Performance Cultures the GE Way

In this Business Week article GE’s Bill Conaty talks about the GE way of nurturing their employee to develop future leaders and create a vibrant workforce.  I’ve taken some highlights (in bold) from the article and provided commentary from my point of view.

DARE TO DIFFERENTIATE
Relentlessly assessing and grading employees build organizational vitality and foster a true meritocracy. Employees are constantly judged, ranked, and rewarded or punished for their performance. There’s nothing like a bit of anxiety and the knowledge that you’re being measured against peers to boost performance.

This is the first step in creating a performance culture.  Without measurement and assessment against those measures there is no performance.  The "peer-to-peer" focus however doesn’t address the fact that each person, when properly placed and mentored probably has something to offer.  There should be some discussion around determining strengths up front and assuring the employees are placed appropriately.  It may be a given at GE but it wasn’t mentioned in this article.

CONSTANTLY RAISE THE BAR
Leaders continually seek to improve
performance, both their own and their team members. "The one reason
executives fail at GE is they stop learning," says Conaty. Continuous
learning is so valued that GE training courses are considered
high-profile rewards. Getting tapped to go to Crotonville, the 53-acre
executive training center in New York’s Hudson River Valley, is a
signal that someone is poised to go to the next level.

Aligned with my recent posts (here and here)
suggesting success and greatness have more to do with practice and a
learning mind-set, this is critical to growth and continued success.
Notice the use of additional training as a reward.  It’s not always
big-screen TVs – look at your own organization – leaders typically want
a reward that is public and will drive future success. 

DON’T BE FRIENDS WITH THE BOSS
Too often, says Conaty, HR
executives make the mistake of focusing on the priorities and needs of
the CEO. That diminishes the powerful role of being an employee
advocate. "If you just get closer to the CEO, you’re dead," says
Conaty. "The HR leader locks in with the CEO, and the rest of the
organization thinks the HR leader isn’t trustworthy and can’t be a
confidant."

I think the real point here is to have a good
understanding of your role in the organization and aligning that with
overall corporate goals.  When you don’t know what you’re really
supposed to be doing the path of least resistance is to suck-up to the
boss.  Well-communicated and measured objectives will reduce the need
for sucking up and increase performance for the organization.

BECOME EASY TO REPLACE
Great leaders develop great succession plans. Insecure leaders are intimidated by them.

This is related to knowing your goal and receiving
feedback on progress and effectiveness.  Without the information that
tells you you’re doing the right things for the right reasons it is
easy to be insecure about your role.  This ties back to point number 1
in this post – have proper goals and measurements in place. 

BE INCLUSIVE
Within every organization, there’s a tendency to
favor people you know. That can undermine success. GE rigorously
assesses the talent within companies before they’re even acquired. It’s
a critical form of due diligence.

This cannot be understated.  Culture is the foundational
element of an organization.  Without culture you have anarchy -
everyone out for themselves.  Too many companies assume culture to be
what they say it is versus what the employees create.  Inclusion has to
be a core value.  This not only applies when looking for acquisitions
but is becoming more important for finding new employees.  As the
potential employee pool becomes more diverse and less homogeneous,
inclusion will be a cornerstone for future success. 

FREE UP OTHERS TO DO THEIR JOBS

When we know what our job is and what the other person’s
job is we have better information to make better decisions about what
to do each day.  Clear, simple communication drives better
performance. 

KEEP IT SIMPLE
Most organizations require simple, focused, and
disciplined communications. "You can’t move 325,000 people with mixed
messaging and thousands of initiatives," notes Conaty. Leaders succeed
by being consistent and straight forward about a handful of core
messages.

Read this again – simple, few, core.  Too many
objectives creates paralysis.  Give the employee base something to hang
their hat on so they can make the day-to-day decisions that will drive
performance in the company.

To sum up…. (it always sounds so simple – but we all know it’s very hard to implement)

Create a few simple performance metrics tied to a few simple company
metrics, measure, communicate and publish success and failure with the
appropriate rewards and you will have a performance culture.  The key
is that these things operate within a system.  One missing link and the
system fails.  You can’t measure and not report, you can establish
goals and not measure, you can’t report and not reward.