Comments

It'd be interesting to come back in - say - 50 years and see how history judges the decline (and demise?) of GM (if AT&T can be bought, anything can happen.) Text book example of how big companies can go wrong. The employee discounts are a sad case of GM's eating their young - acting from desperation versus creativity or courage. They need a few more risk takers (versus canning them) if they want to survive in the long-term.

Posted by Mary Schmidt at August 31, 2005 9:58 AM

"a company with a long history of punishing passionate mavericks" ... that is exactly how gm's brand dna feels.

of course they are not alone in the aouto-industry. but maybe the worst.
... 50 years from now... hard to imagine a future for gm that reaches that far.
but then again: these are euphoric times now. let's see how big the impact of change will really be.

(BIIIIIIIIIG, i think personally:)

Posted by jens at August 31, 2005 2:54 PM

GM, as we know it today, will definitely be gone in 20 years. The same for the others including the Japan manufacturers. Hopefully by design and not a stubborn refusal to transform. They will survive and prosper via leveraging the global labor market. No surprise, I'm sure. The consequences for the job market are huge, but inevitable. The US will justifiably "protect" itself via import regulation during the transition, but you can't hold back this wave.

The link below is about parts but it won't take much more pressure before it is about manufacturing. Heck, at $5,000 per car, the term "I totaled my car" won't refer to an accident. It will be any repair over $2,000...like the a/c, etc.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_08/b3921062.htm

Posted by Jeff at August 31, 2005 3:17 PM

If GM or any other US Car Manufacturer wants to survive in the long haul, they need to start rolling out hybrids tomorrow. Oil lobbies will undoubtedly pressure them not to, but new fuel technologies are essential for tomorrow's marketplace. In Europe, hybrids (petrol/electric) are becomming more and more popular and with increasing oil/fuel costs, it only makes sense for consumer pocketbooks, not to mention the enviornment!

Posted by Tom O'Leary at September 3, 2005 10:42 AM

Any car manufacturer today must pay attention to the granularity of details. Zillion details. In learning a lesson from the Japanese, they may just have to assimilate a key feature. The feature of being grandiosely minimalist to have the empowering capability to work out any nano-detail (macro-flaw), regardless of its size. Getting the inspiration and the OUTCOMES from MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around) and remembering “A Passion for Excellence”? The zeitgeist (the spirit of the time) has changed the weltanschauung (worldview). Many people –allegedly empowered with the highest education– speak about, as an example, the chaos. They, nonetheless, don’t know how to tackle it as a practical manner. They entertain the idea in theirs minds and the more the idea gets entertained, the most become in dire straits, the ‘supposed-to-be’ incumbent or the ‘alleged’ practitioners.

Many have the intellectual capital but a great percentage doesn’t wish to make that specific resource productive and competitive. Almost as if they were expecting someone else to make the effort on their behalf so that they can “collect” the fruits later on. Fully empowered with knowledge, expertise, dexterities, experience but WITHOUT A TASK-ORIENTED SOUL? How many characters like these does one know? Many, too many! A great number of them in key tenures at important corporations. Regardless of the intellectual capital and their desired not to make a progress, HAVE YOU SEEN THEIR FACES WHEN AN OUTSIDER COMES ALONG WITH A BETTER AND BIGGER (IN-DETAIL) PLAN?

Incidentally, What if Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Bell Labs, Los Alamos Laboratories and other R&D plus Centers for Business Innovation will grow, as an illustration, green, premium gasoline (with out the petroleum industry) from molecules and bacteria by applying nanotechnology and biotechnology? HAVE YOU THOUGHT OUT A SCENARIO OF LAB-MADE GASOLINE TO AUTOMOBILES WITHOUT THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY? Don’t they already make some sort of alcohol or diesel (motor fuel) out corn crops in the U.S.? I know there are so many alternative fuels (nitrogen cells, gas, biomass, hybrids) and sources of energy. I have read these great organizations –along with many other– will make the new technological wave in 9 to 10 years, making the “Molecular Technology” be a reality as Meyer, Davis and Davis tell us. These authors (Meyer, Davis and Davis) in “IT’S ALIVE” tell us that some scientists are growing corn plants? What do they not harvest? Corn. WHAT DO THEY HARVEST? AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSE: PLASTIC-BASED POLYMER. Will this have an impact on carmakers themselves? I wonder.

