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Susan P. Peters: Innovation in products and in people
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o Susan P. Peters, the executive in charge of developing and maintaining General Electric's (GE) human resources, a company's success depends on its ability to inspire and develop talent.
As the senior vice president of human resources for American multinational conglomerate GE, Susan P. Peters oversees a workforce of 305,000 employees in more than 160 countries.
Last month, Peters visited Indonesia for the first time, and in one word she summed up her impression of what she saw: opportunity.
'It's a big market and has a lot of people who are interested and excited about evolving and growing on the world stage. You can see it around you,' she said.
With subsidiaries ranging from health care to energy to aviation, GE is rapidly growing its businesses in Southeast Asia's largest economy. GE has already had 900 employees, one plant and several service shops operating in the country.
Predicated on a belief that global companies must maintain dynamism by delivering local solutions, GE has designed products specific to the Indonesian market. The Lahar, for example, is a portable ultrasound that can be used by midwives in rural and remote locations across the disparate archipelago.
According to Peters, evolution and constant change are woven into the company's DNA and have been critical to its success and longevity. Founded in 1892, GE is the only company on the original Dow Jones Industrial Average that is still around today.
One of GE's newest innovations is a strategy called Fast Works, which draws on lessons from Silicon Valley to create breakthroughs in simplification. By teaming with young software entrepreneur Eric Reis ' bestselling author of The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses ' GE is, according to Peters, aiming to 'adapt the concept of startups to a big highly technical infrastructure company like GE.'
In terms of products, this means rolling out a device like the Lahar portable ultrasound in basic form, getting customer feedback and then adding features tailored to specific needs.
'Instead of waiting to get the entire final product exactly the way you think it should be, you get a simpler version to the market faster, and you can do that with big machines like you can do it with applications or software,' said Peters.
But GE also strives to constantly innovate in respect to its human resources. Given the competitive and rapidly changing nature of the global jobs market ' and the Indonesian one ' the company seeks to inspire and provide opportunities for its workers to develop.
'It's about retaining them because [Indonesia] is a hot market, and we want to differentiate ourselves as a place where people can come and grow a long-term career,' added Peters.
'Employees leave if they don't have line of sight to more growth. They leave if they're not challenged ' we have very little of that in GE.'
Specifically, she said the company challenges employees by giving them what she called 'stretch opportunities' ' jobs that are both 'quantitatively and qualitatively larger than they are probably ready for.'
GE also invests in extensive training for its workers.
'We really believe that all people have to constantly evolve so you're always looking at ways to give them new experiences, on the job and in the training environment, and we do quite a bit of training both globally and here in country,' she asserted.
As an example specific to Indonesia, GE designed a year-long program that plucks engineers straight out of university and gives them in depth leadership and coaching experience in the field before they receive their first job assignment.
Prior to becoming senior vice president of human resources, Peters spent six years as GE's chief learning officer, responsible for all of the company's training and development programs, including leadership.
She helped design the company's flagship training program, called Leadership, Innovation and Growth (LIG).
'If you're going to be an innovative company in product areas then you have to be an innovative company in leadership and leadership areas,' Peters said.
Each training would bring a top-flight professor or consultant in a certain specialization to teach teams comprised of leaders from various sectors of the company ' marketing, manufacturing, design, financial, etc. Those teams would then apply the theory they learned to create functional innovations in their businesses.
'The real secret sauce of it was that they were all there at the same time,' Peters said.
'We found that the shared experience and the recognition of differences of levels of understanding of different functional areas was just fascinating.'
GE's quintessential focus on constant change and improvement mirrors Peters' own career path. After receiving a master's degree in education from the University of Virginia, she entered academia seeking to become a dean at a university. She quickly realized, however, that the academic world lacked the dynamism she sought in a career.
'I found for me that there was a cycle to it that was repetitious as opposed to constant change,' she remarked.
She joined GE and found the dynamic energy she was looking for. During her 35 years with the company she has held management positions in several of the company's businesses, including GE Appliances, GE Plastics and television network NBC, living across the US and in the Netherlands.
Like the 305,000 employees she oversees, Peters thrives on challenges that stretch her to grow and learn ' both in her career and in her free time. At 60-years-old, she started wakeboarding.
'I want to believe that I would expect others to never stop learning and no matter what I'm doing or what capacity I'm in my leadership journey is never over,' she said.
'There's always more to learn, which is one of the reasons I love coming to places like Jakarta because it's like drinking from a fire hose from a standpoint of perspectives, ideas, food. You take in everything.'
Susan P. Peters
Place and date of Birth
Providence, Rhode Island, US, April 11, 1953
Experience
General Electric senior vice president of human resources since 2013. Previously, she was the company's vice president of executive development and chief learning officer (2007-2013). First joined the company in 1979, and has held various leadership positions, including as a company officer in 1997, and as head of executive development in 2001.
Education
Bachelor of arts in English literature from St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, and a master's in education from the University of Virginia, both in the US.
At Ease
The Girl Scouts of America
As a personal passion, Peters cultivates the advancement of women in society and in the working world. She sits on the national board of Girl Scouts USA, and says after she retires from GE she will likely devote herself to something relating to the development of young women and girls.
Wakeboarding
A few years ago, Peters saw young people wakeboarding on a lake and decided she wanted to try it. Her taking up the sport reflects her belief that one should always try new things and take on new challenges.
Reading
A literature major in college, Peters says the ability to read and parse written information has been crucial to her success in the business world. She keeps her Kindle full with fiction and non-fiction titles.
