Leadership - Forbes CEO Forum ---> "Where are the Big 3"

The Forbes CEO Forum 2005
September 19 - 21, 2005Grand HotelMackinac Island, Michigan

Today, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation will be hosting the Forbes CEO Forum for 2005 at Mackinac Island. The list of speakers and moderators is impressive --> click on
Forbes speakers.

The Theme is "Mastering Instability."

qualityg says... Does this mean Michigan's Economy is NOT Stable and we are Out of Control? Will there be charts that show special causes at work?

It’s nice that Governor Granholm plays a role at the session (Forging cross-sector partnerships to revitalize your business). I hope she emphasizes the need for Michigan to capture more non-manufacturing businesses so the state came become more diverse. "Focus Hope" will be an example (does anyone ever wonder why FH is always the example, FH is good but don’t we have any others).

There are usually three other companies that send their CEO or high-ranking leader to these types of sessions. They used to be called the Big 3, strange they are not taking this opportunity for some free exposure. Perhaps they are too busy thinking of another “incentive” program when the 2006 model year goes on sale.


I noticed that Professor Noel Tichy from the University of Michigan would be a moderator for the “Forging cross-sector partnerships to revitalize your business segment.” I have always found Dr. Tichy’s writing interesting and thought provoking. I first became aware of him in the early 90’s when he was hired by then Amertech CEO Bill Weiss to consult on the restructuring and reorganizing of the company. I was hoping he would write a book about this experience, but he chose another leader instead – Jack Welch “ CONTROL YOUR DESTINY OR SOMEONE ELSE WILL.” Perhaps it was Welch who controlled Tichy’s destiny (among many others at GE) by choosing him since Dr. Tichy worked at GE in the mid 80’s as a means to gather application knowledge (I always like it when academia steps out of their office into the real world of working with regular employees and not just the upper echelon).

While Professor Tichy was working at Ameritech he helped institute what was called “Ameritech Breakthrough” sessions. The sessions were modeled after the “Breakout” sessions when he was head of GE’s Leadership Center, the fabled Crotonville, where he led the transformation to action learning at GE. I wrote him a letter during this time asking what was the method that he was going to use to transform Ameritech’s Management style? Surely, he did not believe that senior leaders were changing, it was expected that the lower level ranks would change but not the higher (they never did). I asked other process and behavioral question too. He never answered.

I always wondered why he does not include his time spent at Ameritech in his BIO.