How GE Gives Leaders Time to Mentor and Reflect

 

It is 6:00 a.m. David is starting his first day as the "leader in residence" at Crotonville, GE's global leadership institute, with a jog around the running trail with a couple of twenty-somethings who are half his age and might be five levels below him on an org chart. Their run is companionable; their discussion, candid. It is a serendipitous moment of connection that the three will always share.

David is one of our top executives, and he has stepped out of his day job as the head of a major GE business to make another kind of investment in the future of the company: He will spend this entire week teaching, coaching, mentoring, and learning with about 250 participants — high-performing managers and individual contributors who have come to campus from around the world. David and others who rotate through the position are helping to achieve the purpose of Crotonville: to inspire, connect, and develop GE's talent.

The leader in residence position epitomizes our belief that a great leader is a great learner. It models both our cultural value of expertise, which encourages a deep knowledge base as well as a passion to develop others, and the GE leadership philosophy, which holds that when one person grows we all grow, and together, we all rise. And it allows David and other senior managers to take the time to reflect on their own leadership styles — an opportunity that they rarely get in the regular rhythm of their jobs.

After his run, David rushes off to a breakfast meeting where he talks to a group of first-time managers. At 8:30, he attends a session on the neuroscience of success with a group of mid-career high-performers. At 10:30, he hosts one-on-one coaching sessions, each about 30 minutes long. In the afternoon, he teaches a class on values, offering his take on the blueprint for leadership at GE. He then conducts "speed coaching" sessions with about 10 early career leaders:  intense, five-minute discussions centered on a few focus areas such as personal brand and navigating the organizational matrix. By late afternoon, he is involved in brainstorming about next year's curriculum, providing the faculty with a unique view into future business requirements. He tops off the evening with a live video meeting on customer focus with a group of leaders in a training program in Singapore. At the end of the day, he heads to the campus bar, where he spends the next hour chatting with all the participants.

Launched in 2010, the Leader in Residence program is emblematic of a broader shift from prescriptive to collaborative learning taking place at Crotonville and elsewhere. In a complex environment, learning comes from a combination of discovery, dialogue, experience, reflection, and application. At Crotonville, we bring people from all over the world and from different businesses and contexts. We have to create the opportunity for each person to teach and learn, simultaneously, enhancing everyone's perspective. David, like other leaders, uses this as a listening post — a venue to capture what's happening around the company and the world in an encapsulated way…with Crotonville providing the opportunity to listen, test, validate, and absorb on the one hand, and to share, push, elaborate, and support the students on the other.

In all, the program has enabled some 75 of our top leaders and thousands of participants to connect on a human level and to reflect on work, self, and career in a way that would never be possible in either a traditional classroom or office setting. By giving leaders access to deeper levels across the organization, and, in turn, providing participants access to senior leadership, we have created greater cohesiveness throughout the company. We have never had a problem filling out classes even during the most trying of times. Based on the success of the program, as measured through participantsurveys and feedback, we recently launched a global version (74% of Crotonville experiences are delivered outside the United States currently).

In fostering a learning culture and deepening connections among leaders at all levels, we have found that we can drive better outcomes that accelerate individual growth and strengthen the talent pipeline.

 

 

Raghu Krishnamoorthy is GE's vice president of executive development and chief learning officer.

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