Imagine It Forward

Imagine It Forward Plot Summary

Introduction

In the rapidly evolving corporate landscape of the early 21st century, few executives navigated the turbulent waters of technological disruption with the foresight and adaptability of Beth Comstock. Rising from humble beginnings to become GE's first female vice chair, Comstock's journey represents a masterclass in corporate reinvention and personal transformation. As traditional business models crumbled under the weight of digital innovation, she emerged as a champion of change, pushing one of America's oldest industrial giants to embrace new technologies, experimental thinking, and open collaboration in an age of unprecedented disruption. What makes Comstock's story particularly compelling is her evolution from a shy, rule-following young woman to a bold change agent who consistently challenged the status quo. Through her development of groundbreaking initiatives like Ecomagination, her pioneering work in digital media at NBC, and her creation of FastWorks at GE, she demonstrated how imagination, when coupled with disciplined execution, can transform not just companies but entire industries. Her journey offers invaluable insights into the nature of innovation, the psychology of organizational change, and the qualities required for leadership in times of uncertainty.

Chapter 1: Finding Her Voice: The Journey to Self-Permission

Beth Comstock's path to becoming one of America's most influential business leaders began with a profound personal transformation. Growing up in a traditional Virginia household, she was raised to follow rules and avoid drawing attention to herself. This ingrained shyness and deference to authority initially seemed at odds with leadership potential, yet it was precisely her journey to overcome these limitations that forged her unique approach to driving change in corporate America. The pivotal moment in Comstock's personal evolution came in her mid-twenties when, despite having what appeared to be the perfect life—a marriage, a beautiful baby daughter, and a promising career—she realized she was living according to others' expectations rather than her own truth. The birth of her daughter Katie sparked a fierce determination to chart her own course, leading to the difficult decision to leave her marriage. This act of "self-permission"—giving herself authorization to pursue her own path despite external pressures—would become a cornerstone of her leadership philosophy. As a newly single mother working at NBC's Washington news bureau, Comstock threw herself into publicity work, learning to pitch stories and build relationships despite her natural introversion. She discovered that her quiet thoughtfulness, combined with genuine curiosity, could be powerful assets rather than liabilities. Rather than trying to transform herself into an extrovert, she developed what she called "social courage"—the ability to connect authentically with others while remaining true to her introspective nature. This period of personal reinvention coincided with professional challenges that tested her resilience. When NBC faced a major crisis after Dateline was caught staging truck explosions, Comstock saw opportunity where others saw only disaster. Returning to NBC to help rebuild its damaged reputation, she assembled a new PR team and helped transform the network's image, demonstrating her ability to find possibility in what she called "white space"—areas of uncertainty that others avoided. Throughout her early career, Comstock encountered numerous "gatekeepers"—those looking to maintain the status quo and enforce unwritten rules. Rather than being intimidated, she developed strategies for navigating these obstacles, learning when to push back and when to find alternative paths forward. Her approach to rejection became particularly distinctive—she viewed "no" not as a final answer but as "not yet," treating each refusal as merely a temporary setback rather than a permanent barrier. This journey toward self-permission wasn't just about personal growth; it became the foundation for Comstock's approach to innovation. She recognized that the same psychological barriers that prevent individuals from pursuing their authentic paths also stifle creativity and change within organizations. By learning to give herself permission to challenge conventions, take risks, and persist despite resistance, she developed the mindset and skills that would later enable her to drive transformation at one of America's largest corporations.

