The GE team was able to uncover new solutions by spending time with pilots, mechanics, and crews.

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GENERAL ELECTRIC IS THE WORLD’S LEADING EXECUTION ORGANIZATION. But when reinventing a category, the very execution-oriented qualities that make GE great can get in the way. Recently, GE executives visited Jump to learn a new toolkit focused on uncovering customer needs, identifying opportunities, and building roadmaps for market development.

Building innovation capacity to meet an audacious mandate for growth

In 2005, GE turned a major corner. Six Sigma mastery was no longer enough to meet the company’s audacious growth targets. CEO Jeffrey Immelt set a mandate that every GE business grow by at least eight percent each year. And through organic means only. To step in this direction, GE looked to one of its most effective tools for change, the John L. Welch Leadership Development Center in Crotonville, New York. Each year, the company chooses a few dozen of its most promising managers for the prestigious Business Management Class. This time, the rising executives would immerse themselves in a Jump-led journey through the best practices and tools for innovation.

Studying innovation with the world as our classroom

To help meet GE’s audacious growth mandate, the team needed to come up with real world opportunities to grow in the jet engine business. Over the course of five days, the class visited innovative companies like Nike and Google to benchmark how those organizations approach developing new markets and delivering organic growth. But the class did more than study innovation in the abstract; Jump also taught through action, taking GE’s leaders close to the people who make the private jet industry tick. The team spent time with pilots, mechanics, and flight crews, observing their work and listening to their stories to find unmet needs in the market. They even went on board Larry Flynt’s personal jet to get an extreme view of executive travel up close and personal.

Creating a new services business and implementing an innovation toolkit

In just five days of research, training and collaboration with Jump, the GE team created a new strategy to unlock new opportunities buried in the jet engine value chain. Over time, the team’s immersion became a platform for building GE’s rapidly developing internal culture of innovation. Jump’s senior leaders continue to collaborate with GE as advisers and Crotonville educators as GE remakes itself as a company set up to deliver organic growth both today and over the long term.

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