Tedded - Business Book Review

“Not once, Immelt says, did he question whether he was prepared and able to lead GE.”

“Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way: Innovation, Transformation, and Winning in the 21st Century” by David Magee is the latest GE book on the seven to eight years since Jeff Immelt took over from Jack Welch as the CEO of one of the most admired companies in the world. Days after he was in position, there came 9/11; and his job has never been easy from the beginning. David Magee put the life of Jeff Immelt into this book.

Contents:

[Contents of the book will be very brief because in the 233 pages book (excluding appendices and references); each chapter has, on average, only 14-16 pages.]

Chapter 1: Following a Leader

The first chapter is about Jeff Immelt’s life in college and how he began his career life at GE. David Magee also wrote on Jeff Immelt’s character since he was a child.

Chapter 2: Confidently Seize Opportunity

This chapter is on his career progress in GE from Plastics to Appliance onto becoming a candidate of CEO and finally took it.

Chapter 3: Strength in Crisis

After Jeff Immelt took the role as a CEO, 9/11 came and he faced tremendous task of leading GE through tough time. Moreover, the Enron case did not help GE in the stock market.

Chapter 4: Appearances can be Deceiving

This chapter focuses on how GE took over an, then, unattractive wind power business and made it thrive.

Chapter 5: Understand Context

GE experienced a bad times in the stock market in the early 2000s and David Magee told us how Immelt dealt with it. Immelt’s personal strategy for overcoming tough times includes:
– Commit to learn every day
– Work hard with passion
– Give people a reason to trust
– Have confidence
– Be an optimist

Chapter 6: Cultivate Big Ideas

This chapter is on how Jeff Immelt focuses on innovation. Unlike his predecessor, Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt emphasises more on science and technology for the new businesses.

Chapter 7: Invest in Innovation

Jeff Immelt has created new tools to foster innovation in GE through enhanced laboratories, among other things.

Chapter 8: Use Your Ecomagination

Jeff Immelt has geared GE towards environmentally friendly businesses. Wind and solar energy are obvious examples. There are also new innovation in pipeline such as Organic LEDs and Smart Electric Grid.

Chapter 9: Maintain Core Values

GE’s core values have not changed; Integrity, Performance, and Change. David Magee wrote on how Jeff Immelt has zero tolerance towards integrity violation, how he and GE are still committed to performance as ever, and how change is always encouraged.

Chapter 10: Make Growth a Process

Like his predecessors, Jeff Immelt always focuses on growth and develops growth leaders to develop the company around six key elements; technology, commercial excellence, customer focus, globalisation, innovation, and developing growth leaders.

Chapter 11: Create a Learning Environment

“It’s all about learning.” The key to GE continuous progress is how leaders foster the learning environment in the organisation. The chapter shows how Jeff Immelt develops more learning sessions in GE.

Chapter 12: Find the Future

This chapter is about emerging markets around the world such as China, India, Russia, Brazil. GE’s three keys to effective globalisation are; 1 Use size as an advantage. 2. Create customer optimization, and 3. Leverage capabilities.

Chapter 13: Plant Many Seeds

GE is still expanding their businesses in various fields. Moreover, Jeff Immelt reorganised GE into four divisions; Technology Infrastructure, Energy Infrastructure, GE Capital, and NBC Universal.

Chapter 14: Find Opportunity in Adversity

This chapter is about the ongoing economic crisis and the stock market and how Jeff Immelt is coping with them.

Chapter 15: Leadership for the New Century

(This chapter is just a brief conclusion, albeit a grand name)

…

I’ll compare this book to an ideal business book; a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 7/10: This book is written in plain language. Most of the contents are from articles in the business magazines. It is an easy and fast read without deep analysis. The drawback is the flow of the book which lacks solid structure. Titles of the chapters, sometimes, are not really relevant to contents.

Distinction: 8/10: This is the only book on Jeff Immelt available.

Practicality: 2/10: There is no guideline on how to do anything in this book; it might be the purpose of the author. This book is a great compilation of what Jeff Immelt said. There are some lists of what GE and Jeff Immelt have done (see Chapter 5 above); and that is as far as the content goes.

Credibility: 5/10: The credibility of the sources is excellent because they are in quotations. However, there are some interpretations and journalism by the author that make this book a bit unconvincing. Everything Jeff Immelt did seems to be the right way and is taken for granted. David Magee unavoidably compared Jeff Immelt to Jack Welch and he praised Jeff Immelt for lots of things that he did but Welch did not do such as innovation sessions. There are countless features that the two are similar and the author seems to praise Immelt because he followed it nicely. I am not in the position to judge which CEO is better but the overall tone of the book is 100% pro Jeff Immelt (in everything he did) which is over the top.

Insightful: 3/10: Although this book has the most quotes from Jeff Immelt and other GE executives, it is extremely shallow. Analysis is non-existent in the book. Everything in this book is as deep as what Jeff Immelt and others said without any further and deep investigation. As I mentioned earlier, things, in this book, are taken for granted.

Reading Experience: 5/10: The good point is that this is an easy read and it can be fun if you don’t think about it too much. However, the tone of the book makes everything Jeff Immelt did a stroke of genius and it even seems that David Magee was occasionally having a go at Jack Welch which is ridiculous.

Overall: 5.0/10: The title “the New GE Way” is a massively misleading title because it is basically the same GE we have known. Under Jeff Immelt, GE has the same GE way with the new leadership, updated and refined business models, and enhanced management tools. Unlike other “GE” books (especially by Jack Welch), this book provides you with little insight and no guideline. But if you really admire GE (like me), I think that you will buy the book anyway. All in all, the book will make you know Jeff Immelt much more. Instead of “Jeff Immelt: the New GE Way”, the title should have read “Jeff Immelt: 7 years as a GE CEO mini biography” and I would have been disappointed slightly less than I am. By the way, I will be patiently waiting for a book by Jeff Immelt himself if he writes one. Skip this one if you can.