Monday, March 30, 2009

GM Plans Insufficient - Big Surprise?

This should hardly come as a shocker to anyone. GM's management was unable to provide a compelling plan for recovery and Obama has ousted Rick Wagoner as CEO of GM (among many other demands for restructuring).

As far as timing for strategic change management goes, this is way too late in the game. So much needs to be fixed that it was ridiculous for anyone to think that a reasonable plan could be created by the end of March as was originally hoped for.

What I do find strange is that the government is asking GM to cut it's size so dramatically. A staple of government when it comes to politics is usually to save as many jobs as possible, however Wagoner's previous plan (proposed late last year) which "included the selloff of its Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands and the elimination of about 20,000 of the company's 90,000 jobs in the United States by 2012" hardly seems like it would be popular politics, but it's the government that is requesting more drastic action.

Perhaps these dramatic times are forcing politicians to take more hardlines also. I had previously critisized government "investment" in GM, but perhaps the politicians in Washington are trying to keep the angry tax payers at bay with all the recent attention on government deficit spending.

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