Before Jack Welch stepped up into corporate office position, the world-famous corporation was on its route for imminent crisis which was barely noticed by anyone. As a result, he decided the company needed a change to combat economic and competitive challenges of the market place. With his various strategies regarding business leadership, he has led the company into salient and radical revolution of corporate restructuring, with the goal of transforming GE into a global leader for benchmarking and achieving maximized productivity and labor efficiency. His tactics for restructuring included purchases and sales of business units, moving away from bureaucratic culture and structure to one of openness and flexibility, removing unnecessary layers of middle-management and laying off thousands of employees and creating new rewards and recognition system. The result was that in 1991Welch anticipated to receive 5 dollars in sales for every dollar of working capital invested in 1991 thus making it one of the most profitable firms in America. However such dramatic undertakings created for Jack Welch challenges due to internal resistances stemming from cultural and personal values and beliefs.
There were a number of issues that I have come across when reading this article. Many of the concerns facing GE originated from bureaucratic structure of the company that was present in the organization since its establishment. Jack Welch, when elected CEO, saw that routine loads of paperwork, prolonged procedures of decision making and a centralized, rigid hierarchy no longer were effective for the company. Resources and human capital were not utilized efficiently and he immediately set on the path of organizational restruct...
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...n people. He might make decisions that will be contrary to what employees expect from their job positions, such as the decision to reward only the brightest workers. This might create dissatisfaction among personnel with the conditions of work, causing some people to abandon GE. Jack should analyze and evaluate each decision very scrupulously making sure that it is compliant with employees' expectations as well as his goal in metamorphosing GE.
For change to be effective, CEO should act immediately to instill his values and visions among employees of the company to help them understand and support this radical revolution'. Employees need to "understand the why, then they are more likely to accept the what". Creating an open collaborative workplace where everyone's opinion is welcome is the key to successfully achieving a truly boundary-less company.
When Jim Kilts showed up at Gillette in 2001, the first outsider to run the Boston-based company in more than 70 years, he found a business with great brands losing market share. Its acquisitions of Duracell and Braun were not delivering. Sales and earnings were flat, the company had missed its earnings estimates for 15 straight quarters, the stock had plummeted, and Wall Street had lost patience. Yet two-thirds of the top managers were getting top ratings. People were being rewarded for effort; performance, under Mr. Kilts regime, became the new measure.
...isky for GE to lose their investments. In Welch’s period, it was less risky to lose investment as he really concerned about shareholders. Later, Jack admitted that shareholder value idea is insane and GE should more concerned about management and employees back then. He revealed that doing business in 1990s was different with current business conditions.
General Motors became a “centralized organization, so decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of top-level managers, and little authority is delegated to lower levels” (Ferrell et al., 2015, p. 199). Centralized organizations have little upward communication and top-level manager may not be aware of problems and unethical activities. According to Ferrell et al., (2015), it has been noted that “centralized organization may exert influence on their employees because they have a central core of policies and codes of ethical conduct” (p. 201). Conversely, to survive at GM employees praised the CEO intelligence and carried out their orders by keeping a low profile, and never made waves. GM rewarded employees who followed the old traditional ways and those that challenged their thinking lost promotion opportunities or their jobs. However, General Motors experienced conflict between corporate management responsibility and social responsibility. Consequently, General Motors “attempted to implement a new mentality upon its management in a short period of time” (Goussak, Webber, & Ser, 2012, p. 49) by changing the company’s environment, but
General Motors is a long established corporation, which has had a profound affect on the American people and the American economy. The corporation has prided themselves on producing automobiles at the lowest cost, while remaining a style leader of the industry. Bankruptcy with a government buy out in 2009 caused reorganization, a battle to transform, reinventing a new GM corporate culture. In 2014, Generals Motors topped the list as one of the nine most damaged brands. What caused General Motors to get such a tarnished reputation, was it a scandal-laden culture and mismanagement, putting profit over safety with massive cover-ups, or a combination of both?
1. How was Lincoln able to grow and prosper for so long in such a difficult commodity industry that forced out other giants such as General Electric, Westinghouse and BOC? What is the source of Lincoln’s outstanding and enduring success?
