...Abstract Since Alan Mulally took over as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Ford Motor Company the business has been transformed into a powerful competitive force in the global automotive industry. An examination of the company’s communications surrounding Mulally’s retirement and the appointment of Mark Fields as the new CEO demonstrate how Ford used positive and candid communications to overcome resistance to the change. Actions as simple as providing verbal and nonverbal cues have a powerful influence on how others perceive a change (Nekoranec & Fourrier, 2013). A proposed alternative communication plan, including the use of more communication channels with increased frequency, would have helped the company address some of the fear and uncertainty among stakeholders. An example of an internal memo is provided to show how the use of positive and supportive descriptions of the change can motivate stakeholders to act as change agents on behalf of an organization by embracing the change and recognizing their essential role in the process. Innovative Change at Ford Motor Company In the past few decades Ford Motor Company has experienced a series of disruptive changes pertaining to the company’s leadership. In 2006, the appointment of Alan Mulally as the company’s Chief Executive Officer prompted extensive changes within the company that served to transform the once struggling organization into a powerful competitor (LeBeau, 2010). Mulally’s communication of a new vision for Ford...
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...culture to effectively reverse an organization that is in a death spiral. Alan Mulally has proven that he has the right ingredients as a leader and has proven it with his turnaround of Ford Motor Company during his tenure starting in 2006 and ending in 2014. Mr. Mulally was an accomplished leader that came to Ford in 2006 after completing a tour in Boeing as the Chief Executive Officer of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes("Allen Mulally", 2014). Setting the stage for success When Mr. Mulally came to Ford in 2006 the company was on hard times. Ford was reporting losses and was facing bankruptcy. Mr. Mulally quickly identified the main causes of Ford's hardship and devise a corporate strategy that address the four main issue he saw. Mr. Mulally identified that everyone from the leaders to the employees were not working together as one team. In addition Ford was not capitalizing on its intellectual property and deep automotive knowledge and skills. As if this was not enough to cause an organization to fail add to it the fact that Ford was building 97 different cars and trucks and was not turning a profit as a whole. Mr. Mulally developed a strategy that he dubbed One Ford which he used as a platform to ground his attacks on the issues that were plaguing the Ford company. Mulally’s One Ford innovation platform consisted of four main points: 1) bring all Ford employees together as a global team; 2) leverage Ford’s unique automotive knowledge and assets; 3) build cars and trucks that...
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...Assignment #3 Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company Alan Mulally is president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company. He also is a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Prior to joining Ford in September 2006, Mulally served as executive vice president of The Boeing Company, and president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In that role, he was responsible for all of the company’s commercial airplane programs and related services. Mulally also was a member of the Boeing Executive Council and served as Boeing’s senior executive in the Pacific Northwest. Mulally was named Boeing’s president of Commercial Airplanes in September 1998. The responsibility of chief executive officer for the business unit was added in March 2001. Previously, Mulally served as president of Boeing Information, Space & Defense Systems and senior vice president of The Boeing Company. Appointed to that role in February 1997, he was responsible for Boeing’s defense, space and government business. Beginning in 1994, Mulally was senior vice president of Airplane Development for Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group, responsible for all airplane development activities, flight test operations, certification and government technical liaison. Earlier, Mulally served as Boeing’s vice president of Engineering...
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...Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company Dr. Lu Leadership and Organizational behavior- BUS520 November 7, 2011 Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company Discuss the role of leadership and how it can impact organizational performance In order for any company to succeed, there needs to be an effective leader to lead the organization in the right direction. The leader must be someone who not only knows about the company and where it needs to go but also how to take its resources (its employees, its equipment) and put it together to come up with a winning formula. The role of leadership is very important and the goals that a company wants to meet will not be attainable without an effective leader. A leader needs to be able to motivate and influence its employees. This is especially true in today’s down economy and highly competitive environment. The organization must look upon its employees to assess the playing field, formulate strategies, and unite organizational managers to work towards the common goals of staying in business, making a profit, and continuously improve market share. In essence, the primary role of a leader in an organization is to draw the road map for the organization to execute – often, this may involve some changes to the way it ran its business in the past. Therefore, the leader is the critical actor in drama of organization change to achieve the goals (Schneider, 1994). To initiate change, an effective leader, manager, director will need...
