General Electric has played a significant role in the modern conversation about Lean, leadership, and operational excellence—especially through GE Aerospace and the leadership of Larry Culp. These posts examine how Lean thinking shows up (or fails to) inside a large, complex organization, with a focus on leadership behavior, safety, problem-solving, and culture.
Rather than treating Lean as a program or toolkit, this archive looks at GE through a systems lens: how leaders talk about improvement, how they respond to problems and mistakes, and whether daily management reinforces learning or blame. The emphasis is on what other organizations can realistically learn from GE’s successes, struggles, and evolution.
It’s inspiring to hear a CEO talk about Lean and continuous improvement concepts, as Larry Culp, Chairman and CEO of GE Aerospace, did recently on CNBC. “We just need to get a little bit better every day.” In Japanese (and…
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace…
I’ve already written one blog post about this excellent Bloomberg BusinessWeek article about the Lean transformation at GE Aerospace, a post that focused on CEO Larry Culp saying that “a problem-solving culture is far more effective operationally than a finger-pointing…
tl;dr: GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp argues that problem-solving cultures outperform finger-pointing and blame, leading to better learning, performance, and accountability. Problem-Solving vs. Finger-Pointing at GE Aerospace There was a fascinating article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek about GE doing its final…
Embracing Imperfections and Learning from Mistakes: A Leadership Insight from the 2022 AME Annual Conference… In a riveting conversation between Larry Culp (at the time, CEO of GE and now CEO of GE Aerospace) and my good friend Katie Anderson…
tl;dr: GE Aerospace is redefining its culture under CEO Larry Culp through a Lean operating system called “Flight Deck,” built on safety, SQDC, and respect for people. Their Safety Management System, independent oversight, and commitment to continuous learning reflect a…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make…
As I recently shared on LinkedIn, I really appreciated the annual shareholder letter that was published and shared by Larry Culp, who has been CEO of General Electric for just over five years now (the first-ever outsider CEO in their…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #491 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Sarah Tilkens, an experienced Lean Leader with a demonstrated history of working in construction and manufacturing. She is a…
Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. Insights about improvement, innovation, and leadership… Operational Excellence, Improvement, and…
I was surprised that GEO CEO Larry Culp’s opening remarks weren’t shared in the YouTube recordings from the GE Lean Mindset event held in New York and live-streamed earlier this month. Larry Culp’s Opening Remarks on Lean at GE His…
This is the first in a series of posts about the sessions from the GE Lean Mindset event that I was able to attend recently. You can read my initial summary of the event’s themes and check out all of…
