In all this talk about GM’s financial health, the most important element of any potential turnaround has been woefully neglected: the company’s corporate culture. GM’s is so utterly dysfunctional that it makes John Wayne Gacey’s home life seem like Peter Brady’s. There is no way– no way whatsoever— that GM can recover with its current management. Be that as it is, I’ve been contacting recently “liberated” GM employees to get a glimpse of life inside the belly of the beast. And pretty it’s not. “I remember walking my dogs and literally dropping to my knees and praying to God I would get out of GM,” one ex-exec told me. “I’ve seen people throwing-up in the bathrooms because of the overwhelming atmosphere of fear, terror and panic… It’s the most warped and bizarre thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” This from an employee with over 20-years of industry experience in several large companies.
Our man tells us that GM’s incestuous culture is stuffed with spies– people employed by management (e.g. supplier supremo Bo Anderson) whose main function is to secretly uncover and report dissension in the ranks. Dissent? “There is no dissent allowed,” he reports flatly. “None. Only good news is reported upwards. You’d think it would be different now that GM’s admitted its problems to Congress. It isn’t. It’s worse.”
Our contact tells us that the culture stifles creativity on every level. And “nothing less than a complete regime change can fix this. Nothing. They all have to go. Wagoner, Lutz, Henderson, all of them.”
I asked the longtime TTAC reader why he didn’t come forward sooner, and why he doesn’t use his real name given that he’s recently severed his employment with GM. “These people are vindictive. I’ve seen them go after pensions and benefits of people they’ve fired. I’ve seen careers clubbed like baby seals.”
[If any other GM employees would like to come forward with their impressions– good or bad or mixed– please contact me at robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com]
Robert, cant agree more. The current regime and most managers in the company are result of 20 or even 30 years of chapter on mismanagement. Their non-managerial employees (UAW) hate management and probably vice verse. We have a situation when two groups of disgruntled employees drove employer into bankruptcy (owners of GM stock) and there is no resolution in sight.
Under current talks owners of the company already discarded like yesterday news and the only conversation is about how to save jobs for known nincompoops on federal dime.
Wow. If this is true, I don’t think Orwell could write better fiction.
Yikes!
Its like OCP from Robocop!
One wonders how well a “STOP SNITCHING” cubicle poster would have went over.
I was relieved when I was “liberated” from my last job (even with a wife and new baby), but this makes that mess sound like a walk in the park.
And the term “liberated” is not just a euphamism. People really will be freed to move on to productive lives (yes it will take time, took me a year).
GM destroyed 180bn capital than they put into the economy from ’97 to ’07 (gotta be past 200bn now).
As they stand they are BAD for America.
Bunter
Wow this is ridiculous. Hiring people to spy on your own employees, eh. Just amazing.
John R:
I’m sure we’ll see a few good non-fiction books or two from the aftermath of this.
Good God. I hear this is why Mullaly unleashed holy hell at Ford when he arrived, greeted by the same nasty atmosphere. Exodus of execs was for the company’s good. Heads rolled to exorcise the demons of the inbred corporate culture.
It’s unfortunate because the rank and file have turned into brainwashed zombies.
THIS is the real root of the problem that needs to be solved. Fix the culture, and product will result.
This is going to make a great movie someday. Can’t wait to see it.
GM’s culture of stifling of dissent has been blatantly obvious to this casual observer ever since the Aztek fiasco. Think of all the “shut-up and find a way to make this work” meetings that must have taken place on the road to making that Turkey.
As I understand that story it started with a statement from one of the Gods(something like this): “Look how fast Chrysler turned the PT cruiser from a show car into a production vehicle. We can do that. Go do it”
At some point it must have been obvious that the project had turned into a disaster. However, no one had the courage to be the one to say, “We have to tell the boss that this won’t work, and we need to give up”.
Since my company has a similar cultural problem, maybe I’m just hyper-sensitive to the symptons, but hey –
Oh, and by the way, thanks to my companies problems, I also know that as the ship sinks, all the good bits of wreckage worth clinging to will go to the guys who sunk the ship in the first place.
Not sure what company you are talking about here. I worked for GM/Hughes as an electrical engineer and while they definitely had large company traits (especially wrt grievance procedures), the horror story this article outlines was not true there.
There were quirks; Dr. Demento hosted a rappish song on his hourly show called ‘ENGINEER’, which gave a very good picture of life within this company.
Companies are made up of people, and some divisions get more “bad eggs” than others.
