Ge Talent Machine

In the history of corporations few companies have demonstrated the staying power and tenacity as General Electric (GE.). Of the companies that originally appeared when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rolled out in 1896 only GE is still doing business today. (General Electric, 2007) GE’s 125 year run has not been spotless. GE, like any long lasting organization, has had many ups and downs. GE’s past has at times been glorious and at other times has been dark and manipulative.

When it comes to articulating one company that has been excellent in aligning human capital with strategy is GE. T-Mobile can find an excellent example of GE’s six principles identified as the key to their success. These include: Aligning recruiting efforts with strategy; making sure the company’s talent management practices fit with each other; making deliberate effort to embed corporate culture into talent management processes such as hiring methods and leadership development; getting involvement by managers at all levels, including the CEO; Figuring out the best balance of the company’s global and local needs; and Finding ways to differentiate the company from its competitors (Brokaw, 2012). According to CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the company’s talent management system is its most powerful implementation too.

Jack Welch joined General Electric (GE) at age of 24 and he worked all the way up until becoming CEO at the age of 45. He has been able to turn GE into one of the most successful enterprises worldwide. In order to do that, he adopted a really different approach from the other business leaders; indeed, he focused on the development of human abilities; this process allowed him to drive a change through a big organization as GE (Francis, 2014). First of all, he believes that the key element to

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

Q : 2 Is Immelt betting on the right things to drive growth in GE ? Can he hope to change a company whose growth was driven by acquisitions and productivity improvement into an organic growth company dependent on innovation, entrepreneurship and risk taking particularly in such a large complex performance driven corporation?

A variety of leadership characteristics, traits, and behaviors of the chosen leaders are examined especially as designed during the reign of the two CEOs. An analysis of the reign of both Jack Welch Period (1981–2001) and Jeff Immelt (2001-2008) and their sweeping radical changes into the organizational culture and leadership provide an over view in relation to the management of the change process. The changes were at the heart of a magnificent transformation of the strategy of GE. The strategies employed triggered enhanced and more efficient performance on the managerial level as well as internal operations, (Aghion, & Durlauf, 2005).

Executives who left General Electric, widely considered to be an incubator of superior management talent, were less likely to succeed outside the company if they took jobs at places that were unlike GE, according to a 2006 study from researchers at Harvard Business School.

Many CEOs are naturally inclined and accountable for overseeing the day-to-day operations of their respective firms. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but in the years ahead, one of a circle’s greater competitive increase will be its cleverness to attract, develop, excite and retain endowment. Responsibility for conduct that ability is already being assumed by some CEOs, who, these co-authors and McKinsey consultants Saw, are immovable advent to the realization that their respective organizations are current to have to improve their talent contrivance plot. In this stipulate, which is based on their recently announce book, The War for Talent, the co-creator review the state of talent management as practiced by 13,000 managers. While

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

Talent management is a common term in corporate leadership which refers to a process that covers a key aspect of an employee’s life cycle. The cycle consists of a selection of development, succession and performance management for the purpose of ensuring that an organization has sufficient number of employees in terms of quantity and quality. This critical process ensures that an organization has enough people in place to meet their current and future business priorities. Talent management reflects an organizations commitment to hire, manage and retain talented work force, for the purpose of improving employee’s productivity and customer satisfaction. It is a perfect tool for success and the adoption of efficient talent management practices is the cause of advancement in some of the world’s leading corporations. One particular example is the bank of America.

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?

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

Within this new business environment that GE was facing, customers needs, wants and expectations of what products can offer them is forever changing. Immelt saw and understood this from the amount of time spent with customers, and implemented this idea within GE through the IT

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

1. How difficult was the task facing Immelt assuming the CEO role in 2001? What imperatives where there to change? What incentives to maintain the past?