"Never Over promise and Minimize (if not avoid) Surprises"

This was the essence of the Ralph Cordiner and Reg Jones eras in Strategic GE's history.

• These are some quotes from my book" The Secret to GE's Success" which focus on creating and meeting investor expectations:
  " In the 1950's, Cordiner initiated Investor Relations as one of the new corporate functional services. The organization's job was to help create realistic expectations among the investment analysts and then communicate expectations internally so that the operating and executive officers understood the right level of profitability to achieve


• "Jones was one of the most skilled executives in this regard. He established a team consisting of staff members from investor relations, finance, and strategic planning (my job at the time) as well as his own vice chairmen to determine the expectations that could be achieved consistently.


• "If there was a gap between what business units promised and "Wall Street expectations" Jones recognized that if he compelled all of the businesses to increase their profit levels, he might negatively impact the ability of at some divisions to execute their approved strategies.. a special evaluation was created to assure that the increased profit levels didn't negatively impact the "growth businesses" (again one of my jobs).
  

I had the good fortune of being part of the Jones process and helping the company meet Wall Street Expectations while implementing the approved strategies. It was challenging but fun.

Bill Rothschild, author of THE SECRET TO GE's SUCCESS the most comprehensive, objective assessment of GE's 127 years of progress, now in six languages.