Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [43]
Stung by the criticism, GM’s design research folks came to see me and took me through the methodology used in the so-called Product Clinics, where future design proposals, in the form of very realistic (but unbranded) mock-ups, were tested against the current models offered by the competition.The goal in clinics of this type is to ensure that your new model scores a clear-cut, unequivocal win over the competitors currently in the marketplace. The win obviously must be by a substantial margin because by the time the new car comes out, the competitors will have upgraded as well.To my surprise, I found GM’s research methodology to be excellent, much like that used to great success by Chrysler, and in some ways even superior. “Then how the hell do you explain all these ugly cars cleared for production?” I asked. Dave Mazur, the head of GM’s research (now with Nissan) and his number two, Andy Norton, who now heads the group, assured me that every single new model had performed exactly as predicted by the clinics: they had all failed!
Shocked, I demanded to see the clinic results but was told that this was prohibited: only the pertinent VLE had access to the aesthetic performance of his or her vehicle. This well-intentioned rule was meant to prevent meddlesome intervention by third parties, like senior management. It also assumed that the VLEs would have a profound interest in ensuring that their design was a clinic winner—why wouldn’t they be the proper custodians of the results?
Logical, but wrong: the pressure on meeting design-release dates was so intense that there was no time for redo. Jerry Palmer would address glaring concerns that could be handled with little or no slippage, declare the design fixed, and release it into the waiting hands of body engineering and manufacturing.
Now why, you may well ask, would a vehicle line executive knowingly accept a design he or she knew could not win in the market? The answer is simple: declaring the design unacceptable meant immediate admission of program timing failure, with swift criticism, probable loss of bonus, and other acts of retribution an inevitable result. Remember: the VLEs were responsible for the design. They approved it, so if it failed, they would have to be asked why they ever let it get that far. Pretending the design was OK and rationalizing the research results (“What do those people know about design anyway?”) would defer evidence of failure by at least another two years! By then, who knows? He or she might have been promoted or might be in a different job altogether. Yes, better to defer the bad news, hide the problem in the time-honored GM fashion. I call it Pooping Pooch Syndrome: when a dog leaves a nasty pile in the house, he or she generally selects a spot where it won’t be found for hours, maybe days.Why be swatted with a rolled-up newspaper first thing in the morning when there’s a good chance of delaying it to late in the day or even tomorrow? This explains a lot of steaming piles found “later” in a lot of large organizations.
I ordered that all clinic results be shown to me, and that henceforth the results be given reasonable distribution to those with a need to know, including Rick Wagoner. But I took that first pile of accumulated reports home over the weekend and realized, to my chagrin, that every GM car to be launched in the first three years after my arrival would be greeted with only the mildest of applause at best. (Predictably, in 2004, the media embarked on a “Lutz has failed” theme, noting that I had been in office for three years now and the vehicles were still found wanting.)
Some cars could be partially solved by delaying them—in one case, against the bitter resistance of theVLE. Buick’s midsize sedan, the Regal, was to have been the lucky recipient