Leadership Development 207
signed to develop the company’s future top management. Rather than
sit passively through the traditional leadership seminar, the executives
were put through a ‘‘trial by fire’’ in which they were asked to:
- Play the role of the CEO speaking on a controversial topic to
a hostile audience (the action learning included actual lights
and cameras to duplicate a press conference). - Commit to development activities back on the job, such as
spending a week in a client’s office interviewing and shadowing
the client’s upper management, or chairing the annual partners’
meeting for a particular line of business.
This type of learning and the follow-up assignments had significant
and measurable results. One-half of the group was given more responsi-
bilities, and many were appointed to key task forces. All reported feeling
more confident in their leadership roles. Two years later, KPMG de-
cided to add another class of thirty-six, and to intermix the two classes
so that the ideas and energy were magnified.^12 Perhaps it is a coinci-
dence, but Jesus formed a group of apostles of almost identical size (‘‘the
Seventy-Two’’) when he wanted to expand the message of his church.
Jack Welch was a firm believer in action learning. Before a session
of GE’s Executive Development Course, he sent out a memo to the
participants, in which he asked them to think about and be prepared to
discuss the following situation:
Tomorrow you are appointed the CEO of GE:❖What would you do in the first thirty days?
❖Do you have a current ‘‘vision’’ of what to do?
❖How would you go about developing one?
❖Present your best shot at the vision.
❖How would you go about ‘‘selling’’ the vision?
❖What foundations would you build on?
❖What current practices would you jettison?’’^13