What went wrong at GE and what can we learn from it?

I recently finished reading two books about GE – Hot Seat by Jeff Immelt (2021) and Lights Out by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann (2020). Both had been in my reading list for a while and finally got to it.

I spent 11 years working at 通用电气 where I went from an IT contractor (my first ever job) to becoming an Executive at the age of 30. I was extremely curious to know both sides of the story – from two outsiders that knew a lot about GE and had several dozen interviews with current and past employees and from Jeff who led the company for 16 out of the 35 years that spent at GE. ??

Let me start by saying that I have a strong bias here – I loved GE and still do. I am extremely grateful to them as I had the opportunity to learn and work side to side to whom I consider some of the most intelligent business, engineers, and tech people in the world. I got the chance to work in all the GE business units in several countries during my tenure there. I got hundreds of hours’ worth of training with world class professors, mentors, and leaders. Lastly and probably most important, I lost track of how many friends “GE weddings” I have attended … I made lifelong friends!

So, what went wrong? Why its market value and share price are only a fraction of what they used to be? Why thousands of talented people are no longer with the company? Why is it no longer listed in the Dow Jones index? Why is it splitting to three different companies?

After reading the two books that talk about the same events but with a different perspective, in my opinion it was a combination of many complex events and situations that did not start nor ended with Jeff at the helm. Some of the things that stuck with me are:

• Speaking up – so many senior leaders and board members could have had a bigger role and push back “louder” if they didn’t agree with a decision.
• Too many “GE wide/transformational initiatives” going on at the same time. Difficult to focus for everyone.
• Having a CEO for 16 years and a 5-year succession plan could seem as “too much”. ?
• On the Digital side, partnering with a strong technological player since the beginning instead of trying to build all those capabilities from scratch.
• Splitting the Chairman of the board role from the CEO could have helped.
• Simply, bad luck. The timing of some of the events that no one could have seen coming – black swans. 9/11 just to give an example.

In a company with more than 300,000 people (approximately 200 of them, GE Officers), a ~30 people Board of Directors, a big-four auditing firm you simply can’t blame the CEO for what went wrong and call it a day.

Rather than focusing only on what went wrong, something that both books addressed in detail. I want to highlight a few principles and phrases from the lessons learned that resonated with me:

• Self-introspection – different from a lot of business books, Jeff recognizes several times where he made a mistake with a significant negative impact to the organization.
• You need not only to be approachable as a leader, but you also need to “look” approachable. I feel sometimes strong leaders confuse dissent with disloyalty.
• Questions to combat inefficiencies and bureaucracy – who do you work for? More than one person, it is a bad sign. How are you measured? If you don’t understand the metrics or you have more than 3, bad sign. Where do you live? You live in London but are responsible for Africa, bad sign.
• Dealing with false expectations. "I (Jeff) became CEO of a Company where perception didn't equal reality". How to replace the CEO of the century? (Jack Welch)
• Just as the sports world, no matter how much talent and how much you practice/train, there is always a “luck” component that is extremely critical to success.
• If you feel very strongly about something you need to act/speak up no matter what.
• Being fired – no matter what your position is. Whether you have 6 months in the company or 35 years like Jeff will hurt … will hurt a lot.

By no means I′d call myself an expert or a know it all about GE. My intent was just to gather my thoughts and express what I thought after reading the books and spending 11 years as a GE employee.

Just as Jeff, I will always cheer for GE success! Although, I probably will not get the GE meatball logo tattooed on my hip.?