Larry Culp on Success Theater, Embracing Red, and the GE Turnaround

Lean Blog by Mark Graban · Aug 18, 2026

GE was in bad enough shape in 2018 that investor Nelson Peltz says he was sure the company would end up in Chapter 11. Inside GE, meanwhile, business reviews were full of good news. Both things were true at the same time. Larry Culp eventually had a name for that: “success theater.” He'd gotten an early look at how it worked that summer, before he was CEO. Culp was still a board member when he […] The post Larry Culp on Success Theater, Embracing Red, and the GE Turnaround by Mark Graban appeared first at Lean Blog by Mark Graban.