Sloan's professional style (3)

He has a high standard of honor. He was a Republican all his life, and although he had a crush on Robett Taft, he strongly supported Eisenhower's presidential bid in 1952 because it was the first chance to send a Republican back to the White House. However, when Eisenhower came out to cheer for Senator Jenner of Indiana, Sloan's attitude towards him immediately changed 180 degrees. Jenner publicly denounced Eisenhower's predecessor, General Marshall, as a "traitor." Sloan may not particularly admire Marshall, but Eisenhower's move, which was once promoted by Marshall and has Marshall's support, is so flattering to Jenner, which makes Sloan feel ashamed. Wilson asked Sloan for advice when Eisenhower asked him to be Secretary of Defense. Sloan said: "How can we refuse 'the prince of a nation'? But you'd better watch out for someone stabbed in the back. This man has no principle." Soon after Wilson took office, he realized he needed Eisenhower support. Of course, Wilson never said: "What is good for the general public is what is good for the state." In his personality, it is impossible to say such a thing. What he said is: "What is good for the country is to help the general use." Although it is naive, there is still a difference. Later, someone misused his words. He felt deeply hurt and asked Eisenhower to help him clarify in public, but Eisenhower did not listen. "I'm not surprised at all," Sloan said. "People who are not loyal to their predecessors are not much better for their subordinates."

I am often asked, what is the best "management tool"? The answer: Mr. Sloan's hearing aids. He has been hearing hard for many years. He uses old-fashioned hearing aids with heavy batteries hanging from his chest and a loud speaker on his ear. Before speaking, the switch must be turned off, otherwise it will not only make a deafening sound His voice would be slurred in his own words. Sloan also added an amplifier to the switch, which made a loud noise at the touch of a switch, as if the end of the world was imminent, and everyone present was silent. That's the only way he can lead the meeting, but he doesn't use it until everyone has had their say.

In addition to understanding Sloan's attention and attitude towards people after participating in many general meetings, I also observed one thing: his decision-making style. At one point, GM executives debated whether to expand the parts division after the war. One faction backed up its argument with a lot of numbers and insisted on expanding the department, while the other faction was just as aggressive, arguing that the department should not be expanded and should take a conservative approach. Sloan listened for a long time without saying a word. Then, turning off the hearing aids, he said, "Where is the real focus? Is it about the parts sector, or the future of the American auto industry?"

"You," he turned to the loudest voice in the extended parts sector, "you Saying that we should supply parts to independent manufacturers who can't make their own parts, thinks it's pretty profitable for the company. Yes, it did in the past." He turned to the other side.

"And you, you said that we should only focus on the parts we need for our company and the dealers we deal with. This argument sounds to me, you are thinking about the future of the auto industry in your country, not our parts department. Business, isn't it? Well," Sloan added, "we all agree that it's impossible to sell most of the parts to our major rivals, say Chrysler or Ford. But do we know what the future of independent manufacturers will be? Developments such as Studebaker, Hudson, Packard, Nash and Willys etc? Can you analyze it for me? I have confidence in the parts They must be happy to buy our products, but do they have a business to do?"

"But, Mr. Sloan," said the pros, "we can expect the auto market to continue to be undersupplied. Those independent manufacturers must be able to do well."

"It's exciting to say that," Sloan said, "but have we ever tried to test this hypothesis? If not, test it. ."

A month later, the research report came out, and the results surprised everyone. Those small independent manufacturers, under the rapid growth of the auto market, were not operating well and were about to be swallowed up by large companies; When the market grows slowly and cars maintain a certain elimination rate, there is only a little success.

Sloan said: "Well, now the question is how fast the auto market is growing, is there a lot of demand for cars after the war, or is the auto market not going to grow very fast at all? How much does the demand for cars depend on?

"Yes, Mr. Sloan, we have looked into this. Demand for new cars depends on the number of young people getting their first-time driver's licenses. They usually buy a classic car once they reach the legal age to get a driver's license, and then buy a new car when older or wealthier people get rid of the old car. "

"That's right," Sloan said, "we knew that 20 years ago. What is the rate of population growth in the next 5, 10 to 15 years? "As a result, the teenage population will explode over the next 10 years.

The facts have already made the decision for us," Sloan said. I was wrong. "Only at this point did Sloan abandon the idea of expanding the parts department. It was his own idea.

