Let every employee develop their own leadership

Bob cokaron, General Electric (GE) Chief Education Officer: enables each employee to develop his own leadership

Bobcorcoran, who talked about GE's leadership development, blinks in his eyes. "We seldom recruit people who only have professional knowledge but have no leadership ." His point of view is very clear. Bob cokaron has been serving the company for nearly 22 years, saying "like a long marriage contract ".

He is the chief education officer at GE, a position rarely seen in most companies.

At GE, the system of leadership development and culture have been deeply rooted. To a certain extent, we can say that the company has taken this point as a side of strategic development, rather than simply human development in the general sense.

Leadership and self-leadership

GE recruits a large number of young graduates every year, including talents in engineering, sales, finance, and other fields. The company will observe carefully to discover their potential and cultivate their leadership. "We seldom recruit people who only have professional knowledge but have no leadership ." Said cokaron. In his understanding, a good leader will not only plan the prospects, but also give the team a clear goal, provide sufficient resources, and give employees the freedom to give full play to their own abilities, it can inspire others to achieve their common goals. This person must have outstanding influence, enthusiasm, and passion. It can make everyone love their work and consciously strive for the company's goals.

"In addition, a good leader will not mechanically teach subordinates how to do things, but will inspire them to think, leave room for others to exert their potential, and let employees feel your concern for them ."

How can the leadership of grassroots employees be reflected? Cokaron's answer to this question is that his understanding of leadership is not so narrow. Not only do leaders in leadership positions need leadership, but a grassroots employee should also have self-leadership, I have high requirements for myself, keep learning, and keep loving my work.

Companies must be willing to challenge themselves. Those who are willing to learn and meet challenges and have high self-requirements will take the excellent people around them as a standard and desire to do better. At GE, it is not easy to work, and the atmosphere of competition and challenge is very strong. Companies need to find people that are naturally suited to this culture. For example, in an exam, if the test results are satisfactory and are already at the top 5% level, some students may not be satisfied and will re-examine the exam to find out the errors, sometimes they will go through repeated accounting, believe that they are right, and then find the professor to prove it. "We like such people. We look for such people because they have the highest degree of consciousness ."

Employees acquire knowledge and wisdom.

Cokaron believes that in the long run, we must pay attention to the value given to employees by enterprises. What they get from their careers should not only be professional knowledge in some aspects, but also be intelligent, the latter is more important. His understanding is that wisdom can be gained only when problems are solved in practice. "For example, if you tell a two-year-old boy, don't touch the stove, say it's over one hundred times. He remembers it and will get the knowledge. But if he hits the stove, it hurts, and the result is wisdom." Kelon said with a smile.

The best way to learn is to do it yourself, instead of sitting in the classroom waiting to be told what to do. GE will often leave things to its employees for further attention, pay attention to their feedback, and encourage employees to explore and challenge themselves in the process of doing things, making mistakes is also an opportunity for learning and development. However, we must have mechanisms to ensure that problems can be detected, handled in a timely manner, and set up a fixed program to prevent repeated errors.

"An employee makes a mistake at work and we will not be angry. But if we make the same mistake again under the same circumstances, we will be very angry, this means that he has not thought about and made progress."

In the past, GE employees had more opportunities for rotation, allowing them to try in different positions, but now positions are no longer so frequent. Cokaron's opinion on this point is that frequent rotation will affect the accumulation and accumulation of a certain professional direction to a certain extent. "A lot of people talk about it. At first glance, it seems that they have met the requirements of the General Manager and can talk about all kinds of topics, but they lack real depth and are only suitable for social networking ."

The idea of quickly becoming talented in the short term is wrong, and professional managers need to be refined in practice. GE spends about $1 billion a year on education and training and offers over 6000 courses within the company. Half of the teachers in the training program come from universities and consulting companies, and the others come from inside the company, often leaders of various functional departments. The concepts, theories, and models of the academic school can be quite enlightening, but they are not in touch with the actual company's practical operations, leaders of various departments can better teach how to apply these ideas to practice.