Chapter 2: Transforming GE Through Ecomagination and Storytelling

When the September 11 attacks occurred just four days into Jeff Immelt's tenure as GE's CEO, the company faced unprecedented challenges. While most organizations retreated into defensive postures, Comstock recognized an opportunity to demonstrate leadership through meaningful action. She convinced Immelt that GE needed to project strength and solidarity, resulting in a powerful full-page newspaper ad featuring Lady Liberty rolling up her sleeves. This bold move, initially met with internal resistance, resonated deeply with the American public and established a pattern that would define Comstock's approach: charging optimistically into uncertainty rather than waiting for perfect clarity. The post-9/11 era brought additional challenges for GE. The dot-com bubble had burst, corporate scandals had eroded trust in big business, and the company's growth had slowed. Immelt tasked Comstock with helping GE rediscover its identity and purpose in this new landscape. Drawing on unconventional methodologies, she engaged consultants like Clotaire Rapaille to explore the emotional connections people had with the GE brand. This discovery process revealed that GE's greatest strength lay in its heritage as America's premier inventors—"Edison's Marines"—rather than the financialized conglomerate it had become under Jack Welch. This insight led to the development of a new tagline, "Imagination at Work," signaling GE's return to its innovative roots. But Comstock understood that meaningful transformation required more than clever marketing; it needed to be anchored in substantive business initiatives that could generate both economic and social value. This realization gave birth to Ecomagination, perhaps Comstock's most significant contribution to GE's evolution. Ecomagination began with a simple observation from Immelt that customers in energy and transportation sectors were struggling to meet environmental standards without sacrificing profitability. Comstock assembled a working group to investigate whether GE could develop solutions that were both ecologically and economically beneficial. Through extensive research and stakeholder engagement, including conversations with environmental NGOs that had previously been GE's adversaries, her team identified significant opportunities in emissions reduction, energy efficiency, and water conservation. What made Ecomagination revolutionary was its dual commitment to environmental and financial performance. Products had to demonstrate substantial benefits for both the planet and GE's bottom line to qualify for the program—a principle captured in Immelt's insistence that it be "not just ecological; it has to be economical." This approach transformed sustainability from a corporate social responsibility initiative into a core business strategy driving innovation and growth. When Comstock presented Ecomagination to GE's Corporate Executive Council, she faced significant resistance. Executives worried about embarrassing the company given its environmental legacy, feared they lacked the technology to meet performance commitments, and were concerned about getting ahead of customers. Despite this pushback, Immelt became a champion of the initiative, even standing up to major customers who threatened to withdraw business over concerns about the program. Launched in 2005 with seventeen certified products, Ecomagination quickly proved its value. In its first year, GE identified $10 billion in revenue from products tapping renewable energy sources. By 2017, annual Ecomagination revenues exceeded $35 billion, while the initiative boosted GE's brand value by 35 percent according to Interbrand. More importantly, it positioned GE as a leader in sustainable technology at a time when climate concerns were becoming increasingly central to business strategy. Through Ecomagination, Comstock demonstrated that marketing could transcend traditional boundaries to become a driver of business innovation and strategic transformation. She showed that by identifying emerging societal needs and connecting them to core capabilities, companies could create new sources of growth while contributing to solving global challenges. This integration of purpose and profit would become a hallmark of her approach to business leadership.

Chapter 3: Digital Disruption: Lessons from NBC and Hulu

In November 2005, Beth Comstock received a call that would test her ability to navigate disruptive change. Bob Wright, CEO of NBC Universal, asked her to return to the network to help address the digital transformation that was upending traditional media. The timing was critical—News Corporation had just acquired MySpace for $580 million, triggering a scramble among media companies to secure digital properties. Though she recognized it would be a challenging assignment, Comstock saw opportunity in the chaos and accepted the role. Her return to NBC coincided with a watershed moment in digital media. When "Lazy Sunday," a Saturday Night Live digital short, went viral on YouTube with millions of views, NBC received no revenue despite owning the content. This incident crystallized the threat digital platforms posed to traditional media business models. As Comstock noted, "Suddenly it was clear that if we didn't figure the digital world out, we would end up having our own Kodak Moment." Comstock's first major initiative at NBC was the acquisition of iVillage, a women's online community, for $600 million. The deal was meant to be the cornerstone of NBC's digital strategy, but it quickly revealed the cultural chasm between traditional media and digital platforms. The integration proved difficult, with the iVillage management team departing shortly after the acquisition. NBC struggled to merge the online community with its broadcast operations, launching "iVillage Live," a television show that failed to connect with audiences. These early setbacks taught Comstock valuable lessons about digital transformation. She realized that simply acquiring digital properties wasn't enough; organizations needed to fundamentally rethink their approaches to content creation, distribution, and audience engagement. Most importantly, she recognized that traditional media executives, including herself, often suffered from what she called "functional fixedness"—the inability to see beyond established ways of operating. The turning point came when NBC partnered with Fox to create a new digital platform that would eventually become Hulu. Drawing lessons from the iVillage experience, Comstock insisted on bringing in an outsider to lead the venture. They selected Jason Kilar, who had spent nine years at Amazon building their DVD service. Kilar embodied the digital-first mindset NBC needed, focusing relentlessly on user experience and willing to challenge traditional media assumptions. Under Kilar's leadership, Hulu developed a radically different approach to online video. He rejected NBC's existing video player because it was too cluttered with ads and insisted on a clean, user-friendly interface. He hired a team using what he called "the Ocean's Eleven approach," focusing on character, competence, and chemistry rather than credentials. Most importantly, he operated with the conviction that the new platform had to be "so materially better that it shocks you into a behavior change"—a principle that would later influence Comstock's approach to innovation at GE. When Hulu launched in beta in October 2007, it defied expectations. The site was simple, elegant, and minimalistic, with a viewing window a third larger than previous services and true TV-quality resolution. Even tech critics who had mocked the venture were forced to admit their error. The service quickly gained traction, ranking tenth on the Internet for streaming video a month after its full launch in March 2008. By 2009, it had made $120 million in revenue, and by 2012, it had three million subscribers and $695 million in revenue. Despite this success, tensions persisted between Kilar and the media giants who owned Hulu. The conflict came to a head in February 2011 when Kilar published a controversial blog post critiquing traditional television's business model. Though he didn't directly name the broadcast partners that owned Hulu, his message was clear: traditional TV had too many ads, lacked convenience, and failed to listen to audience feedback. By early 2013, Kilar had left Hulu, cashing out for a reported $40 million. The Hulu story taught Comstock that successful digital transformation often requires creating separate spaces where new ideas can develop without being smothered by existing organizational structures and thinking. She learned that bringing in outside perspectives is essential for challenging entrenched assumptions, even when those perspectives create tension and discomfort. Most importantly, she recognized that innovation requires psychological safety—an environment where team members feel confident enough to take risks and admit mistakes.