…and as for this continual, monotonous GM bashing, why doesn’t TTAC put together its facts, go to Washington, and explain to powers that be _exactly why_ GM should be left to die?
@kurtamaxxguy
It’s not bashing – it’s reporting on a slow motion disaster of epic proportions. It wasn’t hard to see it coming, but clearly hard to accept.
This is going to make a great movie someday. Can’t wait to see it.
Go rent “Downfall.” That’s close enough.
This is old, but a related story about a departed Ford exec in charge of hybrids:
Ford took care of our family,” says [Mary Ann] Wright, whose father was a Ford engineer. “I thought, ‘God, I’m supposed to work for Ford forever.”‘
Wright found huge satisfaction taking the Escape hybrid sport-utility vehicle from lab to showroom. And she was geared up to roll out a fleet of hybrids by 2010. But budget cuts and management churn meant “we weren’t getting anything done.” Wright also endured constant sniping that hybrids were a waste of time. In September a colleague sent an e-mail essentially asking: Why bother?
Soon after, Wright told Bill Ford she was quitting. He asked her to stay, but she was adamant. “When you’re not having fun,” Wright says, “it’s time to go.”
This is actually very common, especially at companies where the following applies:
* Years of service is highly divergent (you’re either six months to two years, or thirty years plus; there’s no middle ground)
* Management has little or no external experience (everyone is home-grown)
* Management has little or no lateral movement opportunties
* Management wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell if they lost their job and had to get something equivalent elsewhere.
I’m a big fan of not staying anywhere for more than five years, especially in upper management. You accumulate too much psycological cruft, thinking that that way you or your company does things is automatically the best way because you’re doing it.
GM makes it even worse because of things like GMI (nee, and once again, Kettering U, colloquially “Guaranteed Montly Income”) that insulated people from the real world right from the get-go. GM’s Best and Brightest get indoctrinated before they even start. Awful, just awful.
Note that you can get around this thing without enforcing turnover, but you have to make constant change an integral part of management culture, or you risk people fossilizing in their role. Amusingly, the corporate poster-boy for institutionalized continuous change is Toyota. They even have a word (“Kaizen”) for it.
Of course, there’s also a word for death by overwork, so maybe it’s not all sunshine and roses…
I would be interested to know the ranks and/or the mentality of the people who were throwing up with anxiety or had similar reactions.
The reason I ask is this twofold:
1. I’m willing to bet that the people who are worried about their futures are rank and file people who rely on GM to pay their bills and mortgages/rents. The “little” people, for want of a better phrase.
or
2. I’m also willing to bet that the other set of people literally sick with worry are managers who don’t want to have to tell people that he/she has to cut them loose. Believe it or not, I’ve see managers and directors fretting about having to lay people off. A lot of managers actually hate that part of their job.
It’d be interesting how many of the BoD and top brass (i.e Lutz, Wagoner and Henderson) are losing sleep over the current state of GM for reasons other than their careers.
However, I must pour cold water of the notion that management don’t want to hear bad news, only good news, as “GM-centric”.
I was told a little while back that my site was to be closed and I was being made redundant. This was a blow to me and the reason I’ve been away from TTAC. Yet to this day, there has been no company-wide or external communique (i.e Press release) acknowledging this. A couple of weeks ago, we heard another site was shutting down. Yet we still haven’t “officially” heard anything yet.
However, we have had LOADS of press releases about “growing sales” and “looking forward”.
So, only hearing good news isn’t exclusive to GM, most companies practise that policy.
I appreciate that sometimes jobs have to cut to maintain lean operation, but when job cuts are because of lazy management and/or failed policies, one has to paraphrase Mr George Orwell:
“No job is secure, but some are more secure than others…”
P.S. Props to Mr Ledger for an absolutely brilliant perfomance as “The Joker”. I absolutely relish how the British version of the “Batman” films are so much better than the American ones! ;O)
“There is no dissent allowed,” he reports flatly. “None. Only good news is reported upwards. You’d think it would be different now that GM’s admitted its problems to Congress. It isn’t. It’s worse.”
Not sure about the spies and stuff, but this statement is SOOOO true…hard decisions are avoided at ALL costs.
Not to take this too off topic but I saw the same from the MBAs across the street who are covering their own asses with both hands while trying to assign blame for the complete cluster-**** that is Windows Vista. And the layoffs are coming there, too. Oh, wrong blog, sorry. Just goes to show how too much money for too long breeds complacency, smugness, arrogance, and contempt.
