Page 70 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Entering the Organization 55

and job classifications to limit management’s power. And as the unions won
work rules, both management and union increasingly went by the book.
With the advent of the Japanese entering the U.S. car market and the con-
sumers’ desire for higher-mileage, lower-maintenance vehicles, the auto indus-
try had serious competition. By the late 1970s, Ford knew it was in trouble.
Ford Motor Company reacted by undertaking three broad responses to the cri-
sis. First, with a product engineer at the helm, they determined to produce autos
designed according to customer preferences. Second, Ford adopted more effi-
cient manufacturing procedures, such as just-in-time inventory control. Third,
in adopting their Quality Is Job 1 campaign, Ford instituted Quality Circles to
solicit employees’ suggestions and foster union-management cooperation.
Managers were trained to listen to and work with line workers. Through
more active participation in the decision-making process, labor felt greater
responsibility for the quality of the product and the company’s productivity.
Quality improved, and worker productivity increased for the first time in many
years. By 1986, Ford’s profits had outstripped General Motors’ for the first time
in 50 years, and in 1987 and 1988, only Ford, among the four American
automakers, had increased sales over the previous year. Through 1991, only
Ford was maintaining market share, while GM and Chrysler had lost market
share to the Japanese.
Ford had improved its products, but GM thought they had too. No Amer-
ican company committed itself to automation, robots, and technology the way
GM did. But Ford was preeminently committed to empowering employees.
They brought employee input into the manufacturing process, depended on
their input for improving the product, and shared responsibility and credit for
the product. In 2001, Henry Clay Ford was named CEO of Ford, ousting
Jacque Nassar who had angered employees and the Firestone Company after
the firestorm caused by Firestone tire problems. This action put a leader at the
helm who had a reputation for being pro-employee, even pro-union, and who
had said that improving relationships with the UAW union as well as other
employees and constituency groups would be a key to his job going forward. 1
When the recession hit in 2007 to 2010, Ford was the only automaker that
refused bailout money. The company had developed a restructuring plan that
would make certain changes necessary, with the support of their unions, that
would enable it to compete with its Japanese competitors on cost and quality.
Ford and leaders of the UAW announced an agreement on February 23, 2009,