Chapter 4: Building the Industrial Internet and Open Innovation

As Comstock returned to GE from NBC in 2008, she brought with her crucial insights about the digital revolution that was transforming industries. While most of GE was focused on recovering from the financial crisis, she sensed an opportunity to position the company at the forefront of what would become known as the Industrial Internet—the application of digital connectivity, data analytics, and software to industrial machines and systems. This vision wasn't immediately embraced within GE. When Comstock and her team tried to explain the potential of digital platforms using examples like Apple's App Store, they encountered significant resistance. Jeff Immelt famously dismissed the comparison, saying, "Apple is about consumers. They don't apply to us. We make complicated infrastructure tech. Not mobile phones and apps." This response exemplified what psychologists call "functional fixedness"—the inability to see how concepts from one domain might apply to another. Undeterred, Comstock continued advocating for digital transformation through what she called "rolling thunder"—a persistent campaign of education, examples, and provocations designed to gradually shift thinking within the organization. She brought in outside experts like Marc Benioff of Salesforce to demonstrate how cloud computing was transforming business operations. She highlighted areas where GE was already using software successfully, revealing that the company qualified as one of the world's top twenty software firms based on existing revenue. A breakthrough came when Steve Liguori, one of Comstock's team members, coined the term "Industrial Internet" during a meeting with Immelt. This simple phrase perfectly captured what they were trying to achieve—applying the connectivity and intelligence of the Internet to industrial equipment. The term gave GE a way to explain its digital strategy without relying on consumer technology analogies that executives found irrelevant. To make the business case compelling, Comstock's team developed the "power of 1%" concept—showing how even small improvements in industrial efficiency through digital technology could yield enormous economic benefits. For example, a 1% savings on fuel in aviation would offer $30 billion over fifteen years, while a 1% increase in healthcare productivity would return $63 billion in the same period. These concrete examples helped translate abstract digital concepts into tangible business opportunities. In November 2012, GE officially launched its Industrial Internet strategy at an event called "Minds + Machines" in San Francisco. The centerpiece was a GEnx jet engine displayed on stage—a powerful symbol of GE's industrial heritage now being enhanced with digital capabilities. Immelt announced that GE would gather and analyze data from its industrial equipment, from jet engines with sensors generating terabytes of flight data to locomotives equipped with devices measuring 150,000 data points per minute. Parallel to her work on the Industrial Internet, Comstock recognized that GE needed to evolve beyond its traditional closed innovation model. For decades, GE had operated as what she called "Old Power"—developing proprietary knowledge and fiercely guarding it as a valuable asset. The digital era demanded something different: openness, collaboration, and the ability to harness collective intelligence. Comstock began experimenting with open innovation through initiatives like the GE Ecomagination Challenge. Launched in partnership with venture capital firms, this contest invited outside inventors to submit clean-energy innovations with a combined $200 million committed to fund the best ideas. The response was overwhelming—over four thousand submissions from 150 countries—demonstrating the untapped potential of external innovation. She also embraced the maker movement, visiting spaces like NYC Resistor and MakerBot in Brooklyn to understand how small-scale manufacturing was evolving. This led to initiatives like the GrabCAD challenge, where GE invited online engineers to redesign a bracket for jet engines. The winning design, created by a twenty-year-old Indonesian engineering student, reduced the weight by 84%—a breakthrough that GE's internal teams hadn't achieved. Perhaps the most significant outcome of these experiments was the creation of FirstBuild, a microfactory in Louisville that combined GE's manufacturing expertise with the open, collaborative approach of the maker movement. FirstBuild allowed GE to test small-batch manufacturing and gather customer feedback before scaling production, dramatically reducing the risk of new product development. Through these initiatives, Comstock helped transform GE from a traditional industrial company into a digital industrial leader. By recognizing early signals of technological change and translating them into a compelling vision for GE's future, she demonstrated the essential role of forward-thinking leadership in navigating disruptive innovation.