One more reason that some type of real oversight is required should the govt (we) bail the automakers out. Happy people are productive and tend to be more quality conscious!
@kurtamaxxguy,
GM should DIE because it could not operate as a profitable or even self sustained corporation. It should not be act of congress to let companies live or die, but doing of companies. This company can not operate in democratic society, it does not mean society has to turn to socialism to rescue bustards. As a taxpayer and consumer I get nothing in return.
Again, could be true. I’ll play the other side.
Everyone who no longer works for a company no longer works there for some reason. Ever former employee is “disgruntled” in some way, at least to a small extent.
How do we know that these people weren’t bad at their jobs, or for some other reason hated their time at GM and aren’t blowing things way out of proportion?
I bet I could find at least one former employee at every mid to large company in America that would say the same thing.
Just sayin….
Great job uncovering these people, RF. As we’ve discussed before, talking to insiders is something the MSM simply refuses to do.
There’s a bigger story here, keep digging.
Ideally you can get 800 words out of at least one of them.
How do we know that these people weren’t bad at their jobs, or for some other reason hated their time at GM and aren’t blowing things way out of proportion?
If GM’s executives prove anything, it’s that incompetence would appear to be a requirement for staying on the payroll.
From here, GM looks like the sort of organization that qualified, motivated people would want to leave. Anyone who has enough self-respect to value being competitive and avoiding groupthink is going to want to escape that sort of stifling environment.
They may stay while they look for alternative jobs or get their financial houses in order, but smart ambitious people are going to be running for the exits. It may explain why the diehards who stay are such diehards; they are the people who can’t survive in cultures that don’t thrive on excuse making or on blaming everyone but themselves for their plight.
And so how exactly is this different from life in any large American corporation? No matter what the industry? I’ve worked in software my whole life, and the description of the “no dissent allowed” culture at GM is exactly what I’ve encountered at every large software maker I’ve ever worked for.
Once, after previewing proposed changes to employee compensation at one large software company, I wrote a very calm e-mail to my boss (and only to my boss) explaining how these changes would make it harder to retain valued employees in what was then a hot market. Well, my boss shared my concerns up the ladder. Imagine my surprise and horror when my e-mail generated (a) a phone call from the CEO to my boss ordering her to “get me in line”; (b) a private meeting with HR delivering the same message to me; and (c) a follow-up call from the COO to my boss to verify that I was now “on board with the company’s strategy.”
The American corporation is inherently Stalinist. Which is why captains of industry generally fall flat on their faces when they try to get into politics, because there they have to actually listen to dissent.
Shock.
How do we know that these people weren’t bad at their jobs, or for some other reason hated their time at GM and aren’t blowing things way out of proportion?
The number one reason people leave (not get fired or bought out, leave of their own accord) is lack of mobility and freedom. I’ve left two for that reason: I smacked into the ceiling and a lateral move wasn’t an option.
Bad people do not quit, at least not in significant numbers. Bad people get fired, or bought off, but they do not quit and–above the level of pump jockey or night security guard–they never disparage their former employers publicly for fear they won’t get a decent reference.
At a “sick” company like GM (or, say, Bell Canada) only the bad people stick around. The good people are gone in six months to three years; anyone who’s still there has risen to the level of their incompetence and is not going anywhere.
And this is a company that someone would want to buy a car from? With such great morale and bright future, they will produce only the finest of automobiles….NOT!
I enjoy a good GM-basing as much as anyone here, and am inclined to believe these allegations. I recall stories from my car business days of a GM factory rep allegedly commandeering a dealership employee’s phone and warning the employee, “Shut up, I’m talking to The General”.
Having said that, my b.s. meter does spike just a wee bit when I read things like “careers clubbed like baby seals”. This does not sound like an automotive executive; it sounds like a college student who flunked Hyperbole 101. Please tell me that you verified your sources.
gaycorvette,
Exactly. I work in IT.
This is another reason why outsourcing is so popular. The overseas workers just do as their told without annoyances such as “thoughts” and “insights”. I’m afraid that this culture is a feature of most large American companies.
gaycorvette :
And so how exactly is this different from life in any large American corporation? No matter what the industry? I’ve worked in software my whole life, and the description of the “no dissent allowed” culture at GM is exactly what I’ve encountered at every large software maker I’ve ever worked for.
