Be Different or Be Dead

by Roy Osing

BE DiFFERENT or be dead Blog by Roy Osing

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Excellent post! So often, leaders confuse walking around the office with actually engaging with and serving their employees.  Saying “hello” is not the same as a “serving moment”. 
I love LBSA. It describes an aspect of leadership that is critical to employee growth.  By uncovering the needs of employees and removing barriers to peak performance, the leader is demonstrating empathy.  Through this behavior employees are sure to reach their potential.  Personally, it would motivate me to strive to exceed expectations. 
Excellent post. Thanks for sharing this fantastic approach to leadership.—Jen Kuhn, The Experience Factor

January 31, 2009

BE DiFFERENT or be dead General Motors

OK. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the full page GM ads trying to convince us that they are ‘worthy’. The ‘I’m for GM’ campaign in Canada is a classic PR spin trying to convince people they are a company with redeeming value (not market success). This is a typical ‘I want you to feel good about me’ pitch with a desired outcome of people saying they are for GM in conversations ‘... with friends, in the lunch room, or around the dinner table’. If you talk about them positively GM will feel they are ok. Apparently it matters less that they deliver positive returns to their shareholders.

The ad read ‘What does it mean to say, ‘I’m for GM’?’ It goes on to thank the various Governments who agreed to bail them out on behalf of their ‘... company, employees, suppliers, dealers and ...partners.’ In particular they thank governments for the confidence shown in GM’s commitment to their restructuring. Pandering PR at its best!

They go on to list numerous promises they are making for the future. They describe what GM plans to supply: green technology and 15 hybrids by 2012, an electric car, fuel-efficient technology, green R&D, better quality and safety ratings, and investments in new Canadian vehicles. As an aside, why a 15 hybrid product line over the next few years?

They then go on to list a number of awards and achievements marking their change progress. Looks impressive to the naked eye, but if they are so wonderful why is the Company failing? Nice they achieved the North American car of the Year award; product elegance perhaps with no market. Reminds me of awards given out to Advertising Agencies where success criteria is the creative produced rather that market response.

Finally, they thank their customers for buying more GM vehicles than any other automaker in Canada. If they were the market share leader why couldn’t they make a go of it? Sounds like the telecom business: we had 100% share of the local dial tone market and lost our shirt at it because local service was priced below cost and was subsidized by long distance. At least in our case we could say that this pricing philosophy allowed everyone to have telephone service. What does GM say? What value do their customers get from their market share position?

It’s all very well to criticize but I do have some BE DiFFERENT suggestions for GM. Stay tuned for my next blog. Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 1.31.09 at 09:18 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)