Tag GM

GM Shrinking, Laying Off People, Shutting Down Factories, and Cutting Costs Isn’t “Lean and Agile”

I take no joy in the troubles of any automaker, be it Tesla, Nissan, GM or any others over time.

Of course, Nissan and GM have been in the news most recently, with the firing (and jailing) of Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. And now, GM has announced major layoffs, the cancelation of some passenger car programs, and the shutdown (and possible closure) of five plants in North America.

I was talking to a friend the other day and I predicted that we'd see news headlines about something like "GM to get Leaner." These headlines would be using the word "lean" to mean "get smaller" instead of referring to "Lean" (which I capitalize as a proper noun) as a synonym for the Toyota Production System.

I was disappointed to hear GM's CEO, Mary Barra, a long-time GM employee using the word "lean" in the context of the company getting smaller.

The GM Quality Death Spiral, Part 2: Production Pressure and the Memos That Blamed Workers

GM Quality Death Spiral 1996 Part 2

Recently, I blogged about a quality catastrophe that I lived through at GM just over 20 years ago, at the now-closed GM Livonia Engine Plant.

Bluntly, the quality problems were caused by poor management and the side effects of their decisions. Even though they constantly blamed workers, management directly interfered with workers and engineers being able to do the right thing for quality.

Here is Part 2 of that story... the first quality "spill" took place in April 1996. As I wrote about last time, Angry high-horse memos were sent out by management. Workers were told to have pride and to pay closer attention to quality (as if those had been the problems).

The GM Quality Death Spiral, Part 1: When Leaders Blame Workers for the System They Designed

GM Quality Death Spiral 1996 Part 1

My first job out of college was as an Industrial Engineer at the General Motors Livonia Engine Plant. Blogging didn't exist then (I didn't even have email or internet access at work) or I might have started my writing career then. Oh, the stories. I've shared some of them on this blog over time.

I've blogged about papers from the Don Ephlin files, a former UAW national leader. I have my own small collection of documents and artifacts from my days at GM that I thought to keep in a folder. I still have that folder today.

A few of these memos tell the story of a quality and productivity death spiral that eventually led to our plant manager being replaced. And, by "replaced," I don't mean fired or given an early retirement. He was, at least in title, PROMOTED to a role at GM Powertrain headquarters. Thankfully, the new plant manager, Larry Spiegel, was one of the original "NUMMI commandos" and he made a huge difference to the plant and to me, personally.

Overreact Less, Improve More: Leadership Lessons from Statistics and Psychology

Happy and sad emoji faces on a fluctuating line graph.

Today, I’m giving a keynote talk at the Lean & Six Sigma World Conference being held in Las Vegas. I don’t normally attend or speak at “Lean Sigma” events, but I had an opportunity to give a new talk that touches on two of my favorite themes in recent years – the need to apply statistics and psychology to our “Lean Management” practices or Six Sigma or whatever.

Managers Must Help The People They Supervise

Last week, a nurse manager downloaded the free first chapter of my book Lean Hospitals and wrote this message in the contact form:

"Interested to see how the disconnect between management and the staff supervised can be helped. Too many managers refuse to help those they supervise. A growing number have never done the work that they are in charge of getting done. Patients and residents feel it, not healthy. Poor PR. It does get back to the consumer. Difficult to fix at that point."

In my experience working with many hospitals, her comments resonate with me. Identifying problems like these doesn't mean Lean provides easy solutions for organizational transformation.

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