{"id":87,"date":"2014-08-16T20:29:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T20:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/orgbehavior1xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=87"},"modified":"2019-04-15T19:29:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T19:29:56","slug":"9-1-teamwork-takes-to-the-sky-the-case-of-general-electric","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-orgbehavior\/chapter\/9-1-teamwork-takes-to-the-sky-the-case-of-general-electric\/","title":{"raw":"9.1 Teamwork Takes to the Sky: The Case of General Electric","rendered":"9.1 Teamwork Takes to the Sky: The Case of General Electric"},"content":{"raw":"In Durham, North Carolina, Robert Henderson was opening a factory for General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). The goal of the factory was to manufacture the largest commercial jet engine in the world. Henderson\u2019s opportunity was great and so were his challenges. GE hadn\u2019t designed a jet engine from the ground up for over 2 decades. Developing the jet engine project had already cost GE $1.5 billion. That was a huge sum of money to invest\u2014and an unacceptable sum to lose should things go wrong in the manufacturing stage.\r\n
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\r\n\r\nHow could one person fulfill such a vital corporate mission? The answer, Henderson decided, was that one person couldn\u2019t fulfill the mission. Even Jack Welch, GE\u2019s CEO at the time, said, \u201cWe now know where productivity comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people.\u201d\r\n\r\nEmpowering factory workers to contribute to GE\u2019s success sounded great in theory. But how to accomplish these goals in real life was a more challenging question. Factory floors, traditionally, are unempowered workplaces where workers are more like cogs in a vast machine than self-determining team members.\r\n\r\nIn the name of teamwork and profitability, Henderson traveled to other factories looking for places where worker autonomy was high. He implemented his favorite ideas at the factory at Durham. Instead of hiring generic \u201cmechanics,\u201d for example, Henderson hired staffers with FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) mechanic\u2019s licenses. This superior training created a team capable of making vital decisions with minimal oversight, a fact that upped the factory\u2019s output and his workers\u2019 feelings of worth.\r\n\r\nHenderson\u2019s \u201cself-managing\u201d factory functioned beautifully. And it looked different, too. Plant manager Jack Fish described Henderson\u2019s radical factory, saying Henderson \u201cdidn\u2019t want to see supervisors, he didn\u2019t want to see forklifts running all over the place, he didn\u2019t even want it to look traditional. There\u2019s clutter in most plants, racks of parts and so on. He didn\u2019t want that.\u201d\r\n\r\nHenderson also contracted out non-job-related chores, such as bathroom cleaning, that might have been assigned to workers in traditional factories. His insistence that his workers should contribute their highest talents to the team showed how much he valued them. And his team valued their jobs in turn.\r\n\r\nSix years later, a Fast Company<\/em> reporter visiting the plant noted, \u201cGE\/Durham team members take such pride in the engines they make that they routinely take brooms in hand to sweep out the beds of the 18-wheelers that transport those engines\u2014just to make sure that no damage occurs in transit.\u201d For his part, Henderson, who remained at GE beyond the project, noted, \u201cI was just constantly amazed by what was accomplished there.\u201d\r\n\r\nGE\u2019s bottom line showed the benefits of teamwork, too. From the early 1980s, when Welch became CEO, until 2000, when he retired, GE generated more wealth than any organization in the history of the world.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Discussion Questions<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. Would Robert Henderson\u2019s strategy have worked if GE were manufacturing an entire plane rather than just an engine? What about if they were manufacturing medical equipment?<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Jack Welch stated that productivity \u201ccomes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people.\u201d Do you agree with this statement? What are some other factors of productivity that Welch may have left out?<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. One of the factors that contributed to the success of Henderson\u2019s new factory was the use of FAA-certified mechanics. How could Henderson have accomplished his goal if the industry was suffering a shortage of FAA-certified individuals?<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. As stated at the opening of the GE story, GE had already invested $1.5 billion in the jet engine project. This implies that GE has a large amount of money at its disposal. Could Henderson have pulled off his revolutionary production facility without the amount of financial capital GE provided? How might his initial planning and development of the factory have differed if he were working for a new, small, start-up organization?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

    In Durham, North Carolina, Robert Henderson was opening a factory for General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). The goal of the factory was to manufacture the largest commercial jet engine in the world. Henderson\u2019s opportunity was great and so were his challenges. GE hadn\u2019t designed a jet engine from the ground up for over 2 decades. Developing the jet engine project had already cost GE $1.5 billion. That was a huge sum of money to invest\u2014and an unacceptable sum to lose should things go wrong in the manufacturing stage.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n

    How could one person fulfill such a vital corporate mission? The answer, Henderson decided, was that one person couldn\u2019t fulfill the mission. Even Jack Welch, GE\u2019s CEO at the time, said, \u201cWe now know where productivity comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Empowering factory workers to contribute to GE\u2019s success sounded great in theory. But how to accomplish these goals in real life was a more challenging question. Factory floors, traditionally, are unempowered workplaces where workers are more like cogs in a vast machine than self-determining team members.<\/p>\n

    In the name of teamwork and profitability, Henderson traveled to other factories looking for places where worker autonomy was high. He implemented his favorite ideas at the factory at Durham. Instead of hiring generic \u201cmechanics,\u201d for example, Henderson hired staffers with FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) mechanic\u2019s licenses. This superior training created a team capable of making vital decisions with minimal oversight, a fact that upped the factory\u2019s output and his workers\u2019 feelings of worth.<\/p>\n

    Henderson\u2019s \u201cself-managing\u201d factory functioned beautifully. And it looked different, too. Plant manager Jack Fish described Henderson\u2019s radical factory, saying Henderson \u201cdidn\u2019t want to see supervisors, he didn\u2019t want to see forklifts running all over the place, he didn\u2019t even want it to look traditional. There\u2019s clutter in most plants, racks of parts and so on. He didn\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Henderson also contracted out non-job-related chores, such as bathroom cleaning, that might have been assigned to workers in traditional factories. His insistence that his workers should contribute their highest talents to the team showed how much he valued them. And his team valued their jobs in turn.<\/p>\n

    Six years later, a Fast Company<\/em> reporter visiting the plant noted, \u201cGE\/Durham team members take such pride in the engines they make that they routinely take brooms in hand to sweep out the beds of the 18-wheelers that transport those engines\u2014just to make sure that no damage occurs in transit.\u201d For his part, Henderson, who remained at GE beyond the project, noted, \u201cI was just constantly amazed by what was accomplished there.\u201d<\/p>\n

    GE\u2019s bottom line showed the benefits of teamwork, too. From the early 1980s, when Welch became CEO, until 2000, when he retired, GE generated more wealth than any organization in the history of the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n

    Discussion Questions<\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. Would Robert Henderson\u2019s strategy have worked if GE were manufacturing an entire plane rather than just an engine? What about if they were manufacturing medical equipment?<\/li>\n
    2. Jack Welch stated that productivity \u201ccomes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people.\u201d Do you agree with this statement? What are some other factors of productivity that Welch may have left out?<\/li>\n
    3. One of the factors that contributed to the success of Henderson\u2019s new factory was the use of FAA-certified mechanics. How could Henderson have accomplished his goal if the industry was suffering a shortage of FAA-certified individuals?<\/li>\n
    4. As stated at the opening of the GE story, GE had already invested $1.5 billion in the jet engine project. This implies that GE has a large amount of money at its disposal. Could Henderson have pulled off his revolutionary production facility without the amount of financial capital GE provided? How might his initial planning and development of the factory have differed if he were working for a new, small, start-up organization?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t
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