General Motors Zombie Watch 12: Money Talks, but It’s Not Saying Anything
http://tinyurl.com/ncbsj8

When columnist Daniel Howes at the Detroit News gets pissed off enough
at GM to write anything other than “we shall see what we shall see,” you
know the former bankrupt is doing something very, very wrong. The object
of Danny’s ire: the lack of fresh faces at The New GM. “To read the
announcement of GM’s new nine-person executive committee, the promotions
and the retirements, as I did minutes after it was made public, is to
hear the faint strains of Talking Heads singing ’same as it ever was,
same as it ever was’ and to hear more wailing about the chronically
clueless GM.” Mind you, Howes isn’t calling GM chronically clueless
(that’s our job). He’s angry that “the feds’ pay-and-bonus restrictions
essentially make it impossible for CEO Fritz Henderson to woo outside
talent for inside jobs.” Woo-hoo! Howes is on the money; out in the real
world, $500K doesn’t buy you a reasonable Human Resources manager. But
hey, did someone forget the GM stands for Government Motors?

In many disturbing ways, GM was born for nationalization. Over a period
of one hundred years or so, the American automaker has gradually evolved
to resemble nothing so much as the federal government. Same farrago of
competing fiefdoms. Same lack of accountability. Same stifling
bureaucracy. Same budgetary constraints (i.e., both too many and none at
all). Same global aspirations. Same lack of strategic focus. Same lack
of timely feedback. Same inability to make decisions in a timely fashion.

“Reinventing” GM would require root and branch reform, from the top down
and the bottom up. Howes [rightly] seizes on Uncle Sam’s pay cap as the
central impediment to GM hiring the kind of management that could even
begin to refashion its dysfunctional corporate culture. But the
curmudgeon fails to connect the dots. The automaker doesn’t want a shake-up.

More specifically, the idea that GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s hands are tied
by the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s pay and bonus restrictions is
ridiculous. Henderson is a GM lifer. The former Chief Financial Officer.
Fellow GM lifer, fellow former Chief Financial Officer, and Ex-CEO Rick
Wagoner’s hand-picked successor. He owes his livelihood to the GM status
quo. In other words, if Henderson was dedicated to upending the GM’s
ossified apple cart, he’d start by firing himself. Since he hasn’t, we
must assume that reshuffling GM’s motley crew of proven losers is a
labor of love. An ennobling endeavor.

No joke. By convincing the feds to keep GM out of the garbage disposal
of a real C11, Fritz has protected the paychecks, pensions and benefits
of hundreds of white collar compatriots. Top executives like Gary Cowger
and Troy Clarke must have kissed Fritz’s feet when he knocked on their
door with the “bad” news. In a genuine bankruptcy, these proven losers
would have been ejected from the Renaissance Center without so much as a
fare-thee-well (excluding any monies they may have stashed away during
decades of serious rooting). Former Car Czar and current marketing maven
Bob Lutz? Once he steps away from his mirror, the recently jet bereaved
exec has found a new object of adoration.

As far as Henderson being “forced” to promote from within is concerned,
does Howes really think that the CEO believes that fast-tracking GM
insiders to positions of greater power is bad for GM? Brent Dewar,
Chevy’s new VP of Chevrolet, started working for GM in 1978. Bryan
Nesbitt, new GM of Cadillac, may be a relative piker, but he’s
relatively young AND he’s been with GM for eight years. C’mon; these
guys are Henderson’s people. Presidential Task Force on Automobiles or
not, Fritz Henderson’s desire to protect, preserve and extend their
careers to protect, preserve and extend his own runs so deep it’s
instinctive. It’s what GM employees do.

Howes had the strange idea that the New GM would be a new GM. He’s going
through the grieving process, as the writer and his fellow cheerleaders
realize that GM’s talking a lot, but it’s not saying anything. In fact,
the moment Old GM accepted new federal money (and thus ownership) was
the moment that any meaningful idea of a re-imagined GM disappeared. The
whole point of the federal bailout: preserve the status quo. And so it has.

Outside talent? Government agencies—for that is what GM is—are not known
for hiring outsiders to create and implement radical change, improving
efficiency and fostering a culture of accountability. And even in those
rare cases where such appointments are made, the existing workers
inevitably drag their heels and destroy the outside “virus.”

There is only one way for GM to truly reinvent itself: to surrender
itself to the creative destruction inherent in genuine capitalism. It’s
an answer that Howes and GM and many, many others find too horrible to
contemplate. But it’s the truth.