Research Paper on "Management at General Electric"

Research Paper 6 pages (2060 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

GE, Crotonville.

General Eletcric

General Electric Crotonville

At the beginning of 1981, Jack Welch was not recognized as one of the adored CEOs globally. Jack Welch joined General Electric (GE) fresh from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign around 1960 and was a simple chemical engineer who was earning an annual salary of about $10,500. A number of years after he took over the mantle and he was just grounding himself as the Chairman as well as the CEO of General Electric. This is when Jack began to restructure the organization with his style that was seen as confrontational.

He started by lying off a big number of employees as part of the restructuring and with this the transformation of General Electric was evident. Not only the transformation, but Jack also came up with decisions that were far reaching and that they would end up influencing his entire reign. Jack decided to come up with a world class internal school of business which was mainly called Crotonville, the name came purposely for its site, it was situated in a small town of the similar name in the New York environs north of Manhattan. Crotonville is currently an indispensable portion of Jack's legacy, however, Crotonville did not start up in the same manner as it was started by Jack's incumbent CEO Ralph Cordiner around 1956. It was situated not far away from the notorious Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y. (Welch, Jack, 2001)

As Jack elaborates, a big number of managers from General Electric get their training on how to manage their operation by means of profit-and-loss responsibility and this was sustainable for a good period of time. Jack further uploads the tutors at Crotonville for having based their courses purely on GE's Blue Books, whose content was full of do's and don'ts. In the early days, Plan Organize Integrate Measure doctrines that existed in the so called Blue Books were more of commandments. As soon as decentralization stabilized, Crotonville was seen more as a forum for conveying technical instruction as compared to leadership development training. (Welch, Jack, 2001)

The moment Jack was assuming power at General Electric, Crotonville was never refereed as a nonpareil proving institution for decision-making talent. Anyone was entitled to signing up for these programs even those who Jack termed as tired individuals looking for final reward. He had another bugaboo in relation to Crotonville, founded on a particular week long marketing class he undertook towards the end of 1960, he recalled on how accommodation were. As he puts it, managers were living in barren quarters and he was of the idea that they required to make their own people and the clients who join Crotonville feel the value by so feeling as if they are engaging with a world class institution.

This made Jack to straight away start shaking things up at the institution whose convectional ways had brought about torpor as well as contentment. It took less than a month after Jack took over the office, when he decided to contact Jim Baughman, who happens to be his former professor as well as a focal person who was in charge of Crotonville, purposely to inform him on how they were going to go about making changes in the organization, he added the voice on how he intended to make Crotonville part of this big transformation. What Jack Welch had in mind tuned out to be how Crotonville would become the driving force behind his agenda out to main executives. Jack revealed on how they were undergoing radical changes, citing on how they have turned to an overstuffed bureaucracy and this is what pushed him to downsizing. Expounding on why he choose Crotonville as the vehicle to carry through the reform, he states that the downsizing was the main reason and that they required a place for people to assemble and be able to get information first hand. It was used to bring out the reason for the transformation and where they were headed not forgetting the company's values as well as mission. The above view is in line with the origin on the Crotonville.

Jack Welch was strongly convinced that Crotonville needed a total reformed faculty, curriculum as well as the atmosphere. His foremost action was to put in place a physical plant in which he committed about $50 million to revolutionize Crotonville over a period that could be estimated as a decade. A number of areas were touched including new residential center, a pit, a properly lit multilevel classroom center as well as a helipad; this could ease the whizzing in from the corporate headquarters. It is proper to acknowledge the critics which came as a result of the remake over of Crotonville.

Now shifting focus on General Electric Corporation (GE). This is one institution that has a very long history and it cannot be termed as a new PC maker or a modern firm either. Formed in 1990s, the company had almost 350,000 workers. In terms of market capitalization, GE is said to be the most in NYSE, which means this firm is nothing but a real market player in the United States, although the company never shown some big performance in the beginning of 1980s. It is then very clear that Jack Welch the CEO showed some exceptional leadership which was believed to be strong and founded on core values (Vision and mission) of the company. Among the concepts that Jack introduced is Team GE.

During the depression in 1981, jack took the mantle of power as CEO in this company. At this time, General Electric had undergone through a rough and poor performance business wise for the reason that Japanese firms were truly throwing heavy competition. Jack then acknowledged the significance of enhancing productivity for the purpose of rebuilding competitive power; he quickly rolled out a pair of fundamental strategies. He further came up with hardware as well as software revolutions founded on the two strategies. It is important to note that he moved two revolutions simultaneously and he picked and focused on a precise industry as portion of the hardware revolution. As the revolution was continuing, he noted that a huge number of institutional hierarchies as well as HQ's staff had troubled a section of entrepreneurial talent. These made him come up with a decision to absolutely slash the said hierarchy and lessen HQ's staff.

As the Hardware revolution was on, he also brought about the software revolution, in which he decided to assign workers' power as well as internal resources. These was followed by introduction of the leadership training courses for the purpose of educating entrepreneurial as well as new leaders in Crotonville with skills. He further brought about the concept of WORK-OUT within the General Electric. This concept is basically a unique meeting in which workers share a range of problems amongst them. The concept revived entrepreneurial behavior which paved way for workers to generate new ideas at the same time work independently.

At this point Jack's concept and revolution strategies had three significant purposes, these are developing plans for restructuring as per the basic strategy. It is believed that easy and plain concept is easily absorbed and understood by the workers making it easy for them to implement. Another one is enabling workers to acknowledge and embrace the importance of restructuring through power delegation as well as access to information by the workers, this assist the workers to learn how to undertake their responsibilities independently. (Slater, Robert, 1998) it is evident that Jack Welch did take his humble time in helping workers change their perception in terms of their business activities. For instance, many Japanese executives believe that there is a need to make workers comprehend the inevitability of change. The big question remains how many of these executives are in a position to handle the time required reform the workers' mind set. Firms in Japan tend to lay a lot of emphasizes in relation to the hardware revolution and give little concentration to the software bit. The final purpose is to nurture future entrepreneurial leaders. The education to entrepreneurial leaders was aimed at creating an institutional structure that is geared towards the changing environment. His ultimate goal was to make every employee act and think like a CEO, to understand and respond to change quickly. Jack did impact leadership skills to his workers at every level.

The General Electric's business performance got better and this was purposely in relation to 1981 strategies brought about by Jack. A distinctive case of the new business strategy depends on one's ability to bundling products as well as service. As it stands, Jack's current management at General Electric is principally based in four simple initiatives namely Six Sigma, e-business, Product Service as well as Global. Six Sigma came as a package in software revolution and it is a quality upgrading procedure by best practice. Jack noted how group action worked on corporate culture the moment he unveiled work-out and targeted upgrading… READ MORE

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