Jeff Immelt on Business

Found out some note on my notebook when I listened to Jeff Immelt’s speech during a meeting. Just some random notes.

Big vs Small

• Credibility
• Big + Fast always beat small + fast
• Love and inspire people, but GE is not for everyone
• Mistakes we still make
• Allow bureaucracy to win - too process based
• Too intenal/too American - lose love of customers
• Confuse current success with future position
• Metrics that reward the wrong behavior
• Play small Leadership
• I have stayed at GE for 25 years so that I could be in the front seat of history
• Zoom in, zoom out…
• “I don’t believe in professional management”.
• 4-5 things deep dive
• Good managers show interest…
• These is no substance of experience
• Build something that last is beautiful Innovation
• 10 years ago, everyone was trained by processes, like six-sigma. Now we are all about innovation
• People has to be the core DNA of the company
• You cannot just come to work and chop wood
• You have to drive change and develop other leaders Making deicisions and Communication
• Make decision fast, faster and faster, for small companies, and large companies!
• Decision cycle time
• How the organization can be quicker
• Clarity of community
• Drive the speed
• Decisive = clearly Yes or No
• Clarify is key
• When we go, we go
• Make a very clear call On Exit
• Someone can run the business better than us, it is time to exit
• A company that makes money from chaos.
• In a good company, you always has to prioritize very hard
• GE is all about system, that is tough to match