Our Road Ahead

Team,

Author Lewis Carroll is often credited with the quote, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Turns out that quote is a paraphrase of an exchange in Lewis’s famous novel Alice in Wonderland between Alice and the Cheshire Cat. Paraphrase or not, the message is spot on.

Starting a new year is the perfect time to look at your road ahead and chart how you plan to get to where you want to go. For GE in 2022, our destination is clear. We are on a path to become three stronger, more-focused companies positioned to lead in the important high-growth sectors of aviation, healthcare, and energy.

With this clarity, our priorities fall into place:

1. Ensure safety is always first. Together we’ve worked hard on SQDC – Safety, Quality, Delivery & Cost – as those are foundational to running a company well and delivering for our customers. There is intention in the order of these words. Safety is first because it is the base with which all our work builds on. Fortifying our culture of safety is always our top priority.
2. Build on our progress, to further strengthen GE for today and tomorrow. We have made real progress in building a stronger GE financially – reducing our debt by more than $80B through the end of 2021 – and operationally through lean over the past few years. Our continued deleveraging and scaling of lean company-wide will further solidify our financial position and allow GE to play more offense through organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
3. Lead in areas of urgent global need – Future of Flight, Precision Health and the Energy Transition. We must continue to deliver on our purpose of rising to the challenge of building a world that works by creating a future of smarter and more efficient flight; developing precision healthcare that personalizes diagnoses and treatments; and leading the energy transition to drive decarbonization. These are big challenges, and our customers deserve and demand our best work. 
4. Lay the groundwork for the creation of three independent companies – starting with Healthcare – positioned to succeed on their own. We will establish each standalone company with well-capitalized balance sheets and investment-grade ratings. As independent companies, each will benefit from greater focus, tailored capital allocation decisions, and strategic flexibility to better serve their customers and respond to distinct industry requirements and dynamics. Each will also be able to move quicker to capture the significant growth opportunities that lie ahead. This work will be led by a newly formed Strategic Separation Management Office (SMO). I will share more with you in the weeks ahead on the SMO’s operating approach and next steps.

As we all draft our priorities at an individual level, take time to think about your work, what destination you are driving toward and how you can have impact.

 I’ll end where I began, back in Carroll’s famous book. Later in the story Alice meets a turtle who is slow in telling his story. While waiting for him to start Alice thinks to herself, “I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.”

 Ten days into 2022, our work has already begun. I am excited for our road ahead.

 Larry