This week, Bob Lutz is interviewed by someone from myGMmagazine. And, as you'd expect it's the most PR-like communique we've had from him in recent weeks.
"Leading change" is what we call what Bob and his fellow executives at GM are trying to do. The 90s was awash with "change management models" that descibed variations on a theme: senior leaders develop new strategies and devise plans for "rolling out" the new strategy to the rest of the organization. Each model had its own set of steps, tips and acronyms, but they all pretty much amounted to the same thing.
Now Bob and his colleagues are doing something similar, but with a bit of a twist: publicly communicating with the customer and all parts of the company. As he says in the interview:
Q: The public response to the GM FastLane blog has been very positive. Why did you think it was important to give customers a conduit to you on the Web?
A: I think blogs and the Internet have given us a way to have direct contact with a number of our customers and with auto enthusiasts and to get unfiltered feedback from the marketplace - both good and bad. In the past, that feedback either had to be formal research, or it was what you got as interpreted by your dealer organization. It was always filtered. And our dialogue with the customers was always either through advertising, which doesn't enjoy a very high trust or credibility factor, or it was through the media, who have their own agenda. Blogs permit a clear, unfiltered, direct person-to-person dialogue with customers, which is where we think the huge benefit lies.
And this direct two-way communication is part of a bigger picture. Bob's "change agenda" is design-driven. This means the whole process of designing, manufacturing, marketing and selling cars has to become more permeable, more open to human voices, not simply statistical analyses.
Q: You're obviously a strong advocate for performance, but what about styling - what do the designers have to do to attract new consumers to GM vehicles?
A: Well, that relates to the last question. We do realize that a purely research-driven and rationality-based product development process doesn't work. That's why we are actively encouraging our designers to be much bolder and we are learning to be a design-driven company again, one in which the designer originates trendsetting new concepts, as opposed to responding to a series of planning inputs.
A process in which the "designer originates trendsetting new concepts" does not, however, mean "cars from Mars." Done right, it means cars that are tapping into customers' lives. This means keeping designers aware of what's going on in those lives through something other than (I love this euphemism!) "planning inputs." The more GM's designers can see and hear customers going about our daily lives, the better. Vivid experience, not trend lines, guides emotionally-connected design.
By creating a case for permeability, Bob continues to lead the GM change process.
And, in the "human interest" portion of the interview, we learn that Bob was born in Switzerland, is flying a swept-wing attack fighter, and likes to cook.
A little schmaltz is OK in any recipe, but now let's get back to saving one of the world's largest corporations with design, shall we, Bob?
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