Plenary sessions
Friday, 11/13, 10:00 am - Execution: The Art of Getting it Done
Moderator: John A. Byrne, Executive Editor, BusinessWeek
Panelists:
- Tom Neff, Chairman, US, Spencer Stuart
- Robert L. Nardelli, CEO, Cerberus Operations & Advisory Company, LLC
- Steve Howe, Americas Area Managing Partner, Ernst & Young
“I've always viewed myself as an entrepreneur,” says Robert Nardelli. Maybe that's why he looks for managers with entrepreneurial qualities.
Now the CEO of Cerberus Operations & Advisory Company, Nardelli use to head up Chrysler and was a senior GE executive under Jack Welch.
“I'm looking for energy, someone willing to drill down into granular details,” he told the audience at a discussion on “getting it done” at the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum. Also important: having a forward-looking perspective. “I like people who are thinking about, ‘What are the economic indicators, what is the disruptive technology, who are the suppliers?' Someone who can say, ‘What could happen, and what would we do if it did?'”
As CEO of Cerberus Operations & Advisory Company, LLC, Nardelli says the right talent is a cornerstone of effective execution. “You can never under-talent a job. Always go out and get the very best and the very brightest.”
When he was at General Electric, Jack Welch once called him the company's greatest operations executive. Nardelli oversaw the expansion of GE's turbine business, which went from manufacturing 50 turbines a year to 300.
What made the expansion possible, Nardelli said, was GE's focus on strategy, operations and resources. “Have a strategy, operationalize it, and put resources behind it,” he said. One key to successfully ramping up the turbine business: Nardelli embedded GE's people in the operations of its suppliers, ensuring an efficient and robust supply chain (pour the ingot, ship it to the machine shop, get it to the sub-supplier and then to GE). “We were one team, we worked across the portfolio, and shared technology, best practices people. That was a true winning formula under Jack Welch.”
Nardelli pointed out that GE didn't want to own its suppliers, but to get ahead of them and anticipate potential problems. That meant always thinking of a Plan B. “There are people who are overly optimistic, and some who are pessimistic,” he said. “I was taught to be realistic and see the world the way it is, not the way you want to see it. As Jack Welch used to say, take off the rose-colored glasses.”
Steve Howe, Americas Area Managing Partner at Ernst & Young, urged participants at the Strategic Growth Forum to view the current economic environment as an opportunity. “Companies are going to break away and get better,” Howe said. “Leverage your strengths; improve and leverage your brand; identify where your gaps are vs. the competition.”
Howe also acknowledged that as companies become larger and expand geographically, they tend to become more structured and hierarchical. Yet innovation is the lifeblood of growth. It's important to implement the structures and systems needed for scale without losing the entrepreneurial, creative side of the enterprise.
“We want to make sure that we're tapping into the next generation,” Howe said. “Half our workforce is under 30. They're different, they're thoughtful, they're energetic. We want to make sure we're sourcing their ideas, and that they don't feel stifled by this larger organization.”
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