Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [48]
This memo, with distribution to only my sixteen direct reports, circulated through the GM system, top to bottom, propagating at near light speed. Soon, the media had it and reprinted it in its entirety. I was actually glad for the visibility it received, for it put all on notice that a new wind was blowing in GM product development.
Most of the talented engineers and designers at GM saw this as a long-awaited freedom manifesto, and that’s how it was intended. In a large company, the real talent often lies among those with specialized skills but no MBA, doomed to toil in relative obscurity while their more managerially trained colleagues get the promotions. It’s hard to get real leadership intent down to “the troops,” yet it is vital if they are to be fully motivated.This memo did it, and I received many messages of thanks and encouragement, some even from hourly employees. A minority was less than thrilled; they were deeply invested in the status quo. Some e-mailed Rick Wagoner, complaining that Lutz’s swashbuckling, antiprocess religion views were risking the destruction of the carefully crafted, reliable, and utterly predictable GM product development machine, where everyone did their job (sort of), was tolerant of everyone else (part of the big problem), and produced a seemingly endless stream of cars which, though bravely carrying names like “Achieva,” could well have been badged “Mediocra.”
I also encouraged the employees of Product Development to develop a healthy sense of anarchy, to question process that led nowhere and edicts or requirements that made little sense but were treated with the reverence normally reserved for scripture. I created stickers bearing the words “Sez Who?” and handed them out by the hundreds. I wanted to see some cracks in the rigid foundation, cracks big enough to insert the necessary sticks of dynamite. My two initial targets were Design and the whole “brand management” system, the latter being beyond my organizational responsibility.
We started with Design, but even before undertaking any organizational changes, I ordered up an additional concept car for the upcoming North American International Auto Show in Detroit, slated for early January 2002, just four short months away. It was to be an attention-getter, an unexpected statement from “moribund” GM, a demonstration of practical design excellence in a novel format. It would become the rear-wheel-drive Pontiac Solstice two-seat roadster, using as many major components from the GM “parts bin” as possible.
The effect on the Design group was electrifying: they were being granted the freedom to create the world’s most desirable, affordable sports roadster, with no list of hundreds of “requirements” to hog-tie them. So powerful was the emotional appeal that Wayne Cherry, the disenfranchised head of design, saw it as a way to reestablish his now-questionable legacy, and became personally involved. He started a competition among all of GM’s thirteen far-flung design studios; the ensuing tidal wave of newly liberated creativity was gratifying.
The design that captured the imagination of all was one from a young designer at GM’s advanced studio in California, Franz von Holzhausen. The sketch was compact, muscular, loaded with pent-up energy. (Interestingly, when the car appeared at the Detroit show to tremendous acclaim, I was asked by European journalists who the designer was.When I gave the name, the Germans said, “Ach, no wonder,” as if to say, “We knew it! Way too good to be American.” They were crestfallen when I pointed out that Franz was third-generation U.S.-born. Trust me, chauvinism and provincialism are alive and well in the automotive media.)
We set about transforming