American Turnaround: Reinventing AT&T and GM and the Way We Do Business in the USA

Ed Whitacre may not of had car expertise. but he sure had the management expertise and common sensethat GM'smanagement team needed. And he applied his management skills quite effectively. Ed Whitacrewas able to understandGM's problems from day one. Ed's book Is very honest and forthright about theinternal workings of GM, leading up to the time of bankruptcy. His description of GM's internalsituation when he arrived as "organizational chaos," was spot on.When Whitacre took over the GM Chairman's position, the cartoon that had been circulating around GMfor the last two decades finally came true, "The Only Difference Between GM And The Titanic, Was TheTitanic Had A Band."To Ed, It was obvious from day one, GM was not competitive. GM did not have an organizationalstrategic plan nor even an organizational chart. GM was run using a Matrix Management System, wherethe employee reporting structure is very complex, with an employee having more then one boss and ison loan for each given work assignment.I have always said, "A great corporation is never conquered by the competition, until it has firstdestroyed itself from within." And that is what EXACTLY happened to GM. With the Matrix System ofmanagement, GM's downfall became a foregone conclusion. Ed soon found that all of GM's executiveswere all busy, being busy, but not accomplishing much.An example of GM's executives being busy, is best described by my son's statement when he was justtwo years old. He was playing in a pile of sand that was just dropped off in the yard. When I askedhim what he was making , he said "I'M DOING, DOING!" And that sums up what is happening in GM'sMatrix Management system, everyone is busy, but not focused or accomplishing much, JUST DOING,DOING!. This was the old Matrix system that Ed Whitacre inherited, and was trying to get rid of,and is still apart of GM's problems today.Many former employees could see GM's upcoming downfall, leading to bankruptcy. Over the last 40years General Motors has sold countless Allied Divisions, worth almost 100 BILLION DOLLARS. GMsold those Allied Divisions as the news releases said, "TO FOCUS ON THE CORE BUSINESS." But GMused the cash to give the impression GM was a going business operation. In actuality, GM's saleof money making Allied Divisions was actually a Ponzi Scheme, just to stay afloat.AMERICAN TURNAROUND was a monumental task that seemed unachievable at the time when Ed Whitacrestepped forward to take on the challenge. After reading the book, everyone had a betterunderstanding of Ed's background. Only a person of Ed's humble beginnings, and being a self-mademan, could understand the importance of people in an organizational structure. Financial peoplehave a very myopic view of employees, they only look at employees as burden that must be reducedat all costs, not as contributors.Ed's ethics and honesty are a product of a different generation. Ed is man of his word and hisword is his bond, something that the business world badly needs today.When Ed Whitacre stepped in, GM was on life support from Washington and very few GM peoplerealized that the U.S. automaker was now under government control, based on the Federal Governmentaction. Most people thought TARP was a loan with a few strings. Only some in management ranks today,fully understand all of the TARP rules as they apply to GM, and the relation to the UAW. There stillexists an air of arrogance within the GM Management structure that Ed tried to break down.As Ed Whitacre soon discovered, GM had no Strategic Planning Department, and he was shocked.Those of us who worked at GM, all knew that GM was not relying on any input from anyone inStrategic Planning for the last four decades.For example, as far back as 1973 during the Oil Embargo, a key GM Strategic Planner said "GM wasbeing run like a Third Generation Shoe Store." They inherited the business. They have goods on the shelf. They have goods going out the door. But, no one had the faintest idea how the business was ever created, and how to react.In 1975, General Motors was being run by finance people who arrogantly thought just by going toNew York Bankers, they would give GM a 5 Billion Dollar loan, just because they were GM. A box oflight-weight structural fiberglass chassis components was shipped to the New York bankers. Whenthe GM Financial people put the light-weight structural fiberglass chassis components on the table,they got approval for the 5 Billion loan instantaneously. In reality, the NY Bankers wanted to beshown what GM was going to do to make their vehicles lighter and improve their vehicle MPG. TheNY Bankers wanted proof of what GM could do, they did not trust their word.Ed's major goal was to get the employees involved. In GM's executive culture, ED was a true breathof fresh air. In over the past 40 years, he was one of the first straight shooters in GM's topExecutive ranks. Ed Whitacre understands people, and their wanting to contribute to the successof the company.In the late 1980's, one of the General Motors internal newsletters stated, "At General Motors,People are Our Most Important Asset." Most of the lower levels of management and employees didnot believe it. Many felt the hollow statement was all hot air.Many people feel that GM will continue to flounder, until another visionary leader, of EdWhitacre's stature, would come again to unite the customer base and work force, by using avision of what GM can be - a great corporation.There has to be visceral feeling that GM want's to go forward and become a people company likeit was in the 50's and 60's. Only by having a creativity program that feeds off the employeesand a customer base, that can contribute to uniting the work force to help turn the companyaround, will the healing process begin. In the past, GM lead by the creativity of it's employees,the former Allied Divisions, fed the automaker with new products to make GM the industry leader.Today, with the product innovation coming from outside suppliers, every manufacture all havethe same options - there is less differentiation between the various manufactures vehicleofferings.No one in GM seems to know how to change the feelings of the U.S citizens who lost thousandsof dollars when GM declared bankruptcy. Only to have the U.S. Government bail out GM, and thenhave GM put some new facilities in China. With the production of only 30% of GM vehicles builtin North America, is still being expressed with indignation today by potential U.S. customerswho were stung by GM's bankruptcy.GM has burnt many people with bankruptcy, and Ed glossed over that very important issue. ManyGM Stock and Bond holders who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars when GM declared bankruptcyare reluctant to step-up and purchase another GM product. In Ed's defense, he was at GM a shortperiod of time and he was acting like the Little Dutch Boy, trying to plug all of the holes inthe dike with his fingers. Ed tried to delegate responsibility and break-up GM's MatrixManagement System.Many of the people who suffered a substantial loss with GM's bankruptcy were surprised to seeGM emerge from bankruptcy in just 40 days. And everyone but Rick Wagoner, kept their Job. Whitacreneeded to clean house, and according to GM people on the inside, Ed only got one half of thejob done, because many insiders feel way too many non performers still remain.There is no way GM or any other industrial manufacturing operation can live up to their fulleconomic potential. Due to his short time at GM, Ed Whitacre was unable to address the majorindustrial problem, that is the high Cost Of Doing Business (CODB) in the United States. Allof industry is operating under an imposed high taxburden required to provide revenue demanded by Federal, State, and Local Governments.Today many domestic industries are now skirting the high CODB issue in the United States bymanufacturing overseas and shipping in finished goods. To better understand the high CODB, allof industry needs to understand Enginomics, a word coined by Harvey Stump, to explain the taxstructure and improve the current business situation.Ed Whitacre's book, AMERICAN TURNAROUND, is a totally honest and insightful read that will beenjoyed by everyone who wished Ed had stayed at GM a little longer. All of the insiders say,Ed did an OUTSTANDING JOB in the short time he was with General Motors, and is greatly missed.Del C. Schroeder - A 1994 Retired GM Engineering Executive

