Forbes' columnist Jerry Flint is at it again. This time 'round he's saying what he said last time 'round: the feds need to give Detroit a holiday from fuel economy and safety regs. While I approve of recycling in general, recycling the General's spin strikes me as a particularly inadvisable endeavor. By the same token, defending GM's management seems, well, indefensible. At first, at last, Flint seems to come to terms with GM suits' epic incompetence: "The record is not good. Since 1992, GM's U.S. market share has fallen steadily–from 34% that year to 19% in May. Many of GM's leading executives are from the finance side of the business, but the financial failures are numerous… What is more amazing is that GM management has survived relatively little criticism, as far as I can tell, from its board of directors or the press." The press being… Jerry Flint? Roger [and me] that. "I know many terrific GM executives, starting with Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, who are doing an outstanding job. The problem is that GM is running out of money and time. The decisions it makes over the next few quarters could be crucial to its survival. I worry whether GM has enough of the right leaders to steer the company through this crisis." File this one under too little, too late, too disconnected from reality to be believed.
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The crisis at General Motors is not of its making. The economy is weak, gasoline prices are at record levels and the U.S. auto industry is in a big slump. Much of the blame lies elsewhere, but the auto giant is in peril.
What is this guy smoking? The management must be smoking the same stuff or sending Flint part of their stash.
Must be my fault they are in peril. Guess I should start sending them my paycheck before I use any of it since there cars made most of my savings vanish. Wouldn’t want the hard luck management to miss a $300 lunch.
If you put all your eggs in one basket, ignore whole market segments (the same bread-and-butter segments you need presence in should the market tank) and cede them to your competitors, fail (and even deny) the relevance of a market trend until literally every worthwhile competitor has already jumped on board…
…how can you make these kind of strategic errors and still say that you have sound management?
GM’s leadership failure looks a lot like IBM’s in the 1980s: an assumption that the still bang the marching drums for an entire industry. The problem is that IBM never went as far as GM, and that GM has no Lou Gerstner equivalent to strong-arm the company onto the right path. All GM seems to have is a legion of incestuous “yes men” managers.
Lutz, by GM standards, is pretty good. He’s an outsider, and one with vision, which is something of what GM needs. The problem is that he shares much of GM’s existing management’s values and, correspondingly, their blind spots. He’s also terribly arrogant.
It says a lot that, when Ford brought in Alan Mullaly, he directly said that Lexus makes some of the best vehicles in the world. While it does seem somewhat disheartening, it’s also the truth, and it says, boldly, where Ford needs to be. Bob Lutz–let alone Rick Wagoner–wouldn’t give Toyota the time of day. I don’t think that GM, as a collective, has really acknowledged Toyota’s existence.
Note to Jerry Flint – “You are irrelevant and it’s time you retire with your cronies buddies at GM. Time to change those dirty underpants by hiring smart/wise managers who will stop running GM into the ground. Jerry it’s time you leave your post of supposed journalism so that someone who doesn’t have his head all the way up Wagoneer’s ass can provide more honest insight and analysis.”
On the flip side, this guy wants to kick GM off the Dow (Jones Industrial Average). Again.
Forbes does actually make some sense.
Many of GM’s leading executives are from the finance side of the business, but the financial failures are numerous.
GM needs to move fast to take 500 pounds of weight off its big pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. This would make it possible to run those vehicles on six-cylinder motors, not V-8s.
Then he throws it away with some real doozies.
I do not think GM’s problem is that it has too many divisions.
I know many terrific GM executives, starting with Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, who are doing an outstanding job.
Never mind that those “terrific GM execs” seem unable to manage a 1 person lineup to a 2-hole outhouse.
Sad. Have you driven a Ford lately? It may be the last American automobile company in a few years.
For those that missed it ,Jerry flint, he has is ass caught around his neck.
GM has some great executives?
Where the hell are they?
They need a modern day Henry Ford I or Soichiro Honda. Stat.
I like Jerry Flint, have been exchanging emails with him for many years and had numerous conversations. I respect his opinions, look forward to his articles, yet don’t always agree with his writings. there’s definitely only one…
jf
Hard to believe he is the same guy that made this speech:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~csimpson/Flint_Speech.html
It is plainly obvious that Waggoner has failed and must be fired — I’m a business geek from way back and I can’t think of any situation where a company so completely melted down, for reasons so clearly attributable to incompetent management, without the CEO being bounced. It’s probably unprecedented for there to be a meltdown of GM proportions without half the executive ranks being sacked. Any moment now Jerry Yang will be bounced from Yahoo, and Yahoo is a goldmine compared to GM.
“give Detroit a holiday from fuel economy and safety regs”
I’d agree with that to some extent:
* Ditch CAFE completely. Instead, impose a gradually but ever-increasing tax on fuel. Then all car companies can follow what consumers will dictate (efficient vehicles).
