Editorial: Why GM Doesn't Need A "Car Guy" CEO
Car guys know exactly what’s wrong with GM: car guys like them aren’t running the show. Otherwise, every Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac would look “great” (no need to be more specific) and dust the competition. Hence Bill Ford’s decision to hire Alan Mulally to take over as CEO came as a real disappointment. Obviously, he would have done better hiring anyone who truly knows and loves cars better than a Lexus-driving Boeing executive.
The problem is, most car buyers don’t know much about VVT. What they do know is they aren’t going to pay much for things that have no obvious impact on getting from Point A to Point B. Their eyes, fingertips and rear ends don’t see and feel the same things as those of car guys.
What do most car buyers want? Guess at your own peril. You can scrape the surface by asking them. You can observe how they use their cars at rest stops and parking lots. You can try to walk in their shoes, perhaps even going so far as to don costumes that simulate the experience of being encumbered by arthritis, pregnancy, or nails and heels. Do this long enough and intensively enough, and you might figure them out. Then you’ve got to translate what you’ve learned into the thousands of details that comprise a car — from the curve of the fender to every last button and switch. Do this right and all of these bits cohere into a “gotta have” for that car buyer (who hopefully isn’t unique).
You don’t have nearly enough time to do all of this yourself. The thousands of decisions that constitute an automobile’s design require contributions from hundreds of people. Ideally, the people who know the customer and the people who style and engineer all of the bits work together seamlessly, accepting and melding one another’s expertise to create an appealing, coherent whole. And let’s not forget the dreaded “bean counters”: this whole has to be affordable. Achieving this synthesis might be the most difficult task in the world.
Nor can you simply hire the best and the brightest and simply toss them into a room together. A program team needs a leader to pull everyone together around a customer-based product vision. Even this mid-level executive can’t know everything or get fully involved in every decision. He’s got to develop a team capable of creating this synthesis, and he’s got to be able to let them do it.
GM’s CEO is at least three levels removed from the corporation’s product program managers, who are themselves a few levels above the grunts in the trenches. If, after a twenty-slide PowerPoint presentation, this CEO can make better decisions about product details than the team that has lived and breathed the product and market, then something is wrong. It doesn’t matter how car-smart this CEO is. If the program team is decent, then no exec’s that brilliant. If the team isn’t decent, then game over.
Nevertheless, senior car company execs frequently step in and make such decisions. The media legitimizes this meddling, lauding gutsy top execs who make snap product decisions. There’s no glory in letting the grunts do their jobs. Finally, corporate politics can push each executive to prove that he knows more than the other guy does while second-guessing every decision the other guy makes.
Michael Karesh lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with his wife and three children. In 2003 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. While in Chicago he worked at the National Opinion Research Center, a leader in the field of survey research. For his doctoral thesis, he spent a year-and-a-half inside an automaker studying how and how well it understood consumers when developing new products. While pursuing the degree he taught consumer behavior and product development at Oakland University. Since 1999, he has contributed auto reviews to Epinions, where he is currently one of two people in charge of the autos section. Since earning the degree he has continued to care for his children (school, gymnastics, tae-kwan-do...) and write reviews for Epinions and, more recently, The Truth About Cars while developing TrueDelta, a vehicle reliability and price comparison site.
More by Michael Karesh
Comments
Join the conversation
Mullally went with a Lexus instead of a Cadillac or Lincoln. I say he is more of a car guy than the average American.
The American auto industry is a mature business. Like most large mature companies, they're run by suits. The inspiration and drive came from the first, and occasionally, the second generation of leadership. Those were the guys (yes, they were all guys) who had vision and purpose. The companies they created often bore their name, or at least their family's name. Eventually they die off replaced by the next generation of management which may have lingering commitment to the values of the founders. They in turn are replaced by the corporate MBAs who major in financial management and could just as easily be selling tampons as trucks. Maybe both, depending on the corporation. Their only commitment is to the fabled "bottom line" which generally translates as "the most for me, and screw everybody else". In America today the corporate managers have managed to rob the wealth of the society, invest in the cheapest labor they can find, and maximize their own personal wealth. GM's decline started decades ago. It just doesn't have decades to rebuild itself. As much as I love the idea of American cars, I really don't like too much of their actual product. It's pretty hard to be inspired by spreadsheets. That's why Apple turned around after the return of Steve Jobs. Maybe Willie Durant should come back from the grave and take over GM. It couldn't be worse.