Hocus-Pocus
Team Project 2
- HRM of GE -
Course : Leadership class
Professor : Pd.D. Dave Jaye
Due Date : 2005. 4. 18
Team : Hocus-Pocus
Chae, Joe 채수근 English Cho, Mark 조성일 Business
Kim, Anica 김정아 Business
Lee, Daniel 이규호 English
● General Electrics
GE is a diversified technology, media and financial services company dedicated to creating products that make life better. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, medical imaging, television programming and plastics, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs more than 340,000 people worldwide.
The company traces its beginnings to Thomas A. Edison, who established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. In 1892, a merger of Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Company created General Electric Company. GE is the only company listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Index today that was also included in the original index in 1896.
● Financial Highlights
2004 Revenues: $152.4 billion.
2004 Earnings: $16.6 billion ($1.59 per share).
2004 Cash Flow from Operating Activities: $15.2 billion
Dividends: $0.22 per share quarterly. Dividends, paid every quarter since 1899, have increased every year since 1975.
12/31/04 Shares Outstanding: 10.586 billion
Number of Share Owners: approximately 5 million
Stock Splits: GE shareowners have approved nine stock splits, most recently a 3-for-1 stock split in April 2000. Shareowners have also approved four 2-for-1 stock splits since 1983. One GE share purchased before 1926 is now worth 4,608 shares.
2004 International Revenues: $71.8 billion (47% of total revenues)
2004 R&D Expenditures: $3.1 billion
2004 Total Assets: $750.3 billion
● Highlights
Resource from WWW.GE.COM
· In Fortune Magazine's 2005 "Global Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked first overall. (February 2005)
· In Fortune Magazine's 2005 "America's Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked second overall. (February 2005)
· GE was ranked first in the ‘Financial Times' 2004 "World's Most Respected Companies Survey" for the seventh consecutive year since the Survey's inception in 1998.
· GE was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index as one of the world's leaders in environmental, social and economic programs.
· In March 2005, GE received the highest corporate governance rating of 10.0 from Governance Metrics International.
· In 2004, Business Week ranked GE the fourth most valuable brand worldwide, after Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM. (August 2004)
· In 2004, GE ranked second on the Forbes 2000 list, a comprehensive ranking of the world's biggest companies, measured by a composite of sales, profits, assets and market value. (April 2004)
· GE ranked ninth on Fortune Magazine's "50 Most Desirable MBA Employers" list. (April 2004)
· The Great Place to Work Institute Europe named two GE business units (Capital Aviation Services, Ireland, and Plastics, Spain) to the 100 Best Workplaces in the EU List. (April 2004)
· GE received the 2004 Catalyst Award for comprehensive initiatives to advance women through their corporate ranks. (March 2004)
●『GE Competitiveness and Human Resource Development』
– from 『Economy Plus』March 2005
GE is evaluated as having one of the best CEO educating centers along with McKinsey in the US. Last January 20th there was a demonstration of the GE leadership program on 120 college students. GE’s foundation of leadership program which is intended for the lower level employees includes leadership models, personal values, communication skills and team work organizing activities. There are no lectures in GE’s leadership program. GE believes that leadership cannot be taught, but learned through various activities for developing human resources. “I am satisfied with the program. I studied business administration but I didn’t know how to put the knowledge to practical use. I could learn practical knowledge through the case-centered programs that GE provided.” One participant said, “They gave me open questions. No correct answer to those questions exists. I would have to find my own way to solve the problems.”
In short, the leadership program of GE is based on participation, debating, and learning by practice.
● Interview with Robert L. Corcoran
- from 『Economy Plus』March 2005
“A Good Teacher of Leadership is a Real Leader”
GE is considered as an organization that grows influential managers. In the center of the consideration there is Crontonville training center. The exact name of it is “John F. Welch Leadership Development Center.”
Robert L. Corcoran, a vice president of central office and a (CLO), Chief Learning Officer, is in charge of this center.
Following conversation is from an interview with him.
Q: What kind of functions is Crotonville performing in GE?
A: First, it is a center where executives are trained on leadership. Second, it functions as a center of changing the culture within GE.
Q: Does it invent new managing techniques?
A: Yes, there are MBO(Management By Objectives), SPP (Strategic Planning Processes), HR Processes, Work-out, CAP (Change Acceleration Process) etc.
Q: Why does GE put great efforts in developing leadership to help the growth of talented people?
A: Without leadership there is only confusion. Furthermore, without decisive leadership, we can only maintain the status quo. We want to continuously innovate and improve. Ordinary people can turn in to great leaders, who go on to accomplishing greatness. We see leadership training as the core strength of GE which leads a culture of excellence.
Q: What disposition should the trainees have to be trained here? What is the criterion of selecting trainees?
