Because of its simplicity and its effectiveness, it has become an important part of GE’s culture. In the following sections, factors contributing the success of Work-Out process and the possible negative consequences are discussed.
Factors contribute to the success of Work-out Process
In order to implement the Work-out process successfully, there are several simple ground rules (Tichy & Charan, 1989) that enable the process to be quickly successful:
- Let people chose the issues themselves
- Involve a full cross sectional team – those who have a stake in any changes
- No blaming and no complaining - Any new change initiative can elicit skepticism, but once the team understood the Work-Out process of concentrating on fixing the process rather than assigning blame.
- Immediate management responses to recommendations – the leaders act as resource allocator in making and approve significant organizational decisions.
With the above general rules, in the course of action, both employees and managers from different functions and levels within GE worked for informal town meeting mentioned above to develop a close and friendly atmosphere, which not only busts through bureaucracy and frees up time, but also supports creative compliance. This means, within the town meeting, the revised process and systems are ones that everyone is prepared to commit to because they know they are the basis for effective working. If no rework takes place, individuals often develop personal strategies to make systems and processes work for then. Such work-around may be effective for the individual, but are often sub-optimal for the whole, if not destructive.
The process used allows people to focus on the things that are causing way them most frustration – “the problems” – but to tackle them in amore creative way than merely solving them and in line with the organizational strategy.
Additionally, Ulrich, Kerr, & Ashkenas (2002) depicted that the followings are what make Work-out such a successful process:
- Commitment to hearing the real issues that get in the way of performance – the work-out process must go into the process under the support from the open-eyed and wholehearted managers as they may feel on the spot and may feel attacked.
- Commitment to coming up with ideas that can address problems quickly – Welch’s intention in stressing speed and thus, leader had to say “yes” or “no” on the spot to every idea presented at town meeting. Taking it under advisement for study was not an option. (Kleiner, 2003)
- Commitment to ensuring that ideas turn into action – after the meeting, teams have to implement their approved recommendations and plans very quickly within sixty days.
From the mindset of Welch, Work-Out is a cultural revolution and thus in order to make the process success and to pass the revolution. It must face and overcome the following five challenges. (Ulrich, Kerr, & Ashkenas, 2002, pp308-311)
- Leaders must ensure that Work-out avoids the trap of becoming a ‘program” – Leaders must work to keep focusing on instilling the mind-set of speed, simplicity, and self-confidence rather than putting staff to attend another management program.
- Leaders, as a disturbance handler, must manage employee resistance and fear – Leader must help employee to overcome their fear by the fire of self-sustaining commitment.
- All participants must know that no cultural revolution is completed in a day – we must have lots of little success so that thousands of employees can progress in their work and focus on how we can get on base through any means possible.
- Work-out is a means to an end – how much our customer sees this culture.
- GE managers must learn to exhibit aggressive patience – managers lead by spending time and asking questions of participants who do and do not attend workshops, that we share and celebrate success.
Objectively, GE has great success in implementing Work-Out process during times of strong economic performance. Also, GE knows how to manage the life cycle of a business idea: put it in place, exploit it, and then abandon it. (Tomasko, 2002)
Base on the above-mentioned findings, the favorable factors in contributing the success of Work-Out process to be summarized as follows: well preparation through building leadership and hiring external facilitators, communicating with clarity, commitment of senior staff, open-minded of senior staff, effectiveness in reducing staff anxiety and strong leadership culture. The ultimate cementation of Work-Out as a cultural principle involves the engagement of the combined intellectual, behavioral and organizational agenda of an organization.
Possible Negative Consequences of Work-out Process
GE’s Work-Out process making an organization pass along with “one of the biggest planned efforts to alter people’s behavior since Mao’s Cultural Revolution” (Tichy, 1993) Inevitably there are antagonists – people who hold tightly to the old ways. The struggle to change involves thousands of people. They all must deal with grief and deep feelings of loss as the old ways they know disappear.
Additionally, the organizational factors making employee feel stress. Under GE Work-Out process, the new design of the individual’s job like autonomy, task variety, and degree of automation may exert anxiety and stress on employees.
Work-Out process fostered the idea of ‘boundaryless learning organization” throughout GE. The change in organization structure making employee experienced stress. The act of delayering may reduce the “sphere of influence” of senior staffs. They will have psychological effect of stress and negative consequences are aroused in terms of depression and decrease in job satisfaction. (Robbins, 2005)
Welch exerts high pressure on senior staff; he said that “You can’t grow long-term, if you can’t eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is”. (Ulrich, Kerr & Ashkenas, 2002) So the job of leadership is to deliver both short-term profits and long-term organizational strength. The psychological contract between employees and organization face great challenge.
Conclusion
GE is a showcase for successful organizational change. In the process of applying Work-Out process, one lesson should be clear: Work-Out is a process, not just an event. (Schaninger, Harris & Niebuhr, 2000). It is believed that hiring skilled external facilitators is not enough to guarantee the process. Human capital in GE is the key determinant for the success as the talent can generating and securing to foster a culture emphasizing employee participation in problem solving and accountability for its implementation.
References:
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