The GE Work-out: How to Implement GE's Revolutionary Method for Busting Bureaucracy and Attacking Organizational Problems-Fast! / Edition 1

by Steve Kerr, David Ulrich, Ron Ashkenas, Dave Ulrich

Overview

Famous "Work-Out" change-management tool explained by the people who helped develop it.

GE's legendary Work-Out program played a key role in the company's phenomenal success over the past decade and has been implemented in many other organizations. Now three executives and consultants who developed the original Work-Out approach at GE­­often working directly with CEO Jack Welch­­discuss the inner workings of Work-Out and their experiences at successfully implementing the program at GE.

Filled with effective assessment and decisionmaking tools, The GE Work-Out provides concrete and realistic guidance for anyone who wants to implement Work-Out and break down bureaucracy and hierarchy within an organization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071384162
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	03/25/2002
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Dave Ulrich is a professor of business administration at the University of Michigan School of Business and the author of the best-selling Human Resource Champions, Results-Based Leadership, and The HR Scorecard.

Steve Kerr is Chief Learning Officer and a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs. He was previously Vice President-Leadership Development and Chief Learning Officer for General Electric, with responsibility for GE's renowned Leadership Development Center at Crotonville.

Ron Ashkenas is the managing partner of management consulting firm Robert H. Schaffer & Associates, and senior author (with Ulrich, Kerr, and Todd Jick) of two previous books about GE.

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Power of Work-Out
Part I: What Is Work-Out?
Chapter 1: Work-Out, GE, and the Largest Corporate Transformation in History
Chapter 2: Why Work-Out Works: The Underlying Principles
Chapter 3: Is Your Organization Ready for Work-Out? When and Where to Start
Chapter 4: How to Lead a Fast, Simple Work-Out—When You’ve Never Done It Before
Part II: Making Work-Out Happen: Implementing a Full-Length Work-Out
Chapter 5: A Work-Out Road Map
Chapter 6: Planning a Work-Out
Chapter 7: Conducting a Work-Out
Chapter 8: Implementing Work-Out Recommendations
Chapter 9: Customizing Work-Out for Your Organization
Chapter 10: Work-Out at Work: How Zurich Financial Services U.K. Used Work-Out to Transform the Company 211
Part III: Work-Out’s Long-Term Payoff
Chapter 11: Using Work-Out to Create GE-Style Organizational Leadership
Chapter 12: Embedding the Process in Your Organization
Chapter 13: Work-Out as Culture Change
Chapter 14: Make Work-Out Work for You
Appendix A: The Work-Out Leader’s Tool Kit
Appendix B: Work-Out Simulation Exercise: United Bank of London
Appendix C: Work-Out: The Foundations of a Cultural Revolution (A speech given to General Electric officers in January, 1990)
Endnotes
Index
About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

Many companies have adapted Jack Welch's now-famous strategies for running a business. Taking advantage of Welch's popularity (and expertise), this handbook lays out instructions for implementing GE's "Work-Out" method. Flexible in execution, the method calls for collecting large teams of employees for defining tough business decisions, then breaking into smaller teams to develop solutions. The small teams then meet with a manager in a "town meeting" to discuss their recommendations. The result is change that's brought about by employees themselves. Consultants Ulrich and Ashkenas, along with Kerr (a managing director of Goldman Sachs) were brought together by Welch to create the "Work-Out" method. (Apr.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A Team-Based Process for Addressing Problems
Work-Out is an internal process for addressing and quickly solving an organization's problems by utilizing the skills of the people who will be carrying out the process. It is a process that Jack Welch used to turn GE into one of the most successful companies in the world, and it worked wonders in helping GE find better ways to reach its customers, improve margins and efficiency, attract talent, utilize technology and beat the competition. The ideas found in the Work-Out process can also be applied to other types of organizations, and the authors of The GE Work-Out have written this book to demonstrate how. They write that it is not an overnight cure for every organizational woe, but it will help companies solve their problems faster, and eventually, it can become a basis by which an organization can develop skills and a culture that can help streamline operations for better agility.

How Does It Work?
How does Work-Out work? It starts when large groups of employees and managers from different levels of an organization come together to address various issues and concerns. Small teams are formed where people can voice their opinions about a problem, and come up with recommendations for improvements to "the way we've always done things."

These Work-Out teams present their recommendations to a senior manager in a "Town Meeting," where the manager leads the whole group in a discussion about the recommendations. Yes-or-no decisions are then made. Next, the recommendations that make it through this process are assigned to "owners" who volunteer to carry out the changes and follow through on them to getresults.

The Work-Out process helped to dramatically reduce bloated bureaucracies at GE by shortening meetings, reports and levels of approval, as well as substantially cut process times in product development and employee communication, among other positive changes. The process can also be applied to just about any other kind of organization, from General Motors to the state of West Virginia. Basically, the process revolves around getting the people who experience the problems involved in the solutions, using a public forum to decide on the solutions, and empowering the people who will carry them out.

The GE Work-Out begins with an overview of how this process evolved at GE, how managers and employees worked out its kinks, and the way they use it today. The book then delves into an explanation of why Work-Out is such a successful problem-solving tool for long-term transformation. To ensure that implementation of the process in your organization goes smoothly, the authors provide ways to help you get past resistance and move forward with the Work-Out.

The next section of The GE Work-Out provides a handbook for organizations that are ready to dive into the Work-Out approach. An overview of the system details the best way to create specific decisions, and how to move forward without losing ground.

Keeping the Plan Flowing
The authors remind their readers that this process will require some time to become ingrained in an organization, and they offer many charts and worksheets to help them keep the plan flowing. Tips for conducting the Town Meeting are combined with real-world examples of how other companies made progress. The roles and responsibilities of all the participants are also described, as are a number of variations in the process that have worked for others. A case study of Zurich Financial Services UK provides a detailed example of how Work-Out can deliver amazing results.

Long-term transformation is the topic of the book's last part, and it says that making Work-Out a natural component of an organization is the key to success. When the Work-Out is part of an organization's culture, the authors write that "natural acts" of better communication and decision making will naturally occur, and sluggish bureaucracies will naturally dissolve.

Why Soundview Likes This Book
The GE Work-Out provides a direct map to organizational transformation through a process that has taken many organizations into better communication and improved problem-solving. The lessons it delivers are thoroughly described, and inspirational messages of encouragement accompany the text to help smooth over rough spots on the path to implementation. The authors remove any uncertainty about the Work-Out process by organizing its principles, tools and actions into an easy-to-follow guide that not only makes using them easy, but provides a background for each step which makes that step seem logical and essential. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Soundview Executive Book Summaries