GE's Sad Recruiting Campaign Lacks Bravery

I was listening to the radio this past when I heard a recruiting ad for one of the largest companies on planet earth - General Electric. This particular recruiting ad is part of a much broader campaign to recruit younger high tech workers into their company and for a full recap of the campaign I suggest you read this post from the blog Marn's Market.

Suffice it to say, I believe this campaign is a giant dud. The particular radio spot I heard was actually offensive to me - because it communicated something about the culture at GE and the people that this spot will undoubtedly attract.

In this particular radio spot that I heard a newly hired GE employee is talking with his girlfriend about an upcoming family gathering. The girlfriend proceeds to coach him about what to say about GE and what he is doing for them. She repeatedly suggest that he portray his new job as “working on a trendy app” and insists he leave out the “machines” and the “GE” part when they meet her parents that evening. In other words - at best misrepresent what he does and at worse lie about his job.

My guess is the only people this message resonates with are potential employees that don't have a strong sense of who they are, can be easily influenced (manipulated) to meet an outcome and lack integrity.

According to GE's website they have the following mission for their culture:

Our culture is about providing everyone who works here with opportunities to exercise their responsibility, integrity, and creativity while growing themselves, their careers, and our business.

The word integrity sticks out to me in this statement and appears to be opposed to the person I hear in the radio spots.

You may be wondering, 'why does it matter?' - because it is incredibly important to GE's future. I am guessing that GE is spending millions of dollars on this campaign because they are having difficulty attracting millennials. Anyone that has studied millennials or that is a millennial will tell you one of the things they value the most is authenticity. Neither of the people in the ad are authentic. If they can't be authentic with their own family their is no way they can be authentic in the GE culture.

Which is exactly the problem with most traditional large corporations. I write extensively about this in my book Corporate Bravery - available on Amazon.com and iTunes. In chapter 11, I talk about communications and how effective cultures (and hiring strategies) start with an alignment of values, people and communication (internal & external) - depicted by the graph below.

Brave companies are tightly aligned and fearful companies have little alignment between the three. Put another way, 

The totality of our communications is the external manifestation of who we are — and it’s bigger than just what we say. Throughout Corporate Bravery, we have talked often about core values and about how hiring and management practices should reinforce those core values. Any misalignment between these elements lets fear creep into your organizational culture.

Given this circumstance - how effective do you think this campaign will be for GE and what type of culture are they likely to create?


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Weekly Brave Roundup - Blackberry, Steve Kerr and Soundcloud

1. I am a sucker for a good sports analogy and this article about Steve Kerr and his leadership of the Golden State Warriors this year is a great read. Even the title of the article speaks to his fearless leadership of the team to a title - "The Risk-Taking General Who Led the Golden State Warriors to Victory".

The primary point of the article was a focus on his lineup decisions. Specifically the decision to move all-star and all-defensive veteran Andre Iguodala to the bench at the start of the season and then to scrap the lineup that had gotten Golden State to the championship round in favor of a smaller lineup.

The primary reason given for the last minute change was a suggestion by their video manager, a 28 year old that had been studying film. According to the article,

"So Kerr decided to wipe the blackboard clean, taking All-Defensive Second Team, rim-protecting center Andrew Bogut out of the rotation altogether, and going to an uber-small-ball unit anchored by the 6-6 undersized power forward Draymond Green. He also resuscitated David Lee, like Iguodala, another mothballed, highly paid former All-Star before Game 3, a ploy that kickstarted Steph Curry’s game in the midst of what ended up being a failed comeback effort.

Considering the stakes, this was a downright radical move on Kerr’s part, and one that easily could have blown up in his face."

As the article points out, it is unique that an NBA coach (or any business executive) would listen to an entry-level employee over the high paid executives and assistants.

"Outside of Gregg Popovich’s Spurs, this just doesn’t happen. Video assistants don’t get to pitch the man in charge, let alone get the credit, and the vast majority of head coaches are far too small-c conservative and risk-averse to even contemplate such a move, let alone admit that he lied about it."

But that single decision isn't the thing that ultimately made Steve Kerr a great leader, a championship leader. Rather it was the culture and the tone that he set before the season even began. He created a culture that made it not only OK to accept a lesser role for the good of the team, but even encouraged it.

Kerr demanded that they have fun. That in and of itself is revolutionary. More to the point, he was willing to speak to his players not like soldiers or faceless office drones, but like... well, people that he trusted and legitimately liked. That’s why Iguodala bought in early on, and Andrew Bogut and David Lee did the same.

2. I was able to recently read an excerpt from a new book about Blackberry entitled "Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry."

The book looks to be an extraordinary read about the fall of a high-tech highflier and the individual decisions that led them to a struggle for survival.