Honestly, this is the first memoir audio cd/book I have ever read/listen to in my life. And I've read more than a thousand books over the many years and listened to close to a hundred audio book cd's.I just never felt the urge to listen to someone's life. Either people like to open up and tell sordid dark and depressing details, whine about how tough everything was in their childhood/life or rosy coat their experiences to be some fantasy (whether hero, princess, poor to rich saga, etc). I am so glad I broke down and decided to buy this audio book.Ed Whitacre, who from impressions in news articles/media always came across as this bust-ass, dictator who rode with an iron fist and who lived in his own made-up world of what is right and wrong. I have seen articles that picked out every little detail of who this man is in order to throw derogatory remarks to strip him down. And this audio CD makes a good come back.If you are a blue collar worker, or you are middle management and you listen to this audio book, you will love it. From a human perspective, the man makes sense. He has mentioned that he was lucky in his life to have worked in such great places with great people. A person who stays 44 years with a company is very, very rare. For a person who came from small town union worker family background to get a break in starting on the ground floor of a large corporation and then actually working his way up to be CEO of that same company is such an amazing thing, especially when you compound it with the fact that he was CEO for 14 years of that company, retired and then was asked to be Chairman of the board/CEO of another huge company in crisis. CEO's and CIO's and CFO's are always changing. For a public global corporation to keep you in the CEO spot for 14 years and making you CEO after you had grown up in that same corporation really says to me that you were doing something right.For Ed being picked to be chairman of the board of GM in a national crisis says that there were mighty important high level people who thought he would make a positive difference. National high level people do not agree to spend a ton of tax payers' money during a bad economic crisis without the understanding that they will do whatever it takes to put the best workers, leaders and decision-making people on the team in order to stop the downward spiral and get that nationally important manufacturer back to growing financial profitable health. Between the political leaders and decision-makers before Ed who supported the Govt bail out of GM, the push to make it happen, all the way up to the naming of Ed as board chairman and then CEO comes across as such a great American Dream story for those American workers who have lived in this current world of job cuts, layoffs, salary cuts, dramatic stress with no control to make a difference and dreams going down the toilet.For me there was a background reason for Ed to do this book. He could have done this personal need of a memoir right after ATT (he had 3 years of retirement before moving to GM), but instead he created this story after GM. He mentions many times throughout this book about how people are the number one asset to any business and it is senior management's responsibility to nurture their employees and to know that when things go south, it is senior management's fault and they need be accountable, make the right changes and fix it.I think part of Ed's reason to do this book was to clear the air on any unknowns that he believes he may have left in people's mind when he decided to leave GM. I believe he also wanted the accomplishments of all the employees of GM to be brought into the light of the minds of the US citizens so that any negative comments or stories that are still circulating from GM being called Government Motors is clarified and decisions that were made were brought to light. Plus I truly believe that this book was Ed's way to get the rest of Global GM to follow through on the organizational changes that were so needed in GM...eliminating matrix-style management.I believe that Ed really cares for the employees and wants them to feel good about their jobs and their long faithfulness to this company (this same company that had made them suffer for quite a number of years based on bad management). I commend him on this.I believe Ed needed to put closure to a number of fronts and doing an audio book using his own voice, in his own language and in that storytelling style way, gave him the chance to reach a whole lot of people who may not have known Ed, the inner Ed.When I listened to this book, read by Ed Whitacre, I found his slow Texas drawl easy to listen to in my car (back and forth to work).Coming out with this book at this time is so needed in these United States, where blue collar workers are still struggling each day to make a living and perhaps losing site of their American Dream. Thanks Ed! I am ready for that position now! lol