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...ALAN MULALLY, CEO, FORD MOTOR COMPANY By Pamela Reynolds Strayer University Dr. John Muehl Leadership and Organizational Behavior – BUS 520 Date: [ February 22, 2011 ] INTRODUCTION This paper aims to discuss the leadership implemented in Ford Motor Company under the management of Alan Mulally and to discuss Ford’s performance improvement. I will also attempt to identify and assess Mulally’s leadership style. “Ecclesiastes 9:11- I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” From the early days of my professional life, I learned the significance of goals and objectives in the work place. Most importantly, I learned the importance of effectively communicating them to the people involved in the project(s) to ensure success for all involved. When employees understand the rules and what the goals are, they can not only complete the task but, they will enjoy what they are doing. Someone who enjoys their job will be much more productive than someone who is just trudging through the day doing what they are told. The most efficient organizations are those where individuals take personal pleasure in meeting the goals of the organization. The least efficient organizations are those where individuals don't really care anything about the organization's goals or...
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...Introduction One of the topics that exist since ancient times are leadership, national culture and organizational culture because every nation and country have their culture and need their leaders. Some of the leaders are better than others and because of this reason they manage to govern their countries better and to win advantage for them. Like every country the companies all over the world have their organizational cultures and their leaders. Every company is trying to shape its organizational culture striving to reach its personal goals and because some are better than others they have better products and bigger market shares. The first purpose of this paper is to present the old organizational culture, the old values and leadership style of Ford and how they affected the performance of the company. The second goal of the paper is to show why the need for change came in Ford and how they managed to implement this change into practice. Organisational culture, Leadership and Leadership Style – Definitions One of the possible definitions for organisational culture that exists is as follow: Organisational culture is “the set of shared values, beliefs and norms that influences the way employees think, feel and behave toward each other and toward people outside the organization” (George and Jones, 2012). One of the aspects which are considered in this paper and which is aspect of organisational culture is organizational structure. It can be described as “the pattern of...
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...include Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury (the latter to be dropped later this year). The brands Land Rover, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Volvo were also under the Ford umbrella but have recently been sold off to create a leaner business structure. The company still manufactures a vast array of cars, trucks, vans as well as vehicle chassis and engines at its numerous facilities. Until recently Ford was manufacturing 97 distinct vehicle models, however chief executive Alan Mulally has whittled that down to 40. In a recent Branding Strategy Insider article (Ritson 2009) Mulally claims “Fewer models means better economies of scale and significantly improved profitability, as well as enabling better marketing support for the remaining products and a more coherent segmentation, targeting and positioning approach.” In addition to being streamlined Ford focuses on marques that are successful in each of its global markets. Auto sales provide the bulk of the income but Ford also provides other automotive products and services. For instance Ford’s finance...
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...6 Leadership Tips From Ford CEO Alan Mulally By Ted Reed April 3, 2012 6:58 AM DETROIT (TheStreet) -- Let's just call it "Alan being Alan." Ford's F ebullient CEO, Alan Mulally, is a master of the warm-hearted gesture, of taking a little extra time to make people feel important, enthusiastic and ready to follow him anywhere. At Ford, which he joined in 2006, that course has involved a journey from an economically distressed company, habitually losing money, with debt rated seven levels below investment grade and every asset mortgaged, to emergence in 2011 as a profitable, glowing symbol of the revival of American manufacturing. | Ford CEO, Alan Mulally | In the case of Oakland A's baseball player and potential Hall of Famer Manny Ramirez, the widely used phrase "Manny being Manny" refers to a legion of incidents manifesting relentless obliviousness to his surroundings. In the case of Oakland, Calif., native and celebrity CEO Mulally, the phrase "Alan being Alan" connotes a string of anecdotes in which he engages with people, not only those who are members of the world's wealthy leadership class, but also with everybody else he encounters as he glides through life, answering questions with a smile and a "you betcha." Many of those he encounters come away with stories. Rebecca Lindland, director of research at HIS Global Insight, said that several years ago in a conversation with Mulally, she mentioned that her mother was pleased that Ford was bringing cars...
