RMC_SS_LDO

Regardless of who is the CEO, Rick or Fritz or Donald Trump for cryin' out loud, the CEO is not the issue. As mentioned over-and-over, it is the culture.

Replace whoever at CEO; how does GM re-tool the red-tape driven bureaucratic machine they have become? The CEO can provide a strategic direction, but I doubt he/she has the authority to make fundamental changes in the companies structure. With how HUGE GM has become, a restructure of that magnitude seems to be impossible without the prospect of chapter 11. I'm not encouraging ch 11, but I believe it is the only legal avenue to accomplish what needs to happen to restructure GM as a whole.

That is the $64,000 (or in this case, multi-billion) question. That answer, if there really is one, is what will determine the fate of the industry.


If Fritz can do some good, God bless him, but I still see everyone talking symptoms not causes.

guionM

I don't dispute anything in your post. I'd say everything you wrote hits it's targets on the head.

But you also have to consider the question: "What has been done to change the culture at GM"? The answer is very little till it became too late. And even then, you can make the point that GM still hasn't changed.

An example:
You have the escalators turned off at GM HQ after certain hours, and you have lightbulbs being removed at factories. Yet you have the executive perks still intact along with those being paid to support it. You still can't get a new product to market 18 months after it's concieved (although GM has had the system in place to do this for nearly a decade). You still have a CEO that can't make the same types of decisions as can be made at Ford & Chrysler unless it's checked through an army of people doing studies out the yazoo.

GM logic, or lack thereof continues unabated.

A highly anticipated vehicle was killed partly due to a study that pinpointed a certain level which if gasoline prices passed, the vehicle couldn't go forward. Gas reached that point and the vehicle was killed despite the fact it was replaced with another vehicle that had only a 1mpg difference. Another: a small unique to US killed because it might canabalize sales of an existing modestly selling vehicle. Yet another: A number of small vehicles shown in the US that has the US public voting which one reaches production. After the vote, it's revealed that it wasn't actually intended for US production and that GM will "study" possibly selling it here "someday".

It's very well noted that the CEO of GM has very limited control over things. However, he does have the ability to aim. GM's "3 Smiths CEOs" (Jack Smith, John Smith, and Roger Smith) had a definate impact on the direction GM went, if not total control.

I think Mr Wagoner tried to make an existing system work and used the "Go Slow" approach as if there was all the time in the world. If this was like the 1990s, then it might have worked. However, this decade was like the 1970s & 1980s. There was alot of changes in the market, and being able to quickly adapt is the rule this decade.

It's not that anyone wants to punish GM's CEO, and it's debatable that he was anything other than a good CEO. However, he's had his time (7 years and counting) and that's plenty of time to make an impact.

Let me point out that GM CEO Robert Stempel was in a far less dire prediciment in the early 90s when he took over GM and was replaced in only a year.... despite the problems GM was in was clearly due to the policies of previous CEO Roger Smith. Mr Stempel almost literally started the 1st day as CEO and the next day the walls caved in. Yet, the GM board of dircetors voted him out after only just over 12 months on the job. And the changes he had started (focus on product improvement... he came from GM's engineering ranks) didn't heve have time to take hold.