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The blood is flowing like water at the RenCen, as brand-new Buick-GMC manager Michael Richards has left General Motors after nine days on the job. The Detroit News reports that Susan Docherty’s replacement left to “pursue other career opportunities.” Richards had been VP Sales and Marketing at Austin, Texas automotive firm Trilogy, and according to the DetN’s sources:
Trilogy made a strong counteroffer to keep Richards, and he was said to be considering that offer in light of Friday’s management shakeup engineered by Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre
So much for hiring outsiders.
27 Comments on “Buick-GMC Boss “Quits” After Nine Days...”
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Priceless photo for the story.
There’s a fine line between “shaking things up” and “chaos”. We are moving from Big Ed “shaking things up” to “chaos”.
Well said.
“Chaos” does describe well what is happening at GM. Since Whitacre fired Henderson at a board meeting, the blood has been flowing there. Not a good thing to see at a company in crisis.
GM needs every single executive there to be putting the pedal to the metal to sell cars. How can they do that when everyone is worried about their job?
Someone on another thread said “Off with their heads!” While GM’s chopping off heads is figurative and the French Revolution’s was real, I worry that the feelings are the same. Passion has overcome reason.
When chaos reigns, things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Good luck, GM. Good luck.
Wonder why Buick and GMC are clumped together under one boss, seems like they should be tackled as separate issues as knowledge in one isn’t likely to inform the other. Or, a tacit admission that’s there no reason for GMC and all it needs is a few hours a week.
Nobody in their right mind would want that job anyway. Being in charge of GMC and Buick is akin to being Vice President, Betamax Division at Sony.
With the product that is coming to Buick, it would actually be a pretty attractive job. GMC part isn’t too much because you just make Chevy’s nicer. I don’t think it would be a bad job.
You’ve got to be out of your f-in mind to want to work for GM these days.
Any talented exec that can work at GM, can work pretty much anywhere. Why would talented people choose GM over any other company?
-ted
Because, as an exec, you get paid lots of money. There is a great challenge ahead. You would be surprised, but working for a company that is on top isn’t always motivating for people. You also get very little credit for doing anything. You can make a great name for yourself with turning around companies.
Ditto, Great Photo!!
COme on now, Ed, show you got some guts, do the right thing, what you should have done long before you fired Dewar and this poor guy!
Fire the incompetent Doherty! No more tokenism! Hire a COMPETENT Sales and marketing VP instead, or GM is indeed TOAST!
Right now, why would anyone want any part of GM? At the moment I can’t imagine anyone worth their weight in beans electing to jump into this mess. GM kept too much dead UAW weight, still has too many brands, and must battle against an even worse public perception because of the bailout. Any talent that’s available out there right now would be absolutely nuts to get involved.
For $900,000 I’ll take it.
Notwithstanding I know nothing about the car industry that doesn’t make me substantially different than many GM lifers. I doubt I could do worse than my predecessors.
You would do GREAT!
Why bother even getting started when you see your peers getting the rug pulled out from under them right and left? When you know that your job is on the line every day, you can’t be an effective change agent.
Actually, nothing more should make a more effect change agent then people getting fired for not changing and not delivering.
Fear-based management tends to not work very well. I get that Ed thinks he needs to destroy the complacency of the lifers, but you can go too far. Here’s the thing, though: All he needs is a few examples to set the right tone.
I don’t think he has instilled fear based management. He wants people to get the job done. The people who he is letting go haven’t got the job done. This is sending the message that things are broken and need to be fixed.
Guys….lest we forget, this guy was with GM for what?….Nine days? Apparently, he got there, didn’t like what he saw/heard/felt about GM’s (and his!) prospects for success, and bolted before the door slammed shut behind him.
Clearly NOT the message GM or Whiteacre wants to send. He wants people to come from outside and STAY, not run screaming for the exits like their hair was on fire….
Exactly. He came, he saw what was really going on, and he got the hell out of there. This won’t inspire other outsiders to come to GM.
midelectric:
Buick/GMC are one sales channel, get one brand manager. No different really than Chevy cars/trucks.
I don’t understand the comments about Whitacre axing people being a bad thing when all of the comments a few weeks ago were he wasn’t doing enough to shake up things. He needed to know who he was dealing with first. Now he does. He is making the changes. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
The only part of executive executions that demoralizes/distracts the center, is if you drag it out too long.
Whitacre should have walked in the door, sat down GM’s VP and above staff in a big teleconference, and fired them all. At once. Make Chainsaw Al look like Hello Kitty.
There’s no need for these people, they’re not doing the job anyway. People 2 levels down the org chart can’t do any worse than the people who’ve been steering GM into the iceberg for the last 30 years, alternating between denying it’s there and issuing press statements that it had better move.
This is not f’n rocket science. At the director and above level, you are a people manager with an understanding of the product and the ability to achieve results through others.
There are competant people are out there in spades. So just clear out RenCen and restart this thing. Otherwise, we shoulda just let GM disappear the first time.
Richards might have just been playing chicken with Joe over at the T anyway. In the world of silicon, leaving is sometimes the best way to get a raise.
“Your little man, Jerry — you’ve got to listen to your little man.”
– Cosmo Kramer
So the part I am really curious about: How big is the golden parachute for a 9 day run?
I will be amazed to see GM survive the entire next decade the route they are currently going.
It shows just how big and well shielded those umbrellas were that Rabid Rick and Fritz had. Until both were gone, nothing was going to change.
Now, Big Bad Ed is having to make up for lost time. Fritz frittered away vital time in the last year that should have gone to making over the corp, especially the executive suite. Whether this is too much, too fast remains to be seen but I’m sure it’s playing very well up on the hill.
Just in time for the passing of the hat?
Let’s be clear – this guy was hardly an “outsider”…he worked at Ford from 1981-2008 and it’s not like the culture was THAT different than GM’s during that timeframe. Rumour has it that he clashed with Farley and that was the end of the line for him at Ford. As I noted in an earlier piece, a friend of mine worked under him at L-M and found him to be a colossal asshat if I may be so bold. If he was let go (vs. voluntarily quitting) then there is hope for GM’s ability to recognize a serious mistake. Let’s all just hope that his employment contract didn’t entitle him to much in the case of “leaving to pursue other opportunities”.
I agree with WheelJack. He was not an outsider. I had been fortunate to have worked for Ford Customer Service Division (FCSD) for 8 years. The most joyful part of the job (sarcasm) was all of the wonderful meetings about meetings. Monthly, we had to watch Mr. Richards via satellite broadcast perform a dog and pony show about nothing. We were tasked with strong arming dealers to purchase tires, batteries, and keyless entry systems otherwise we were put on S#@t list. We forced allot of parts inventory down dealership’s throats and in the next breath would tell them to avoid creating idle inventory and sell them a parts upgrade program. These programs cost significant dollars.