8 Using GE's Change Acceleration Process Available to Purchase

When Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, one day realized that GE needed to improve its ability to adapt to change so it could continue to be successful, he also realized that, like most companies, the challenge was not in managing the technical portion of change, but in accepting and managing change. He and his team also found that the majority of change initiatives didn't succeed, or under-performed, due to poor acceptance of the people leading change and∕or those affected by it.

GE was able to identify a very distinct pattern where change, no matter if good or bad, with a strong technical plan, had poor results or failed when combined with a low acceptance component. They also found that changes with an average or low technical plan coupled with high acceptance from its constituents outperformed change initiatives with a high quality technical plan accompanied with a low acceptance plan consistently. It was under these premises that GE's Change Acceleration Process (CAP) was developed.