Mulally Essay

Mulally’s much sought after corporate cultural revolution was under way following his breakthrough with Mark Fields. People still tended toward the safety of their respective siloes, but the upside of collaboration was quickly evident. The first major success that this breakthrough resulted in was a transformation of Ford’s modeling process system:

The new system…incorporated Volvo’s [then a Ford-owned subsidiary] virtual design system, Ford of Europe’s superior industrial processes, and the more advanced CAD and engineering systems used by the company in North America. The resulting amalgam allowed Ford to simulate every aspect of a new vehicle—from its ride and handling to the manufacturing steps required to build it—before work on the

By dint of sheer will, he created accountability in an organization that had long eschewed it, while also fostering a sense of collaboration and partnership across the leadership spectrum. Perhaps the most interesting of all Mulally’s changes is the corporate culture transformation that laid the foundation for the company to innovate. “Early in his tenure, Mulally made a shocking but accurate statement: ‘We have been going out of business for 40 years,’” Forbes contributing editor Sarah Caldicott notes in her June 2014 essay, “Why Ford's Alan Mulally Is An Innovation CEO For The Record Books.” As Caldicott explains, Mulally’s admission tapped into a sentiment that clearly resonated with Ford employees. It allowed Mulally to change the cost structure of the company by negotiating lower labor rates with the United Auto Workers, knocking off roughly $20/hour to its base costs, yielding a $55/hour rate.” Significant as this concession from the union was, the impact of it, Caldicott argues, would have been significantly muted had Mulally not also modified the manner in which meetings were conducted and the way people interacted with each other on a daily basis. “It has been reported that before Mulally took over,” she writes, “internal meetings at Ford were like mortal combat. Executives regularly looked for vulnerability among their peers and practiced

Segments covered by TaaS include vehicle swapping, predictive and sustainability services, on-board payment systems, and connected telematics. “The next decade will be defined by automation of the automobile, and we see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago,” Mark Fields told an audience at a Palo Alto press conference in August of 2016. “We’re dedicated to putting on the road an autonomous vehicle that can improve safety and solve social and environmental challenges for millions of people – not just those who can afford luxury