I’ve long been an advocate of Jim Womack’s Lean Transformation principle that “you’ve got to change the people, or you’ve got to change the people” in order to achieve and sustain dramatic improvment in your business. And, as a corporate Executive Recruiter, I get involved when it’s the second of the two changes which becomes necessary. But is moving Mr. Wagoner aside only to replace him with the affectionately named “Fritz”, a long-time GM insider, really all that much of a change? And assisting Fritz (will they also work with Toyota, Honda and Nissan?) will be the D.C. all-stars profiled below.
My friend and fellow Lean Thinker Mark Graban blogged earlier in the week regarding this Obama auto industry bailout team. Mark is obviously critical of the individuals selected for this difficult task. I’m less so, but I do see some humor in the obvious political connections with at least three of them. So in honor of April Fools’ Day I’m taking the liberty of quoting Mark’s blog verbatim. You can read the original by clicking on the link below.
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Three Bankers and a Campaign Aide Walk Into an Auto Industry…
A Look at Obama’s Auto-Bailout Team – WSJ.com
Stop me if you’ve heard that joke before… so here is the assembled team that will oversee the demise, I mean fixing, of the U.S. auto industry. I actually wrote this Sunday morning before it was announced that GM CEO Rick Wagoner was being forced out by the Obama administration:
Steven Rattner: investment banker
Mr. Rattner, 56 years old, has rarely waded into the industrial sector, but insists his lack of auto experience is not an issue. “I have spent the last 35 years, including my time as a reporter, being basically sent off to look at things I’d never seen before,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It’s like a Rubik’s cube, trying to untwist it and trying to get all the colors to line up.”
So why on the panel? “For years a big donor in Democratic circles…” Ah.
Ron Bloom: investment banker
In a 2006 speech at a corporate turnaround conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., he described his approach to restructuring as “dentist-chair bargaining,” in which the patient “grabs the dentist by the b—- and says, ‘Now let’s not hurt each other.’”
Lovely.
Diana Farrell: investment banker, McKinsey consultant
In 1996, Ms. Farrell co-authored a book, “Market Unbound: Unleashing Global Capitalism,” that laid out how the private sector was rewriting all the rules of business and finance, with the government becoming an increasingly marginal player. Much has changed since then.
(An aside: I worked with Diana when she was with McKinsey in the mid-1990s and this is one smart and independent-thinking professional. So in my opinion she’s going to add substantial value to the team and this endeavor. – AZ)
And the real kicker:
Brian Deese: 31 year-old Clinton/Obama campaign advisor
Today, at 31, he is a special assistant for economic policy to the president, and a key member of the auto task force.
With this kind of government help, I can’t imagine what kind of team they’d put together if they intentionally wanted to HURT the industry. Makes you wonder what sort of team will “fix” healthcare?