Consistently, I wish to share a Dr. Richard P. Feynman’s thought: “We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”

The upcoming is Part 3. I will here continue to venture some ideas, principles or tenets (label it as you wish) that a corporate manager (trans-leadership exerciser) may wish to consider. These are ideas to be applied by business settings (here “creative tension” has been invited to exercise mind expansion). Between one idea and the other, the reader is the only one who makes the connection. Some are to be understood metaphorically ones, others are literarily. NOTA BENE: This is a call of business re-imagination. As follows:

SET # 35 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Explore the extremes, where nonlinear effects kick in. Sometimes, the extremes contain pleasant, nonlinear surprises. Imagine things that engender loyalty towards your organization. Through experimentation with detailed measurements and discipline and logical analysis, you find profitable innovations.

SET # 36 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Test things at the bottom of the organization that lead to big insights. Test, experiment, measure, and optimize. Institute hard-core analytic optimization. Architect your entire infrastructure to operate in real time. Let your account-management programs to be driven by experimentation.

SET # 37 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Dream up programs that might be of value to customers, and then test them. A successful test often triggers other behaviors, and you should follow these with more new offers. Shift to roll-out, because all of a sudden your competition get a preponderance of one product of my organization that they’ve never seen before.

SET # 38 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Have a free flow of resources to where the value is. Rather than penalizing people who fail, praise them for their commitment and intentions. Reinforce the tolerance of risk and failure. Revise your best practices. Observe, orient, decide, act. First to fight now means first to learn.

SET # 39 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Fly great distances, meet new people, and encounter new ideas. Have a freedom of thought, the passion for experimentation, and the desire to imagine your future. Believe in not commonly believed opinions.

SET # 40 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

It’s about getting more from less. That’s the true road to wealth. Focus on changes, challenges, and opportunities. Earn more while spending less. Reach a higher level of output. Pursue profit maximization. Remain competitive.

SET # 41 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Adapt to revolutionary innovations in technology and business efficiency the soonest. Craft value-creating relationships. Establish guidelines, offer insight, and provide inspiration. Identify, analyze, and maximize your learning opportunities.

SET # 42 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Evaluate, identify, select, negotiate, manage, turn around, govern, implement, anticipate, and ensure success. Generate immediate cost savings. Realize a cash infusion from the sale of assets. Relieve the burden of staffing.

SET # 43 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Be freer to direct your attention to the more strategic aspects of your job. Keep your logic compelling.

SET # 44 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Destabilize in order to live closer to the edge of chaos. This means being agile enough to change as the environment does, but not so fluid as to lose its defining structure. Walk the walk as well as talking the talk of the Adaptive Enterprise.

SET # 45 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

A lesson: The word adaptation describes the interaction between an organism and its environment.

SET # 46 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

TO BEAR IN MIND! But one thing an evolutionary and ecological perspective tells us for sure: If several major forces are at work, they will not progress in separate straight lines ―they will interact chaotically, creating unforeseen changes.

SET # 47 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Be willing to adapt very quickly, to pounce on an opportunity when you see it, to change the organization, to think about new developments, and to be always very open to any change in any direction.

SET # 48 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

You have to be the equivalent of selective forces in nature, which calls for a willingness to let people in the organization to explore, to flourish and develop.

SET # 49 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Separate to promote independence, selfish thinking, and local solutions. Learn from each other’s mistakes and successes, and you’ll get better and better, able to operate at a much more accelerated pace, based upon the knowledge that has been transferred.

SET # 50 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Get your organization into a massive amount of knowledge and experience that creates a great breeding stock for subsequent ventures.

SET # 51 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Explore continually evolving technology and applications, while also creating different units to exploit commercial opportunities not always closely related to the founding capabilities.

SET # 52 - (metaphoric ideas for updated management practitioners)

Replenish customers on demand. Take the client as an agent, and create an agent-based point of view.

PS: Tom, thank you for your work. In the positive side and in my case, it’s impossible not to get my minded over stimulated while reading you. Beyond that, you communicate to make the reader wish more (to research without limits). Thanks.

Posted by Andres Agostini at September 12, 2005 12:29 PM