The Training Ground...

The following is an excerpt of THE SECRET TO GE's SUCCESS, which appeared Express Computer , in India's leading IT weekly business

Manage-Wise
The training ground
Many electric utility executives, engineers, and professionals were graduates of GE’s test and management programs. Since GE kept only a percentage of the trainees, the company encouraged those who didn’t make the GE team to work for the electric utilities. This cultivated strong bonds between “GE alumni” and the company.
These mutually beneficial relationships between manufacturers and their customers were very common and were practiced in all major industries. It was the personality and skills of Coffin and his team, however, that made GE even more successful.
Coffin recognized the need to hire the best people and keep them loyal. He instituted several major training programs that still exist today, and he hired qualified people regardless of their race, religion, or politics.
Building a bench
From its inception to the present, GE has had a strong farm system organization. The company has always believed in the concept of recruiting young, retaining the best, and building from within.
Coffin and his management team recognized early that it was very important to recruit talented individuals early in their careers and then provide the training and work assignments to enhance their skills and company loyalty.
In 1901, GE established apprentice programs in Schenectady, Lynn, Bridgeport, and Fort Wayne, which were the major manufacturing locations. A combination of work assignments and evening classes were developed in four areas: machinist, draftsman, blacksmith, and moulder. Upon completion of a course, the graduates were awarded a “Certificate of apprenticeship.” This program was one of the key programs in the company until the 1950s. There were ties to local universities so that the apprentices also could work on getting engineering and technical degrees.
Coffin knew that the company needed competent, GE-trained and GE-loyal engineering staff, so he created the Engineering Test Program. This program was an entry-level program for all engineering recruits. The trainees were assigned to specific “testing” operations in the product departments, as well as the General Engineering Laboratory. Some were sent to the Corporate Research and Development Center.
Coffin also recognized the need to hire talented nontechnical college graduates, so he established the Business Training Course (BTC). The college recruits were given a variety of financial assignments, and they were required to take very intensive accounting and financial courses two nights a week. The trainees had to take weekend exams, and they were given grades as though they were in college.
Grades and work appraisals were used to determine who would be promoted. The best graduates were assigned to the Auditing Staff, enabling them to learn about the various company operations and enhance their ability to lead in these businesses. Graduates of the Auditing Staff became the financial linchpins, and often the general managers, of the company’s business units.
A personal recount
This is the program that I joined in 1955. I was a Fordham University Russian Language and area studies major, and I had never had an accounting course in my life. I soon found that I was not alone. More than half the BTC enrollees were liberal arts majors. GE believed it was the trainee’s ability, rather than his or her undergraduate major, that mattered.
All of the GE training programs had six common characteristics:
The programs recruited from the best technical high school, colleges, and universities. The apprentices were recruited from the best high schools; the engineering and BTC program candidates came from the best colleges and universities. The recruiters’ focus was on the candidates’ ability to learn, not just on their experience. This candidates’ selection process resulted in programs being filled with excellent and committed students. It also resulted in strong relationships between GE and the best high schools, colleges, and universities.
The GE training focused on the GE Way of doing things. Even if you were a skilled engineer or accountant, you often had to forget what you had learned in school and relearn the GE Way. Some of the trainees found this difficult, so it was often easier for GE to hire those with less education in an area and train them than it was for GE to convert those who already believed they knew how to do it. (My lack of previous accounting knowledge made it easier for me to learn the GE Way, in contrast to those participants who already had accounting degrees and had to “unlearn” what they already knew and then relearn the GE Way.)
The program trainers assigned challenging work. All of the programs used work assignments that were designed to help the participants practice what they were taught. GE was able to develop such challenging teaching materials because the program administrators assigned a “mentor” and “counselor” to each student to help him or her learn and adapt.
The programs included tests and work appraisals. The BTC, for instance, had Saturday morning examinations at the end of each course, and these three to four hour exams were as rigorous as any college or university exam. Numeric grades were given and posted for all to see, just as they would have been in college. (I was amazed at having to take exams and get grades. I was equally amazed at how competitive the program was.)
Breeding the best
Up or out. Throughout its history one of GE’s strengths has been its willingness to focus on the best and “prune” those not making the grade. So too did the company let go of those students in its training programs who couldn’t get the grades GE was looking for. The company used a combination of exams and work assignment appraisals to determine whether a trainee would (a) continue in the program, (b) be asked to leave the program but be allowed to stay with the company, or (c) be asked to leave the company outright.
GE gave certificates, not advanced degrees. Though the GE training programs were intensive and demanding, the graduates received only a GE certificate and not an advanced degree. This was done to ensure that the graduates stayed with GE and were less marketable on the open market.

Excerpt from 'The Secret to GE’s Success' by William E Rothschild. Reproduced with permission © 2008, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited. Price: Rs 595. Vishwanath_Ghanekar@mcgraw-hill.com
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