What you can learn from GE's 6-year CEO succession planning process

With the announcement of General Electric's (GE) next CEO, John Flannery; Susan Peters, head of HR at GE, has shared the success behind the firm’s CEO succession process in a recent post. 

She wrote: “The environment we work in today demands greater leadership. As I’ve written before, the most effective leaders are the ones who can operate across multiple contexts and turn apparent chaos into opportunity.”

“This requires courage, grit, and resiliency. It was through that lens that we built our process and the Board made its decision. Like all big decisions at GE, we did our homework,” she said.

Having taken more than 6 years in the making, GE laid out its CEO succession planning through five key steps:

• Moving key leaders to give them new, stretch experiences
• Writing the job description and continuously evolving it
• Observed internal candidates and evaluated both internal and external candidates against our key criteria
• Carefully contemplating the timing of the transition
• Interviews

With GE being aware that it would take years to move potential candidates through the leadership roles that would develop them, it began by first intentionally moving key leaders to give them new, stretch experiences with ever increasing exposure to complexity.  

Sharing some of the questions posed during these interviews, they included:

• How would you position GE to win in that environment
• What strategic changes would you drive, including capital allocation or portfolio management
• What do you see as the most beneficial aspect of GE’s culture that would be important for you to maintain? What would you plan to change?
• What is some of the toughest personal feedback you have received?
• What professional or personal experiences have helped shape your global perspective?
• How do you learn?

In conclusion, Peters commented: "At the end of the day these decisions are about people and delivering results for shareholders."

Infographic / GE

Photo / 123RF