I was asked to join a select group of 7 consultants from different firms to help GE build greater corporate competence in manufacturing. GE leaders acknowledged the strength in engineering – but many times manufacturing couldn’t deliver, wasn’t keeping up with new systems and practices, and felt like engineering just threw promises over the wall. This is what we did:

1) Had them select 15 key, high potential manufacturing execs as cohort participants

2) They spent a week at Harvard Business School to learn the fresh forward thinking on where/how manufacturing was developing – a special program we collaborated on

3) In Depth visits / benchmarking. Each participant picked a strategy to learn about in depth. We connected and arranged companies around the world for them to visit and see what had been done, achieved and learned. Much more than shop floor tours. The most useful aspect were the private dinners with people in the host companies to hear, first-hand what it took to succeed. (over plenty of wine)

4) Participants developed and pitched the exec team on proposed innovations projects, The exec team acted as the VC board.

This is how GE accelerated robotics, implemented just-in-time, built the dishwasher plant, developed Workout, etc.

Left to their own devices and old habits, GE leaders would simply have dictated a “do this now” implementation strategy for most of these innovations. My role and contributions were largely about shifting to an engagement approach that:

1) Did an impact assessment to inform and guide pace, scope and timing.

2) Framed out the change integration components of project/implementation approach into a staggered and sequence set of steps with metrics….playing into change capacity and readiness.

3) Structured a communications campaign that answered key questions like “What is this? Why do we need it? Who benefits? What do you need from me?” followed by forums for feedback and ideas to develop readiness and load things for success.

4) Developed quarterly share-the-learnings forums for people in GE to go to school on what was actually done, learned and achieved – to accelerate spreading the innovations across a largely “not invented here” culture.

This process could be readily adapted for almost any AI scale up, workforce building effort, or future fit engagement.

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