I liked Kate Linebaugh’s article this Wednesday in the Wall St. Journal (“The New GE Way: Go Deep, Not Wide“), in which she explains that GE has shifted their approach to management development. GE used to move managers around a lot to give them wide exposure to different business units. In recent years, as their businesses have become more complex, they increasingly emphasize deeper experience in fewer business units.

I like having our product strategy and operations driven by product and market experts who know customer needs, experts who combine their product and market knowledge with creativity to come up with new solutions that delight customers. That kind of expertise doesn’t come quickly – it is developed over years.

This story in the article drove home the point:

Anders Wold came to GE as part of an acquisition of a Norwegian ultrasound business in 1998 and now runs that business at GE. The unit was a bit of stepchild in GE’s imaging business, which is dominated by expensive products such as magnetic-resonance-imaging machines and CT-scanners.

His strategy was to recruit talent with deep customer relationships and expertise in the field. Employees, he said, needed that depth to be able to listen effectively and translate needs into new technology.

“Customers won’t tell us exactly what they want,” he said. “If you are very generic, if you don’t have that domain understanding, you will develop products that will be average and not very successful.”

“GE as a company can’t just take a generic approach here,” he said. “We have to be viewed as the specialist.” The approach helped the group boost its sales to $2 billion last year from $200 million a decade ago. Now, ultrasound is the biggest division at GE’s health-care unit. Mr. Immelt took notice and has used ultrasound as an example at company meetings. “There has been very clear messaging to give priority and to develop domain knowledge,” said Mr. Wold.

I am proud that each of our three divisions – IT Management, Secure File Transfer and Messaging – has developed and continues to build its own deep expertise.