* Freeze the USA safety regs. Instead, allow manufacturers to meet either the current (and frozen) USA regs or the current (and continuously improving) European Union safety regs. Then, over a long period of time, ramp up the % of a manufacturer’s vehicles that are required to meet the EU regs until, at some point in the future, 100% must meet them and then you can completely disregard the USA regs.
Both of the above will greatly decrease the burden to manufacturers. No more CAFE silliness at all. Meeting just the EU regs lets you sell in the EU and in USA.
This may be off, but I think they need to inject some youth into their management. Lutz is way out of touch. And old. Hell, with GM tanking quickly why not have fun with it. Go to the best business school in the country. Hand it over to a group of their brightest students and say, “Fix it!.” See what happens. Couldn’t be any worse than what the “best executives” have done to it.
Another Lutz fan boy. Flint and De Lorenzo should find a nice retirement home full of GM Golden Years memorabilia and talk to each other until the cows come home.
Lutz has failed. His mission was to whip the GM product lineup into fighting shape. He failed, pure and simple. No amount of PR spin and razamataz changes the results.
Pontiac went from wounded in the US market to Walking Dead. GM’s hybrids have been a joke (lite and heavy versions). Chevrolet has EXACTLY ONE mainstream model which is selling sort of well … but Malibu still gets creamed by Camry and Accord in the sales race.
Buick, are they still selling cars/trucks/suvs/wheelchairs? Someday soon the Chinese government will buy and/or just take the Buick name and that will be it.
Cadillac: CTS cannibalized the Seville/STS. All the classic names are gone. Gramps hardly bothers coming in for his fresh Deville anymore because even he has figured out that a Scion or Prius meets his needs, and he doesn’t like shopping with the Bling Boyz. The Escalade Gangsta-Rap mobile is last years faded fad.
Saturn: A Different Kind of BS.
Now what on earth am I ever going to do with the $1600+ dollars of bonus bucks I have accumulated with my GM Card credit card? Maybe they will give me a way to donate the balance to charity.
jwltch,
I am not sure if you’re joking but you must be. It’s been one thing on which many agree here and it’s the fact that all US companies use way too many so-called business people. They are so-called business people because real business people don’t run companies to the ground, they built them. You can go to China, India, Eastern Europe to see real business people not these self-enriching charlatans.
I was actually being serious. I think the problem with these current executives is that they are just out of touch with reality and their typical buyer. What they know about the situation is what they read on paper. These are the old-school executives who’ve been enjoying the best of everything in life without having to really devise and execute a creative business-saving plan. I went to college at a rather unknown small liberal arts college in the midwest. They are actually taking students to Japan to develop new businesses and markets and the success has been unbelievable. They’ve done the same with various enterprises here in the US. It’s the creative, outside-of-the-box that I think a younger generation of business people could contribute. I also didn’t say it was a guarantee. I’d just like to see what would happen. You can’t lump all business people into one group.
Captain Tungsten That was a great read, very informative, little gems I didn’t know about in GM’s history of management blunders. Hard to think the same guy made that speech.
TTAC’s B&B are great I learn a little something new about finance, marketing, history, design, etc. on top of all the great car stuff each and every day, thanks.
Flint’s old speech was on the spot. But this latest garbage — I guess he either just sold out, or he’s geting senile….
jwltch I think you have a good idea there, but picking ust from business schools is a mistake that might create the same crap leaders they have now. A better approach would be to cherry pick a group of business, finance, engineering and design from companies and schools to bring some serious out of the box thinking. Both young and experienced as long as rhey are about shaking the company up and moving it forward with a real vision, not the same old tired GM thinking. Which brings us to the harder part of the problem they have ot have the power to sack any of the old lower layers of management that get in their way and try to stop radical change. I’m sure there are layers apon layers of management that would fight to the death protecting their turf and the status quo regardless of how much it costs the company.
Flint is right. Looks like a major economic meltdown is on the horizon. GM and the Big 3 are the canary in the coal mine.
RF,
I think you might be to hard on Flint. Now I don’t know him or his history like you do, so correct me if I’m wrong, but hear me out. I believe you and the others here have missed some things in what he said and didn’t say:
“The record is not good. Since 1992, GM’s U.S. market share has fallen steadily–from 34% that year to 19% in May. Many of GM’s leading executives are from the finance side of the business, but the financial failures are numerous…”
That tells me he thinks the bean counters are the problem and they need to get out of the way. And guess who is the bean counter in chief?
“What is more amazing is that GM management has survived relatively little criticism, as far as I can tell, from its board of directors or the press.”
Now he’s pointing out that there is not enough of an uproar in the press (and the BOD, maybe elsewhere – the shareholders?) to hold their feet to the fire.
