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Leadership as a Competitive Advantage: The Evolution of GE’s Growth Values
Jayne Johnson
We all know the importance of aligning our strategic goals for learning and development with those of the organization. Sounds simple enough, right? In practice, however, it can be a challenge. In this chapter, I will share with you the process we follow at General Electric to ensure our company-wide talent management strategy is in lockstep with our learning and development goals.
GE’s talent management strategy has four main components: attract the best talent, develop strong leaders with deep industry and business knowledge, manage expectations for success and accountability of their actions, and retain the leaders who are the future to GE’s continued growth and success. A comprehensive learning and development strategy crosses all four components.
I had the good fortune of working at GE for more than 26 years, the last six of which were at Crotonville, GE’s corporate university. There, I was responsible for the overall strategy of GE’s cornerstone leadership curriculum, serving GE’s top-performing leaders from entry level through early executive. In addition, I managed Crotonville’s Customer Education Team, providing strategic consultative services and training to GE’s customers. As a member of Crotonville’s executive team, I knew our number one priority was to develop world-class global leaders for GE.
Knowing my main objective, the first thing I needed to do was define “world-class global leadership” in the eyes of my key stakeholders, Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE, and his senior leadership team. I will share with you an example of how that was accomplished, but first, let me jump ahead and explain what to do with that agreed-upon definition or desired end state once you have it. Then I’ll come back and fill in the steps as to how we got there.
If you’re a learning professional and someone handed you a list of attributes or characteristics that your stakeholders considered important for effective leadership at your company, you might think you’re home free. However, the next step is unfortunately the one that is often overlooked, and without it no learning strategy can be successful. That step is to translate those attributes into behavioral terms. What would it look or sound like if your leaders displayed these specific behaviors? Let’s pick a simple example. If your leadership team thinks “good communication” is an important characteristic for successful leadership, you need to gain agreement on what “good communication” looks like. Does it mean having leaders who can be effective coaches for their direct reports, or leaders who can develop and present a strategic point of view at an executive board meeting? These two potential “definitions” are quite different, and it’s important that you gain agreement with your stakeholders on this next level of detail before proceeding further.
Your next step is to frame the skill level needed for your different audiences. For example, the expectations of a “good communicator” for a new manager of individual contributors are probably significantly different than for a leader of a business or function. The new manager has to be proficient enough to perform certain tasks himself or herself, such as creating a vision and communicating that vision to the team, while a leader of a business has to create the vision for the organization AND teach his or her managers how to do the same for their respective teams. The senior leader has to know not only how to “do” but also how to “teach.” So the level of sophistication is quite different, not only in terms of scale but also in terms of ability.
Once you have the skills and skill levels defined and agreed upon by your key stakeholders, then it’s simply a matter of creating learning experiences to deliver on those expectations. Because this chapter is not a lesson in instructional design principles, I won’t go into details; I’ll assume you know how to do this already or have a resource to help you with that. What I’d like to share now is an example of this process unfolding at GE. I will share with you the steps we took over the past five years or so to align the strategic goals of learning and development with the evolution of GE’s Growth Values.
The Leaders Success Project
I need to go back to 2001 to set the context for this example. That was when Jeff Immelt became chairman and CEO for GE. Shortly after his appointment, he commissioned a project to identify what made some GE leaders succeed while others failed and the associated implications for our leadership development strategy. This project was known as the Leaders Success Project. Once completed, the results became our road map for designing and developing powerful learning opportunities for GE leaders at Crotonville.
The Leaders Success Project started with interviews with 140 senior leaders in the company, or approximately 20 percent of the population. We asked each a series of questions with the purpose of identifying the foundational experiences and skills supporting their success. Each person was also assessed against leadership competencies by his or her direct manager and human resources leader. The results of those interviews and assessments enabled us to construct a career profile for each person. We identified success factors and career derailers. From the pool of 140 leaders, we were able to identify common themes such as how many GE senior leaders
had graduate degrees
We also determined the average number of cross-business and cross-functional roles completed by each leader and the average number of years it took for them to reach significant levels of responsibility within the company, like running a business unit.
These common experiences led us to the development of a list of success factors that contributed to the achievements of many GE leaders over the past 100 years, seen in figure 15-1. Some of these factors we consider to be fundamental, and others are key differentiators. The fundamentals are thought of as an “entry ticket.” Without it, you won’t get far in the leadership ranks. Integrity is at the top of that list. At GE, everyone knows “one strike and you’re out”—no exceptions. Similarly, you have to be intelligent, have strong business acumen, and know how to get things done. GE is a results-driven company, and we move fast. We expect the same of our leaders. Another foundational expectation is that our leaders are change agents. Not only do they need to know how to implement technical changes but probably more important is the people side of change. How do you get people to buy in and support your change efforts so that the changes are sustained for years to come? At GE, we have a process called the Change Acceleration Process that reinforces just that—it’s the people side of change that can make or break a new change initiative. The last fundamental factor we identified was proficiency with Six Sigma. This ensures a process improvement mindset that is efficient and puts the customer first.
In addition to these six common elements essential for success, another set of factors or “differentiators” were prevalent in our most successful leaders and separated them from the pack. The first one was being an effective problem solver. We encounter problems every day, and a strong leader is resourceful and creative in generating potential solutions.
