President Obama Wants a Lean and Mean US Auto Industry

You comment about "The removal of its out-of-touch, overpaid, non-performing CEO is a demonstration of mean governance: an excellent move." shows just how little you understand about the automotive business.

Rick Wagoner is a great CEO that got caught in the game of politics and pollyanna-ism that seems to grip this country and this governement. He has turned GM around, as proven by productivity, quality, and product. He's worked with the Union, to the UAWs credit, to put in labor agreements that make GM as competitive as possible.

However, he's had to live with 50 years of bad decisions before him, and a few made by him when the auto industry was moving along at a 17 million unit per year clip when full-sized pickups and SUVs were the rage. Nobody could have ever forseen a marketplace with this level of sales, and unfortunately despite the best efforts of both Wagoner and the UAW they can't weather this storm on their own.

Of course, this is the same administration that will happily give the real culprits in this mess, the fincial instituions that made far worse decisions than Wagoner ever made...literally thousands of times more tax dollars to flush down the toilet. Forget about the companies that actually make something tangible, we apparently would rather support companies that shuffle paper around.

The fact that the masses don't know this is one thing...the fact that someone that should be versed in manufacturing is quite another.

Jon,

Your way of base here ..... Obama is certainly being "mean" (malicious (mean)) ... Why hasn't he wiped out all those fat cat wall streeters and Bankers that allowed all this mess to occur ... you need to watch http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29881849/ Datelines friday's showing "Debt: The next big American crisis?
Instead of accumulating wealth, many falling further behind on payments" This is an an industry that has created some very scary "outgrowth" industries that create nothing!

Look at the salaries of the top executives in the "Financial Industry".... Why and how can they justify their pay within a service industry? Through the hidden fees and service charges?

When are we going to wake up?

Thanks for your comments.

Kevin - Not having met or worked for Rick Wagoner, I can only judge him as a CEO based on his results. He may be a good leader, even be a great CEO. But GM was on the rocks before the latest economic crisis hit, and he wasn't leading GM out of the hole they were in even then. So without being mean (malicious) the change was probably a good thing for GM. Time will tell.

Don - I know less about banking than I do about manufacturing. However, economic crises don't happen because "there is a run on manufacturers". It's not fair, but what I understand about economics tells me that countries need a sound banking system as the foundation for all other industries. Paying bonuses to people in failed banks with taxpayer bailout money is disgusting to me. I am not defending this. It is a problem that runs deeper than replacement of bank CEOs though.

Jon--shouldn't the board of GM be the only ones to decide if the CEO stays or goes? Whether or not Rick Waggoner was a good or bad CEO is irrelevant. The broader message here is that the president believes that a loan from the gov't gives him the right to dictate who, what, where, when, and how to GM or any other company. We (the tax paying public) may now have partial ownership of GM because of the bailout, but does that give "us" the right to pick and choose who the CEO is any more than any other group of shareholders has that right? These are dangerous precedents.

Hi Mike,

I am not crazy about the idea of the type of task force we are seeing, based in Washington DC, sorting out the future of the automotive industry. I do think that the US could learn a lot from how Japan and other nations have crafted industrial policy in close association with the government, where the US has not done this with the exception of the defense industry in any meaningful way over the past 50 years.

I would agree that in normal times having the executive branch of government remove private industry CEOs is not a good idea. If GM was in bankruptcy court, a judge would have similar powers as the ones being exercised by the white house. A decision was made for the government to fund GM, and in return it asked for "sacrifices" from all stakeholders of GM, of which the current CEO is one example. Whether the CEO was a symbolic sacrifice or a substantive one may be a matter of opinion.

It is a bit ineffective to put such decisions to shareholder meeting votes, much less the open vote of all taxpayers.

And the board of GM - that's another issue entirely.

Time and money is a-wasting, let's greet the new CEO and move on.

Thanks for the dictionary reminder about that use of "mean," Jon.

I'm in the camp of those who misunderstand that phrase, "lean and mean." I still think, though, when people associate Lean with layoffs, they think of dictionary definitions 2 or 3 and that's the perception we have to work uphill against. I have convince people to ignore "mean" because we're not going to use Lean productivity improvements to get rid of people. That's the philosophy in place at ThedaCare and many other great hospitals.

The word "mean" wouldn't be as big of a problem if not for the manufacturers or hospitals who DO use lean to get rid of people.

I totally agree with you Mark.

The best rhyme with "lean" is "lean green and clean". We can leave "mean" out since it's largely redundant with the meaning of lean which connotes excellence in any case.

Hi Jon
I agree with Mark Graban's comments. Although "mean" does mean "excellent" it is more often taken by most people to mean "malicious". I am currently working on a Lean transformation at a unionized manufacturing facility and I have heard the expression "LEAN means Less Employees Are Needed" too many times already and we don't need to compound that feeling.

How do you know he is referring to Lean?...as in Lean Manufacturing. If he has any clue about it I would hope it becomes his "strategy" for all of the ambitious things he is trying to do (i.e. - reform healthcare, etc.).

Regards,

Jason McKinney

Hi Jason,

President Obama may have been using "lean and mean" colloquially as "excellent and efficient". Even so, the automotive companies can't get there without lean manufacturing. Necessary but not sufficient.

No doubt some of the people on the automotive industry task force have at least heard of lean manufacturing. Like you said, hopefully it gets a much higher profile.