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	Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Cultivating a Culture of Business Achievement    (on business) General Electric is the world's most valuable company.  As a company with dozens of different kinds of businesses employing a couple of hundreds of thousands of people, it nevertheless maintains a nimbleness and aggressiveness rarely seen in most big companies. This, they say, is due to the culture of business achievement that is the hallmark of the company.  What it is focused in order to achieve its business goals is to make sure that executives drive the "right behavior"all across the company. It is so strong that executives know instantly that if they are handling a business that is not experiencing double-digit growth, then they won't feel good, and they get a sense that they're not doing it right.  It is said that the first few years of Jeff Immelt's reign after succeeding Jack Welch, he sold off over $20 billion worth of unwanted business, and bought another $60 billion worth -- with the overriding goal of getting rid of the wrong businesses , while focusing on retaining those with possible strong growth, and on the businesses that they possibly can dominate. Executives know that this strong cultural ethos puts a lot of strain, and creates a lot of resentment, especially on those that doesn't fit in.  It also needs a lot of training and development.  It is so strong, that it is even said that it transcends national culture -- and that whether you go into a GE company that is in the plastics business in Tokyo, or one in medical field in midwestern United States, you can see that foremost, it has the same performance-driven culture, and you see people that "is full of energy, people that focuses on running faster than those ahead of them". According to one executive, you think of a company who wants to win, and who all have the same passion to do what it takes to be successful, and multiply that by a hundred thousand, and that is the power of GE.   10:09:02 AM     comment []   trackback []