He rarely makes decisions by counting people or voting, but seeing if everyone understands Situation. At one point, I remember Garrett from PR proposed a big event. Naturally, such a proposal was bound to generate a lot of discussion. Garrett did come prepared, so everyone agreed with the The plan, perhaps even Sloan himself was quite tempted. Everyone thought that the proposal had passed the test, and then Sloan turned off his hearing aids and said, "Do you all agree? "

All the supervisors said in unison, "Yes, Mr. Sloan." "

"Then I'll have to delay this move for a month so everyone can think twice." "After a month, the proposal was either abandoned or had to be heavily revised.

After each meeting, Sloan would write down the key questions on stationery or memo paper and ask, "That's all there is to it." the point? "I asked him again if it would take a lot of time.

"If a decision is so high-level that I need to be involved," he said, "it's better to spend a little more time. If it's not worth it, we'll throw the question back. Mr. Drucker, we don't make too many decisions. No one can make a lot of decisions and do it well. We better understand what we have to decide and all the points about that decision. "

Sloan has always displayed grace and manners to others, including me. He went out of his way to help me, explaining to me his own work and general workings. I must have won his appreciation. Years later, around 1953, he planned to start the Sloan School of Administration at MIT on his own and wanted to hear from me. I talked to him for the better part of a day about his plans Then he said, "Mr. Drucker, you don't mind being a professor at this school, do you? "

Actually, he did not agree with the book "The Concept of Enterprise" at all, and quite rejected it. However, he did not attack this book, but just turned a blind eye, pretending that there is no such book in the world, he never mentioned it, I didn't want anyone to mention my book in front of him. Wilson gave the book as a Christmas present to several friends. Sloan said, "I can't do that, Mr. Wilson. Your friends will think you're vouching for Mr. Drucker's article. "In his own book, Sloan mentions several publications on general, but Sloan does not mention a single word of "The Concept of the Enterprise," a book that specifically discusses Sloan's policy and management philosophy. Years later , Wilson told me that Sloan wanted to show the world a completely different view from me, so he decided to publish a book about his own vision of General Motors and his role.

Outside of Detroit, people who read my book agree that I'm fairly friendly to GM, with little criticism. However, people inside GM don't think so. Most executives feel that I am too critical, and even complain that I have animosity with GM. I am criticizing GM's labor policies, the treatment of foremen, and their inability to decentralize large departments such as Chevrolet and Fisher, and boldly suggest that in another 1/4 century, GM's basic policy must be Readjustment -- to them, it's simply "rebellious." A friend at GM told me half-jokingly, "If you were the GM executive, you'd be banished to the electrical department in Chicago to be with that nonsense guy." Brown was really repaired, though. For example, Bradley told him that for such a book that is "detrimental to general use", it can obviously be blocked, so why do you want to breed tigers?

This may explain Sloan's attitude towards the book, and his intention to write the book is even more obvious - in his eyes, my generics are not really generics. Sloan was rarely bothered by other people's opinions differing from his, but Sloan thought I was dealing with the wrong subject matter. In this book, I have inadvertently established the "discipline of management," but what was important to Sloan was the "professional of managers," as he stated in his book.

Sloan is part of the "boss" generation. At the age of 23, he borrowed $5,000 from his father, who sold coffee, tea and cigars, to buy Hyatt Roller Bearings, a small, financially loss-making company that was on the verge of failure. Boss, turn losses into profits in less than half a year. Sloan sees through the blind spot of the company's founders: The company's products are what the latest, fast cars need, and it's a sizable market. The original ball bearing was designed for locomotives and railway freight cars, and was not suitable for use in automobiles, so Sloan improved it and designed a new ball bearing for automobiles.

Sloan, originally a supplier to Henry Ford, was the boss of Hyatt Corporation Push One before selling the company to a new auto parts group in 1916. After changing hands, he became the largest shareholder of the group, and in 1918, the group was resold to GM, so Sloan became the majority shareholder of GM. In those few years, in the early days of GM, people who had interacted with him, friends and foes, welcomed him as GM's boss, and these people sold their properties to become GM's "shareholders" Or "director", but not "director" or "manager", Sloan handed over GM to "professional managers" to manage, and these managers were also able to get some company stock as a director's bonus. At the same time, large American companies are also undergoing the same changes. In the past, it was the era of "bosses" and "capitalists", but now "professional managers" are taking the lead. It was a major change for Sloan, who also realized he was the first truly professional manager, building the first big business run by professionals.

