EVERY BRAIN IN THE GAME

Jack Welch (http://www.welchway.com/)

Our final underlying principle is based on our deep belief that every person in the world wants voice and dignity and every person deserves them.

By voice, we mean people want the opportunity to speak their minds and have their ideas, opinions, and feelings heard, regardless of their nationality, gender, age, or culture.

By dignity, we mean people inherently and instinctively want to be respected for their work and effort and individuality.

If you’ve just read the above and said, “Well, obviously,” then fine. We assume that most people will have that response. And maybe the belief in voice and dignity doesn’t even need to be stated, it is so widely accepted and its importance is so self-evident. But we have been surprised over the past couple of years how often we end up coming back to this value when I talk about winning.

Not long ago in China, for instance, a young woman in the audience stood and, literally in tears, asked how any businessperson in her country could practice candor and differentiation when “only the voice of the boss is allowed.”

“We, the people underneath, have so many ideas. But we cannot even imagine speaking them until we are the boss,” she said. “That is fine if you are an entrepreneur and start your own company. Then you are the boss. But some of us are not able to do that.”

But the “repression” of voice and dignity is hardly a Chinese problem. In fact, while the Chinese woman was very emotional in her questioning, people in every country we’ve visited share some of her frustration and concern on this matter.

Now, when you are running a unit or a division, you rarely think that people aren’t speaking up or that they’re not respected. It feels like the people around you certainly are, and your days are filled with visits, calls, and notes from people with strong opinions. But it ends up that what you experience is a skewed sample. The majority of people in most organizations don’t say anything because they feel they can’t – and because they haven’t been asked.

For Jack, that became clear in the late ‘80s, just about every time he had a marathon session at GE's training center in Crotonville.

He tells that story in his own words:

At Crotonville, detailed questions about local business issues – questions that should have been answered back on the home turf -- were thrown at me from every direction. “Why is the refrigeration plant getting all the new equipment while we’re letting laundry suffer?” and “What are we moving the GE-90 engine assembly to Durham for, when we can do it right here in Evandale?”

In frustration, after several such questions, I would invariably stop the class and ask, “Why aren’t you asking those questions to your own bosses?”

The answer would come back, “I can’t bring that up. I’d get killed.”

“So why can you ask me?” I would say.

“Because we feel anonymous here.”

After a year or so of these kinds of exchanges, I realized GE had to do something to create an environment back in the businesses where people at every level would speak out like they did at Crotonville.

The Work-Out process was born. These were two or three-day events held at GE sites around the world, patterned after New England town meetings. Groups of 40 to 100 employees would come together, with an outside facilitator, to discuss better ways of doing things and how to eliminate some of the bureaucracy and roadblocks that were hindering them. The boss would be present at the beginning of each session, laying out the rationale for the Work-Out. He would also commit to two things: to give an on-the-spot “yes” or “no” to 75 percent of the recommendations that came out of the session, and to resolve the remaining 25 percent within 30 days. He would then disappear until the end of session, so as not to stifle open discussion, only returning at the end to make good on his promise.

Tens of thousands of these sessions took place over several years, until they became a way of life in the company. They are no longer “big events” but part of how GE goes about solving problems.

Whether it was a refrigeration plant in Louisville, where employees debated faster and better paint systems, or a jet engine plant in Rutland, Vermont, where employees had recommendations on how to cut cycle time in blade manufacturing, or a credit card processing facility in Cincinnati, where employees had ideas about billing efficiency, Work-Outs led to an explosion in productivity.

They brought every brain in to the game.

A middle-aged appliance worker who was at one Work-Out spoke for thousands of people when he told me, “For 25 years, you paid for my hands when you could have had my brain as well – for nothing.”

At last, because of Work-Out, we were getting both. In fact, I believe Work-Out was responsible for one of the most profound changes in GE during my time there. For the vast majority of employees, the boss-knows-all culture disappeared.

Now, a big bureaucracy like GE needed something as systematized as Work-Out to break the ice and get people to open up. But it is not the only method to make sure that your team or company is getting every voice heard. Find an approach that feels right to you.

Of course, I’m not saying that everyone’s opinions should be put into practice or every single complaint needs to be satisfied. That’s what management judgment is all about. Obviously, some people have better ideas than others; some people are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.

They want it and you need it.