Some executives, watching Immelt’s frenetic assembly of acquisitions into new industrial business lines, wondered if the CEO misunderstood the meaning and the limits of GE’s management magic. The company prided itself on training good managers who could be asked to range across diverse businesses in the conglomerate in order to wring out greater results and improve performance. But the managers didn’t walk on water. They couldn’t be expected to solve larger strategic problems—especially the question of whether a potential acquisition should be part of GE in the first place. GE’s management
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