From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

Jeff Immelt on dealing with massive change

From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

Jeff Immelt on dealing with massive change

- What kind of advice do you give to workers who have been somewhere 15, 20 years and are suddenly dealing with a totally changed world? How do you manage the second half of your career or the last years of your career at a time of massive change? - So I guess one of my personal philosophies is I can always get better. I can always improve, I can always learn, I can always get better. And if people who embrace that, we're going to help them, people who fight that, it's quite hard, right? In other words, we can't keep the digital transformation from happening. People that want to embrace it drive the projects forward, get the training for it, they're going to be okay. People that say it's just too hard for me, it's too late in my career, I'm 60, it's not too late for me, it's not too late for you either, so you have to go. And then at all times really I say to people look, I want you to love the company as much as I love the company. I want you to love it and I want you to be here, but I want everybody in the company to know you can get another job. I don't want anybody here because they're afraid. I don't want anybody here who's just hanging on. I want people to take risks, I want people to care about what the outcomes are, and that's true at almost every level of the company and almost every age, but you have to go with it, really and you have to help people go with it but you have to be very strong-willed. Probably in the years I've been CEO there's been four or five big changes. At each time the company's had a big change there's been two or three senior VPs that just haven't wanted to do it and they've had to leave the company and they do well other places but we have to keep the company going forward. - Do you think about your own transition? - Oh sure, I think you know as a company with so much at stake, both in terms of the trust of our customers, the trust of our people in so many different countries, you don't want to be careless about management succession at any level, particularly at the CEO. We always believe in tenure at the top, not that you know, I don't have a contract and you can get fired any time for a number of different reasons, but I think we believe that this continuity of relationships both inside and outside the company is quite important for a company of that size, so we're always thinking about what's the next generation need to look like, what are the skills we're trying to develop, but we do that all the time to be honest with you. - When you got this job, I remember the horse race that you were involved in was so insane to watch as an outsider knowing nothing about GE, just following this battle that's going on internally. - You should've tried being in it. - I can't even imagine what that was like for you knowing that it was a bake-off and that the whole world was watching. - Yeah, exactly. - Would you ever recreate that? - No. - Those days are gone? - Part of it's your own style, right? Part of it's the time you lived in. You know, we were at the height of the bubble economy, everybody was a celebrity, stuff like that. It was just a different era. I'm a different person. Look, I loved working for Welch, I loved him as a boss, I loved working for him, but we're different guys, we do things different ways and that's okay too.

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