Business Week last week published a cover story about GE under Jeff Immelt. The piece is worth reading for those interested in communities of leadership.
Key takeaways for me were:
- At GE, famous for its leadership development process, the emphasis is moving from achievement of targets to include more focus on innovation and deep knowledge of business lines.
- Mental models of leadership are moving toward more dialogue and personal interaction. The article reports that about twice a month on Friday evenings Immelt invites one of his top leaders – one at a time – to his home for dinner and a personal conversation that runs over to the next morning. Immelt is quoted: “We spend Saturday morning just talking about their careers. Who they are, how they fit, how I see their strengths and weaknesses—stuff like that.” I love this idea.
- Globalising the company is a key theme, including especially engagement in India and China. GE apparently feels strong and comfortable in China; in India they feel they have more work to do to be integrated into the community.
- GE is self-challenging its famous and traditional structured, classroom-focused approach to leadership development, but it remains proud of, and committed to, many of the patterns it sees as having created its success.
- Outside commentators as reported in the article tend to be more critical of GE’s leadership approach, preferring less structured, less time-intensive, more peer-to-peer learning styles.
- Despite having taken a big hit from the financial crisis, the company seems to have an attractive balance of pride in its history and achievements on one hand, and curiosity and openness as it seeks to innovate, change and grow on the other.
The test for GE will be whether as a community it maintains global leadership and profitability in its areas of focus, including such things as health care, energy and indeed financial services. Personally, I like the sound of the directions Immelt is taking, and I have a good feeling about GE’s likely success. Apple and Google may have replaced GE as management-style icons for now, but my sense is that GE will be a winner, and a key source of leadership talent and ideas, over the long term.
Business Week’s story is at http://bit.ly/cn3Qyd
Scott is a scott@lovingwork.com and @scottdowns3 on Twitter
business · community · culture · GE · innovation · leadership
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