GE : imagination at work - General Electric

职 业 加 油 站 Career DevelopmentFrank Meng: FromAcademia to CorporateWorldFrank Meng’s reason for joining GE? Love for his wife. Today,11 years later, he is Senior Technical Program Manager for GECorporate’s Licensing and Trading division.Both Frank and his wife are Hangzhou-natives but aftergraduation his wife secured a position in Shanghai while Franktaught at the University of Zhejiang in Hangzhou. Because theyboth wanted to live and work in the same city, in 2011, Frankjoined the Lighting business bringing his physics background withhim and he has been with GE ever since.After 29 months in Lighting, Frank transferred to GE Appliances in2003. Back then, employees could apply for an internal transferafter 18 months (note: that time period is now 36 months beforebeing eligible for a transfer as a new employee). After sevenyears, Frank moved to Corporate to lead the licensing and tradingdivision as China Program Manager in September 2010.The GE culture of allowing and encouraging career paths acrossdifferent businesses is one of the many reasons why Frank hasMoreopportunitiesEarn RespectLearning CircleSelf-LearnAchieve Expectationstayed at GE for so long. The entire culture of change makesit easy for Frank to stay passionate about his work. “Change isgood,” Frank repeats the age-old adage of being flexible. And thatapplies to everything - from being willing to change your position,business, role and responsibilities to constantly evolving on apersonal level.Another key aspect of GE that has kept Frank here is the“personality” of the company. What does he mean? ”Integrity,feedback, EMS review, openness, section D, opportunities andcareer paths,” he lists off in quick succession. The entire cultureof GE is set up for employees to continually develop themselves.There are endless opportunities if you are willing and flexible.Frank encourages employees to consider an internal transfer(same work but different people) before leaving GE for anothercompany.Congratulations to Frank for his long-time service at GE! Thankyou for motivating us to continue learning and improvingourselves.Frank’s Top 3 Keys to Success• Communications Skills: you might be brilliant but if you can’tcommunicate your ideas properly, no one will know!• Keep Learning: self-learning (use online resources, ask experts, etc.) iscritical; learn from every opportunity (nothing should be viewed as “toosimple”).• Own Your Expertise: not necessarily what you learned at school; in factgraduating from university is just the beginning of the learning process.Undeterred by the Dangers Ahead— Getting to Know Yang XuyongYang Xuyong joined GE China Healthcaretwo decades ago when computedtomography (CT) was a totally unfamiliarterritory to him. Undeterred, Yang wasdiligent and overcame innumeroustechnical difficulties through sheer hardwork. He eventually became a specialistin the field of computed tomography (CT).In this issue of Life @ GE, we will bring youhis story at GE.In 1993, Healthcare China was still inits exploratory stage and was mainly incharge of assembling machines importedfrom other countries. With the goal ofproducing our own CT products in mind,GE launched its five-year CT localizationproject.Yang described the period of implementingCT localization as a difficult but fulfillingtime. “It was difficult because we hadneither CT expertise nor materials.To understand the product structure,we disassembled machines importedfrom Japan to analyze their structuresstep by step, thereby accumulatingprofessional knowledge on CT,” Yang said.“However, the satisfaction we derived wastremendous when we obtained a betteridea of the CT.”The reason why Yang was able tofamiliarize himself with CT within a shortspan of time was because of the highstandards he had set for himself. “Theproblems would remain even if you simplypretended everything was a piece ofcake,” Yang said. “To familiarize yourselfwith a new field of knowledge takes a lotof time and effort. You should embraceevery opportunity to observe new thingsand put your knowledge into practice.”In 2000, Yang’s team designed a PDU2 fora Japanese company. The system wonhigh recognition and was soon put it intoproduction. It was the first global productfor GE Healthcare China.However, what struck Yang most was notthe success he achieved but an incidentthat occurred in Japan. “When the samplewas taken to Japan for testing, more thanseven Japanese engineers examined thesample carefully for around 40 minutes,and pointed out every minor problem. Iwas there and felt really embarrassed.I resolved there and then that we shallstrive for excellence in our products, sothat experts from other countries couldfind no flaws in them.” To prove that theChinese can excel in CT, Yang’s teamengaged in various product research anddevelopment projects, undeterred by thedifficulties that lay ahead.Yang attributed his long period ofservice at GE to the stable and friendlyenvironment created by the leaders ofthe CT Department and the strong teamspirit embraced by the CT team in itsdetermination conquer all obstacles. Anexcellent team and passion for his jobmotivates Yang to continue to learn andcontribute to the company.Asked about his interests, Yang said, “Ihave always been interested in wirelesstechnology, but ever since the birth of mychild, I started learning photography torecord our child’s growing process.” Yang’shappiness was apparent when he talkedabout his child and this gave us a glimpseof another side of him -- that of a gentleand kind father.We greatly appreciate Yang’scontributions to GE in the past twodecades and we hope that GE HealthcareChina will continue to ascend to greaterheights in the field of CT.Yang Xuyong’s Three Keysto Success:• Be diligent: Use your brain to think,move your legs to explore, use youreyes to observe, open your mouthto ask questions and use yourhands to put it all into practice.• Don’t be afraid of difficulties: Keepcalm under pressure and work outplans to solve problems.• Keep moving forward: Set yoursights high but keep yourselfgrounded at the same time andperform your job well.23 LIFE at GELIFE at GE 24