A: Even though GE has many courses to train various classes of employees, we make sure to train leaders with top potential. We have verified criterion called “Session C.” We use it to select them and concentrate on training these employees who will be the next generation of leaders for GE.
Q: What type of potential is GE looking for in its future leaders?
A: We look for employees who look outside of the company intently to understand customers, market and competition. They must not rely only on their knowledge about management but on various subjects such as products, service, industry and economy.
Q: What kind of courses does Crotonville have?
A: Simulation, leadership feedback, action leadership and instructors from outside of the center are some of our main courses. We have GE’s high-ranked managers come and teach their know-how to the trainees as well. The uniqueness of GE’s culture is that the instructors are consisted of best members from GE itself. It means that “To be top, you must learn from top.”
Q: What is Action Learning?
A: In order to let the trainees develop new skills, Action Learning is offering them business problems that could happen in reality. It is been extremely effective so far.
Q: Are leaders born or made?
A: A few of them are born, and these people defiantly have a head start. Some things you are just born with but other great leaders are made by developing their abilities.
Q: What is Crotonville’s ultimate goal?
A: The ultimate aim at Crontonville is to keep creating the leaders of next generations who will grow GE bigger than we ever could expect.
Jack Welsh succeeded mainly from his people focus and smart deal-making. In his twenty years as CEO of GE, and the twenty plus that he worked there to earn that assignment, Jack demonstrated a phenomenal adaptiveness and drive that encompassed a daunting range of business skills. He learned that sometimes he needed to operate by using his intuition.
To achieve this people focus which can be translated to leadership training, Jack encouraged his employees to be
◦ impatient
◦ thrive on competition
◦ working at headquarters (after many years in the field)
◦ not afraid to walk away from a deal
◦ hardworking
◦ frank: not superficially friendly
◦ educator/teacher
◦ love people, esp. passionate ones
◦ mentored
◦ share weekend corporate camaraderie
◦ take family vacations
◦ play board and outdoor games w/family
◦ recruit talented people
◦ believe integrity fundamental to competitiveness
◦ be self-confident
Even after leaving GE Jack has tried to encourage his employees to keep practicing some of the following policies.
◦ layoffs - don't put them off
◦ union relations-making and maintaining good relationships
◦ fresh (or borrowed) ideas encouraged
◦ executive recruiting
◦ crisis management (willing to live with ambiguity)
◦ long hours (but too busy to let that bother you)
Last comments: My honest self-appraisal tells me that there is a lot of room to grow yet. Thanks to Jack for telling us what he had to learn by gut instinct, especially how to manage people so that we can pick it up quicker, and perhaps exceed him.
● Interview Questions
1. The first question is related to GE's personnel policy.
There are so many people who want to be employee of GE, so could you tell us what kind of people would you like to select as an employee of GE?
2. Between specialization in jobs and circulation in jobs, which one is more attractive to GE and from which what kind of benefit do you expect?
3. Nowadays we are living in globalization but at the same time we are focusing on localization as well, so do you have some special HRM program which exists only in Korea?
4. To promote employees what kind of incentives do you prepare and what kind of way do you like most?
5. We believe the role of the leader of one organization is very complicated, so could you tell us when you feel satisfied with your position when you feel dissatisfied with your position?
● Team work
This team project came more as a challenge than we had anticipated. Although we have become more familiar with each other and know each other better on a personal level our team found out that it does not always improve team work. Because we had gotten to know each other on a more personal level sometimes we forgot to be considerate and sometimes even took each other for granted. This is not a situation that is out of the norm. We are able to see this in our everyday lives. For example, the air we breathe. Usually we are not thankful for the air we need to survive on a daily bases. But sometimes you come to the awakening and realize without air, us humans could not continue to exist. We had the same experience with our team members. We had grown so comfortable with each other we forgot to stop and encourage each other, compliment each other on doing a great job, cheer each other on, and just keeping each other accountable. We learned a valuable lesson that we are a team and each and every one of us is important and plays a crucial role.
Our team had numerous group meetings to discuss our interview, plan and schedule the interview, do class previews etc. With the upcoming midterm exams and separate after school criteria, all our team members had busy schedules and it was hard to find time to delegate work such as research and reading. There was a time when some team members were a little upset with their workload. But through discussing such feelings everybody was able to contribute a little more to help each other out. Our team members have different strengths and weaknesses. To become an effective team we need to be able to utilize what we have.
As we are studying the Human Resource department of GE, we have learned about leadership, team work and managing people. Like many GE training programs we are trying to put what we have learned into action.
- 12 -
Hocus-Pocus team
hocuspocus.cyworld.com
Joe, Mark, Anica, Daniel
82-10-4521-3650