From the Frying Pan to the Fire — And Back Again: An Action Learning Story from General Electric

The flight from New York to Paris turned out to be a busy one. It was late June 1988, and I was one of a group of 40 executives from General Electric (GE) who were heading to INSEAD, the French business school in Fontainebleau, for the kick-off of a new version of GE’s four-week action learning based Business Management Course. This was the first ever “Global BMC” held outside the United States, and the objective was one of sensitizing GE’s executives to the opportunities and challenges of competing in the growing global marketplace. Paolo Fresco, GE’s Senior Vice President (International) had finally convinced the CEO that the world was larger than the continental United States and, although GE was known to have a global presence almost since its inception, we should be looking to expand our non-U.S. business dramatically. Since Fresco was one of the few non-U.S. executives at the top of the company, he perceived the need to develop what he called “global brains” in the U.S. born and educated executive ranks. That he was correct in this need was illustrated by the fact that a significant number of the participants in this Global BMC did not have passports until they were notified of their selection for the program. The reason that I was aware of this was that I was on the staff of GE’s Leadership Development Institute (known as Crotonville), and my colleague, Jim Noel, was running this program.