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...code and sitting in meetings during which you participate in looking for and evaluating hundreds of bugs and potential bugs. Yet Microsoft has no problem in finding and retaining software programmers. Their programmers work horrendously long hours and obsess on the goal of shipping product. From the day new employees begin work at Microsoft, they know they are special and that their employer is special. New hires all have one thing in common—they are smart. The company prides itself on putting all recruits through a gruelling “interview loop,” during which they confront a barrage of brain-teasers by future colleagues to see how well they think. Only the best and the brightest survive to become employees. The company does this because Microsofties truly believe that their company is special. For instance, it has a high tolerance for nonconformity. Would you believe that one software tester comes to work every day dressed in extravagant Victorian outfits? But the underlying theme that unites Microsofties is the belief that the firm has a manifest destiny to change the world. The least consequential decision by a programmer can have an outsized importance when it can effect a new release that might be used by 50 million people. Microsoft employees are famous for putting in long hours. One program manager said, “In my first five years, I was the Microsoft stereotype. I lived on caffeine and vending-machine hamburgers and free beer and 20-hour workdays. . . . I had no life. . ...
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...ASSIGNMENT #3 ALAN MULALLY, CEO FORD MOTOR COMPANY STUDENT: LINDA LANG AUGUST 8, 2010 STRAYER UNIVERSITY BUSINESS 520: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR INSTRUCTOR: CARLENE GRAHAM ALAN MULALLY, CEO – FORD MOTOR COMPANY The Ford Motor Company began its journey in the auto industry with the creation of the 1908 Model T. Henry Ford’s creation of the Model T changed the way in which people transported themselves on a daily basis. This paper will address how an iconic company such as the Ford Motor Company is currently negotiating the issues of organizational performance, leadership style, and goals for the company. Lastly, I will attempt to address the effectives of the changes that the Ford Motor Company has made and continues to assess. Discuss leadership and how it can impact organizational performance. Leadership is, simply put, the art of inspiring and motivating others into motion in order to achieve an aspired goal. The leader sets the direction of action and takes part in the process, whether alone or as a guide to a team, so as to accomplish a set goal. In the world of business transactions, leaders who are successful and effective are those who inevitably increase a business’ productivity. There are so many different styles and models of leadership. Each style or model can be both successful and unsuccessful in reaching goals, contingent upon the context in which the style or model is being used. Reaching the productivity goal is dependent...
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...critique of Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally’s Approach to Decision Making. By Ally M Mukasa Executive Summary Ford Motor Company is a public company founded on June 16 th 1903 by Henry Ford. It is headquartered at Dearborn, Michigan in the United States of America. Its products are mainly automobiles but it also offers automotive finance, vehicle leasing and vehicle servicing. Ford has three divisions which include; Ford, Lincoln and Motocraft. Ford has subsidiaries all over the world. Mr Alan R. Mulally is its president and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr Mulally worked at Boeing. His journey from aerospace to automaker industry was a new challenge but an opportunity for him to prove to the sceptics that an aerospace person can run an automaker. Among the challenges he faced were; the economy in recession, soaring prices of gas, a calcified corporate culture, a general lack of transparency in decision making, fractious divisions, the penchant cycling of executives into new jobs every few years, the problem of pre-meetings that was antiethical to decision-making, and hiding problems. Mulally had to make decisions to address the challenges mentioned. His decision making style is much of directive with low tolerance for ambiguity than behavioural or people-centred. He did not involve Ford staffers below top echelon in decision-making. He downsized the company, closed down underperforming factories, stopped the cycling of executives into new jobs...