And Henry Ford was still in the "boss" stage. Sloan then understands why Ford's good times are no longer there, especially in the last 20 years of Ford's leadership. Walter Chrysler also tried to change in his later years, hoping that his company could be transformed from "owner-operated" to "professional management", but unfortunately he died before he was paid and failed to complete this major change. Therefore, Sloan understood why Chrysler was shaky, like It was Adou who couldn't help, not only lost the motivation to rush forward, but also had no sense of direction. However, GM has finally become a "professional" enterprise because of Sloan's role model and his guidance. Therefore, Sloan believes that it is his responsibility to clarify to future generations what a "professional manager" is.

The book "My Days in General" sold well all over the country. It is inevitable that this is a wonderful book. But the book's most intriguing argument, the "professional manager," isn't detailed enough by Sloan, and there are things he deliberately ignores at all. (He does almost everything he does with a clear purpose and thoughtful consideration. That too.)

There are no characters in this book, only names. Brown, Wilson or Bradley, it's all because of a decision or plan, and by the way, Sloan doesn't add an adjective, let alone a compliment, to these flesh-and-blood people. The word "friend" is only used once, in reference to Walter Chrysler, and Sloan, though only a few understatements about his personality, is an exception.

Sloan also made himself invisible. In fact, the title of "My Day at GM" is wrong, it should be "GM under my leadership". The protagonist is GM, not Sloan; Sloan is just the guy who wrote the memo, the initiator of a project, the member of the executive committee, or the guy who went to Germany with a few people to buy an Opel. In fact, the real "Sloan" is a love-hate, dedicated, broad-minded, and extremely entertaining man—and leaves no trace in the books. As mentioned earlier, Flint's General Technical Institute is a major achievement he has spent countless hours creating, but he completely ignores it. He thought it was his "personal" interest, not "professional", so he couldn't escape the fate of deletion. He insisted that editors not include a two-page essay on family, childhood and early life. It was only moments before it went to press that he reluctantly agreed to include a private photo of his father, wife, sister and brother in the picture-filled book. In fact, he is the most family-friendly person. He has been married to his wife for more than 50 years and has always been in love.

Sloan spends most of his time making decisions about personnel, which is not mentioned in the book, where his carefully researched decision-making process is not made public; nor is there any mention of his concerns about car safety. Note that he is actually the most active member of the Automobile Safety Association, and perhaps only the eagle-eyed reader will notice that there is a photo in the book of Sloan attending a meeting of the Automobile Safety Association. He believes that it is necessary to introduce the subject of driving safety into the American high school curriculum, and its importance is no less than the establishment of the General Technical Institute. Sloan's attention to industrial safety has almost reached the point of going crazy. He attaches great importance to the accidents that occur in the factory, and hopes that the general factory can achieve "zero accidents". In order to achieve this goal, he set a rule that any foremen who had an accident in the jurisdiction, as well as the foreman's superiors, were immediately suspended for investigation. If there was a second accident, they would have to be dismissed. Only in the years of the Second World War, when the foreman's union became more powerful, was he a little more lenient, but since then he has not made more concessions.

These events are so extraordinary for Sloan "personally" that they are omitted from the book. Sloan believed that "professionals" should not reveal their interests, beliefs, and personal lives, which he had to separate from work. For Sloan, what is important to the individual and what is professional are two completely different things. I remember he once said to me, "A surgeon will not cut someone else's cecum just because he is good at cutting the cecum or likes to open it. The reason why he does the cecal operation must be based on the diagnosis, and he has to." The reason why Long wrote "My Days in Generic" must be the same.

Sloan is a very politically enthusiastic, partisan, loyal member of the Republican Party. He was one of the founders of the "Liberty League", opposed to Roosevelt and the "New Deal" of 1936, and had a strong hold on Republican candidates until Eisenhower's betrayal of Marshall gave him a chill He is already an 80-year-old man. However, he also does not mention politics at all in the book. In fact, he was the most active member during the New Deal years. "My Days at GM" has only a short mention of Roosevelt by name, a reference to Truman and a long-forgotten Michigan governor, incidentally, in the case of a strike by auto workers against GM. Sloan was also a key member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Chicago Council of World Affairs, not attending meetings until later in life. However, he doesn't mention world events in the book unless it affects GM.

