Jack had some real strengths and some weaknesses. He did some genuine good things in building a culture - workouts and real simplification with multilevel involvement and buy-in. He was very good at managing the analysts, which, honestly, is tough because most of them don't know sh*t about how any of the businesses really succeed or fail in general. Jack passed on at least one fatal flaw to Jeff and that is that he didn't really understand what was important to succeed at consistently driving technology, lost some of his best tech leaders after he targeted downsizing and globalizing engineering teams, stopped building understanding in core areas where we outsourced too much.
Jeff came in and liked Technology, but didn't have a great pack of tech leaders to draw on, didn't know how to find or keep many of the best - didn't understand that it takes a sustained investment to stay on top. that part of the culture was there with Reggie and halfway through Jack, but then started to erode. Tough to get a premium for tech differentiation when you don't make it a sustained priority. Jeff was more about buying and selling than building. so how many acquisitions did we make that we sold off again later? How much sustained development could we have bought instead? final proof for me was 1) hiring 500 software engineers for the new GE Digital in California without having really set the strategy on what they were supposed to be developing for a product, led by the sales guy Bill Ruh. by contrast, Siemens bought UG 10years ago and steadily built it into a juggernaut with a clear vision. and 2) Alstom acquisition - bought a whole company that was virtually bankrupt with huge debt after the EU imposed a bunch of divestitures and employment guarantees, Remember Top Gun? Your ego is cashing checks...etc etc
So my vote would blame = 30% Jack for picking the wrong successor, and leaving him with a company that had been backing away from technology, etc, 70% Jeff because it was still his to pick up and fix - no-one inherits a clean slate. and mostly 100% the Board. the day Jeff came in and said we ought to downplay stock price as the key measure of success, they should have said WHAAAAT? and started to get on his case.
Culp is encouraging - he doesn't seem as egotistical as either Jack or jeff, seems focused on getting the debt under control, seems to be listening to people like Joyce that have proven they understand the business, and has a track record of growing technology.... let's hope for the best
last thing on culture - there is a very real, very palpable core culture that is still there. Any customer who has ever seen GE rally to tackle a big problem and fix it has seen it in action. I still feel it can be recovered and re-invigorated - but it needs continued good leadership to be there