By Ed Winchester
"The White House," part of GE Crotonville, makes for an interesting night out for visitors to General Electric's sprawling 53-acre corporate university in Ossining, N.Y. The two-story converted farmhouse (it's actually yellow) is the hub of social activity at the company's neatly manicured management training facility 35 miles north of New York City. It also serves a valuable networking function. There, amid the foosball tables, dart boards, and fully stocked bar, it's not uncommon for guests—the majority of whom are GE employees—to rub shoulders with company leaders. CEO Jeff Immelt D'78 is among the regulars.
Such access is one of the hallmarks of GE's corporate learning environment. But it isn't limited to company ranks. In January 2008, Tuck strategy professor Vijay Govindarajan began his one-year term as professor-in-residence and chief innovation consultant at GE. Tasked with accelerating GE's growth and innovation agenda, Govindarajan's responsibilities include consulting and teaching in Crotonville's leadership and manager development courses. But he also makes himself available to senior-level staff during scheduled coffee hours.
"This is new territory for me," says Govindarajan, the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business and director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership. "As faculty, your job is to educate using frameworks and concepts. Here, I'm a sounding board for company leaders grappling with questions around innovation."
GE has engaged academia in the past. Govindarajan, who lectured frequently in GE's new Leadership, Innovation, and Growth program throughout 2007, is one in a long line of business-school faculty to pass through Crotonville. But as professor-in-residence—a first for a non-GE employee—his role in the company's learning culture extends beyond the classroom. "They're taking me deep into their issues. Not that they are looking for solutions. They're simply trying to make the connection between what I am saying and their issues," he continues. "That means I need to understand their businesses."
Understanding businesses—particularly those with lofty innovation goals—is Govindarajan's stock in trade and the subject of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution, his bestselling book with coauthor and Tuck Professor Chris Trimble T'96. Before the book's 2005 publication, Govindarajan sent a manuscript to GE's Immelt, whom he met at the Dartmouth College commencement a year earlier. Focusing on the challenges that established corporations face in pursuit of breakthrough businesses, Ten Rules was in lockstep with Immelt's new change agenda at GE. Something clicked, says Govindarajan. "When they were thinking about bringing in an academic, the dots got connected."
Govindarajan had the company in his sights much earlier. Reading GE cases as a Harvard Business School student in the late 1970s, he developed a strong affinity for the company, one whose current efforts to address pressing environmental concerns like water scarcity and climate change reinforce Govindarajan's notion of corporations as a force for good. "When an opportunity like this comes up, you jump at it," he continues. "One of the reasons I admire GE is that change is very much a part of its DNA. You can't be successful for more than 125 years unless you change on a continual basis."
Govindarajan expects the experience to change him as well. Working with senior executives midstream in their careers means departing from the theory- based case method he employs in the MBA classroom. It requires delving deep into GE's various businesses, a learning process that is already informing Govindarajan's work at Tuck. Although technically on leave, he continues to teach his popular Implementing Strategy elective at Tuck. "When I come back, I am going to be a different person," he adds. "My teaching, my research, my service to the school will be that much stronger."