In the years of World War II, Sloan was very concerned about Ford's apparent woes. The death of Henry Ford's son, Ezel, in 1944 left Ford troubled with no successor, the only one who could be counted on was his 26-year-old grandson, Henry Ford II, who was dropped out of college without any Experienced hairy boy. Sloan was so concerned that he negotiated with J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, GM's correspondent banks, to set up a consortium to support Ford and provide them with the necessary funds to Reorganize. I can't say whether this is true or not, but a lot of people do say it.

When Ford II took over the company and planned to make a comeback, he aggressively poached GM. Not only did Sloan take it seriously, he fully supported it. GM's senior executives hated their colleagues who ran away to the enemy's camp, but Sloan happily let them "defect", and also helped them win GM's pension and profit-sharing plans, so that they would not be able to escape after switching jobs. As for any monetary loss. I heard that Sloan also revealed to Bridge, a former GM executive and later Ford president, that he could also dig some untapped talents from GM to Ford. Sloan argues -- it's all about generality. This country can't let Ford die, and if Ford doesn't rise again, the government will take over, which will only hurt GM, so helping Ford is "professional duty". But the topics I focus on, such as the employee community and policy toward unions, are "public duties", not "professional duties."

For my question, Sloan didn't say it had nothing to do with GM's interests, he admitted it was related to GM, but he thought I was stressing these because it would have an impact on the public, but not himself The "professional responsibility" is correct. I hope GM can lead by example and set an example; for Sloan, doing so is "unprofessional," he says: "It's like a surgeon cutting out a healthy cecum to show his students."

In fact, for Sloan, "public duty" is worse than "unprofessional", not only irresponsible, but also an arrogance of power. Once, Sloan and I were at a conference where a top executive of a large corporation said, "We have a responsibility to higher education." Sloan asked, "Do we in the corporate world have the right to dominate higher education? He replied: "Of course not." Sloan said angrily: "Let's not talk about the so-called 'responsibility'. You are a senior executive of a large company, you should know this iron law: 'right' and 'responsibility' should be It is equivalent. If you don't want 'right', and this 'right' does not belong to you, don't talk about responsibility; "

Sloan's management principles are based on this, and this is certainly the first lesson in political theory and political history. "Power without responsibility" is illegal, and so is "responsibility without authority", which will lead to the concentration of power. Sloan wanted his professional managers to have a fair amount of authority and a fair amount of responsibility. Because of this, Sloan restricted the scope of authority to the professional field, and therefore refused to take responsibility for other non-professional parts. He found my book unacceptable for that very reason.

I think Sloan's position is very strong, I couldn't shake it in the past, and I still don't. We can say that the shortcoming of general or corporate management is exactly the kind of clear and strict management responsibility system that Sloan insists on. According to Sloan's criteria for measuring success, that is, market share, profit, and sales, GM is indeed the best model in the past 30 years; but in terms of public evaluation, political acceptance, and world respect, GM is a good example. Big failure, other "professionals", like the medical, legal, and educational worlds in the United States. There are always people who criticize these professional fields for not taking on "public responsibility" and limiting themselves as "professional". The increasingly complex organization of society we live in today means that the "professionals" who run it must take responsibility and work for the public good. No one can do this well except them. History tells us that a pluralistic society cannot rely on the conflict and intersection of "special interests" to generate public welfare and seek public welfare.

Sloan's argument may be too harsh, pure and rigorous, but it still has its value. Today's attacks on the corporate world and on GM are, as Ralph Nader puts it, "anti-business". However, requiring companies to take "public responsibility" was something I could not have imagined when I was writing "The Concept of Business" 30 years ago. Such attacks are tantamount to asking companies to fight for authority while depriving them of their own power. In turn, as Sloan saw it 30 years ago, business and other "interests" will dominate us.

This article is reprinted from the book "The Spectator: Memoirs of Management Master Drucker" with the permission of Huazhang Branch of Machinery Industry Press.

Huazhang Branch of Machinery Industry Press was established in 1995, mainly engaged in the publishing of books in the fields of computer and economic management. With its forward-looking publishing concept, advanced management model and eye-catching market performance, the branch has made "Huazhang" a leading brand in the publishing industry.