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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg The changes at Ford initiated by CEO Mulally, a former aerospace guy, have meant the difference between death for the automaker and merely being sick. (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_11/b4123038630999.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Bill_Ford_hands_over_Ford_reigns_to_Boeing_Exec.jpgDavid Kiley – BusinessWeek (businessweek.com) – Mar. 6, 2009

Bill Ford introducing longtime Boeing executive Alan Mulally as the Ford Motor Company's new president and CEO in Sept. of 2006.

Ford’s Mulally is making all the right moves and let us hope he can help Ford survive. -- Ed.

Almost 30 months after Alan R. Mulally left Boeing to become chief executive of Ford Motor, it's still easy to peg him as an industry outsider. Talking to Wall Street analysts in November, Mulally described the debut of the tiny, fuel-sipping Ford Ka at the "Paris Air Show" when he meant the "Paris Motor Show." Earlier this year, Mulally showed how he'd tried to stop appending an airplane doodle to his signature, but struggled to ink a car instead. "Rats. I still haven't got the car down," he said, in the "aw shucks" Kansas delivery that has become as familiar in Detroit as his off-the-rack blazers and shirts...

Of course, Ford remains a very sick company. It lost $14.8 billion in 2008, the most in its 105-year history, and burned through $21.2 billion, or 61%, of its cash hoard. Tanking car sales have made scrap metal of Mulally's 2006 vow to make money this year, and he acknowledges that the best he can hope for is to break even in 2011.

But the man who chose Mulally, Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., says his CEO's progress in shaking up a calcified culture has thus far kept Ford independent and away from the U.S. Treasury's loan window. Under Mulally, decision-making is more transparent, once-fractious divisions are working together, and cars of better quality are moving faster from design studio to showroom. John Casesa, whose Casesa Shapiro consulting firm advises the industry, is impressed, too. "The speed with which Mulally has transformed Ford into a more nimble and healthy operation has been one of the more impressive jobs I've seen," he says. "It probably would have been game over for Ford already but for the changes he has brought."

That Mulally, 63, is the only Big Three CEO who hasn't begged Washington for money is evidence that Ford is better positioned than General Motors and Chrysler to survive and even prosper. So is the fact that Consumer Reports this month recommended 70% of Ford's vehicles, vs. 19% of GM's and none of Chrysler's. The danger is that forces beyond Mulally's control will wash away the progress he has made so far. Mulally, whose optimism can verge on corny, won't countenance negativity. "It's the toughest environment I've ever seen," he says. "But we will make it through if we stick to the plan." ... http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_11/b4123038630999.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis

What's up with guy's tie on the left?! Granted I understand when you tie a tie you want it to come down to your belt and when you sit it's going to come a little lower, but that thing is beyond long.

What's up with guy's tie on the left?! Granted I understand when you tie a tie you want it to come down to your belt and when you sit it's going to come a little lower, but that thing is beyond long.

Making up for other shortcomings? :p

Managers commonly held "pre-meetings," where they schemed how to get their stories straight for higher-ups. It was a classic CYA maneuver and antithetical to problem-solving. Mulally had seen this kind of thing before .... In 1997, Boeing took a $2.7 billion charge when commercial suffered a communications breakdown and failed to match production to rising demand; two assembly lines closed down for a month. When Mulally became CEO of the commercial plane division in 1999, he kicked off a new era of radical transparency that made it harder to hide problems.
But when he saw how Mulally used the data, he became a believer. The team agreed to delay the launch of the F-Series truck by about six weeks, dial down fourth-quarter production by 40%, and focus on clearing out the '08 trucks that had piled up when gas prices soared last summer. The team swallowed hard because delaying the new F-Series, Ford's biggest moneymaker, would worsen already dismal yearend losses. But, says Farley, "we had total consensus that it was the right thing to do."
Now that Ford's far-flung fiefdoms are starting to collaborate, a once wasteful and balkanized vehicle development system is beginning to cohere. To make sure it all runs smoothly, Mulally tapped a Ford veteran, Derrick Kuzak, as his global car development chief, a first for Ford. Kuzak has pushed his people to improve interiors, sold management on small gas-sipping engines that won't cost consumers as much as hybrids, and created huge cost savings by making sure SUVs and trucks share more parts. "He has the confidence of management and people working for him, so he gets the right projects through and the wrong ones stopped," says design consultant Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics. Kuzak's big test comes next year, when the U.S. starts getting the same acclaimed Ford vehicles sold in Europe, rather than the dumbed-down versions of the past.

I'm impressed. A leader that is leading.
Keith