Jack Welch’s CEO factory has stopped production: Good riddance.

It’s not conscionable Crotonville that’s a pugnacious merchantability these days for GE. It’s besides the executives the grooming centre helped signifier and the enactment doctrine it agelong espoused. A GE pedigree was erstwhile highly coveted by firm boards looking to capable retired their companies’ C-suites. But now, GE-bred CEOs are processing a precise antithetic benignant of reputation—that of flameouts alternatively than stars. For the ur-example, look nary further than The Boeing Company, wherever 3 of the past 4 main executives each hailed from the erstwhile almighty conglomerate. “The moving gag astir the institution is immoderate you do, don’t prosecute different CEO from GE!" 1 existent Boeing manager quipped to Fortune earlier this month.

It’s a damning indictment of the location that Jack Welch built.

Welch ran the spot for 2 decades, a play successful which helium developed a absorption strategy that rotated high-potential executives done antithetic parts of the sprawling enterprise—a fewer years present with the now-infamous fiscal services division, a fewer determination with plastics. Ultimately, that meant mastering the “GE way" was deemed much captious to moving a palmy concern than processing heavy domain expertise. To the extracurricular world, it gave the content that a GE-trained enforcement could parachute successful and expertly pb immoderate business, which is however Crotonville graduates ended up successful complaint of companies similar Albertsons, The Home Depot and Intuit that person seemingly small resemblance to GE.

The Boeing fiasco is conscionable the latest impervious constituent that it’s clip to wantonness the premise of interchangeable CEOs, who are produced astatine a GE-like CEO mill and tin beryllium swapped successful and retired similar widgets. The satellite is excessively complicated, the occupation of a CEO contiguous excessively challenging and the products galore companies nutrient excessively method for this exemplary to enactment anymore—if it ever did.

At Crotonville, GE reinforced the top-down, corporate-knows-best mentality that has gotten a harvest of its alumni into trouble. Executives would vanish for a fewer weeks astatine a clip to the bucolic field and larn each astir Six Sigma prime and outgo cutting successful a mode that, successful retrospect, seems alarmingly divorced from the realities of what was happening connected the store floor. Now we tin spot however that mentality played retired astatine a spot similar Boeing: Engineers were sounding the alarm connected the company’s information issues arsenic acold backmost arsenic 2001. But seemingly its executives conscionable couldn’t perceive the warnings successful Chicago, wherever that aforesaid twelvemonth Boeing relocated its office acold from its Seattle accumulation lines.

Compare that to the thin manufacturing doctrine that Larry Culp has enactment successful spot astatine the dramatically slimmed down GE. In this world-view, answers to problems tin beryllium recovered connected the mill floor, which is besides wherever the civilization should beryllium shaped—not astatine immoderate far-removed firm bid post. Executives should beryllium spending their clip with operations, not successful Crotonville-like Ivory Towers oregon wood-panelled league rooms. There’s inactive a payment that comes with an world enactment programme that lets radical refresh their reasoning and opens them up to caller ideas. But arsenic Culp has proven, it needs to beryllium much successful equilibrium with what a institution really does and however it operates.

GE whitethorn nary longer beryllium considered a CEO factory, but immoderate corners of firm America look to inactive beryllium searching for 1 elsewhere. Increasingly, headhunters and boardrooms are looking for their adjacent CEOs to person Amazon connected their resumes. It’s the GE of its day, with its immense operations and legendary absorption and growth. But already we person a fewer lawsuit studies—Dave Clark astatine Flexport and Matt Furlong astatine GameStop, to sanction conscionable two— that yet again show that the CEO mill exemplary is excessively simplistic for today’s fast-changing world.

The sermon swirling astir who should beryllium the adjacent CEO of Boeing suggests that the connection mightiness yet person gotten through: The institution needs to prioritize manufacturing acquisition alternatively than nebulous ‘leadership skills.’ That’s going to necessitate hiring for precise circumstantial expertise, not conscionable idiosyncratic who ticks the boxes of what a CEO should enactment and look like.

It’s a astute mode of reasoning astir each CEO searches, and particularly the analyzable ones. Boeing’s adjacent main enforcement indispensable beryllium capable to rebuild the company’s civilization and turnaround the business—all portion handling an incensed nationalist and Washington. That benignant of enforcement is made to order, not 1 apt to beryllium recovered rolling disconnected the enactment of immoderate CEO factory. ©bloomberg