Session 2B: Positioning Your Organization for the Future – Jeffrey Immelt

2014-08-14 11:59 AM – Interviewed by Bill Hybels

• How do you decide to empower? - “when it is the most important thing the company is working on, you don’t delegate it”
• this protects your team
• the leader has experience
• have to “go with your gut”
• “there’s never been any moment where any job has been beneath me”
• When became self aware as leader? - grew up participating in athletics which gave a chance to be accountable to self and team
• “never lost sight of who I wanted to be”
• “never feared accountability”
• How did you differentiate self in big company? - had fun jobs and loved the people
• “It was always about the work and not the career” Your peers determine how far you go”
• Feelings when in a challenging assignment feelings? - People learn a lot about leaders in a crisis
• How long in CEO before 9/11 crisis? - started 9/7
• we live in a more volatile time now
• the best leaders keep the company safe and then go forward
• people want to know what to be working on and where the company is going
• GE has a leadership development university - $1 billion in leadership development
• “Leadership has a shelf life” – “you need to constantly be tuning your leadership”
• takes away the layers
• brings oneness
• What about when people leave? - “leave fear out of the workplace”
• “you want people to be on fire when they come to work”
• “we want people to live their dreams”
• GE is about the institution…it is not about any one individual
• When you see “x” quality in someone? Positive OR Concern - Willingness to stand apart. Willingness to buck the system. – “You want someone who understands the tapestry, questions authority, drives change”
• Excuses turn everybody off
• Hardest person you’ve ever had to fire? - Watch for individuals who don’t quite fit with the team
• “You are in the business of giving self-confidence” “When you see someone losing confidence in themselves you have to ask them to leave”
• Diversity? - “If you believe in talent and meritocracy, then all people can get ahead”
• The best ideas should win
• Lack of diversity shows that you don’t believe in a meritocracy
• Laser-like focus on best people and the best ideas
• Serving on a task force under Obama? - “A confident society is a competitive society”
• Simplification? - We live in a complicated society
• 4 ideas - less management
• market rules become hyper-competitive
• Test & Learn quickly
• Use internet to connect organization, be transparent, and empower
• be willing to throw out the old
• Succession plan? - work with the Board as a team
• the matters of corporate governance can/should be less public
• Refusing to take a bonus for 2 years? - “was a way to be accountable for what was happening in the company at the time”
• the constituency you play to the most is your own team
• “over time you might question my decisions but you will never question my intentions”
• Work ethic? - “play to win and no one will out work us”
• What would you hope to experience in a church? - “leadership is an intense journey into yourself”
• ability to sit for an hour, be at peace, and hear someone else talk…that is priceless

Categories: Leadership · Originally published on stephen.braunius.org