Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

131. The GE Model of Change

Concept

Between roughly 1988 and 1993, General Electric under the guidance of Jack Welch and a team of consultants engaged in an effort to reduce bureaucratic red-tape and speed adaptation to changing economic conditions. Welch called this the “Work Out” initiative. He thought the company needed a work-out to get rid of organizational cholesterol. ³⁰ I was fortunate enough to be a member of the second tier of consultants hired to support that effort. The subsidiary I was assigned to was later named to be one of the top 10 plants in the country by Industry Magazine.³¹

Welch’s inner group of four consultants devised a change process that was extraordinarily successful. This process had five phases or steps.

1. Describe ...