It’s always a bit of a worry to be sitting at a restaurant table, chewing a celery stick and minding your own business, when the chairman and chief executive of General Motors sits down opposite.
He is after all, the star attraction of the Detroit Auto Show and the biggest-ever beneficiary of bailout cash from the US government.
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However, we had ventured in print not so long ago that GM could be represented by a more inspirational leader. And we said that the relisted GM shares would not be great value because GM was still not fully sorted. Is he here to ‘kick off’?
There is a momentary silence which is a relief. It seems designed to be filled with questions so we take the hint.
What was it that led to GM’s downfall do you think, and how do you stop it happening again?
“Two years ago no-one would have bet on GM,” he said purposefully.
“But now we have a revamped balance sheet and a cost structure at a forty-year low. We are making money at the low point of the cycle.
“Prior management was to some degree inheritors of the cost structure of the Thirties and the Fifties.”
Do you want to stay in this job or are you just here for the turnaround?
“The board has asked me to serve several years and I hope very much that they will want that to happen. Although I live in Washington I am moving here [to Detroit].”
What is your attitude to electric vehicles?
“I had a [Chevy] Volt for two months and never bought any gas for it. We will be exporting that car, and the market is not making enough electric vehicles. This is going to be a growth industry for us.”
Then he is back up on his feet and gone to share some more wisdom within the Press corps. It’s not a convincing performance. It’s hardly a rousing set of observations which will get a badly-bruised organisation up on its toes and running for the tape.
The time has come to ask the audience – the people who know him best and see him up close as he spends time with them thrashing a way through critical problems to lasting solutions. We consulted his main board directors off the record over two days and achieve very candid responses. It’s favourable, in summary; very favourable. Here is some of it:
Witness 1:“Dan is a very strategic leader. He is not about the nitty gritty. He does not understand it and does not need to. He has told me to get on with it. I have a budget target.
“He has a clear vision for the company and has a very clear view on reports. When we need approval for significant expenditure and strategic decisions he insists on a maximum of one page of A4. No more. Then it’s either a yes or no. He is basically looking for fresh revenues.”
Witness 2: “There is a change in management that is going to be very significant. He decided that the company would be run by the four regional presidents and it is clear that he is following that line because we know that we four are the first to get a phone call.
“He is a brilliant engineer and his style is to lead on each topic. Depending on what the topic is he will either go a mile wide and an inch deep, or an inch wide and a mile deep. He sees no great need for deep detail if that detail is not going to make a significant difference to the discussion or the decision.
“I have been around GM for 38 years. I have learned how to make a great car and how not to make a great car. I find working with Dan a very good assignment.”
Witness 3 from the electric vehicle programme: “Akerson is driving us hard. They understand what we are trying to do. There is the greatest vision and leadership on this project. We believe that we are well ahead of Ford who say that electric cars are not so important and that they like hybrid. But that is because that is what they have. We are alone in extended range electric vehicles because it is a very hard thing to do. The patents on the drive train are being granted as we speak.”
Akerson is quite a tough cookie having had a military training as a naval officer. If Ford gets too troublesome he could probably bring his mate’s destroyer up the Detroit River and let a few off.
If he gets a rebellion from his own people, a military coup is just a matter of bringing some of the lads ashore. Chances are though, he is going to get the job done the conventional way. After several generations of flawed leadership, it appears that Dan could be The Man.
Rob Golding