Not a software company, but in my personal experience working for a bankrupt company that mentality was one of the first things we shed. I think part of the process is admitting the old ways obviously failed and if a new better way isn’t found then the restructuring can’t work.
There was a period of about a year with us where all processes were open for discussion and some very large changes were made. By sticking to their guns and relying on “bridge-loans” they pass on the real opportunity to fix themselves in more ways than just shedding dealers & labor contracts.
don1967 :
Source verified (and he ain’t no spring chicken). And it’s an exact quote.
At a “sick” company like GM (or, say, Bell Canada) only the bad people stick around. The good people are gone in six months to three years; anyone who’s still there has risen to the level of their incompetence and is not going anywhere.
I couldn’t agree more.
And I hope the government, in granting GM a bailout, realizes that despite GM’s new plan, it cannot be accomplished with the present management. New blood is needed and fresh thinkers are required to make the hard decisions and see to it that GM get’s back on track.
And we are PROTECTING these employees by throwing our money at this broken corporation? After reading this, I think we would be doing them a favor by just letting GM go down so they can pursue different career paths….
I have seen this corporate culture; the stories about spying and the smothering of dissent don’t surprise me. Oddly enough, it happend only in the companies I worked for that were in or around .. er..
Detroit.
Yeah. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. In any event, I’ve lived in and worked in several other states, for companies large and small, and have not seen that type of culture anywhere else.
My first job out of college, I tried to tell the management that our production computer system was obsolete and that it was in fact officially out of support.
My manager and his boss told me to stop saying this because it might scare the executives or even the programmers in our IT department.
My response was that the programmers already knew this, and it was a source of career frustration for them, as well as a top reason for so many of them leaving the company. What I didn’t tell them was that it was also a top reason for my own active job search (at that time). But I had to keep mum about that, because I knew that they had tried to scuttle past employees’ chances…just out of spite.
They told me to stop talking about it, and that’s that. A couple weeks later, after I had found my own new job and given my notice, they accused me of continuing to discuss it, and continuing to rile up the programmers. I told them I hadn’t done that, but they walked me to the door.
This “shoot the messenger” attitude was so “Dilbert-like”. And Dilbert and his Pointy Haired Boss hadn’t even made their debut yet!
Another Detroit area company I worked for had a culture of blame-laying, even for people who did all the right things in tough situations! After one particularly bad performance review and several public “in front of the department” dressing downs, they had me so knotted up inside that my girlfriend later said that I was not my usual self and that I was heading for a stroke or heart attack.
While only in my mid-30’s!
About a week later, at my wits’ end, I walked to a neighboring shopping mall’s bank of pay phones and did a telephone interview with a company outside of Michigan. I didn’t even have a current resume yet, but they offered and I accepted a 6-month contract job without even seeing the company headquarters or meeting the people. That new job only lasted me the aforementioned 6 months, but I believe it was my own personal “liberation,” the beginning of a new life for me; a life AWAY from Detroit, and a life of greater personal empowerment.
Yes, these are anecdotal stories, maybe meaningless in the big picture. Maybe it wasn’t “Detroit” per se that was at the root of my unhappiness, maybe all I needed to do was take control of my own career, hence, take control of my own life.
I’ll never know for sure. But now, nearly 20 years later, I can honestly say that I don’t long for Detroit and those bad old vibes, that’s for sure.
I wish everybody good luck and success in finding satisfying, well paying work that they can get excited about.
I have worked for GM Holden now for 3 years, and
my time here is just about up. Although I agree with some of the statements in this article, that management must go if GM is to stand a chance of rebuilding – be it through bailouts of chapter 11, I struggle to believe the following:
“I’ve seen people throwing-up in the bathrooms because of the overwhelming atmosphere of fear, terror and panic… It’s the most warped and bizarre thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I’m not saying that an ex GM employee would not have said this, just that chucking at work because you’re scared of management seems way over the top. I know that things get bad at work, but this seems completely ridiculous. The worst thing you can be threatened with is losing your job – and take it from someone who has just been layed off – it’s not any where near as scary as what was being described.
On one of the other points, about no bad news being passed on to upper management – that is correct even in Australia. I know that things get passed up the line to a certain point, and then filtered out so that middle management is not seen as doing anything wrong.
I will say this about GM, after 3 years working here and many years in manufacturing, I can say that I have never seen anything as bad as the management culture here. People rise to the top because they have been working here a long time, regardless of a complete lack of talent in some cases. The vast majority are in complete denial about GM’s current position, and won’t even consider the possibility of chapter 11 – I know, because I and several others have asked the question in meetings.