“I know many terrific GM executives, starting with Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, who are doing an outstanding job… I worry whether GM has enough of the right leaders to steer the company through this crisis.”
“Starting with Bob Lutz…” OK you can disagree with him but the point is he didn’t say Rabid Rick (bean counter in chief). It’s obvious he thinks Rick is NOT the man to lead GM out of this. That’s important I think. So put it together, the finance people have not done a good job, the press, the BOD (and others) are not critical enough, and the good execs don’t include the CEO. Am I missing something here? It doesn’t seem he is as disconnected from reality as you might think.
Mr. Flint mentions taking 500lbs out of the trucks. I know how GM could do it. I already told me how. I know what the Japanese do to accomplish this.
Your right Windsword. This is just the first crack in the dike in parallel with the real estate meltdown. It won’t be pretty when the affects hit the economy. The spoiled generation will see some major economic pain. And Oboma’s socialism will make it a lot worse.
@ John Horner:
It seems to me that your evidence for Lutz’s failure doesn’t indict the product, but the marketing, and certainly isn’t a strong argument for his failure in his position. Lutz has had a big impact on improving the product, each one under his watch has been lightyears better than the one before. CTS, STS, Malibu, Aura, Solstice, Sky, all strong competitors. The fact that no one knows what they are, or seems to care, is not a fault of the product.
And you can convert those GM card $$ into cash in $50 increments, hit their website for details.
I looked over the GM Card website and I see nothing about cashing in like you said. Do you have more info?
As much as I (and I suspect many other TTAC readers) would love to see Wagoner, Lutz, and the other idiots in charge get publicly humiliated, bounced from their jobs, and then realize and admit their mistakes and defeat, it will never happen. They will go to their death beds convinced that they were doing everything right and that forces outside of their control did in GM. We will never get to enjoy the satisfaction of telling them “I told you so”.
That’s probably the root of mine and others’ frustration and our endless fascination in the GM Deathwatch series and related articles.
Lutz isn’t bad per se–he’d be brilliant if he was running Cadillac alone–but he’s ill-suited to being product czar for the whole company. He’s a rock star executive who likes rock-star cars; he’s not the kind of person you want making bread-and-butter models.
Under Lutz, GM’s base- and economy-minded models have been more or less as they’ve been before his tenure. Maybe they’re not quite as patently awful, but you can tell that he’s not interested in making a better Fit, Civic or Prius and that other than Malibu, there’s been nothing remarkable under his reign that “normal buyers” would want.
Sure, the CTS, Corvette, Sky and Tahoe are snazzy. Yeah, concept cars are fun. But when the economy tanks, people will turn to what they can afford, and what GM, under Lutz, has for the downtrodden masses are Cobalts and Aveos. Not terrible, but you can tell they exist just so that GM dealers have something to sell.
And he’s a good manager at GM, one of the precious few. Imagine what GM lifers like Wagoner et al think about cars like the Cobalt.
I think Jerry Flint can be quite honest. Flint in 2001 on GM: “Everybody makes mistakes. But your management makes so many of them. The proof of their incompetence is in the number of mistakes. There is absolutely no reason to think that this will change. The same people who made the mistakes are still in charge, and they haven’t admit.” Weirdness about govenment regulations aside, Flint is dead on in his assessment of GM’s various models.
And as pointed out Lutz is a decent exec, but he is working against the system. Flint is awfully backhanded: basically, he says the finance and marketing guys are in charge and they ought to go, but that there are still some decent engineering execs there. Dead on. With another Mulally, GM could recover.
But GM will soldier on with the finance guys in charge.
(Only half joking) Perhaps all of us here on TTAC should just head to Detroit and march in and take over GM!!! I mean think about it, collectively I think we could all put them back together again. We certainly couldn’t do any worse!!!
I can be at the RenCen in about 3 1/2 hours…
@geeber
I seem to remember you requested more information about housing values/distances to jobs in another thread. Here’s an interesting article.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/24/business/exurbs.php
I know many terrific GM executives, starting with Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, who are doing an outstanding job.
I think Flint gets an automatic top nomination for a Lutz Award.
@supremebrougham
I’ll meet you at the Miller parking deck on Renaissance Center West in 3 hours…
GO!
Are you sure this guy isn’t Larry Flynt, and the magazine Hustler?
Captain Tungsten:
Much thanks for that article. I’ve saved it.
Thank you, Mr. Leikanger.
The original assertion, as I recall, was that housing values were actually rising in the center city areas, which is not true.
Given market conditions and gasoline prices, I can certainly see where houses on the fringe areas would suffer more, and stand corrected for ever denying it.
We’ve been looking for a house for the past couple of months…nothing is moving at this point around here, regardless of location. I would not want to be in the real estate business right now.