Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [91]
Akerson has inherited a company headed for success. The string of product hits, such as the Cadillac SRX, CTS Coupe, Chevrolet Camaro, Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Equinox, GMC Terrain, and a host of others are enjoying high levels of market success and, most important, commanding higher prices than their less-desirable predecessors. General Motors, for the first time in many years, is very profitable in the actual automobile (as opposed to financing) business, both overseas and in North America. Fixed costs are low, production capacity, if anything, is too tight, and profit-sapping interest payments on debt are low due to an equity-rich balance sheet.The fact that GM can be profitable in a total North American market of just 11.5 million units per year, as opposed to losing money in a 17.5-million-unit market as it had been doing a few years ago, speaks volumes about the transformation that has taken place.
Dan Akerson does not have to “fix the business.” His role is not to run the operations but to set the overall direction, inspire the troops, and make sure the product development momentum continues. In short, Akerson needs to be the head coach and not the quarterback on the field.
With a new approach to communicating with the public, admittedly a big task given the historic GM reticence to engage in honest dialogue, Akerson’s largest contribution could be to become the respected and liked spokesman, the personification, of General Motors. But it will require a fundamental change of direction, a realization that money will need to be spent, seniormost executives must make themselves copiously available, and communication must be genuine, as opposed to distributing a heavily vetted, triple set of “corporate position talking points” to be spouted verbatim by robotic executives.
Making GM more open, more human, more accessible, and thus more likeable is the last, great unfinished task. A CEO who says, “I don’t have time for appearances on news or talk shows or for interviews; I have a company to run,” simply does not understand that the perception of the company in the collective mind of the public has more bearing on ultimate business results than any set of “operational improvements” a CEO could effect by closing the door to outward communication and focusing internally. Many senior executives experience a sense of guilt about being “media personalities.” While such self-effacing modesty may be a commendable trait from a human standpoint, it is, in today’s world, wrong from a business perspective. The CEO and his senior people must accept the glare of notoriety and work it to the company’s advantage, for like (or dislike) of an automotive brand is based on a complex set of beliefs, right or wrong, about that brand, much as it is with political affiliation.
What Lee Iacocca achieved through his willingness to speak, respond, be filmed, interviewed, or used in commercials, as much as his time would allow, had a transformational effect on the fortunes of Chrysler and is not much different from the astonishing, overwhelming success of Barack Obama in his successful bid for the presidency of the United States in 2008.
Rational executives err when they look at public exposure as “style” and “fluff” over substance. But the change of beliefs about and feelings toward a company wrought by an engaging charismatic leader are “substance.” Naturally, the rest of the company’s work has to “cash every check the CEO’s mouth writes” but, as stated, that’s not the problem with GM today.
When a company and its products are vastly better than their reputations, it’s time to focus on