A very good summary of Workout is presented by the Management Development Forum, a journal on management learning and organizational development. Read through the article called “Adapting General Electric’s Workout for Use in Other Organizations: A Template.”

To find the article easily, search Google for “general electric workout,” or go to the Management Development Forum’s Web site at http://www.esc.edu/ESConline/Across_ESC/Forumjournal.nsf/

web+viewnf? and click on the “Volume 2, Number 1” link. At the table of contents, click on the article title, and you are there. One of the most widely copied innovations from Jack Welch’s tenure as CEO of General Electric (GE) was the “Workout” session.

Although generating ideas was an important objective, these sessions were intended to achieve other outcomes as well, including those of helping managers learn how to effectively serve as mentors for those working for them and as facilitators for effective actions on the parts of their employees. The sessions were designed to induce managers’ commitment to and ability to work in a bottom-up, fast-action organizational culture. This type of culture requires well-trained personnel throughout the firm for it to be effective both in generating innovations as well as in implementing or executing them. Thus,Workout is a process that amplifies the human capital in an organization by building creative activities around every person in the firm.

In this exercise, you will learn more about the GE Workout sessions and will discuss the ability of this concept to be used in all types of organizations.