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Case Study

Re-imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s leadership culture (A)

By Shlomo Ben-Hur, Bernard J. Jaworski and David Gray

18 pages

June 2012

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Reference: IMD-3-2313

The case examines the evolution of GE’s corporate university in Crotonville, NY from its founding in 1956 through 2010 and the start of an effort of “Re-Imagining Crotonville.” One of the world’s first corporate universities, Crotonville became a model of leadership development and a recognized innovator in its field. The case details the role that Crotonville played under successive GE leaders, from Ralph Cordiner – who inaugurated Crotonville to train general managers to support a sweeping decentralization program – to Jeffrey Immelt. It considers how the institution changed in response to changing business needs and the factors that contributed to its vitality and success over several decades. Beginning in the 1980s, Crotonville became the nerve center of a cultural change effort launched by CEO Jack Welch, spawning programs such as “Work-Out” to cut through bureaucracy and return initiative to individual managers. Following the global financial crisis in 2008-9, CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Crotonville’s leaders set in motion an exploration of the changing nature of leadership needed to confront the new realities in which GE operated globally. CLO Susan Peters initiated Re-Imagining Crotonville to align learning and development with these new leadership expectations. The case examines the choices faced by Peters and her team in re-thinking the environment, experience, and content of leadership learning at Crotonville.

Learning Objective

Understand factors that have made Crotonville central to GE’s leadership culture over time. Examine role of CEO and corporate leadership in driving cultural change through learning and development. Understand the unique assets and potential limitations of a ‘corporate university’ model for leadership learning. Explore the change management challenges of managing a legacy of success – continuing to evolve while preserving the strong ‘brand’ and ‘secret sauce’ that make Crotonville unique.

Keywords

Organizational Learning, Learning Culture, Leadership Development, Executive Education, Corporate University, Leading Change, Transformation, Vision, General Management, Strategy

Settings

United States of America
2010 and historical (1956-2009)

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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This case study is part of a series

Re-imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s leadership culture (A)
Re-imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s leadership culture (B)

This case study is part of a series

Re-imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s leadership culture (A)
Re-imagining Crotonville: Epicenter of GE’s leadership culture (B)

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