Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [51]
So, it would be a daunting task, one that would require much more than the three years of my initial contract. Without much analysis or making of to-do lists, I tackled them pretty much all at once. Luckily I was soon joined by an ever-larger force of motivated people who saw, in my presence and priorities, liberation from the shackles of mediocrity.
7
Tackling the 800-Pound Gorilla
DESIGN CAME FIRST. I KNEW THAT THE TEA-LEAF-READING APEX GANG, brainstorming useless ideas from the comfort of their orange beanbag chairs, had to go. So did the massive “Brand Central” studio, with its mix of artifacts from all walks of human life and multimedia displays. The “brand development studios” that came next in the sequence held no real value either since their efforts were routinely trashed and redesigned by the production studios under Jerry Palmer—the only studios that were creating any added value in the sense that their designs would actually be produced. The trouble was, they were the wrong designs, the focus on pleasing the VLEs and meeting their timing.
I just wanted a good, old-fashioned design organization, one where individual studios, under studio chief designers, worked on individual vehicles from inception to production with no handoffs. But what to do about the people? Jerry Palmer, although a fine designer, was locked in perpetual battle with his boss, the venerable Wayne Cherry. We couldn’t afford that, and Palmer was about to retire.
Human Resources, acting on behalf of Rick Wagoner, advised me that my first priority was to replace Wayne Cherry. The view, apparently, was that he was nearly sixty-five (true) and no longer capable of overseeing great design (false). As in so many instances, the problem was seen in the person rather than in the institutional obstacles to the person’s performance.When responsibility for selection of the production design went from the vice president of design to the VLEs, the former became powerless and doomed to failure. Still, I dutifully conducted a search and interviewed a selection of the world’s most renowned and successful automotive designers from the United States, Europe, and Asia. I couldn’t find one with better artistic skills than Wayne Cherry; I had to stop searching and get on with fixing the place. I asked for, and was granted, a one-year extension for Cherry.
It was to be a year of redemption for him. Freed once more to decide what would go into production and auto shows, his crowning achievement was the incredible Cadillac 16 show car (another “runner,” by the way, with a 1,000-horsepower V16 engine under its long hood, acclaimed universally as the finest expression of an ultraluxury sedan in modern times).
Within weeks, the dreaded APEX was gone, as was Brand Central and the “brand development” studios. Every studio now worked on real projects, supported by some small, unfettered advanced studios in California, the UK, and Warren, Michigan.
The vehicle line executives grudgingly accepted their loss. Emotionally, they felt slighted; rationally, they couldn’t argue that their stewardship of design had produced any notable successes.
In the new organization, Design would create a winning proposal, one that was declared feasible for production by Manufacturing and Engineering. The operative word was “winning.” No car or truck was to proceed to approval for production unless and until it had scored a resounding victory in the design clinic, where the full-size