On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors

This is a favorite book because of the clear description of the life and emotions of an innovative project leader working inside one of the world's most bureaucratic organizations. Once seen as the ultimate in career security and lifelong comfort, General Motors became a constraining and anti-innovative weight around the passions of Mr. DeLorean. And, while once he was seen as a bright and promising superstar by the corporation, he was later considered irresponsible and a danger to corporate stability. His journey story, as told here, will give serious insights into corporate life that workers, managers, and leaders in many organizations would do well to study. Favorite quotes: "I got the empty feeling that "what I am doing here may be nothing more than perpetuating a gigantic fraud," a fraud on the American consumer by promising him something new but giving him only the surface alterations....I always had he vague suspicion that the annual model change may be good for the auto business in the short term but that it wasn't good for the economy and the country. Couldn't the money we spent on annual, superficial styling changes be better spent in reducing prices or in improving service and reliability? Or seeking solutions to the sociological problems with which our products were creating in areas of pollution, energy consumption, safety, and congestion?" "A fault that GM has had for a long time is its feeling that, since it sells more cars and trucks than anyone else in the world and makes far more money than any other automotive company, the GM way is the only way. At Chevrolet this corporate thinking translated into the theory that since Chevrolet is the number one nameplate in the American automobile industry it is unwise to tamper with its proven formula for success....This malady is common in some businesses. It also is common in professional sports where management with a team that is old but still winning is often reluctant to bring in younger talent. The result is, of course, that one day the winning record stops because the players are to old to compete effectively." And, a word to organizations seeking to reduce expense instead of changing the world, "A man trained and skilled only in financial control, who has no direct operational experience, simply lacks the understanding necessary to run the business." Study the decline of the dinosaur, General Motors, and you can predict what many of today's organizations will experience in the near future. From Jon, the Civilsociety at Seedwiki guy.

This is an interesting ego-trip examination of the stagnation of General Motors, which beginning in the mid-1970s declined into a top-heavy bureaucracy that appeared to have forgotten it was in the automobile business. DeLorean rammed a literary ice pick into several nerves, though the entire presentation had a bit of an I-told-them-so-at-the-time shade to it. DeLorean later encountered his own executive problems at DeLorean Motors, but his lawyer was able to convince the jury that Naive John was a victim of entrapment. DeLorean and his Motors never really recovered after that, but the car went on to do very well in three Michael J. Fox movies.