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It's also a modern corporate culture that affects quite a few companies. It's a long read, but really informative.
Besides the first couple posts, there are a couple really interesting thought processes in the thread... one is this from an automotive engineer:
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What I find odd is the notion that GM doesn't care about safety. That is a definitive statement that is totally false. In the MFG world, we are so insane about safety, that I can't believe we can even produce anything. We see to go overboard with so many layers of protection that I'm not exaggerating when I say we have processes that are probably safer than your own house environment!
I think the fair thing to say is that a combination of data... and the other pressures/fears I mentioned already... they combine to drag out the inevitable realization that something is wrong. If you follow AUTOMOTIVE NEWS they've done a pretty good job of investigating the details, which most media outlets don't. Evidently a large percentage of the ~(13) highlighted deaths involve alcohol, excessive speed, and one was thought to involve driver health issues. I think data like that probably delayed the troubleshooting, because it could have made the investigators downplay the incident. IIRC some police concluded the speed, lack of belting, and alcohol was enough to make the presense of an airbag moot.
It's not an excuse per se, but rather about empathizing with an individual human (fallible) investigating the incident and expecting them to not form some bias given such factors. Then there is the human 'churn' (people going in and out due to the crazy turnover during the recession/bankruptcy.
And this one:
Quote:
So here is my thinking, which I have seen successful on smaller scale. People are culture. New people make new culture. Hire new people to roll the dice on new culture. The reason why places like DC don't change despite new people is because their game doesn't change.
So a board needs to be smart enough to put a different kind of people in charge, which GM's did. Now those people need to change the game, and they need support from the board to make that happen, and I think GM's management has that support.
I think Barra has had external issues to worry about and hasn't put attention on cleaning shop other than dusting the proverbial recall cobwebs. But I also think thats why she of all people was chosen to be CEO. That is, to shake up the culture. I also have faith that there are a lot of creative people in GM's management who have ideas to fix these problems and they will get to them sooner or later.
To me its fairly encouraging that this is even a conversation in a 12 steps kind of way. GM had its collective head stuck in the sand but now these internal issues are fair game. To me that even you as a GM employee talking about this means the culture has changed at least a bit and its only a matter of time before the issues are confronted top down.
"What I find odd is the notion that GM doesn't care about safety"
Not read the article but with the expose of GM's list of banned words, the argument that GM (in the past) did not care about safety is very believable.
Yes, its possible that the culture has changed but its going to take time to see. If anyone saw the John Oliver take down of GM the other week its pretty clear that CEO Barra maybe not the right person to change the culture.
Not read the article but with the expose of GM's list of banned words, the argument that GM (in the past) did not care about safety is very believable.
You can see that list in most major companies, and many smaller ones, which is what the thread I linked to was talking about. It's common in many industries to not have lower level people report bad situations up the chain for fear of reprimands or being told they are negative, and it's also common for people to be told not to use inflammatory language in internal memos or especially in documents that outside entities might see. We even have that situation here in the governemnt (I work for a major Agency). It's all upper management CYA crap.
Quote:
Yes, its possible that the culture has changed but its going to take time to see. If anyone saw the John Oliver take down of GM the other week its pretty clear that CEO Barra maybe not the right person to change the culture.
I did see that, and like John Stewart's show, i laugh, but it's entertainment, not real news or real investigative reporting. its about making fun of any situation.
The sad reality is our culture has come to divided viewpoints influenced by media. Either you believe in working class American's, or you believe corporate America will take care of working class American's. Your opinion on this subject matter will depend greatly on which ideal you ascribe too!
You can see that list in most major companies.... It's common in many industries to not have lower level people report bad situations up the chain for fear of reprimands or being told they are negative,
Seen this first hand many years and I agree. I'm sure there were many fine individuals at GM, but the corporate culture clearly did not care about safety...And that's my main point to refute the first line of the text you quoted.
Seen this first hand many years and I agree. I'm sure there were many fine individuals at GM, but the corporate culture clearly did not care about safety...And that's my main point to refute the first line of the text you quoted.
The recalls are a good sign.
No, the company has a lot of policies to ensure safety, but in a couple instances, policies were not followed by suppliers, or listened to by a couple people in middle management (you can't say a company does or doesn't do anything, it's always a limited number of human beings IN the company. And you can care about safety, as the automotive engineer I qutoed maintains, AND not want to talk about things in an inflammatory tone, as they can easily be taken out of context and spun as not caring, as so many here tend to do.
Most of the recalls are from new internal investigations, so yeah, they are a good sign, but they need to get them out of the way so they can create new policy and a new corporate culture. Toyota is learning the same lesson right now.
Just about every car line has recalls these days. Many models have numerous recalls (as was mentined in another thread, the 2000 Ford Focus leads the list with 12 recalls for that individual model and year). GM has a lot of recalls on the books right now, but there are few per model. And some that have no recalls on them at all.
Its the basis of the it seems the report disagrees it was couple of instances but ran thru committees even to not do Anything.it became a culture of keep your mouth shut and now we see those who didn't coming forward. One needs to read the report that talks about what happened to whistle blowers to appreciate the full cultural extent it concluded was present to see why one after another recall is happening now.
Its the basis of the it seems the report disagrees it was couple of instances but ran thru committees even to not do Anything.it became a culture of keep your mouth shut and now we see those who didn't coming forward. One needs to read the report that talks about what happened to whistle blowers to appreciate the full cultural extent it concluded was present to see why one after another recall is happening now.
Again, the thread I'm linking to, if you read it, talks about how this has been endemic to business in all sectors, not just GM, and not just automotive. And it's not just business, I see it in the government, too.
It's a human culture of not reporting problems for fear of being labeled a "Negative Nancy." And the point is that GM as a culture is changing as they go through the recall process, which got started with new blood at the top, and new, better data from NHTSA. They've moved on past NHTSA reports to internal investigation reports that are causing them to recall even more models. And we're going to see the same situation happen at other companies, and not just in the automotive sector (not just recalls, but changes in corporate culture). And the larger the company, the more likely that this will be the case (and the larger the company, the more we'll hear about it). Look at how many Toyotas are being recalled at the same time, for things other than the old unintended accelleration problem. They are looking into past practices, as well.
Ultimately GM is in the business of making money. That is their first priority.
They got caught cutting corners in order to make even more money. Now they are very repentant. "We have policies in place to ensure that these things never happen again."
Of course they do. But, in the course of making money, those policies are only as good as the people who develop, implement, and review them.
What do you want to bet that as this 'affair' unfolds, GM will say that these things took place at the "old" GM, which was put into bankruptcy/and or bailed out by the US Government. When the law suits start flying, the TAXPAYERS will be stuck with this tab.
Ultimately GM is in the business of making money. That is their first priority.
They got caught cutting corners in order to make even more money. Now they are very repentant. "We have policies in place to ensure that these things never happen again."
Of course they do. But, in the course of making money, those policies are only as good as the people who develop, implement, and review them.
What do you want to bet that as this 'affair' unfolds, GM will say that these things took place at the "old" GM, which was put into bankruptcy/and or bailed out by the US Government. When the law suits start flying, the TAXPAYERS will be stuck with this tab.
That's the "new" GM.
Money, is money.
Did you read the thread I linked to?
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