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 ...
Wanna bet they will be treated as most government employees are? Never terminated, always paid and never accountable for the devastation they cause.
And now we have healthcare, we Zer0 will of course promise to make so good for all of us............
GM leaders couldn’t see the benefits of new ways of doing things and a new kind of organizational culture.
Translation: they were too arrogant to bring themselves to admit that they could be WRONG about anything.
A big problem in American business leadership, and an absolutely HUGE problem in government.
GM didn’t HAVE a Saturn success, pal. I was GM dealer for years and General Motors had to SUBSIDIZE its Saturn franchise/dealers on the backs of the rest of the dealer body. How do you think Saturn prices were kept so LOW for so long??!!
Seems to me that Saturn workers were only too happy to be non union until tough times arrived. Then they decided the union was just the thing to join.
Hard to feel sorry for people so shortsighted.
Now way, no how I will ever buy a gub mint motors vehicle.
Chevy and chrysler can go fish.
Have you seen the new Ford Mustangs? MMMmmmmmmm. Mmmm.
As a loyal Saturn owner ( since 1992), I wwas crushed ( but not sruprized) that GM decided to kill Saturn. They never did like competition
Constantly restructuring is a sure sign of an organization in decline. Technically it is known as "moving the deck chairs on the Titanic." Motion looks like progress.
Ya, I like my Ford Focus. Thanks to Uncle Sam! Er, I mean Uncle obama...
I bought new two Saturn Station Wagons, a 1995 and a 2000.
Both were great cars.
Too bad the GM overlords and the UAW thugs were too arrogant and greedy to recognize real innovation.
Now that nobama has taken over, no more GM for me. Screw ‘em. Chrysler too.
Saturn workers were unionized from day 1.
I agree with your viewpoint, but would point out that a lot of people liked that approach, apparently.
NO
Of course, it’s also characteristic of an organization undergoing rapid expansion.
I think my next purchase will be a Toyota. At least it will accelerate.
Translation: they were too arrogant to bring themselves to admit that they could be WRONG about anything.
Does that remind you of any one in the federal government?
But it's slightly deeper, a yes-man is a complicit soul, absent of any principle whatsoever to gain promotion, and then countering the emptiness with arrogance.
How obvious is it with the current administration and its sycophants? Or tragically for a majority of the US adult population today - the sheeple?
The foundation of LEFTISM.
Supposedly it cost them less to build since it was in Tennessee, non-union labor, flexible "Toyota style" work rules.
Not true?
GM management won’t work for peanuts???
Yes I have.
Impressed and FORD did NOT take the gub mint takeover B.S.
Go Ford.
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