GE Work-Out
GE Work-Out was developed by Jack Welsh, GE leaders and consultants, David Ulrich, Steve Kerr and Ron Ashkenas as a simple, high-involvement process for cutting bureaucracy and solving problems quickly.
“Work-Out” is named so because it gets unproductive work out of the system through harnessing the knowledge, intelligence and experience of the people closest to the work. It is a methodology to use to bust bureaucracy, reduce costs, speed cycle-times, or attack any other problem that needs to be solved.
Work-Out helps organizations:
• Create efficiencies and remove barriers to productivity in significant ways, and save a lot of money
• Solve problems – efficiently and thoroughly
• Encourage cross-boundary communication and innovation
• Develop their leader’s listening and decision-making capabilities
• Create an empowered workforce
• Get people focused outward to the customer and the marketplace (versus inward on formalities or structure)
• Increase speed, flexibility, innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit
• Build a culture that is fast-moving, focused on innovation, and unconcerned with boundaries.
As consultants, we help our clients bring Work-Out to their organizations and expertly facilitate the three stages of any Work-Out:
Planning:
- identify the problem
- get upper-level organizational support
- organize a plan design team
- recruit a cross-functional team.
Conducting the Work-Out:
- bring the right people/groups together for brainstorming, idea evaluation, recommendations, and approval.
Implement Solutions:
- put the ideas into practice with follow-up metrics and evaluation plan
In it’s simplest form, the Work-Out conference can be seen as a streamlined process of four basic steps:
1. Bring together the people who know the issues best
2. Challenge them to develop creative solutions
3. Make yes or no decisions on the solutions immediately in a public forum
4. Empower people to carry out the solutions
One of the unique characteristics of a Work-Out is the design principle that business leaders have to make decisions on the spot. They have to listen carefully, ask questions, solicit views from other people at the meeting, and then make a decision in a matter of minutes, rather than months. And because those closest to the work and across organizational boundaries are involved, the best-informed decisions and solutions are discovered and quickly implemented.
People learn quickly that Work-Out is not a program or a management fad, but a powerful process that can be implemented without a lot of planning and structure and brings to the table a set of principles, tools, and actions that helps managers reach their (SMART) goals faster by engaging employees in efficient, productive and meaningful ways.
If you have questions or would like to explore how Work-Out can help your people remove barriers to productivity or figure out the best way to deliver products and services to customers… improve margins… stay ahead of the competition… make the best use of technology… or move quickly to take advantage of new opportunities, give us a call and we’d be honored to explore how to best make Work-Out best work for you.
