Bob Lutz, Retired Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation & Author of 'Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership'

ABSTRACT: During a recent interview on C-SPAN, Bob Lutz, Retired Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation, spoke about his 2013 book, “Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership.” Bob Lutz on performance management, numerical analysis, customer service and product quality are featured. “Highly effective” leaders, in business and government, focus on customer service and excellent product quality, not performance management and numerical analysis, because performance management and numerical analysis have nothing to do with customer service and excellent product quality. In short, the hallmark of a “highly effective leader” is his/her focus on customer service and product quality, not performance management and numerical analysis. A QUESTION and RECOMMENDATIONS conclude post on the “wisdom” of Bob Lutz.

Bob Lutz, Retired Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation:

Credentials

• Member, Lotus Advisory Council, the British sports car manufacturer
• Retired Vice-chairman, Global Product Development, General Motors Corporation
• Former President, Chrysler Corporation
• Former Vice President, Ford Motor Company
• Former Executive Vice President, BMW
• MBA, University of California at Berkeley
• BA, Production Management, University of California at Berkeley
• Fighter Pilot, US Marine Corps

Bob Lutz on Performance Management & Numerical Analysis: 

Worse still, according to Lutz, GM’s elaborate Management by Objectives–based Performance Management Process (PMP) was a “ritualistic time suck” without “a smidgen of customer value.” PMP allowed senior managers to hit all their numeric targets and earn bonuses, even as GM steadily lost market share. “[A] senior executive who needs a quantified list of objectives to know what he or she should be working on should not be a senior executive in the first place,” he writes.

Good leaders, visionary leaders are:

• Ethically guided, moral compass as guide
• Create customer value, do not focus on overseeing bureaucracies
• Don’t play favorites, treat everyone equally

Bad, weak, more consensus leaders:

• Place too much importance on numerical analysis
• Focus on overseeing bureaucracies, not creating customer value
• Study everything, and if they do not like how it comes out, study it again, which adds no customer value

The largest mistake leaders make is place too great a faith in numerical analysis.  5-year projections are accepted as gospel because the projections were generated by one of their great departments.  Every single number on spreadsheet is wrong; the only thing we don’t know is in what direction.

Bob Lutz on Human Resources:

• Human resources has expanded with programs and has “almost become a cancerous growth” on society and industry.
• HR people are instigators of many “enormously time consuming bureaucracy-creating new initiatives” which are a “colossal waste of time.” They “create way more work than they alleviate.”
• Better to return to basis function of human resources which is personnel records, pay and promotions.

Bob Lutz on Customer Service & Product Quality:

• “Highly effective” leaders, in business and government, focus on customer service and excellent product quality.

QUESTION: With City Administrator Jason Stilwell’s focus on “performance management,” such as performance measures being negotiated with Sunset Cultural Center, Inc. (SCC), for example, and with Administrative Services Director Susan Paul’s report on IT including 16 strategic goals and 23 key initiatives that over time will be translated into projects, for example, would Bob Lutz consider City Administrator Jason Stilwell and Administrative Services Director Susan Paul “icons” or “idiots?”

RECOMMENDATIONS:
After Words with Bob Lutz
September 18, 2013 (57 minutes)
C-SPAN VIDEO LIBRARY
Bob Lutz talked about his book, Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership, in which he discusses the leaders that made the strongest impression on him during his career in the auto industry. He spoke with former auto industry executive and consultant to the American Automobile Policy Council, Debbie Dingell.

Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership by Bob Lutz (Jun 4, 2013)

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(Portfolio/Penguin, 2011)

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67 – Bob Lutz: Retired Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation

Lutz Communications