In an extensive interview published in Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, Bill Ford talks about what will go down as one of the worse periods ever for the US auto industry. In the summer of 2006, Mr. Ford was shopping for a CEO for the Ford Motor Company. He had come to realize that he didn’t have the energy or the personality needed to turn Ford’s dysfunctional corporate culture inside out, but he also desired someone who knew and respected the contributions and importance of the company founded by his great grandfather.
Ford selected Alan Mulally because he wanted a CEO who not only understood manufacture and dealing with the union, but also recognized Ford’s historic achievements and importance to the country. Having helped turn around Boeing, a highly unionized aircraft manufacturer with its own unique place in American history and culture (707, 747 anybody?) Ford felt Mulally would be perfect for the job.
Mulally turned him down (he would later accept the position) and Ford spent that next entire weekend sitting in a living room chair staring at a blank notepad in his lap, exhausted and out of ideas to save the company after Alan Mulally turned him down to become CEO of Ford Motor Company. Ford said he was “silent and devastated. I had no plan B.”
The year was only going to get worse. The headlines of the latter part of 2006 (Kerkorian’s attempt to take over GM was rattling the entire industry, skyrocketing gas prices put SUV sales on the skids, and his way forward plan seemingly stuck in reverse) had Ford so down some mornings he didn’t even want to get out of bed.
Bill Ford discusses his battles with Ford’s infamous divisional structure recalling orders that he had given out, thought had been carried out, to find out that slow-walked by the company’s impermeable bureaucracy. When he started to become involved in the day to day activities at Ford after the company’s operating officer retired, he found “a lot of lip service and robust PowerPoints but not a lot of action.”
[Full Story: Driven to the Brink / Condé Nast Portfolio]