I appreciate this book because how Ed Whitacre developed as a senior executive, but more importantly as a fine human being. It is a business book, and it is a good business book: after all he rose to become CEO of AT&T and General Motors. Yet, it is also an important book because of his approach to business that can be applied to life: giving people the authority to do their jobs and then encouraging them to do those jobs. Yet, he also notes that if the person does not do the job he or she wants to do, it is best to cut them off quickly.I also rather like it because, as he says, he graduated from a state school, Texas Tech University, and not one of the Big Ivy's. He also carries with him some of the disdain for some of the country club set, which he knew from afar in his home town in Texas. I like that, too, because I also identify with him that way. I liked the way, too, how he wiped away the trappings of senior management, ie., private elevators, and ignored the executive dining room to mingle with the regular employees at the "food court" or wherever they ate. He liked to lunch with the employees, by the way, because he felt he learned about the goings on of a company, General Motors in this instance, that might have been inadvertently kept from in his role as CEO.There is some real drama to the book, too, in the way he grew Southwestern Bell into what, with some of the other baby "Bells' became AT&T and then his approach to put General Motors on a positive footing.

I am pleased to have paid Ed Whitacre only once when I purchased to audio book. It was an unbelievable deal from my end.Why ?Because he's so captivating that I listened to the whole thing 3 times so far and would have hated to pay Whitacre 3 times for this.It was worth every penny !!!!!The only thing I disliked is that it was too short.

Ed & Leslie capture a type of leadership that seems to have fallen out favour in the 21st century.Good old fashoned honesty, leadership, face to face conversations and expectation setting to workforce.The results speak for themselves. Ed is the "Chuck Norris" of the business world & I mean that in the most positive way!

Well written story of American "Can Do" attitudes to problems. Complements "Car Guys and Bean Counters" as an explanation of what went wrong and how GM was put right. Doesn't deal with Europe's car plant problems.

I worked for General Motors in 1955 and for AT&T around 1990, so I found the book interesting. My main impression is that Whitacre stressed the importance of contact to people.

Without any complex, Ed Whitacre exposes the insides of two American giants...It shows how a complex world can be approcched in a simple way by someone with a clear view of life.nre