We’ve been stuck in a cycle of one bad decision after another, suffering the consequences for far too long. It’s mind-boggling that no one has taken action to address this. We need a change in leadership, someone with fresh ideas—anything to break the pattern. And now, with the industry facing a crisis, we’re among the most vulnerable. I know I’m stating the obvious, but it still astonishes me
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Capitalism! Nobody who actually does any of the work, including most management, actually have interests aligned to the success of the company, because no one has equity and profit-sharing of any substance, save for the Ford family, board, and top leadership. Couple that with years of poor model-e business strategy - "if you build it they will come" (which is NOT an actual business strategy), erratic layoffs, and ignorance of those top levels to anything at an operational level - and the result is that the incentive structure is completely f'd for people to apply good business (or just general) logic to decisions and lower level processes; instead, it's a jumbled mess of save-thyself, politics, folks still straining to actually effect positive change, and the people checked out from burnout after years of trying.
Clueless management promoting clueless people.
@OP I am not astonished. There is a constant during all these years, and is Bill Ford. He failed in 2005, and he is failing now as well.
We are playing the same book than 20 years ago, but with worse actors and in a worse environment. 20 years ago, Bill Ford was forced out by the family. Now he keeps sc--wing up, but since he has been buying shares, I am not sure he could be sacked now.
Not my problem, and hopefully soon, not even my concern.
@cy+1jhn3tkam
Welcome to the caste system..
A couple of things I’ve noticed:
Ford jumps on trend after trend and wastes BILLIONS of dollars. The latest was EVs. Before that Big Data (which has value, but was horribly executed).
Ford executives don’t want to be Ford Motor. They seem to want to be Tesla or Google or whatever other shiny thing can distract Wall Street.
There is ZERO loyalty left. The last few employees with retirement plans are on their way out. The rest of us aren’t shackled to Ford, who has made it very clear that we are all expendable.
Upper management plays more political games than they do actual work. It’s all about managing perceptions and getting a leg up on other Sr. Mgrs. Those who master the art of publicly digging at their peers get rewarded.
As the number of Indian managers increases, so does the Indian culture within Ford. We spent decades getting out of the command and control mindset that they seem to bring with them. I’m speaking generally and there are exceptions, but I’ve seen very few.
Here is why that culture change can be devastating: CRM. CRM is an idea from the airline industry that stands for Crew Resource Management. Airplane crews used to be very command and control with the Captains acting with almost unquestionable authority. This led to several preventable accidents and deaths. The entire industry recognized this and went through a long process of changing the culture, leading to improved safety.
In general, command and control is a weak form of leadership. It has its time and place, but must be used very judiciously and only when appropriate.
Empowerment. Innovation. Collaboration. Servant leadership. Dying ideas it seems.
We have taken a giant step back towards a command and control mindset. Ford’s crash and burn will likely not be as deadly or obvious as a plane crash, but it will likely happen.
Because it is run by friends, family and favoritism structure. non of them are accountable as they protect and cover for each other. I’ve seen many clueless ones move up the latter, way up the latter, because they are connected. So when you have these people running the place this is what you get.
Poor quality vehicles
Lack of accountability for poor quality vehicles
Thinking we will ever be profitable selling subscriptions
management has always be reactionary.. and this time the reaction is to cut ford employees and hiring them from 3rd world countries and not with h1b either
going to foreign actors in our company and selling our secrets to compensate for the sh-t pay they will get...
There is no accountability for poor results. See “canopy,” now known as Ford Security Services. $200 million loss, nobody got fired.