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...ALAN MULALLY, CEO – FORD MOTOR COMPANY The Ford Motor Company began its journey in the auto industry with the creation of the 1908 Model T. Henry Ford’s creation of the Model T changed the way in which people transported themselves on a daily basis. This paper will address how an iconic company such as the Ford Motor Company is currently negotiating the issues of organizational performance, leadership style, and goals for the company. Lastly, I will attempt to address the effectives of the changes that the Ford Motor Company has made and continues to assess. Discuss leadership and how it can impact organizational performance. Leadership is, simply put, the art of inspiring and motivating others into motion in order to achieve an aspired goal. The leader sets the direction of action and takes part in the process, whether alone or as a guide to a team, so as to accomplish a set goal. In the world of business transactions, leaders who are successful and effective are those who inevitably increase a business’ productivity. There are so many different styles and models of leadership. Each style or model can be both successful and unsuccessful in reaching goals, contingent upon the context in which the style or model is being used. Reaching the productivity goal is dependent upon the success of the leader to effectively evaluate and motivate the team. In my opinion, after reading the accounts of so many businesses (such as Ford, Campbell’s Soup, DineEquity, and PricewaterhouseCoopers)...
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...found itself floundering, lacking leadership, and near insolvency. It had lost 25% of its market share since 1990 and lagged behind some of its competitors in innovation and design, all the while burdened with drastically increasing legacy and operating costs. The company’s Board of Directors recognized that bold leadership is required if Ford was to be saved. In September 2006, although faced with much skepticism for its decision to seek external candidates for its top job, decided to hire Alan Mulally, an executive from Boeing Corporation without any automotive experience, as its Chief Executive Officer. Eight years later, not only is Ford profitable again and on the path to continued prosperity and growth, but Mr. Mulally is considered as one of the five most significant corporate leaders of the last decade by Forbes magazine (2014), and one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune magazine (2015). Through this case study, I will explore and discuss Mulally’s leadership approach, traits, and attributes, relative to the principles of leadership characteristics and attributes, leadership ethics and values, and leadership behaviors as taught by Bordeaux (2015), and Hughes (2015). Leadership Although there are various definitions for what leadership is, there seems to be common attributes among those who are considered effective leaders, past and present. According to Hughes (2015), “defining leadership as the process of influencing an organized group toward...
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...I. OVERVIEW Allan Mullaly – Ceo FORD 2006-2014 The solution leader’s role is to lead and manage in a complex dynamic world. He is tasked with aligning and or transforming organizational behaviour and performance to accede to the needs of its citizens, customers, shareholders and employees. He must simultaneously grow and maintain, align and adjust their organizations. That is he must achieve sustainable performance and growth through enterprise alignment adaptation and transformation. II. CONTEXT – Mulally has worked for two companies in his professional career. – First was Boeing, which hired him as an engineer in 1969. After nearly 30 years Mulally was made president of the company's Commercial Airplanes division and 3yrs later CEO of that division. – At Boeing, Mulally ran the team that created the company's first all-glass cockpit, with no traditional dials, and implemented a host of other technological advancements. – He was no stranger to pushing the tech envelope – Became president and CEO of Ford, in Sept 2006. 68 years old – 2006 Ford was on the brink of bankruptcy. Posting its the biggest annual loss in its 103-year history—$12.7 billion – When he entered company Ford exhibited the following based on the diagnostic Performance and Behaviour Model o Unattended Environment ( disconnected with industry trends, projections, lacked customer insight o Unclear Direction...
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...General Motors Company (GM) in the last ten years. Events like the global economic recession lead to a deep restructuring of the firm, filling for bankruptcy and a government bailout. The report provides an analysis of GM’s business model, products, the markets it is competing in, the global automotive and manufacturing industry and it also assess its attractiveness for incumbents and new entrants is also With a brief history of GM we evaluate its reaction to the global recession. We compare their business model before, during and after the recession, comprising the strategic and financial implications of their restructuring plan. We provide results from this restructuring, including improvements in GM’s financial ratios like ROA (from 0.05 in 2010 to 0.07 in 2011) and ROE (from 0.23 in 2010 to 0.25 in 2011). While the recession significantly affected GM, it also affected the rest of the automobile industry, including their American competitor Ford Motors. We compare the main differences between these two important companies and analyze the way they reacted to the recession. We also observe the approach that Ford has taken to recovery, in terms of governance, recession reactions and financial branches. The report ends with a conclusion summarizing the key differences between General Motors and Ford Motors, and how these differences influenced their financial performance. We can conclude that the way these two companies compete in the same industry is very different and includes distinctive...
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