In John Kotter’s article, the first error mentioned I believe is one of the most important of all the steps. Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency is a very common error. Without this, a company usually has no idea how it has already started the failure process. In the reference to the NEWC, Gregory Peck’s character Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgenson is the benevolent and folksy leader who is very near and dear to the small Rhode Island company. He is in a sense the hometown hero. Even his nickname, Jorgy, shows the affection that the workers established and personal relationship they with their boss. From his speech, it is clear that he and everyone else knew NEWC was in trouble financially. During Jorgenson’s appeal to the shareholder, he spoke as a friend and not as the leader of the company.
As an emerging leader whose desire is to see progress in his/her organization change is inevitable and necessary. Although change is an important component of moving forward and growing a lot of people resist change, this resistance can be contributed to our fear of the unknown which is what change represent to many people. Hence, when it comes to implementing change it would be best to start off by recognizing and identify what needs to be change ad how to bring about that change. You can’t convince others to go on a journey if you are not aware where you are going.
General Electric Corporation is a multi-billion dollar conglomerate founded in 1892. The company was founded in Schenectady, New York to capitalize on the patents of Thomas Edison and the use of electric power through generation and distribution. Now a blue chip publicly traded company that has branched out beyond its core into arenas such as aircraft engineering, television, and home appliances to name a few. Over the years the corporation has been through different management models that have brought innovation in many forms that have allowed them to be envied by companies around the world. Despite great success since its conception, like many companies who can withstand the test of times, it’s natural for them to become self-absorbed, which can have a negative impact on the company structure as a whole. Coming across someone like Jack Welch who can think out of the box and in a manner that doesn’t strain the resources of the company but expands the thinking of the company as a collective unit is needed to continue the legacy of innovation in all aspects of business.
3. The contributing factors to their ineffectiveness were poor planning and leadership. The company grew to quickly. In their desire to grow and expand, the company’s senior management did not establish and follow ethical practices that would sustain the company. Controls were not established in key places, such as, accounting practices and principles. Senior management failed to appropriately manage the activities of lower level managers and set a bad example.
Mr. Olds had a management style of controlling and strategy. He knew what needed to be done and he did it. He knew when to start merger and acquiring early in the game he established General Motors (general Motors ,2014). His vision and management style gave him the outcome that he was seeking
In conclusion, we have realized the significance of including just the netted plan assets and the PBO and not including the full amount of the plan assets and the PBO on the balance sheet. This type of accounting flexibility by the FASB helps companies and ultimately hurts investors who are unaware of the consequences. Usually, the estimated PBO and plan assets are very large in relation to the debt and equity capitalization of the company. The financial situation is therefore skewed and is not represented correctly on the company’s balance sheet which then in turn distorts financial ratios. Investors who are unaware of these accounting rules will end up making erroneous conclusions. Also, this accounting flexibility allows managers to manipulate financial statements whether intentionally or unintentionally by influencing their actuarial assumptions.
When Jack Welch was named CEO of General Electric, Welch saw a company in trouble even though the business world saw GE as an intrinsically healthy corporation, secure in its position as a world industrial leader. Welch knew that the company was too large to fail yet GE was too unwieldy to adapt for further growth. The changes he instituted restructured and revolutionized GE and made Welch the most respected CEO in business today. After reading the book there were three parts that really stood out for me.
Arrow Electronics is a distributor of electronic parts, including semiconductors and passive components. It was founded in 1935 and has reached number one position among electronics distributors by 1992. Arrow’s North American operations were headquartered in Melville, N.Y. Sales and marketing functions were divided among five operating groups. This case study focuses on the largest of Arrow’s groups, Arrow/Schweber (A/S).
Life as we know it today is primarily the result of the innovation of modern marvels from the most pivotal company of the 19th century. General Electric,GE, happens to be one of the most innovated companies of all times, with groundbreaking advances in science and technology. GE scientists and the world’s brightest, are focused on finding solutions to the world’s toughest problems in energy, the medical field, transportation, finance, and in everyday home life. GE has over 304,000 employees worldwide and has founded 67,588 patents. That is even more patents than the US government. GE’s number one commitment centers itself on Eco imagination by reducing its environmental foot print, and therefore striving towards economic growth.
Employees from his department have complained about the rudeness and controlling attitude demonstrated on a daily basis, causing a high turnover rate. Jack’s leadership style has been described as “old school” while reflecting an “it’s my way or the highway attitude. Not only have the employees from his department made several complaints, however, his aggressive and controlling personality has affected several employees from outside of his department. He is known to be bossy and rude and does not like for others to contribute their ideas in any fashion. Employees have made complaints of being belittled by him and it has been reported that he speaks negatively about his staff with other