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Friday, December 31, 2010

Do the Little Things Right

Do the little things right and so many things go right, like the big things. Here is a story about a guy who made the little things right and made something happiness that many didn't think could happen.

Alan Mulally is now the president and CEO of Ford Motor Company. When he was hired from Boeing he was top executive there, but was turned down to be the CEO at Boeing. Ford offered him the job as CEO and president and he took it, even thought Ford was considered one of the big three to go out of business.
When Alan started his new job at Ford he took some time to look at the inner workings of Ford. After some time he called a meeting of his top managers and told them to give a report on the status of their area of responsibility.

 

Alan started the meeting by asking some questions, like why do we have so many wiring harnesses for the same car platform. He also brought up many others things that he thought needed to be addressed. It is not important that you know what a wiring harness is or a car platform, but it important to know he saw a lot of waste.

As you might imagine the first meeting was a lengthy one. What came out of the first meeting is that each manager was accountable to keep the organization fully informed of the progress of their group.
The little things mean a lot to Alan and it didn't take long for the management team to understand that. You as a manager had to keep the organization up to date on your team's progress and if it wasn't doing will you had do let everyone know. If you didn't then Alan had the whole Ford management team help you get on track.

Ford went from looking like a loser to being the most admired car manufacture in the United States.
Next time I'll give some of the little things that Alan did to turn Ford into a power house in the automobile business. What Alan taught Ford can help you do the little things right so the big things can happens.

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