad applicability. People responding to the book have so far illustrated its utility in everything from work to love to personal finance. In a self-help industry that is rife with exploitive, trivial ideas, 10-10-10 could bring people the kind of help that they are currently looking for.