Jeff Immelt ADMITS he made a mistake and is changing GE to refocus more on the UNITED STATES.

Jeff Immelt made a strong statement in his 2009 "shareholder letter" which clearly demonstrates that he is in the GE leadership tradition. In my book: THE SECRET TO GE'S SUCCESS and my GEWATCHER blog, I have continually asserted that one of the key reasons that GE is still a strong and vibrant 127 year old company, is that its leaders were willing to admit mistakes and adapt. Jeff continues to adapt, admit mistakes and move on...he calls it "resetting".

This is another example of adapting.

This is what Jeff wrote in his shareholder letter:I have also learned something about my country. I run a global company, but I am a citizen of the U.S. I believe that a popular, thirty-year notion that the U.S. can evolve from being a technology and manufacturing leader to a service leader is just wrong. In the end, this philosophy transformed the financial services industry from one that supported commerce to a complex trading market that operated outside the economy. Real engineering was traded for financial engineering. In the end, our businesses, our government, and many local leaders lost sight of what makes a nation great: a passion for innovation.To this end, we need an educational system that inspires hard work, discipline, and creative thinking. The ability to innovate must be valued again. We must discover new technologies and develop a productive manufacturing base. Our trade deficit is a sign of real weakness and we must reduce our debt to the world. GE will always invest to win globally, but this should include a preeminent position in a strong U.S."

There is no question that some of most talented smartest people became enamored with the "get rich/quickly" opportunities in financial services and haven't used their talents to create new products and services. Hopefully the "Wall Street meltdown" will change this and more students will go to engineering and scientific universities and not business schools. I agree with Jeff that we need to reward real innovation and creativity and not just "creative book keeping".

Bill Rothschild, author of THE SECRET TO GE's SUCCESS and other global best selling books and articles..visit http://www.strategyleader.com/ to learn more.