Figure 15-1. GE Success Factors . . . 100 Years of Great Leaders
| Fundamentals | Differentiators |
| Integrity Execution Business acumen Change agent Intelligence Six Sigma |
Problem solver—trade-offs, resourceful, creative Courageous—pushes back, takes risks, gutsy Motivator—energizes the team, passionate Learner—does not make same mistake twice Manages the matrix—able to sell ideas Effective communicator—verbal, written, presence Tenacity—optimistic, faces reality, committed |
Second, a leader needs to be courageous. He or she is self-confident in taking risks and pushing back respectfully for something they believe in. How many times have you been in a meeting where someone proposes an idea, and someone else shoots it down within seconds? Too many people simply give up at that point and accept criticism without attempting to propose a counterargument or lead a healthy debate regarding their position. If you believe in your idea, then you owe it to yourself to stand up for the idea and push back, but always doing so in a respectful manner. The third differentiator we found among our most effective leaders was being a strong motivator. They were passionate and able to channel that passion into motivating their team. Next, they were life-long learners. These are the people always looking to learn from their experiences, requesting feedback, and acting on that feedback. Many people do the first part, the asking for feedback. But only the successful few follow through to change their behavior or approach based on the feedback received. Those are the leaders to watch and learn from. Managing the matrix was the next differentiator. Being able to get people to help you or believe in your idea when they don’t work directly for you requires the ability to influence without positional power. These leaders know who their key stakeholders are and develop a strategy to get them on board early in the process. The next factor, being a strong communicator, should come as no surprise. In fact, this could be considered a precursor to many of these other attributes. How can you be a strong motivator if you don’t have the communication skills to articulate the vision, and how can you manage the matrix if you don’t know how to sell your ideas, which is all about communication? Last, a strong leader needs tenacity. He or she needs to be realistic and optimistic simultaneously. Nobody wants to work for a leader who goes around in rose-colored glasses, painting an unrealistic picture. We need to be realistic, but to do that, we need to know the enemy we’re fighting. And it helps if we think we have a chance to win so we don’t give up. Tenacious leaders stay committed and maintain a positive outlook toward what they believe in.
From this list of fundamentals and key differentiators was born the most valuable outcome from the Leaders Success Project—the leadership framework known as GE’s Growth Values (see figure 15-2). These values represent the behaviors Jeff wants in his leadership team, and they are the ones we believe will help GE reach our aggressive growth targets.
There are five GE growth values. First, leaders need to have an external focus, defining success in market and industry terms. Second, GE growth leaders need to be clear thinkers with the ability to simplify strategy into specific actions and to make tough decisions quickly and efficiently. Next, it’s important to have imagination and the courage to take risks on people and ideas. The fourth growth value is inclusiveness, having the ability to connect with your team and build loyalty so you get the best effort from everyone. The fifth and last growth value is expertise. Expertise is all about using depth as a source of confidence to drive change in a specific function or domain.
Figure 15-2. GE’s Growth Values
| External Focus |  |
Defines success through the customer's eyes In tune with industry dynamics; sees around corners |
| Clear Thinker |  |
Seeks simple solutions to complex problems; decisiv Focus; communicates clear and consistent priorities |
| Imagination |  |
Generates new and creative ideas; open to change Resourceful; displays courage and tenacity |
| Inclusiveness |  |
Teamwork; respects others' ideas and contributions Creates excitement and drives engagement |
| Expertise |  |
Domain depth; credibility built from experience Continuously develops self; loves learning |
| Always With Unyielding Integrity |
|---|
Jeff had his top 600 leaders assessed in the growth values to establish a baseline of where we stood as an organization. Each leader was rated red, yellow, or green for each trait, and everyone needed at least one red so we could identify our weak links. It turned out that inclusiveness and imagination rated the lowest across the board. These results then became our road map for everything we did at Crotonville. Not only did we develop curricula for the specifics around these skills, but we also integrated growth values into every leadership course. All our leaders were motivated to participate in these programs because they knew learning and demonstrating the values was a critical criteria for success and it was being modeled from the top of the organization.
I hope this example has helped to put in context the importance of aligning your learning and development strategy with that of the organization and offering a suggestion for how you could introduce a similar process in your own organization. GE understands the importance of leadership development, as do many companies these days. As learning professionals, it’s our responsibility to ensure we integrate the key priorities of the organization into everything we do every day. That’s how we add value and earn respect for the function of learning and development in today’s business world.
About the Author
Jayne Johnson joined Deloitte Services LP in October 2010 as chief learning officer, Leadership Development & Succession. In this new role, she oversees customized learning at the firm’s new Deloitte University (DU) for high-potential partners and principals. Prior to Deloitte, Jayne spent 26 years at GE, the last six of which were at GE’s John F. Welch Centre, also known as Crotonville. During her tenure at Crotonville, she was responsible for the overall strategy of GE’s comprehensive cornerstone leadership curriculum, serving GE’s top-performing leaders from entry level through early executive. In addition, Jayne managed Crotonville’s Customer Education Team, providing strategic consultative services and training to GE’s customers.
Jayne began her career at GE on the Information Management Leadership Program (IMLP), one of the company’s renowned entry-level leadership programs. She transitioned into L&D within her first 10 years and held various leadership roles over the years. Today, she combines her passion for life-long learning with her technology background to help leaders reach the next level of their professional development capabilities. Her expertise includes leadership development, executive assessments and coaching, employer of choice initiatives, and change management.