CEO tells employees who have adopted a skeptical stance toward turnaround plans to join him or quit.
I’ve read this article a few times and can’t decide if:
A) I admire Bill Ford’s leadership and message of “quit complaining and work with me to right this ship, otherwise the door is over there.”
or
B) It’s heavy handed and will discourage people from questioning the wise leader on top of the pyramid.
“Anyone who thinks or attempts to convince you that it’s business as usual at Ford is wrong and would best serve us all by pursuing their interests elsewhere,” Bill Ford said in an audio message e-mailed to workers Monday afternoon. “
Thoughts? Click comments to chime in.
About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.
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Having dealt with the Ford bureaucracy from the vendor side, I can understand the need for them to change. He is taking the lead in this move and he seems to be talking tough, and with high positioned folks leaving, he seems to be walking tough as well. That is good if you want to follow Bill’s “banner of innovation,” and it really let’s the rest of the people standing on the sidelines know what the expectations are.
I think that the real change will come in the future when he starts talking with the suggestion makers and putting them on sponsored project teams to help with the implementation of the changes. People will leave the sidelines then. People with vested interests in organizations act like penguins who march to the edge of the ice and then start pushing and shoving until one falls in the water. The rest wait until the first one comes to the surface safely before they jump in and start searching for food.
He has invited the company’s human resources to the edge of the ice. As they take the plunge we will all be watching to see the success or failure of the first few. Will they come to the surface or will they get held under by the weight of the bureaucracy?
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