The other thing with management is the ratio of supervisors / managers to workers. In Design and Engineering where I have worked there has been a large reduction in CAD, Engineers, Modellers etc. but no management reduction. The group I work in will soon have 1 worker (down from 6 earlier this year) and 1 supervisor. How shit is that?
I saw on another Newspaper that last Tuesday the Board of GM gave Rick W. another vote of confidence, its not only the Management of GM, Ford and Chrysler that should be gone, its also the Board of Directors too imho!
Pch101 —
Your “Downfall” line was the most brutally funny thing I’ve read in quite a while.
Not surprised by the revelations of political maneuvering within Grandpa’s Motors as it collapses around them.
When one encounters a social construct based on fiefdoms, cronyism, seniority, and relatively low-stakes amateurish Machiavellian intrigue, there can only be one solution to fix it, and we have it at hand…
Throw ~600 politicians and bureaucrats with blank checks at the problem, and do it by committee! With such a sound solution in place any day now, I see nothing but roses for Wagoner and the crew. I’m calling my broker at Lehman Bro…., er, Goldman Sachs Bank and saying “BUY! BUY! BUY!” Million$ here I come!
“….people (plural, more than 1?)throwing-up in the bathrooms….”
” GM’s incestuous culture is stuffed with spies– people employed by management” ….
Agree with most of what’s been reported about the culture – except for these statements about hired spies and team puking. Those seem a bit over the top.
Unfortunately most big corporate cultures tend to gravitate towards the “tell-the-boss-only-happy-thoughts” school of managing upwards.
And it does only get (100X) worse when everyones’ job is on the line. If you make a risky move and end up screwing the pooch you could be tagged for layoff; so better to keep your head down, out-of-the-box thoughts to yourself, don’t make eye contact with anyone, try to blend in and hope for the best.
The worst culture I’ve ever seen was during Jac Nasser’s reign of terror at Ford. He was one nasty piece of work. There were record profits then yet the environment was as bad or worse than it is now. But even then people weren’t barfing in the urinals.
That verified source needs to get a couple of book contracts. I want to know everything. I hope he/she testifies in front of Congress, too, about the real situation.
schadenfred: “too much money for too long breeds complacency, smugness, arrogance, and contempt”
I think it’s the real root cause of the D3’s decline.
As for toxic corporate cultures, as bad as GM’s may be, it surely can’t be as bad as FoMoCo’s during Bennett’s reign of terror as old Henry’s ventriloquist.
GM may be a classic case of “bureaupathology” as explained in Victor Thompson’s wonderful book “Modern Organization.”
Let’s not forget that such repression of bad news can happen in small companies as well. Outside of politics (sometimes), academia (generally although groupthink sometimes rules), and volunteer organizations (some, at least) there are few institutions that have a vibrant culture of dissent/open lines of communication for multiple ideas.
The basic problem is that egos are large, and people have a generally difficult time separating criticism of an idea from criticism of themselves. Until we fundamentally change our language/culture, this article will only show an extreme case of human nature.
Within the car industry, Toyota/Honda probably do better because the quality culture they embraced post-war separated performance of the system from performance of the individual. This supports institutionalization of practices like continuous improvement, listening to your customers, etc.
food for journalistic thought:
Dear Senator Snort:
I understand there is considerable uproar about my mode of transportation when I came to Washington to testify in regard to the challenges facing my company and the US auto industry in general.
It is completely accurate that I utilized a business jet owned by my company. It is also accurate that this mode of transportation is more expensive than commercial flights would have been. I can understand the public perception, particularly in light of how the story was spun in the media.
Let me provide you with some facts.
First, we have a corporate flight department because in many instances it allows us to move our people far more efficiently than commercial air. Time in our business can be critically expensive.When we need to move a team of production engineers from Lansing to our plant in Shreveport to fix a line problem, commercial flights would take all day – or, depending on the time the failure takes place, more than a day. Our corporate flights would be less than 3 hours to get to the site and begin to fix the problem.
In my case, yes, I did utilize corporate aviation assets to get to Washington. I fully intend to do so again should a similar event arise. To do otherwise would be irresponsible to my shareholders, employees and investors. I report to them, not to gadfly reporters, or to inept agenda-laden “environmentalists” who would be happy to see us all live in nice clean caves.
