During my MBA program I had the good fortune to work as a Research Assistant for Noel Tichy, who amongst many things was/is a Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan as well as the head of GE’s Crotonville School of Leadership.
In the October 13 issue of the Financial Times, a peek at the updated curriculumn was shared at this famous school which works at training the future leadership of GE globally. I thought their list of skills -not what I would have learned in the 80′s during my scholarship, and not what I learned during my various updates of leadership during the 90′s and the past decade – provacative. They are:
- external focus
- clear thinking
- imagination and courage
- inclusiveness
- expertise
Lacking any further insight into these skills, I have put my own spin on them here:
- external focus: recognizing that the business, customers, and perceptions are build outside the company’s “walls”, and then conducting all business and interactions balancing the core strategies with the willingness to see everything you say or imply as a 160 character tweet
- clear thinking: learning the skill of assimilation – taking disparate information, recognizing trends, and then being able to communicate those findings to others
- imagination and courage: I’m disappointed to see these combined, in this context I’m guess it means the creativity to vision a new future and the strength of character to pursue that vision
- inclusiveness: recognizing that teams and customers will be of all walks of life, and that valuing each human for the characteristics they uniquely bring, not those inherent to their culture, gender, age, or life path they are on.
- expertise: at the end of the day, know something, know it deeply and well, and share that knowledge freely with others
If that is what they meant, its a pretty fine list. One to consider on this Friday soon to be afternoon!
visual credit: http://www.iedp.com/Blog/GE_Crotonville_and_Susan_Peters an interesting article on its own!
