Another seminar of the CU School for the company executives “Top-class” was held on December 12 in Moscow. The webinar format allowed the company employees from Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Houston and other VD offices across the world to share “the classroom”. The company executives presented their reports following the results of the conducted trainings in GE Aviation Technology Center on November 7-8, and in GE Leadership Center in Crotonville, New York, USA on November 28 – December 1.

The opening speech was made by the company president Alexey Isaykin who emphasized the value of the knowledge gained from GE, and professionalism of their teachers. He also mentioned that the training was both interesting and useful for expanding mental outlook.

Knowledge sharing was taken over by Sergey Lazarev, general director, ABC, who focused his presentation on brain capability and ways to boost its performance.

Then, Eugene Kochetov, general director, VDTM, presented the GE leadership philosophy in ten basic principles.

Denis Seleznev, head of management accounting department, VDA, went on with Fastworks methodology – a set of tools, principles and action templates to approach and learn the customer, increase response rate and speed up processes.

The GE digital transformation and a vision on transforming Volga-Dnepr into a ‘digital business’ was presented by Alexey Kukanov, IT director VDM.

The seminar was brought to a close by Sergey Reznikov, vice president VD UAC, whose presentation “A leader as a coach” covered basic tools of coaching. The speaker emphasized that nowadays coaching is the key competence for the leader to encourage every team member maximum efficiency and professional growth.

For the details of the presentations go to Top-class community (into Russian).

This is what the participants shared:

Alexey Zimin, director on a/c technical diagnostics and maintenance, VDTM:
– The seminar was short but useful! My take-home message is:

1) About brains. Brains should be fed properly, provided with choice (not too wide) and trained under moderate stress.

2) About interaction with the customer. New trend: do less for less.
Focus on urgent necessary things, though do them well.

3) About ideas. People can be managed by ideas. Look for great ideas and implement them straightaway.

4) About development. Digital era has already come. Those who ignore it will quickly lose their fight for leadership.

Andrey Agulov, head of property management department, VDM:
– The seminar was useful for different reasons:
1) Such training is a good way to get to know the customer well (about GE);
2) It also helps to cultivate the culture of knowledge sharing in-between different management levels, so-called ‘knowledge circulation’ in Volga-Dnepr;
My take-home message is knowledge about the customer – GE (number of executives, management levels, etc.), also about the way our brains work, and Fastworks methodology.
It was useful to revise the principals of leadership philosophy by Jack Welch and compare them with the knowledge gained at leadership training organized by Corporate University.

Elena Kavtyreva, head of project management department, VDM:
– I liked the seminar! It was interesting to learn about the way the brain worked, also to know the GE priorities. Earlier, I’d read Jack Welch’s management principles, though the GE Fastworks conception was something new for me. I think the principles on interaction with the customer ‘study-workout-learn-act’ could be implemented in our company and not only in terms of relationships with the customer.