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Turning Ford Around with a Weekly Metrics Meeting

When Boeing executive Alan Mullaly was thinking about taking over ailing car manufacturer Ford, he sat down for a secret meeting with Ford board members John Thornton and Irv Hockaday in Hockaday’s private residence in Aspen. Shortly into the conversation the men asked Mullaly about his plan for cutting through the internecine politics in Ford’s Dearborn HQ. Veteran auto journalist Bryce Hoffman recounts this conversation in American Icon:

“Alan, if the board offers you this job and you take it, you need to understand that there are no sacred cows,” Hockaday told Mullaly. “Any friends of [Ford Chairman] Bill [Ford] that are in the wrong positions or you conclude are not the right guys, you can get rid of them — and Bill will confirm that.”

Mullaly shook his head.

“That’s not an issue, because I’m not going to have to get rid of many people,” he replied.

Mulally’s response was a little worrisome to Hockaday and Thornton. They believed the time had come for a little bloodletting at the top of the house in Dearborn. It was concern about the weakness of Ford’s bench that had prompted them to look outside the company for a CEO in the first place.

“How do you come to that conclusion?” Hockaday asked.

Mulally responded by outlining his system of weekly meetings for them, just as he had for Ford. He told them this approach enforced extreme accountability on a weekly basis and left no hiding place for anyone who was not entirely committed to executing his part of the business plan (emphasis mine).

“It’s likely that a l ...

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