I recently read an interview between Kumar Mangalam Birla(Chairman – Aditya Birla group) and Jeffrey Immelt(Chairman & CEO – GE). Birla was doing the interview for the Economic Times “Straight Talk” section. It was very interesting with KMB getting out good juice: goals set by Jeff when he took over GE seven years ago, numbers in his mind when he qualifies an acquisition decision, when does he choose to divest, his view on India(he’s all gung-ho!), how he apportions his time at work and many other informative points. Here is the whole interview.

There’s this question by KMB “What do you think made Jack select you for the role of the chairman”. Jeff says:

“I always think people get a chance like this not because of what they know but more because of how fast people think they can learn. I’d have to think that maybe Jack and the board thought that I was a good learner and that I could adjust to the world and drive the right changes at GE. “

I was thinking, leaders are definitely those who have in them tonnes of courage. For Jack & Jeff, there was enough money(12 billion plus dollars cash reserve!) for the new CEO to ‘learn’ with