This past Friday evening I had the privilege of meeting and listening to the man credited with turning around both Boeing and now Ford Motor Company – Alan Mulally. Alan came to Hershey to headline The Second Mile’s flagship fundraiser, The Celebration of Leadership dinner, and I came away very impressed with his down-to-earth nature and his humble servant leadership attitude. Numerous times during the evening he mentioned how he was “honored to serve such an American and global icon.”
There were many leadership and management lessons in what Alan shared (especially as it related to turning around a struggling global company). When Alan came to Ford three years ago, the company and the automotive industry had many challenges. The company was hemorrhaging cash, had well over 100 makes and models competing against each other, and lacked a global corporate strategy. Early on he knew the company needed to streamline the product line, give the consumers safe and efficient transportation and cars they want to buy, and focus on being “best in class” for each make and model they produced. This required new product development, retooling factories and most importantly, this required CASH, something Ford did not have.
It was this key moment – when Ford worked tirelessly to convince banks to loan them $23.5 billion and they leveraged everything they had including the Blue Oval brand – that allowed them to create a global strategy, focus on execution, and grow the company unencumbered by government bailout money. According to Alan, Ford never really considered taking taxpayer money as an option. Often leaders are faced with two decisions – one being the easy path (bailout money) and the other the road less travelled. I believe this decision shows the type of character and leadership traits that Alan and the Ford management team possess.
He shared several other key points such as:
Henry Ford had a saying, “Your reputation is not built on what you plan to do, but rather on what you have done.” This is why Ford is working so hard on execution and serving customers.
In 2010, Alan is most excited about, “contributing to the economic recovery.”
Best advice for a small dealer (any company) – “give the customers what they deserve and enjoy the privilege of taking part in our economic recovery.”
He spoke about media (paid, earned and social) and shared that “social media is absolutely the future.” This is why you need to “make sure you have a great product and then let the people tell your story” (viral marketing). He gave an example of the Ford Fiesta being a new model in other parts of the world (not yet available in the
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