Jack Baruth on Mary Barra
 

From his excellent Substack which you should totally subscribe to.


Why are so many executives worse than a flipped coin?

You could make a zillion dollars just doing the opposite of what she does
Yesterday, we looked at how General Motors has been both careless and greedy with their full-sized truck strategy — and yet other than the Corvette and the Korean outsourced stuff I think it’s fair to say that everything else they do is handled with even less competence than are the trucks. Since then, I’ve been asking myself: Why are so many executives so bad at their jobs?

If a heart surgeon had Mary Barra’s record, he’d have been sued out of business in his first year. A cop or fireman with her judgment would likely be dead by now. Hell, if the kid cooking burgers at McDonald’s got it wrong as often as she does, the franchise would have been pulled. If you take some time and look at every public decision she’s made since taking over as CEO, in addition to evaluating some actions at GM that she must have approved, her record is something like 2 for 30. If every decision ever put to Barra had instead been decided by the flip of a coin, there’s a good mathematical chance that GM would have a Gen4 Volt right now, or engines that don’t blow up, or a sedan that people want to buy, or at least a lot more money in the bank. We’d have a 50 percent chance of not having the showroom-paperweight $whatever_IQ Cadillacs, or the Hummer EV, the first electric car in history to offend people who love electric cars in addition to offending normal people.

Here’s the problem: I don’t think she’s really a stupid person, not in the sense of IQ or ability to understand basic concepts of logic and reason. She’d probably have been a great window-switch engineer. You meet a lot of leaders like that. I worked a couple of steps away from a CEO who was obviously an intelligent, insightful, witty person — but he was unable to resist doing the bidding of other, more forceful men who repeatedly beguiled him into making them rich at his own expense.

There’s something about being a CEO that causes otherwise worthwhile men and women to pick up the Idiot Ball and dance around with it. Their decisions are often obviously wrong to the people on the front lines of the company, but it doesn’t matter. I have a theory about this, to which I’ll return a week from now, but it would be idiotic of me not to let all of you talk about it first, so I can steal your best ideas and say they were mine.

A lot of truth there.

True dat. DEI hire.

Running into the EV fire without a hose.

That may be my best use of that expression to date...

Damn I missed that. He's got a way with words and he doesn't pull punches

Yes, but Fenwickhockey would disagree

It looks like PHEVs/hybrids are back on the table. Maybe GM has at least one ear back on the consumer. Or perhaps that's only because they can't hit expected efficiency targets on trucks/suvs.....

The problem as I see it is that Ms. Berra may be a good administrator, however she may be lacking in real time experience and passion when it comes to automobiles. I have a good feeling that she is relying on experts in the field, but being more than two persons away from a topic will also hamper your decision making. It is this lack of experience and passion in decision making that has caused GM to make serious missteps and to, again, fall behind their serious competitors in certain market segments. Those market segments are within the passenger car product lines.

It is because of the faulted decision to aggressively pursue EV technology that has compromised GM's ability to aggressively compete against Toyota and Honda. To Berra's credit, it was a good decision to aggressively compete in the compact SUV and Cross-over segments, but not to the detriment of their current lines. At this writing, Chevrolet is at a disadvantage, and Buick is in turmoil despite one or two tasteful cross-over offerings. The Cadillac Division is still suffering because of its pricepoints, and for one reason or another not offering products that squarely compete with its competitors.

The golden product line(s) for GM, which is their wisest decision to date, are their standard size pick-up and SUV lines. These products remain as the life bread of the company. GM will need to continue to aggressively market and develop these lines, as their competitors have seem to grow in number.

For GM to persevere in the automotive segment will require a radical change in their thinking and objectives. I believe that the company still has a chance, but the trick will be if they can recognize this in time, and put in real changes in their company's thinking.

solid take. what's the pivot though? where do they go from here?

Would you mind clarifying your thinking a bit? I'm not trying to offend. It comes across as too generically worded. Barra is a career GM lifer.

Competing in "compact SUV and Cross-over"? Are you talking about EVs? Their current lines even before the detriment, how were any standouts?

Cadillac just is not strong enough to 1-for-1 match it's competitors offerings and pricepoints. If you think different, why?

Prioritizing standard(Full)-size pickups and SUV is obvious. Buy what have they done there that's wise, more specifically?

The only thing that I will clarify is the following: Compact SUV and Crossover, meaning the vehicle lines represented by models like TrailBlazer, Traxx, Equinox, Blazer and Traverse. The Traverse's size has expanded since it was launched in '07 or '08, but it is based on a unitized body structure.

Everything else I've mentioned I feel is clear enough whether people will agree or disagree with my sentiments. It is meant as an opinion of mine.

This is a very good question. I stopped short of suggesting that the company hire a new CEO. If Ms. Barra is a true manager, and if the directing managers at GM have been observing the market and the performance of their vehicles, then it should be obvious to them that a different approach to the market is needed.

GM will need to come to terms with their actions and admit that they have not been entirely successful.