“By far amongst the coolest and most impactful sessions in my professional development.”
– Luigi Gentile, Vice President of Sales at BenchSci
To lead an organization, you have to know the business world like the back of your hand. But what happens when one of the largest multinationals – consistently ranked at the top of the Fortune 500 – helps develop the creative capacity of its leadership as well as their business acumen? The results may surprise you.
THE ISSUE WE FACED
As one of the most innovative companies on the planet – with locations in 170 countries and with over 300,000 employees – GE faces rapid industry change on a daily basis. In order to keep up, they know leadership needs to embrace an agile mindset, quickly adopt fresh thinking and push ideas further than ever. However, while experts in their fields, many leaders were stuck in linear thinking that was holding the organization back from innovating at scale.
HOW WE SOLVED
Beginning in 2011, ALR designed and delivered workshops to boost creativity during a two-week program, hosted monthly, for global executives throughout GE. Noah Scalin, and other ALR-trained artists, engaged leaders in experiential-learning courses. They illuminated ways for executives to build confidence in their creative capacity, and trust in its power to solve their unique challenges. The leaders had their doubts. But with disciplined application of our approach, participants rapidly uncovered new approaches to their work.
As artists, we established ourselves as peers in leadership. Like GE execs, we are at the top of our fields. We use tried and true practices that enable us to do our best work. We enabled them to see that, while our day-to-day looks different, our perspective and process to get to new ideas can have a transformational effect on their business.
OUR IMPACT
Our courses took on new life within the company. Over five years, ALR’s creative approach gained influential relevance at GE. Our training went from an optional elective to a required course for the most impactful leaders in the company. Nearly five thousand participants developed an agile, innovative outlook that increased their confidence and capability to lead change in their departments.
Through adopting ALR’s creative mindset, GE leaders could face their organizational challenges with consistently fresh perspectives – helping them get to solutions faster, easier, and with more imagination than ever.
“The session challenged some of my misperceptions about the creative process and the limitations I placed on myself. It inspired me to push the boundaries of my creativity and challenged me not to let perfection stand in the way. Noah’s work also powerfully demonstrated the intersection of business and creativity, providing valuable principles for individual creativity, as well as team creativity and collaboration. I loved it.”