Chapter 5: FastWorks: Creating a Culture of Experimentation

In 2012, Comstock encountered Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup," at his book launch party in New York. Recognizing that his methodology for rapid experimentation and learning could address GE's innovation challenges, she invited him to work with the company as an "innovation accelerator." Though initially skeptical about whether a massive industrial corporation could adopt startup practices, Ries agreed to help. The pivotal moment came when Ries conducted a workshop with GE's transportation team on a diesel engine project called Series X. The team had projected that developing a new, more efficient engine would take five years—an eternity in the rapidly evolving market. Through a series of probing questions, Ries exposed the flawed assumptions underlying this timeline and introduced the concept of a "minimum viable product" (MVP)—a simplified version that could be tested with customers much sooner. Initially, GE engineers scoffed at the idea of an MVP diesel engine, considering it impossible or dangerous. But as the conversation progressed, they realized they could modify an existing engine to meet the core requirements of a specific marine customer in just six months rather than five years. This revelation demonstrated how lean startup principles could dramatically accelerate innovation even in complex industrial contexts. Building on this success, Comstock launched FastWorks, a company-wide initiative to embed lean startup methodology throughout GE. She tapped Steve Liguori and Viv Goldstein to lead the effort, training teams across different businesses and functions. The approach focused on identifying "leap of faith assumptions," creating MVPs to test those assumptions, and using rapid build-measure-learn cycles to iterate based on customer feedback. Early FastWorks projects demonstrated impressive results. Terri Bresenham in GE Healthcare used the methodology to develop low-cost medical devices for emerging markets, shifting from adapting sophisticated Western products to designing solutions based on local needs. The Legal team reduced contracts from two hundred pages to five, shaving weeks off negotiation processes. Mike Mahan's team in Appliances created a French-door refrigerator with no plastic parts, going through eighteen iterations based on customer feedback before arriving at a successful design. What made FastWorks particularly powerful was its focus on cultural change rather than just process improvement. Comstock recognized that for GE to become more innovative, employees needed permission to experiment, fail, and learn—behaviors that ran counter to the company's traditional emphasis on perfection and predictability. As she noted, "We had to rediscover our original entrepreneur's mentality. We were once a startup. Was it possible to turn GE once again into a 120-plus-year-old startup?" To support this cultural shift, Comstock worked with HR chief Susan Peters to redesign GE's performance management system. They replaced annual reviews with ongoing feedback through an app called PD@GE (Performance Development @ GE), allowing managers and employees to communicate continuously throughout the year. This approach recognized that people involved in innovation need to be evaluated differently—rewarded not just for successes but for "productive failures" that generate valuable learning. Comstock also created a "Culture Club," a multilevel group that provided feedback on barriers to change within the organization. This forum revealed that many employees were spending time on reports and meetings that leaders had long forgotten about but that continued through organizational inertia. To address the fear of failure, the team organized "FailCon," a convention where employees shared their mistakes and what they had learned from them. Perhaps most significantly, FastWorks introduced the concept of "growth boards"—cross-functional decision-making bodies that evaluated projects at regular intervals based on validated learning rather than traditional financial metrics. These boards applied venture capital discipline to internal innovation, providing metered funding based on progress and willingness to kill unsuccessful projects early—what Comstock called "de-risking innovation by spending less money on more ideas earlier." Through FastWorks, Comstock demonstrated that even the most established organizations can adopt entrepreneurial practices when they focus on changing both processes and culture. By giving employees permission to experiment, providing them with a structured methodology for learning, and creating new systems for evaluation and decision-making, she helped transform GE into a more adaptive and innovative company. The initiative represented a fundamental shift from the "optimize today" operating system that had dominated GE for decades toward a new approach that balanced current performance with future exploration.

