Leadership Development: GE’s Immelt Reflects on the Company’s HR Structures

The global financial crisis which shook General Electric (GE) and almost destroyed its financial services unit triggered CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt to reevaluate how the conglomerate should shape and measure its leaders. Immelt discusses in detail how he intends to spend the year exploring new ideas, such as “soliciting management suggestions from a broad range of organizations – from Google to China’s Communist Party”. But as far as Immelt is concerned, the main issue is GE’s approach to human capital. He doesn’t think the company needs to retool HR innovations, arguing that GE’s processes are both timeless and adaptable. The article includes information from interviews with more than 50 headhunters and consultants and other executives’ opinions of GE. It comments on GE’s performance review process and famed ranking system for its top and bottom 10 percent, as well as GE’s talent management philosophy. GE is compared to ‘innovator’ companies.
You can access the article online at:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_17/b4175026765571.htm
Diane Brady, “Can GE Still Manage?”, BusinessWeek, 4/25/2010, Issue 4175