The Wunderlin Company

GE WorkOut

“Regardless of the size of your company, WorkOut can help you become a more organizationally fit, resilient and efficient enterprise by supplying a framework that allows you to solve problems and make improvements fast.”

– Huffington Post, “‘GE Workout’: Physical Fitness for Your Organization”

GE’s Workout process is lauded as transformational and practiced at organizations all over the world.

When an business faces a difficult change or challenging problem, WorkOut places the work to be done (or the problem to be solved) in the middle of an organization and surrounds it with the people who know it best. Together, they use the WorkOut process to develop and implement a workable and measurable solution.

While the process is directed from the top of the organization, it is implemented with broad participation from employees up and down the org chart. It develops broad coalitions across the organization. Employees have ownership of the solution and therefore care deeply about its success – because they are connected to the decision making and can make change happen.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Leadership identifies a critical organizational issue or problem that they must solve.
  2. A small group of people from cross-functional areas come together for uninterrupted work time with skilled facilitators. Using a deadline as a catalyst, they collaborate to address the problem.
  3. The group works to develop and present recommendations it can implement.
  4. Leadership hears their recommendations and gives a “Yes,” “No” (and here is why), or “Further Study” response and then empowers teams to implement approved recommendations.
  5. The teams implement accepted recommendations.
  6. The teams reconvene at a set time (usually 90-120 days later) to report on their progress.

The WorkOut process provides a vehicle for organizations to optimize speed, cost, and quality – without compromising any of these measures – and results in new levels of success.

WorkOut gets you across the board buy-in – because people at all levels develop a solution they can believe in.

Wunderlin Company facilitators held executive roles at GE during the development of the WorkOut method, giving us unparalleled insight into this powerful, innovative process. For more than 20 years, we’ve been using WorkOut to create real change in successful organizations.

Recommended Reading:

WorkOut: For Organizations Effecting Change

Using Facilitation to Achieve Success

Look in the Mirror: Can You Sum Up Core Values for Your Organization?

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Have a problem you’ve found hard to solve? You don’t have to figure it out alone.

Empower your team and use the WorkOut process with skilled facilitation from the Wunderlin Company. Contact us and we’ll work together to find a solution.

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