Book Review: Car Guys vs. Bean Counters
Bob Lutz, former big kahuna design guy at all three of the Big Three plus BMW, wrote the book and it reflects his ego. Mind you, it's a good read and I recommend it but it's apparent that Bob sees himself as the best thing since sliced bread vis a vis Detroit and car making. The upside of this is he doesn't pull many punches and we get a good bit of information as to the inner workings of auto companies, culture and strategy-wise. The downside is that sometimes he just spouts off without direction or an apparent need to get his facts straight. At one point, he tries to pass off the lame rightwing canard about the Communities Reinvestment Act being the foundation of the economic crisis. That's just Tea Party baloney that's easily and often refuted but he repeats it any way.
In another case, he speaks of the time he spent communicating his particular vision to one and all. Good stuff, right? Well, he can't just leave well enough alone. He goes on to say (and I paraphrase here), "That might be counter to what an 'organizational theorist' would propose that I should have been doing..." First, I'm not sure exactly what an "organizational theorist" is but, for the sake of argument, let's say there are such. I'll go on record with a promise to pay Bob Lutz $100 for every "organizational theorist" he can find who will say that it's better to spend time in one's office poring over spreadsheets than it is communicating the vision to the troops.
Finally, Bob does a lot of whining about the media and Japanese car companies and how Japanese car companies are treated by the media. OK, it's his book...he's allowed some leeway here. But over and over? C'mon.
All that said, reading Bob's book is like sitting with him over beers listening to lots of interesting stories. Usually the stories flow and hang together well, sometimes they don't, but they're pretty interesting on the whole.
It's clear that Bob has great regard for intuition, creativity, playing hunches, experimenting, and bold decisions. He has far less regard for numbers, over-much process, over-much analysis, over-much discussion. He's not altogether wrong in these positions, of course, but I think it would be easy for a design guy to assume that the intuition and gut level decision making appropriate in his field would be applicable to all aspects of the enterprise. There's no question that non-value-added admin processes are waste and that any organization can suffer from "paralysis by analysis". But you can't run the whole place based on hunches and gut feel.
One thing that does come through in Bob's book (and it's not the only good thing but maybe the biggest good thing): Good strategy and a culture that supports good strategy is impossible (or, at least, really difficult) to the extent that you don't love the product. Even if you're selling plain stamped disks, you have to feel that those stamped disks are vital to the well being of society. As soon as you see your own product as a mere commodity in competition with other commodities, you're on the road to ruin. And I'm not talking about blind acceptance of the shortcomings and faults of one's own product. I'm saying that a company has to be vitally interested in the product and the customers' relationship with it if one is going to have an equally vital strategy.
Bob does a good job of relating the manner in which "brand management" (think: toothpaste) and beancounting hurt the auto companies. I'd argue that both approaches come from a false "We just make a commodity" view of the product.
In another case, he speaks of the time he spent communicating his particular vision to one and all. Good stuff, right? Well, he can't just leave well enough alone. He goes on to say (and I paraphrase here), "That might be counter to what an 'organizational theorist' would propose that I should have been doing..." First, I'm not sure exactly what an "organizational theorist" is but, for the sake of argument, let's say there are such. I'll go on record with a promise to pay Bob Lutz $100 for every "organizational theorist" he can find who will say that it's better to spend time in one's office poring over spreadsheets than it is communicating the vision to the troops.
Finally, Bob does a lot of whining about the media and Japanese car companies and how Japanese car companies are treated by the media. OK, it's his book...he's allowed some leeway here. But over and over? C'mon.
All that said, reading Bob's book is like sitting with him over beers listening to lots of interesting stories. Usually the stories flow and hang together well, sometimes they don't, but they're pretty interesting on the whole.
It's clear that Bob has great regard for intuition, creativity, playing hunches, experimenting, and bold decisions. He has far less regard for numbers, over-much process, over-much analysis, over-much discussion. He's not altogether wrong in these positions, of course, but I think it would be easy for a design guy to assume that the intuition and gut level decision making appropriate in his field would be applicable to all aspects of the enterprise. There's no question that non-value-added admin processes are waste and that any organization can suffer from "paralysis by analysis". But you can't run the whole place based on hunches and gut feel.
One thing that does come through in Bob's book (and it's not the only good thing but maybe the biggest good thing): Good strategy and a culture that supports good strategy is impossible (or, at least, really difficult) to the extent that you don't love the product. Even if you're selling plain stamped disks, you have to feel that those stamped disks are vital to the well being of society. As soon as you see your own product as a mere commodity in competition with other commodities, you're on the road to ruin. And I'm not talking about blind acceptance of the shortcomings and faults of one's own product. I'm saying that a company has to be vitally interested in the product and the customers' relationship with it if one is going to have an equally vital strategy.
Bob does a good job of relating the manner in which "brand management" (think: toothpaste) and beancounting hurt the auto companies. I'd argue that both approaches come from a false "We just make a commodity" view of the product.
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