Step 1: Identify an organizational change
This may be something from the news, historical, or from your personal experience as an organizational member. Please note this does not relate to your personal life, your interpersonal relationships, etc. – we are focused on organizational change leadership in this course. The organization may be governmental (including military), non-profit, or for-profit in nature. The change you select for this analysis should have occurred in the past so that you may apply all four phases.
Step 2: Write a 1-page summary of the organizational change and submit for approval
This should give some information about the organization (where located, what its focus is, number of organizational members, etc.). At least one paragraph should be devoted to an overview of the organizational change you will address. This submission also serves as the first page of the final paper. In addition to instructor approval of organization choice, this one page will be evaluated for any necessary revisions or corrections.
GE and Jack Welch
Western Kentucky University
LEAD 530 – Organizational Change
Cindy L. Ehresman
October 27, 2018
GE and Jack Welch
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate incorporated in New York and headquartered in Boston. Founded in 1892 through a merger of Edison General Electric Company, owned by Thomas Alva Edison Schenectady and Thomson-Houston Electric Company Charles Coffin.(GE) As of 2018, the company operates through the following segments: aviation, healthcare, power, renewable energy, digital, additive manufacturing, venture capital and finance, lighting, transportation, and oil and gas. GE General Electric Co. (GE) by the end of 2017 employed more than 300,000 full and part-time workers. Of these employees, the company noted, roughly 134,000 worked in the United States (Hess, A. E.).
Over the 20th century General Electric continued to innovate in a huge range of fields, and opened divisions. Early 1900’s GE specializing in everything from plastics to airplanes to electric fans and voice radios. General Electric was the first company to have the first voice radio broadcast in the world, the first electric toaster, and began work on vacuum tubes that would herald the dawn of the electronic age. In the 1910s and 1920s General Electric continued to innovate, setting a new altitude record with an airplane, making the refrigerator a common household word, and building the world’s largest electrical facility on the Panama Canal.
Through the Great Depression, GE continued to innovate in other ways, introducing a Consumer Finance system to allow consumers to buy appliances for the home even in hard times. In the era of World War II, the company assisted with the war effort, innovating in radar technology, and creating the first jet engine. From the 1950s through to the new millennium, General Electric continued to grow, tapping into emerging markets and investing massive resources in pushing the bounds of technologies across every sector.
In 1980 Jack welch took the CEO chair of GE. The organizations method of conducting business when welch took the CEO chair was out dated and no longer fit the needs of the organization and its future. The organizational had rigid structure, it was resistance to change, and bureaucratic climate made it impossible to perceive important environmental changes. Furthermore, the organizational structure, decision-making process and information management was driving the organization to loss in revenue and capital (General Electric under Jack Welch). One of the first step Welch took was reorganization structure and administration. Then he sought to invest and mergers of top market companies. Finally In the 1990’s Welch established the Six Sigma program at GE. This program maximized the efficiency of manufacturing processes through the minimization of production of defective units.
References
GE. (2013). About GE. Retrieved from https://www.ge.com/about-us/history/thomas-edison
General Electric under Jack Welch. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://lawaspect.com/general-electric-jack-welch-2/
Hess, A. E. (2013, August 22). The 10 largest employers in America. Retrieved from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/22/ten-largest-employers/2680249/
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