The GE talent machine: the making of a CEOFounded in 1878 by Thomas Edison, General Electric is today a leading company in production, distribution and utilization electricity in America and around the world. The company has been experimenting with successful economic models since its creation and its human resources policy has been considered one of the most sophisticated for a century. This is a strong focus on human potential through the development of executives up to the highest levels of the company: this performance-based meritocracy has made GE a “CEO factory” for the company and for all American businesses. In 2001, Jeff Immelt, the company's new leader, was faced with the problem of how to make this talent machine work.________________________________________________In the second half of the 20th century, four CEOs made GE's human resources management l one of the most efficient in the world. Faced with strong diversification (due to the Second World War), Ralph J. Cordiner (1950-1963) implemented a profound decentralization of commercial decisions, created the first university of business management and strengthened GE's dialogue with its managers (self-assessment, performance assessment, career forecasts, succession plans, etc.). His successor, Fred J. Borch (1963-1972), intensely diversified GE and accompanied the operation with the creation of the Executive Manpower Staff to centralize the company's high potential. Reginald H. Jones (1972-1981) initially reduced the role of HR in strategic planning but eventually aggregated business groups according to industries, again making succession plans easier. John F. Welch, Jr. (1981-2001) restructured GE and based HR policy on company performance through executive rankings and stock options. It's heavy... middle of paper ... the cruelty of GE's HR policy is outdated. The human relations movement (c. 1929–1951) proved the importance of job-oriented interpersonal skills for employee, manager, and customer relationships, and the application of mechanical evaluation systems to a global human network can be, in some way, fair (because it bridges the gaps between divisions with different ways of working), but it is not attractive. more. GE would be able to once again become one of the best places to work in the world if it provided incentives for creativity and personal development (outside the company). It is no longer rewarding for a high-potential executive to work at GE, an aging and highly polluting company that focuses solely on performance: it is the company itself that must rethink its image and its commitment to happiness of its workers..