Page 171 - The Bible On Leadership

Courage 157

A modern leader who faced a hostile environment and an uncertain
journey was Tom Tiller, who at age 29 took over the General Electric
range-building plant in Louisville, Kentucky. The range line was losing
$10 million per year, one of the six production buildings had been
closed, there had been a large downsizing, and the parent company was
not about to begin investing more dollars in a money-losing business
that seemed to have run dry of innovations.
Tiller’s first act was to lay off 400 more employees. But then he
decided to ‘‘go to Jerusalem.’’ He instinctively knew that he had to
look outward to the marketplace for solutions, not inward at an in-
grown, money-losing operation. So Tiller chartered a bus and took
forty employees on a ‘‘caravan’’ to the Kitchen and Bath Show in At-
lanta. They didn’t know exactly what they would do or learn there, but
they knew they needed to acquire a broader view of their industry and
bring back several innovative and actionable ideas.
‘‘We’ve got to do something, and we’ve got to do it fast,’’ Tiller
exhorted his troops. ‘‘We don’t have 142 years to do it.’’ Some might
have called Tiller’s bus expedition foolhardy, not courageous. He had
no idea what he might come back with, but he knew he had to go
somewhere else and do something. If it was the wrong move, he could
always try something else. But his pioneering courage paid off. Within
eighteen months, GE had three new products designed, built, and de-
livered. The range division went from a $10 million loss in 1992 to a
$35 million profit in 1994.
How courageous is Tom Tiller? When GE was having problems with
stove handles that broke off, Tiller made it his priority to design an
‘‘unbreakable handle.’’ How did he prove that it was unbreakable? He
had his photo taken while he stood under a crane that was holding up
a GE range by its handle! 4
Patricia Carrigan was the first female assembly plant manager in the
history of General Motors. That alone took a lot of courage. But she
was faced with a number of extraordinary problems that tested her
courage even further. First there was her background; she had more
years in education than she did in business. Also, the Lakewood plant
outside of Atlanta had been closed for a year and a half prior to her