TORC

Legendary GE CEO, Jack Welch: a Leader-as-Teacher idol to so many

Readers of Noel Tichy will be well aware of his admiration for a certain type of leader: those who see a major part of their role as being that of a teacher. 

As head of GE’s famed leadership development center, Crotonville, Tichy worked closely with CEO, Jack Welch, in leading the transformation to action learning.

Welch wasn’t just his boss, but very much his idol as well.

Jack Welch in the role of teacher
Tichy, of course, is not alone, in rating Welch as the greatest CEO of the 20^th century – an accolade also bestowed on him by Fortune Magazine in 1999. 

And, in the Cycle of Leadership, Tichy leaves us in no doubt as to the underlying criteria he uses in coming to his opinion: 

“Jack Welch’s secret was the fact that he was constantly teaching. He ran sessions… every couple of weeks … with senior executives. But perhaps most importantly, he was always teaching, no matter what else he was doing. If you had a meeting with Welch, no matter what the topic, you could expect a quick coaching clinic at the end.” 

Business Week reporter, John Byrne, was equally impressed by Welch’s devotion to teaching, as he recounted in his classic cover story from 1998; 

“Jack Welch arrives early at the GE training centre … He scoots down to the Pit – the well of a bright, multitiered lecture hall … peels off his blue suit jacket… this is face-to-face with … Professor Welch, coach and teacher to 71 high-potential managers attending a three-week development course … in this classroom, where Welch has appeared more than 250 times … to engage some 15,000 GE managers and executives.” 

Pepsi & Intel also embace the teacher-leader model
Former Pepsi CEO, Roger Enrico, was equally bitten with the teaching bug: at one stage in his career he stepped out of a key operations role for a sabbatical dedicated to setting up what he called a “war college,” where he mentored and coached 110 of PepsiCo’s most promising executives in groups of nine on five-day leadership programmes. 

While,  at Intel, Andy Grove was often found leading induction classes for new recruits and making his home in an open cubicle rather than in a closed office, so he could better engage as teacher to his wider Intel team on the floor.

BD Medical, Avnet & 3M latest evangelists
This leader-as-teacher trend continues to gather steam amid the current crop of Fortune 500 business leaders, as well: with BD Medical’s Ed Ludwig, Avnet’s Roy Vallee and 3M’s George Buckley major evangelists.

Avnet has bought into the practice to such an extent that it has built a formal train-the-trainer business process around the whole activity.

Courses delivered by senior executives are offered quarterly at key locations in Europe, Asia and at Avnet’s US Global HQ in Phoenix, Arizona to an audience composed of future Avnet leaders.

Nothing is left to chance.

All new courses pass through a one-day content development workshop, all speakers undergo formal train-the-trainer preparation, and ROI criteria are established and measured.

Learning & Development and Succession Planning
The point is: these are looked on as strategically important learning & development programmes within an overall succession planning framework and not just as one-off, motivational, feel-good events.

These CEO’s, in rolling up their sleeves to engage widely in such teaching activities, are sending a powerful signal to their organizations with regard to the importance of learning – as a systems level asset that stays within the organization, even if individuals change role or leave.

By their behaviour, these teaching CEO’s are setting an example for all their followers, in how to build sustainable capability – by cascading the teacher role downwards through the whole organization.

Leader-as-Teacher demands investment
Inevitably, these developments place new demands on the internal training department: with respect to honing the necessary teaching skills in-house – and, stimulating a greater demand all round for train-the-trainer-type programmes.  

The extra demands placed on the teacher-leaders themselves are equally significant.

In a recent interview in  USA Today, 3M’s Buckley reckoned that he was personally spending about one fifth of his time on these initiatives.

The GE rationale still rules
Still, the alternative of not doing it would be even more costly.

In this context, it is worth recalling how Jack Welch himself famously rationalized the value of training:

“Some organizations worry that if they train their people, they’ll leave; I worry that if we don’t train them, they’ll stay.”

 PS. To learn about Torc’s 3-day Train-The-Trainer programme, please click here