Posted on 03/08/2010 1:54:49 PM PST by bestintxas
A lesson in how to win at innovation in even the most traditional company--and then how to crush that innovation.
General Motors is once again reshuffling its management team--a common occurrence ever since the government took control of the company to save it from bankruptcy last July. One has to keep asking what is so deeply wrong at GM that it can't escape constant turmoil and ongoing struggle. And what really happened to its Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn brands?
A look at the story of the Saturn Corporation provides some answers. Saturn, a GM company that had great promise in the early 1990s, ultimately failed because senior GM leaders couldn't see the benefits of new ways of doing things and a new kind of organizational culture.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
+1. Saturns were junk for a very long time.
Nothing new here with GM. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that DuPont had to sell off all its GM holdings - a decision later admitted to be a wrong decision, by the Court - GM has been in a downward spiral. Success has NOT been a requirement at GM going back to the 1950’s, when that verdict was rendered. How else to explain the demise of the Saturn, the discontinuance of the Corsica and the ultimate fiasco, going from the 57 Chevy to the 58.
But only when you tell it to.
ML/NJ
Google on something to the effect of “Saturn original labor agreement”. Saturn was always unionized; their original contract merely turned out to be too innovative both for the UAW and for GM senior management.
...”and a new kind of organizational culture.”
I think they’ve overdosed on political correctness. However, I can’t tell whether it’s been self-administered or brutally forced upon them. It’s probably been a lot of both beginning in the early-to-mid-’80’s.
I am amazed at how the fools let themselves be trapped like this. I wouldn’t trust General Motors if my life depended on it. If I was working there now as a direct hire or non-union contract worker, I’d have to keep even my humblest opinions to myself and cover my ass good because in times like these, the long knives will come out with every man for himself....and that’s the name of that tune.
My best case scenario would be if I was a member of a protected class of citizen, which I am definitely not. It’s not my father’s General Motors anymore and that is not to say that GM’s business culture had so much to “overcome”.
I liken the changes in GM to their having undergone a series of corporate sex change operations with an overabundance of ethnicity-concious genetic code enhancements resulting in a kind of multi-personality disorder.
They are so obsessed with projecting a PC image that it has become something of a preoccupation when they should be channeling all of their “synergies” into designing, engineering and building great American automobiles.
Yes, I love my 2009 GMC Sierra. It’s worth more than what I owe on it. I got a great deal with incentives up the wazoo and the dealership is now out of business. I don’t think they’ll be back, either.
General Motors Corporation? Oh yeah, I remember them...
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