Culture of Stretch

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10264277.post-1158969426776664902006-09-22T16:20:00.000-07:002007-02-07T07:52:06.596-08:00Culture of StretchOne of the big problems in the stampede to appear perfect is that the truth gets trampled. Ford Motor Company seems to be experiencing this, as the company has watched Toyota take the number two spot in auto sales. It's hard to say whether $80 SUV fill-ups or convoluted and self-deluding language are hurting the company more. First off, "The Way Forward" slogan for this year's turnaround attempt has a kind of misty-eyed but committee-born aftertaste to it: it says nothing other than that the company rather optimistically expects to be around in the future based on F150 truck sales and occasional winners like the new Mustang. It also leaves us to wonder what's in it for the customer, other than the nice but unexciting prospect of having a company around to back its warranty claims. Compared to "The Ultimate Driving Machine," "The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" and "There is No Substitute," "The Way Forward" implies a kind of desperate groping through the corridors of modern automaking, hoping for a light switch before we stumble in the dark and run into something. And no one has yet asked why Ford's embarrassing turnaround slogan is getting more media play than BMW and Lexus' product taglines. I think, perhaps, Ford needs to stop making the inspired communicators park miles away in their imports. Clearly they're spending too much time trudging to the office and missing some important meetings. Next, we talk a lot (maybe too much) in the Idiots book about the power of imperfection, and about how honesty is the Ultimate Attention Getter. It took a new CEO at Ford to get things warmed up a bit, but here's a frightening glimpse of a top executive experiencing this flash of insight, as reported by <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/22/news/companies/ford_mulally/index.htm?postversion=2006092208">CNN/Moneyline</a>: Ford insiders told the paper that financial executives have traditionally had a broad say over the budget, including vehicle programs. That has spurred what some told the paper was a "culture of stretch," in which product-development executives overestimated sales volumes and revenues in order to get vehicle programs approved by finance. Those unrealistic targets caused the company problems down the line, the paper reported. "Now, we're being brutally honest," Cisco Codina, Ford's top sales executive, told the paper. "That's different from what we did a few months back." Brilliant. Who would've thought that inflated sales volume estimates could be such a big deal? And what, in God's name, is a "culture of stretch"? Crap euphemisms like this are a sure sign that things aren't going too well, just as "report card image refurbishment" isn't something you'd want to hear from your oft-truant offspring. It turns out, with Toyota burying us, that we must now rein back a bit on the internal lying that, until quite recently, seemed like a reasonable way to run things. I just watched the old Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt, a few weeks back, enjoying the classic '68 Mustang in its full chase-driven glory. It's time for the company that invented "cool" in the U.S. car market to bury the bull. Tell it like Steve would have.Jon Warshawskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11991139698910125020noreply@blogger.com