Explaining the transforming step in changing the mental model/mindset for a company. In this particular example, GM is the company and GMs management is pushing electric vehicle technology.
The four steps to chaning the mental model in business are recognizing, test, overcome, and transform. How can accomplishing the "transformation" step alone reap rewards for a company.
GM must live up to a legacy Mark Phelan. McClatchy - Tribune News Service. Washington: Feb 13, 2009.
Abstract (Summary):
From the revolutionary Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car to the rebirth of Cadillac as a true luxury-car leader, they shook GM out of the disastrous mindset that some vehicles were destined to be second-rate, and that you can't simultaneously have great looks, fuel economy, performance and value.
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Full Text (707 words) (c) 2009, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
The true test of Bob Lutz's eight years as General Motors' product boss begins Jan. 1, 2010: the day after he leaves the job.
If GM's product development and design revert to their bad old habits of building boring cars and valuing a penny saved more than a dollar earned, Lutz will have failed.
Lutz told me once that his most important job at GM would be to create a structure that valued product excellence and would outlast his tenure at the automaker.
That must be Job One for Tom Stephens, GM's brilliant powertrain chief who will succeed Lutz as boss of global design, product planning and product development. Few people in the world know powertrain engineering better than Stephens. He must now demonstrate an equal appreciation for the soft side of the business: the importance of compelling design, unique features, comfort and convenience.
Stephens cannot do the job alone, but Lutz leaves the talent in place to help. GM design and product development underwent a renaissance under Lutz.
"Everybody now understands that if you do really great products as opposed to just adequate, you wind up selling way more and making more money on them," Lutz said in an interview on Feb. 9, the day he announced that he's retiring at the end of the year.
That's true as far as it goes, but the transformation took far too long. GM is still losing money and the automaker will have to make greater strides after Lutz leaves.
The key players will be the team responsible for every vehicle GM builds around the world. They are program management boss John Lauckner, engineering chief Jim Queen, product planning boss John F. Smith and design chief Ed Welburn.
They're the ones who delivered on Lutz's promise that every new vehicle from GM would be a leader in its class. From the revolutionary Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car to the rebirth of Cadillac as a true luxury-car leader, they shook GM out of the disastrous mindset that some vehicles were destined to be second-rate, and that you can't simultaneously have great looks, fuel economy, performance and value.
It's equally important that GM Chairman Rick Wagoner trust this product development team as much as he did Lutz.
Wagoner's most admirable and valuable characteristic is his willingness to surround himself with people who know what he doesn't and then listen to them. Lutz sat at the head of that table, making pointed remarks and asking uncomfortable questions that forced GM to create better vehicles. In the process, he played a key role in GM's transformation from a set of inefficient regional fiefdoms into a global automaker that maximizes its resources around the world.
Lutz will still be around in an advisory role, but he knows better than anyone that you have to be a full-time employee to shape a company's culture. That's why he rejected Wagoner's initial offer in 2001 to join GM as a consultant.
Lutz's reputation for having a golden gut -- surefire instincts about design and engineering -- took plenty of hits in his first few years at GM. Ever the loyal soldier, the retired Marine pilot took the flak for third-rate vehicles like the Buick Terraza minivan that were under way before he joined GM.
It's only in the last couple of years that we can see what it meant to have Bob Lutz in the house full time. The results have mostly been good, led by outstanding vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, HHR, Silverado and Traverse and Cadillac CTS.
Lutz leaves GM in what may be the automaker's darkest hour. If GM survives, it will be in no small part due to the work he did and the legacy he leaves.
(Mark Phelan is the auto critic for the Detroit Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected] or 313-222-6731.)(c) 2009, Detroit Free Press.Visit the Freep, the World Wide Web site of the Detroit Free Press, at https://www.freep.com.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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Credit: Detroit Free Press
Economic situation requires change of mindset
Anonymous. Penticton Western News. Penticton, B.C.: Nov 29, 2008. pg. 7
Abstract (Summary):
General Motors, the maker of the Hummer, is a prime example of a corporation deciding to discontinue the manufacture of a successful production level electric car. In the early 1990s GM built a highly popular zero emission vehicle (the Zev) and leased 5,000 of them to the public. Around 1995 GM cancelled the leases and seized all the zero emission vehicles, and systematically destroyed them, save one minus the motor, and today its skeleton is on display in a car museum. The Zev was the ideal soccer-mom-sized car that delivered quick acceleration and travelled 120 kilometres on a single home current charge.
The reason GM built the Zev was to comply with then strict California state laws requiring vehicle makers to manufacture 10 per cent of their new vehicle fleet as ZEVs. A couple of years after killing the Zev, General Motors released the military vehicle, the Hummer, for consumer use. In years of record profits GM vigorously increased the physical size of their sport utility vehicles by cleverly camouflaging them as trucks which allowed them to four wheel their way through a legislative loophole in the fuel efficiency and emission laws.
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Full Text (604 words)
(Copyright (c) 2008 Black Press Group Ltd.)
Handing over billions of taxpayer dollars to the corporations only to allow them to continue to make fuel guzzling, heavily polluting vehicles, will be a government malfeasance in the first degree.
General Motors, the maker of the Hummer, is a prime example of a corporation deciding to discontinue the manufacture of a successful production level electric car. In the early 1990s GM built a highly popular zero emission vehicle (the Zev) and leased 5,000 of them to the public. Around 1995 GM cancelled the leases and seized all the zero emission vehicles, and systematically destroyed them, save one minus the motor, and today its skeleton is on display in a car museum. The Zev was the ideal soccer-mom-sized car that delivered quick acceleration and travelled 120 kilometres on a single home current charge.
The reason GM built the Zev was to comply with then strict California state laws requiring vehicle makers to manufacture 10 per cent of their new vehicle fleet as ZEVs. A couple of years after killing the Zev, General Motors released the military vehicle, the Hummer, for consumer use. In years of record profits GM vigorously increased the physical size of their sport utility vehicles by cleverly camouflaging them as trucks which allowed them to four wheel their way through a legislative loophole in the fuel efficiency and emission laws.
The rhetoric we hear from the politicians is much like this: If auto manufacturing and their supplier companies were not integral to the health of the North American economy then the answer would be easier. However, the direct jobs and spin off jobs from the auto industry numbers in the tens of millions, and, to let this industry die may have severe economic outcomes.
This may or may not be true, but we should be mindful of the opportunity this current situation presents. Einstein said "A problem cannot be solved by the same level of mind that created it." And, if a taxpayer financed intervention in the auto industry is a strong possibility there must be a change in the mindset of these corporations.
But, how do we change the 'minds' of the car companies? We need to minimize the statutory instinct of profits as the primary motivation of the corporation, and, to re-wire this mindset with the acceptance of a common responsibility of all beings in a just society. This change in mindset can occur in the corporate 'person' structure just as it can in human beings.
Like any journey of 10,000 miles this journey begins with the first step, which is by mandating in any bail-out legislation, that government environmental agencies, non-government environmental and consumer organizations are appointed as voting members of the boards of directors of the auto corporations receiving taxpayer assistance. And, that strict environmental laws mandating alternative fuel be enacted and enforced. To change the mindset of a corporation you need to get inside its collective head, and, the board of directors is the object to focus your attention upon.
It's time for a change. And, once the process starts, we will see outcomes for individual and mass transportation solutions that are environmentally responsible to the rest of the world, and, provides local jobs to generations of millions of North Americans. It's time for governments to act in this direction by bringing together the corporate and the corporeal along the path to this place.
"We can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo," President-elect Obama said. There is an opportunity before us right now to do just that in the auto industry.
Murray Mason