Chapter 6: Emergent Leadership: Navigating Uncertainty and Change

As Beth Comstock's career evolved, she developed a distinctive leadership philosophy suited for navigating unprecedented change. She came to call this approach "emergent leadership"—the ability to adapt and thrive amid uncertainty while helping organizations do the same. This wasn't just a theoretical concept but a practical response to the accelerating pace of technological and market disruption that defined her time at GE. Comstock's journey toward becoming an emergent leader crystallized during her work with Current, a new business she created within GE Lighting. Current represented an ambitious attempt to transform GE's oldest business into a digital-first enterprise focused on energy efficiency, solar power, and connected lighting systems. The venture embodied Comstock's vision of how traditional industrial companies could reinvent themselves for the digital age. The challenges she faced with Current illustrated the core tensions emergent leaders must navigate. When Maryrose Sylvester, whom Immelt had insisted lead the new venture, struggled to shift from traditional GE operating methods to a more entrepreneurial approach, Comstock had to provide both support and challenge. She surrounded Sylvester with coaches and advisors while giving her space to develop her own leadership style. When Current missed financial targets, creating what Comstock called the "stink of fail," she had to defend the venture's long-term potential while acknowledging short-term disappointments. Through these experiences, Comstock refined her understanding of what emergent leadership requires. First and foremost is the willingness to embrace uncertainty rather than pretending to have all the answers. As she told a group of GE managers: "The world will never be slower or simpler than it is today. Wishing it so will not make it so." Emergent leaders accept that they must often act without complete information, using hypotheses and experiments to learn and adapt as they go. This approach demands both passion and humility—the passion to pursue bold visions despite obstacles and the humility to recognize that failure is inevitable and valuable. Comstock learned this lesson painfully through experiences like the Quirky partnership, which ended in bankruptcy despite initial promise. Rather than viewing such setbacks as personal failures, she treated them as opportunities to learn and refine her approach. Emergent leadership also requires breaking free from rigid hierarchical thinking. Comstock advocated organizing teams around specific missions rather than reporting structures, giving them clear objectives but freedom to determine how to achieve them. She emphasized the importance of coaches rather than traditional managers—people who could guide and support without controlling or micromanaging. Perhaps most fundamentally, emergent leadership means maintaining human creativity and agency in organizations increasingly dominated by algorithmic thinking and optimization. In a powerful speech to GE managers, Comstock challenged them to answer the question "Are you a robot?" She argued that what makes humans valuable in an age of automation is precisely what traditional management systems often suppress—independence, creativity, and spontaneity. "To be human today means living in a world in which almost every day brings some sort of massive disturbance," she told them. "The pace of change is never going to be slower than today. Change happens but our responsibility is to shape it, adapt to it, and make it work for us. There is no robot, no algorithm, capable of such adaptation." Comstock's approach to leadership was ultimately about reconciling apparent opposites: optimizing today while planting seeds for tomorrow; respecting data while valuing imagination; maintaining structure while encouraging experimentation; acknowledging reality while pursuing possibility. This "and" thinking—the ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously—became central to her leadership philosophy. By the time Comstock left GE in 2017, after Jeff Immelt's departure and amid another period of transformation for the company, she had developed a clear vision of what leadership must look like in an age of constant disruption. It requires continuous discovery, clear purpose, relentless experimentation, radical openness, and above all, faith that amid uncertainty and ambiguity, new possibilities will emerge.

Summary

Beth Comstock's career embodies the essential qualities needed to navigate and lead through transformative change. From her early days in public relations to becoming GE's first female vice chair, she consistently demonstrated an uncanny ability to sense emerging trends before they became obvious to others. Her greatest contribution was not any single initiative but her persistent efforts to evolve GE's culture and operating system to meet the demands of a digital, connected world. She championed openness when the corporate instinct was to close ranks, experimentation when perfection was the standard, and human creativity when algorithmic efficiency was the goal. Comstock's journey offers profound lessons for anyone facing uncertainty and disruption. First, meet change early by developing what she calls a "discovery mindset"—actively seeking out weak signals of what's next rather than waiting for change to overwhelm you. Second, recognize that transformation is never complete; it requires constant adaptation and reinvention. Third, balance data with imagination, understanding that the most valuable insights often come from seeing patterns and possibilities that aren't yet reflected in metrics. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, maintain faith in human creativity and purpose even when the path forward isn't clear. As Comstock herself put it: "Tomorrow can be better than today, and you have the power to make it so." Her story reminds us that in a world of accelerating change, our humanity—our ability to imagine, create, and find meaning—remains our greatest asset.

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Beth Comstock

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