General Electric Company’s Chief Learning Officer Case Study

Synopsis, Organization Background and CLO’s Background

Synopsis of the Interview

Meeting the CLO of General electric was challenging since he had a tight schedule that could not allow him to make appointments freely. However, I managed to get a chance of interviewing him on the 6^th of September 2013 following consistent visits to his office. During the interview’s day, various events took place by the brief description provided below.

10:15-10:30- I met with the secretary who confirmed that my appointment was recognized and the CLO was available. However, I had to wait for 30 minutes so that he could complete his previous appointment.

11:05-11:45- I managed to obtain relevant answers for questions 1-10 before the CLO received an urgent call to attend to some clients. He excused himself and returned after fifteen minutes

12:00-12:20- He provided detailed answers to questions 11-15 and completed the interview since I had fifteen questions.

The entire interview was a learning experience since I communicated with an experienced professional in my line of academic interest. It was a great inspiration to hear from a person who has been in human resource management for the last ten years.

Background of the Organization

General Electric, which is commonly referred to as GE, was formed in 1889 as a result of merging Edison Machine Works Company and Dexel Company. They positioned their corporation in Schenectady which is found in New York and located the headquarters in Fairfield. The company has evolved from a manufacturer of bulbs and motors into a company that deals with four sectors of business that include capital finance, energy, infrastructural technology, and industrial consumer. Its human resource has managed to elevate the company’s competence until it was rated as a fortune 500 company in 2011 being the sixth-largest firm in the USA. This company was the first one that created the post of a CLO who was referred to as Steve Kerr in the 1990s. This condition formed great precedence of the company by the functional evolution of a CLO. It is, therefore, prudent to interview the CLO of this company since he has a deep history of its evolution since conception.

Background of the CLO

Raghu Krishnamoorthy is the current CLO of General Electric following his appointment on 1^st of August 2013 after Susan Peters was promoted from CLO to the president of the human resource department. After acquiring a master’s in Business Administration, he joined General Electric in 1994 where he was posted to lead India’s GE capital. After three years, he was chosen to lead the Asia-pacific in Hong Kong where he was involved in fleet services. The company promoted him to lead GE’s commercial corporate that displayed his good performance which led to his classification as a top 50 Asian-American professional in 2009. Raghu worked in this office until he was promoted to serve as the CLO of General Electric.

CLO’s Performance Assessment

A CLO is entitled to vital roles in an organization which includes harnessing capability, providing leadership, inducing change, monitoring people’s technology, and harnessing talents (Ash & Persall, 2000). By these roles, the following performance assessment was realized.

Strengths

According to the roles of a CLO, he is involved in the process of inducing change. In response to the question concerning the induction of change, the CLO explained that he induces a change in a gradual manner to ensure that the change does not tamper with the normal operation of the company (Senge, 2006). From my perspective, this is a strong ideology that seeks to apply the smooth change in an organization instead of a dramatic change that can affect the normal organizational functions.

Secondly, a CLO is charged with the role of providing leadership to the organization’s human resources. In his response, Raghu contended that he uses transformational and servant leadership models in light of offering that leadership. He explained, further, that servant leadership is based on six aspects that include authenticity of ideas, valuing people, developing the subjects, building the community, providing, and sharing leadership with other people. Regarding transformational leadership, he argued that it aims at transforming his follower into leaders so that they become future leaders. These are perfect models of providing leadership implying that the CLO is providing the necessary leadership.

In light of harnessing talents, the CLO has made excellent efforts ensuring that the employees’ talents are used maximally. In this case, the CLO organizes contests among the employees seeking to make innovative products for competition. The best performers are awarded and posted in the appropriate post according to the reflection of the contest. This ensures that employees are allocated roles that suit their talents.

Weaknesses

In the process of assessment, I noted that the CLO has failed in terms of monitoring peoples’ level of technology. In this case, he does not have any program that is investigating the technological demand of the employees. The employees operate on the same technical knowledge that they acquired during their college education. This implies that they are not updated according to the prevailing trends of technology in the real world. This may lead to the production of irrelevant products that have become obsolete to the market-leading to the incompetence of the company.

Recommendations

After the interview, I concluded that the following recommendation will improve the current performance of General Electric.

