GENERAL MOTORS-

The Giant who THOUGHT he

knew it all….

By: Pranav Gupta

pranav_gupta1@hotmail.c
om
 General Motors (GM) is the world's
largest automaker and has been the
global industry sales leader for 76
years.

– Founded in 1908
– About 2,84,000 employees
– Global headquarters in Detroit
– Manufactures its cars and trucks in 33
countries
 In the Nut Shell…

• Importance of “Execution-as-
learning” over “Execution-as-
efficiency”
• Most executives believe that flawless
execution of operations is the surest
path to customer satisfaction and
positive financial results
• Psychological Safety
 Execution-as-Efficiency
VS
Execution-as-Learning
Execution-as-Efficiency Execution-as-Learning
Leaders provide all the answers Leaders set the directions and
clarify the objectives
Employees follow the direction Employees looks for the answers
New work process development is New work process development
infrequent keeps on evolving
One way feedback Feedback is two ways
Fear is often a part of the work Fact is well understood that fear
environment would inhibit the ability to
experiment and thus the learning
process
 What’s with
Execution-as-Efficiency????
This is an old method of management
that was successful at the time of
“Manufacturing- Dominated era”.
Following were the consequences of the
same:

– Critical information and ideas failed to rise

to the top
– People didn’t have enough time to
learn
– Unhealthy internal competition aroused
– Companies thought they can do no wrong
w.r.t. General Motors….

GM faced a huge loss of $38.7

Billion.
Meanwhile at Toyota….
The world’s largest Automaker

– Established in the year 1937

– Headquartered in Aichi, Nagoya
and Tokyo
– 3,16,121 Employees

followed the management style

which was
The Toyota’s Way had the following
components:

– Adding value to the organization

by developing its people
– Recognizing that continuously
solving root problems drives
organizational learning
Reasons for the failure….

Psychological safety was the

identified reason for the failure of
“The Toyota Concept” in other
companies.
 Why Psychological
Safety????
Psychological safety is crucial,
especially in organizations where

– knowledge constantly changes

– where workers need to collaborate
– where those workers must make
wise decisions without
management intervention
Does Psychological
Safety Hinder
Performance?
Stairway to Heaven….
Organizations that adopt an
Execution-as-Learning model focus
on

– learning faster rather than doing better

than competitors.
– sacrifices shot-term efficiency to gain
insight and respond to novel problems
and attain long term benefits.

There are ways to get there.

• Provide process guidelines

• Provide tools that enable employees

to collaborate in real time
• Collect process data
 Conclusion
No one style of management is the
best for any organizations. It has to
be a mix of both “Execution-as-
learning” and “Execution-as-
efficiency”.
 `

Thank You for

your
patience…..