Meet Edward Whitacre, Jr. the new Chairman of the board at Government Motors. “Big Ed” don’t know much about cars, by his own admission.
“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”
Think about that — we’re getting screwed by someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing. The perfect summation of Obama’s first 5 months. I’m sure to some degree a business is a business is a business, but surely his knowledge of telecommunications helped him successfully steer AT&T (his entire executive experience). I know he doesn’t need to be a gearhead or even a licensed driver to run a car company. Hopefully he’ll let the “car guys” do their thing. Rufus may be able to speak more directly to this as his intimate knowledge of Fiats has helped him in his upper management job at Rainbows and Unicorns, Inc.
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It seems the merry go round of executives never stops…a knowledge of cars would I imagine be essential not just a knowledge of business,never mind its only money.
We went through something similar to this when I was a supervisor at the railroad for which I worked some years back. They had a merger with a smaller railroad which just happened to be “cash fat.” They brought in all new upper level management that had been hired from Atlantic Richfield’s mega staff of attorneys, whom were put in charge of running the company for the newly formed merged company. There was absolutely no railroad experience within any of the new staff, president, VP, or any of the other upper echelon. Suffice it to say the entire company suffered greatly as a result. They hired other superintendants and the like that had no transportation experience as well. The entire operation became a colossal accident looking for a place to happen. Because of the ineptitude of these new management types, they found it nearly impossible to rely on the older, more experienced mid to lower management personnel, therefore nearly bankrupting the new company. The only thing that saved the company was a later merger with another more solvent railroad company. That company’s management staff took over the reins, and has made the newer company much more well situated than the former.
Well, I think it would be better to have an executive with experience in running a car company but the AT&T he was part of, even in his days as an engineer, was massive. His experience appears to be more along the lines of operational management so I tend to lean towards cutting him some slack. He might understand to “let the ‘car guys’ do their thing”.
He also was apparently a national president of the Boy Scouts of America for a couple of years, so he can’t be all that bad. Still, out of pure principle I’m not buying GM.
I am not surprised. Obama doesn’t know what the hell he is doing so why the shocker he’d pick a dude who has no clue as to what HE IS DOING…..think about it idiots all think alike.
SO I guess Whitacre will be “touched for the very first time.”
Yup. We’ll just get the Tarantino-interpreted “Pain! Pain! Pain!”
It’s all beyond parody at this point.
Does that mean we will or won’t see something from the late night pranksters?
Nothing like welfare for $30 an-hour union workers. What it all comes down to. No one will have the guts to just shut it down or cut it loose.
Actually, this fits in well with GM’s past management style. When my dad worked there as a supervisor, with 30 years of production experience, he regularly had 23-year-old girls with no degree and experience from Red Lobster promoted as his bosses.
The shocker will be when he actually picks someone who knows something about anything.