The Secret to GE's Success:A Former Insider Reveals the Management Strategies

Even though General Electric is the oldest company to be tracked by Dow-Jones, it continues to grow and prosper. Its peers and competitors have either stagnated or been driven out of business. What are the key factors contributing to that company's 126-year history of success? What lessons can we learn from its remarkable longevity?

The answer comes in the form of a new book by a 30-year veteran of GE, William E. Rothschild, who rose to the position of senior Corporate Strategist before leaving to start his own consulting firm, Rothschild Strategies Unlimited. The Secret to GE's Success: A Former Insider Reveals the Management Strategies of the World's Most Competitive Company reveals why General Electric leads the world in innovation, strategic planning, and breakthrough results.

Our summary explores the five key factors that made GE a global phenomenon, and through GE's history, gives managers a template for duplicating that company's remarkable success.

By examining the four great stages of GE's history, this summary will show managers how that company:

• Created a succession system that identified the right leader for the right time;
• Recognized when even seemingly successful strategies needed to be adapted and changed;
• Developed a “farm system” to create a deep, skilled, and loyal managerial and professional bench;
• Took a stand against social, political, and economic policies that could prevent GE from controlling its own destiny; and
• Established, adapted, and used systems -- in finance, strategic planning, and human resource management -- that lent stability to the organization and helped it to progress toward its overall goals.

In each stage of GE's history, we'll look at some of the five fundamental success factors that have sustained the company over a century-and-a-quarter. They can be described using the acronym L-A-T-I-N, for leadership, adaptability, talent, influencing, and networks.