First, the CLO should monitor the technological demands of his employees to ensure that their technical knowledge is consistent with the current trends in technology (Elkeles & Phillips, 2007).

Secondly, Ellkeles and Phillips (2006) suggest that a CLO should apply multidimensional strategies when integrating learning into business strategies. However, the CLO uses a one-dimensional strategy that focuses on employees only instead of involving other parties including the customers.

Lastly, Elkeles and Phillips (2007) argue that CLO should focus on group and individual needs to satisfy organizational needs holistically. However, the CLO seemed to emphasize employee’s group performance and neglected the strategies that meet individual needs about their organizational duties. I, therefore, recommend that he should focus on both levels that include group and individual performance (Elkeles & Phillips, 2007).

Choosing and Implementing a Critical Recommendation

The most significant recommendation is the first one since it monitors the technological demand of customers and provides the basis for training the employees to suit those demands. The demands can be monitored by conducting a research group as explained in the following steps.

1. Choose a group of researchers from the human resource department who will write a research proposal on monitoring the prevailing learning demands.
2. The research proposal should be taken to the research and innovation department which evaluates the appropriateness of that research methodology.
3. The research group should collect data that relates to the recent trends of technology from the target population.
4. The group analyzes the data, interprets, and recommends the new strategies that the company should adopt to satisfy the current trends.
5. The CLO evaluates the recommendations from the group and develops a strategic plan of implementing the strategies as recommended by the research group.

Conclusion

General Electric Company has a well developed CLO office with defined functions due to the deep history of existence. In this respect, the office has experienced immense evolution resulting in an effective training program. However, it is evident that the office should improve since the recommendations suggest that the CLO must consider better strategies than the current ones.

References

Ash, R. C., & Persall, J. M. (2000). The Principal As Chief Learning Officer: Developing Teacher Leaders. NASSP Bulletin, 84(616), 15-22.

Elkeles, T., & Phillips, J. J. (2006). The chief learning officer’s critical role: driving value within a changing organization through training and learning. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Elkeles, T., & Phillips, J. J. (2007). The chief learning officer driving value within a changing organization through learning and development. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization (Rev. ed.). New York, N.Y.: Currency Doubleday.

Appendix

Question 1: Interview Questions

1. From a historical perspective, you have served in this office for one month. What strategies have you implemented to ensure a smooth transition of roles? How have your subjects responded to this change of leadership?
2. General Electric is the first company that created the post of a Chief Learning Officer. What foundation was laid by this precedence regarding the ability to have the first-mover advantage as compared to your counterparts?
3. Since the introduction of the CLO, the company has been undergoing a transformative process of harnessing talents and aligning them to organizational objectives. What are the landmark changes that have occurred since the introduction of the post?
4. What strategies have you implemented to ensure that talents are incorporated with recent technology for increased efficiency and productivity of the company?
5. How do you ensure that your office communicates with the other departments that are below and above the CLO’s office in terms of hierarchy? How does this communication help in developing and implementing your strategies?
6. In principle, organizations and departments use either the top-down or bottom-up approach in decision making. What approach have you adopted in your department? What is your critique about the approach in terms of weaknesses and strengths?
7. It is common knowledge that an employee should not implement his ideologies instead of the organizational objectives. How do you fight your individual preferences to uphold organizational objectives? How do you instill the same professionalism in your subjects in this department?
8. For the sake of integrative strategy, how does your office integrate learning with development? How does this integration impact the broader culture of corporate bodies?
9. What are the other pivotal requirements that are needed to achieve a successful business environment?
10. What strategies do you use in the process of inducing changes so that you minimize this resistance and achieve change?
11. You have mentioned that your main function is built on technology. However, you had some original perceptions about technology before the appointment to this office. Which original perceptions have you upheld? Which perceptions have you abandoned by your experience in the office?
12. In cases where the flow of information gets out of control, how do you ensure that the CLO remains a vital part of the company?
13. What is your vision for this office in terms of creating a foundation for its future?
14. Would you share with me your experience in the human resource department for the last ten years? How do you map this experience to your present occupation?
15. What advice do you have for your colleagues pursuing the training profession?