I'm the author, and I'm always deeply flattered when people submit my stuff. Thank you! Happy to chat more, as there was a ton of research that went into it, most of which didn't make the final cut.

Essentially: Welchification (from the CEO of GE's name) being:

* the focus on short term shareholder returns over long-term shareholder value, typified by giving executives short term options as incentives

* causing a myopia that can lead a company to bad patterns like deprioritizing R&D or focusing on financial engineering over product improvement