Jeffrey Immelt: A Good Example of How to Leave Behind a Great Legacy

It has taken Jeffrey Immelt 15 years, but the General Electric CEO finally has remade the industrial conglomerate in his own image and may have escaped the shadow of his predecessor, Jack Welch, who will go down in history as one of the most iconic business chiefs of all time.

Immelt’s most recent moves—acquiring the power-generation assets of French company Alstom Power for almost $11 billion, selling GE Appliances to Haier of China; spinning off GE’s financial operations; and negotiating the move of the company’s headquarters from high-tax Connecticut to technology-rich (and infrastructure friendly) Boston—have dramatically reshaped one of America’s corporate paragons at a time that has been difficult for many businesses just to survive.

Now Immelt may go even further, shedding the legacy business that sells lighting to retail customers. This was the business on which the precursors to GE were established by Thomas Edison in 1892.

All of these moves are part of a strategy that Immelt has been pursuing for several years to narrow the focus of GE’s businesses and to become increasingly global. He may never reach the legendary status of Welch—who became a synonym for successful leadership by a CEO in the ’90s and capitalized on that reputation in many ways—but Immelt is creating his own legacy that other CEOs may want to examine now as closely as they observed Welch’s moves in the past.

“We try to reflect on both where we think markets are going and also on what we think our core competency is.”

“If you look at some of the things we’ve done over the past, let’s say, five or 10 years,” Immelt recently told McKinsey consultants in an interview, “what we try to do is reflect on both where we think markets are going and also on what we think our core competency is … We’re really in this period of slow growth and volatility. There’s just not a lot of tailwind; you have to make your own tailwind.”

The move from Connecticut may have been the most dramatic, but the most transformative has been Immelt’s strategy, enacted over the last five years, to whittle GE back to industrial building blocks where its expertise is both proven and rare, including jet engines, medical equipment, gas turbines and oilfield equipment.

“What we’ve tried to do is narrow our focus as a company, to be only those things that have significant core competency,” he told McKinsey. “So that’s led us to being a global infrastructure leader. We think we’re playing to the company’s strengths, and at the same time, we’re playing to those things that the world needs.”

That has meant rather quickly shedding GE’s finance arm; the television network it owned, NBC; and, most recently, the venerable GE home-appliance brand and operation, to Haier, just five weeks after Swedish firm AB Electrolux said that it was abandoning negotiations to buy GE Appliances.

But Immelt’s imprint is being seen in more than just how he has been reshaping GE around some of its traditional manufacturing strengths. He also has been behind the company’s very determined tack toward becoming a major player in digital technology in manufacturing. Much of this, he is accomplishing through GE’s growing stake in the Internet of Things, which has been one of Immelt’s priorities since 2011, according to The New York Times. GE logged $1 billion in IoT software business in 2014, “probably the fastest a GE business has hit the $1-billion mark,” the newspaper said.

With Immelt’s touch, he already has joined Welch and Edison as one of the most transformative figures in the long history of General Electric. And that has been no easy accomplishment.


MORE LIKE THIS

  • Get the CEO Briefing

    Sign up today to get weekly access to the latest issues affecting CEOs in every industry
  • upcoming events

    Roundtable

    Strategic Planning Workshop

    1:00 - 5:00 pm

    Over 70% of Executives Surveyed Agree: Many Strategic Planning Efforts Lack Systematic Approach Tips for Enhancing Your Strategic Planning Process

    Executives expressed frustration with their current strategic planning process. Issues include:

    1. Lack of systematic approach (70%)
    2. Laundry lists without prioritization (68%)
    3. Decisions based on personalities rather than facts and information (65%)

     

    Steve Rutan and Denise Harrison have put together an afternoon workshop that will provide the tools you need to address these concerns.  They have worked with hundreds of executives to develop a systematic approach that will enable your team to make better decisions during strategic planning.  Steve and Denise will walk you through exercises for prioritizing your lists and steps that will reset and reinvigorate your process.  This will be a hands-on workshop that will enable you to think about your business as you use the tools that are being presented.  If you are ready for a Strategic Planning tune-up, select this workshop in your registration form.  The additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.

    To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.

    New York, NY: ​​​Chief Executive's Corporate Citizenship Awards 2017

    Women in Leadership Seminar and Peer Discussion

    2:00 - 5:00 pm

    Female leaders face the same issues all leaders do, but they often face additional challenges too. In this peer session, we will facilitate a discussion of best practices and how to overcome common barriers to help women leaders be more effective within and outside their organizations. 

    Limited space available.

    To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $495 will be added to your total.

    Golf Outing

    10:30 - 5:00 pm
    General’s Retreat at Hermitage Golf Course
    Sponsored by UBS

    General’s Retreat, built in 1986 with architect Gary Roger Baird, has been voted the “Best Golf Course in Nashville” and is a “must play” when visiting the Nashville, Tennessee area. With the beautiful setting along the Cumberland River, golfers of all capabilities will thoroughly enjoy the golf, scenery and hospitality.

    The golf outing fee includes transportation to and from the hotel, greens/cart fees, use of practice facilities, and boxed lunch. The bus will leave the hotel at 10:30 am for a noon shotgun start and return to the hotel after the cocktail reception following the completion of the round.

    To sign up, select this option in your registration form. Additional fee of $295 will be added to your total.