Case Study Analysis: Ge’s Talent Machine Essay

1. Corporate social responsibility is defined in Chapter 5 as the corporate duty to create wealth by using means that avoid harm to, protect, or enhance societal assets. Did GE in the Welch era fulfill this duty? Could it have done better? What should it have done?

Companies want to be very profitable, but need very experienced people to help them meet their goals, yet experienced individuals can only be effective if their leaders perceive them as priceless. Employees must be inspired to grow in ways that will produce explosive industry growth (Clark, 2016).

Analyzing GE’s corporate-level strategy from 2001 – present with Jeff Immelt as CEO, GE focuses on the growth and development platforms. Technology is the key driving force for GE’s future and growth. Advancements in industries such as energy, health and aviation fueled demand for cleaner and more efficient energy production. GE identified new markets with potential high-growth that offered attractive returns through strategic mergers and acquisitions. As CEO, Jeff Immelt established a process for identifying projects that offered attractive growth potential which were then nurtured and treated as special projects or initiatives that were not subject to strict budget constraints. Immelt introduced GE’s three strategic imperatives as: (1) sustaining its strong business model, (2) strengthening the business portfolio, and (3) driving its growth initiatives. www.ge.com

GE healthcare is one of the best firms in leadership development. The firm’s Human Resources Department is keen in developing a strong workforce that responds to changing global needs. It employs strategically employs and motivates the best qualified talents globally. It invests more than $100 million annually on educational training and staff development. The GE Healthcare Institute provides advanced training for GEHC employees and customers. It combines Technical training, Applications and Leadership trainings. More than 70 laboratories with the latest equipment provide GE and customers world class instruction in all areas of equipment maintenance and operation. The Training in Partnership curriculum provides a full range of training programs. GE managers are considered one of the firm’s distinctive competencies and strengths. The challenge is maintaining employee motivation through better remuneration in a time of global economic meltdown and declining profits for the firm.

* Technical Leadership – Immelt identified technology as a key driver of GE’s future growth and emphasized the need to speed up the diffusion of new technologies within GE and turn the corporate R&D into an intellectual house.

Canadian General Electric Co. Limited (CGE) was incorporated in Canada in 1892 at the same time Edison Electric Light Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company merge into General Electric (GE) which continues to the present day as a major international conglomerate. GE is investing in software and analytics, healthcare, energy, lighting and bio-energy systems, and advance manufacturing and enterprise. With each investment, the company strategy to grow and enhance productivity and reduce environmental impact at a global scale becomes apparent. At GE, research and development has been the cornerstone of innovation for over a century. GE has approximately 36,000 technicians that are used to solve some of the world’s toughest problems

My pursuit for excellence has given me major career achievements such as my selection into GE’s global leadership program, IMLP. GE runs this program to identify and mentor future leaders across its businesses. I went through an intense selection process and competed with very capable individuals

When Reg Jones, Welch’ Predecessor, became CEO in 1973, the company organization was just completed to be centralized, but Jones could not able to keep up with reviewing massive volume of information generated by 43 strategic plans. Finally in 1977, he capped GE’s departments, divisions, groups, and SBUs with a new organizational layer called “sectors”, which represented macrobusiness agglomerations.

1.What philosophy, policies, and practices have made GE a “CEO factory” as Fortune called it? General Electric (GE) has traditionally had a hands-on approach to talent management. There is a high degree of involvement of the top management in its people policies. There is a top-down approach to human resource policy. Also, GE recognized the need to be a strategy focused organization early on. The people policy of GE and its HR systems show a high degree of alignment to its strategy implementation. The emphasis on management talent development by four successive

This report’s objective is to provide analysis of the leadership challenge that General Electric (GE) is currently facing, and to recommend solutions. The primary problem is determining what kind of candidate is required to replace retiring CEO Jack Welch. This has left GE to question how much does the company want to change policy over the previous era, and where does the company want to be in future?

Ambitious GE managers kept their ties knotted and their mouths shut. The mounting expense of this bureaucracy was a major reason GE became a high-cost producer, vulnerable to foreign competition. The complex interaction of GE’s culture, organization, and bureaucracy created a symphony of not-so-subtle signals that taught GEers how to behave. But as Jones realized, behavior that has been appropriate in 1878--or even 1978--might prove disastrous in the 1980s. In an attempt to ensure fair treatment of its workers, GE had assigned all employees to one of twenty-nine civil service style levels of rank.

Analysis - GE has likely been so successful over the years because of its ability to foresee major trends and capitalize upon them. In the 1960s, for instance, GE was one of the eight major computer companies. Even recently, since 1986, GE has continued to acquire several organizations; portions of NBC, wind manufacturing, universe pictures, aerospace industries, international firms, software and hardware manufacturing, even oil companies abroad. The company culture describes itself as not one company, but many each unit a vast and complex enterprise in and of itself, with a corporate

We will use General Electric, also known as GE, to illustrate how internal and external factors affect the four functions of management. We will explain how globalization, technology, innovation, diversity, and ethics affect the four functions. We will also explain how delegation can be used to manage the different factors. General Electric has come a long way since its inception in 1876 by Thomas Edison, several of his early business offerings are still a part of General Electric to this day. General Electric has become one of the greatest innovative companies in business

GE managers also note there is no shortage of partners willing to enter into a joint venture with the company. The company has a well-earned reputation for being a good partner. GE is also well known for its innovative management techniques and excellent management development programs. Many partners are happy to team up with GE to get access to this know-how. The knowledge flow goes

Jack Welch’s vision of what GE was possible of gave the company a vision for twenty years while he was the CEO and chairman. He states, “leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.” (Winning, pg 67) He not only allowed for employees to stretch, but demanded it. In teaching workers to stretch Welch knew that workers “may fail. In fact, they probably will fail. But stretching, and stretching the business, is going to improve performance results.” (Jack Welch on Leadership, pg 105) He also states that “only by setting the performance bar high did it become possible to discover people’s capabilities.” Jack Welch’s emphasis on candor and breaking the bureaucracy of modern business separated him from his contemporaries. He excited others of the possibility of being the biggest and best company in the world and rewarding his best employees that shared the values of GE. According to FORTUNE Editorial Director Geoffrey Colvin In "The Ultimate Manager, Welch leads the annals of management history not for anticipating the new world's changes ahead, but for acting on them: "His great achievement is that having seen it, he faced up to the huge, painful changes it demanded, and made them faster and more emphatically than anyone else in business. He led managers into this new world, which we still inhabit, and just as important, he showed business