As you must certainly know, this is a crisis for my firm and the entire US auto industry. Immediate attention is needed, including my full-time efforts on the matter. You seem to forget that the rapid rise in gasoline prices – brought on, I may add, by Washington’s continued lack of cohesive energy policy – caused a corresponding decline in demand for substantial parts of our product line. Then credit dried up over the past year, again reducing auto demand. Our product line wasn’t the proximate problem. Your lack of energy policy and sloppy oversight of the financial industry led us to this.
As for the “big SUVs” you tend to vilify, here’s a flash for you, Senator: we were building those because that’s what the public wanted. There has not been a single Chevrolet Suburban sold at the point of a gun. At least not in this country. Another flash, Senator: amid your adulation for Japanese companies supposedly only building small cars, you’ve missed the facts. Until very recently, these companies were scrambling to put up factories in Texas and Mississippi to build large trucks and SUVs. But in regard to the current crisis, let’s get it straight: demand has fallen over 30% – and there’s no company that can easily or quickly adjust.
Back to the corporate jet. I have a company in crisis and must be in touch at all times. On the corporate jet I have communication with all parts of my company at all times. I conduct business while on that airplane. This being a crisis, I find that is far more effective than being out of pocket, lining up at Detroit Metro, waiting in line at the TSA that you toss money at regardless of its effectiveness, then waiting again to board the flight. Then there is the sloppy air traffic control system you inflict on the public, which requires airlines to fly in excess of the time they really need to, and gives me a 20% chance of not arriving on schedule, anyway.
This is a crisis. I had a meeting with you and your committee that was crucial to my company. Use of the corporate jet was necessary and the best use of my time. Again referring to the ATC system you seem to tolerate, it was the best use of your committee’s time too, assuring I would be there when the hearings started.
Funny, but I don’t seem to have been able to find your outrage on others’ use of private jets. Take Robert Rubin – he’s the guy that got paid over $100 million by Citi Group just before it tanked and congress, almost without a peep, bailed it out for $200 billion – far more than my industry is looking for. (How many manufacturing jobs does Citi provide, by the way?) I’m sure Mr. Rubin is using private jets for some of his transportation needs. After all, isn’t he also an advisor to the President-Elect?
You’re calling my use of a corporate jet “hypocrisy” – yet I cannot locate any such outrage on your part regarding Ai Gore’s continued used of such aircraft. And isn’t he the one constantly babbling about “carbon footprints” and “global warming” and other not-to-be-questioned voodoo?
I regret the media circus. I regret the situation my industry is in at the moment. But we need to focus on solutions and on facts, not innuendo. This corporate jet thing is nonsense. I will use the resources I have to make my company as efficient as possible. The corporate flight department is part of those resources.
Sincerely
Auto Industry CEO for thought….
Robert – you should receive a Pulitzer for uncovering these things from inside GM. No one else seems to care to really dig into these things.
a ‘Pulitzer’
Is that like a ‘pilsner’ beer..
I`ll drink to that!!
I work at the GM tech center and so does my spouse in another department.We are both engineers and have been there over 20 years each. I can say catagorically(sic)that there is no inside spy job. Now that said there is a significant amount of stress about the current financial proceedings amoungst the employees. Thats to be expected. However in my opinion the companies position has been to encourage the employees to discuss their frustrations openly and this has been common. Management has opened a Q@A site on the internal home page where the employees can ask pointed questions. Meaningfull no bullshit answers are provided to those questions almost on a daily basis. I’m a fairly mid level engineer and I can tell you if I write one of the executive VP’s a question I get an email response within 1 day.
The last thing I’ll say is that I haven’t seen people throwing up in bathrooms due to elevated stress levels. To the contrary everyone understands the inplications and I would say 80% are operating with a glass is half full attitude. We have a job to do and every one I know is focusing on doing the job.
The story is on the money. And the most maddening truth is it’s been going on for at least 40 years. Read the fascinating “On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors” (published 1979, you can buy it used on Amazon for almost nothing), which is Delorean’s astonishing take on GM’s toxic management culture in the sixties and seventies. Bickering, backbiting, arrogance and a tenacious determination to maintain the status quo. There is not the faintest bit of evidence that anything has changed.
oldyak :
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
a ‘Pulitzer’
Is that like a ‘pilsner’ beer..
I`ll drink to that!!
If Robert does not get a Pulitzer – I will be happy to buy him a Pilsener when he visits Germany next time ;-)