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By Root 931 0

that I had an ally: GM retiree Alex Mair, a car enthusiast and former GM chief engineer, would spend his free time going from dealer lot to dealer lot measuring the gaps on, say, twenty Cadillac DeVilles and then, down the street, doing the same on twenty Acuras. The results would be painstakingly recorded in Alex’s jiggly handwriting: he would calculate the average of each brand’s gaps, as well as the size of the plus-minus range. The news was never good for GM, and I doubt that Alex got much positive feedback for his trouble except from me. (I hadn’t been on the distribution list initially because he felt it was more of an issue for manufacturing than product development. He was right, but the fact is that I cared deeply.) So, “Alex Mair’s gap analyses” became a weapon of choice, and my incessant barrage increasingly got attention.

Several weeks later, a large meeting was held out at Milford Proving Ground, north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dozens of new GM cars were lined up, as well as many new competitive cars from Japan, Korea, and Germany. Senior executives from Product Development, Design, Quality, and Manufacturing trooped from car to car with a young, dissatisfied, disruptive executive rattling off the bad news. His name was Mano Mavroleon and his criticism of the status quo was so strident that he was seen as “disloyal.” (“If he likes other people’s cars so much better than ours, why doesn’t he go work for them?”) It’s true that Mavroleon could have been more sensitive to the feelings of those who weren’t addressing the problems, but he was essentially focused on the same things I was. But, when a vice chairman is critical, it’s wisdom. When a junior person does it, it’s insubordination. (How I ever survived that phase of my career is still a mystery.)

After sheet metal analysis of at least twenty cars, with plenty of editorial comment from me, a curious thing happened: a truly gigantic man, at least six-foot-five and 240 pounds of muscle, placed himself squarely in front of me. He leaned his rough-hewn face down into mine, grabbed me by the lapels of my suit, and raised me up on my toes. (At six-foot-two-and-a-half, I’m no midget, but this guy was in another league.)

Making sure that every word would register on me and his audience, the giant said, “OK, I think I’ve heard about as much of this shit as I want to.YOU are now going to take ME to the car that you think is best, and we’re going to focus on that one.”

Shrugging my nice suit back onto my shoulders (my antagonist was wearing a Harley-Davidson leather jacket, with much embroidery and many patches), I walked over to the best car, sheet-metal-wise, of the bunch. It was a Hyundai Sonata, 2002 vintage.

Joe Spielman, for that was this intimidating figure’s name, proceeded to march me around the Sonata. His finger would point to a hood corner: “You want sharp ‘bird beaks’ like that?” Yes. Next, the doors: “You want flushness and gaps and parallelism like this?” Yes. “You want moldings to align like these here?” Yes. “You want . . . you want.” Yes, yes. “OK, I got the goddamn picture. Guys?” he said, calling his subordinates. “See this car? That’s our new standard for sheet metal. I want you all to remember what you’re seeing. Measure it out and take pictures.”

Turning back to me, Spielman said, “This is what you want, and if you give me just a couple of months, this is exactly what you’re gonna get.”

I was a bit doubtful: an encouraging performance, but I had seen those before. Still, it was Joe Spielman, and he was in charge of “Metal Fab,” the division responsible for sheet metal. And Spielman was known far outside GM as a manufacturing executive who actually got things done. Before I joined GM, several people knowledgeable about GM had told me, “Remember the name Joe Spielman. If you ever need something done, he’s your guy.” Now we were going to place Joe Spielman in a culture where excellence is not only encouraged, it’s expected.

Sure enough, the ultrapatriotic, Harley-riding, Corvettecollecting Joe Spielman made good on his promise. He greatly improved