Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change

by Beth Comstock

We focused on five core traits. We called these GE’s Growth Values: having an external market driven focus, measuring performance through the customers’ eyes; being a clear thinker, able to sift through complex information and focus on the critical priorities and strategy action steps; having imagination and courage, creating environments in which others can take risks and experiment; acting through inclusiveness, building diverse teams and partnerships, as well as collaborating across and outside the company; and deep expertise as a resource to drive change. The top five thousand people in the company would be rated on each of these traits as part of their annual performance review. To make it clear this was indeed about growth and development, and not an iteration of the previous rank-and-yank performance reviews (after which the bottom 10 percent of GE’s performers were ousted—in theory—every year), we stipulated that everyone would have at least one value that was rated red (as in a red stoplight: “Stop, this needs work”)—and one that was rated green (as in “Keep going; this is good”). The message: growing a company, as well as growing leadership, was a work in progress, and each one of us needed to evolve.