Is it just my department or is everywhere in Ford just about making clueless management happy (including never questioning them) and filling the day with fluff?
If you speak the truth, even with the intent to get things done, management doesn't like it. I've never seen such a soft company..
When Bill Ford acknowledges the Ford culture problem, admits he wishes the Ford culture was different, admits he doesn’t know how to fix the culture, and 20+ years later the Ford culture has continually declined ,,,,
That pretty much tells you that Bill does not really want a solution.
All of Mulally’s progress in changing the toxic Ford culture was undone so one can conclude that is what Bill and the Ford family wanted to occur.
If the Ford family really wanted to fix things they could clean house. But that has not happened. It seems they admire the bossholes, underhanded wheeler dealers, and the knife wielding climbers .
OP, all the feel good do good stuff is plain old butt kissing. Those who know this will survive. No point speaking your mind. If you do then you are automatically the bad guy. It's very toxic out there.
This is also what many of my work friends have seen.
"Ford family is key root cause of constant decline over 20 years."
I place most of the blame at the feet of Billy Ford, pretty much since he became Chairman.
The "old timer" has described the problem.
* Is there even a solution? *
Worked in FMCC 1990-2005. It was one of the most disgusting buildings.
The main smoking lounge had big sliding doors into the cafeteria, you could not even eat lunch without a huge dose of second hand smoke. I walked over to WHQ cafeteria for lunch.
There were multiple smoking rooms thru the building. the cube walls and ceilings around the smoking rooms were blackened from the smoke.
There was a exec in the building who smoked and therefore did not want the building to be smoke free.
While I was there people still smoked at their desk because they knew nothing would be done to them.
I hear it has changed now that that exec is no longer in the building.
Calm. I'll tell yah how to get calm. Save your money, invest to the point of financial independence and give that company a PR then give them the boot.
Who would spend $70 a month for a buggy app when there are better free apps?
How much money and resources did Ford spend on developing that app?
How many Lincoln’s are sold a year? $70x100,000 =$700,000 if every single Lincoln buyer subscribed to the app. The reality is less than 10% subscription.
Even at 100% subscription, it doesn’t come close to paying salaries for development and maintenance of the app. Software development is not something Ford is good at.
More reasons we are in trouble: Mary Barra at GM is talking about flying taxies and partnerships that will reduce development costs, we have a new app called Calm that puts people to sleep. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Posters saying you need to do what manager says verbatim without any thought are correct.
Even though we are suppose to “Respect Knowledge over Hierarchy”, if you don’t respect Hierarchy over Knowledge you will be marginalized and then terminated.
One of the crazy things that I observed
A clueless supervisor churned and burned 15 employees and contractors in a 9 month period. She in blamed one person after another for insubordination and not getting work done. Each was terminated. Each had tried to tell the supervisor that what she was doing would never work. Finally the remaining two employees filed complaints with HR, and the supervisor was moved to a role with no reports. HR flagged her file as “Should not be allowed to supervise others”.
Five years later, she managed to get moved under a different area and began supervising people again. Of course the behaviors reappeared and people were getting blamed and then terminated.
She did get SRD, thank heavens.
Why is this stuff allowed to happen? Her spouse was a LL5 and he called in favors for the first promotion and the second reassignment.
Welcome to Ford, where the nutty children run the company into the ground.
Only $100K? Are you even a high school graduate?
Yeah, Dont jinx it!
@1zxb+16XJiY04
@1los+16XJiY04
$100k never felt so easy boys
All aboard the gravy train!!!!
Bring the potatoes and meat loaf!
"Old timer here. In hindsight, there is correlation between increase in clueless management and the chairmanship of Bill Ford. Started about 2000. Clueless management snowballed since. It is clearly exposed when business climate is more challenging. Ford family is key root cause of constant decline over 20 years. Sorry, Bill. You are a truly nice guy."
"It is clearly exposed when business climate is more challenging."
huh?
this company was reeling on it's heels since 17' when they let Mark go and they brought in the dunce.
All the while the U.S. economy was glowing red hot.
Old timer here. In hindsight, there is correlation between increase in clueless management and the chairmanship of Bill Ford. Started about 2000. Clueless management snowballed since. It is clearly exposed when business climate is more challenging. Ford family is key root cause of constant decline over 20 years. Sorry, Bill. You are a truly nice guy.
To the OP:
What a loaded question....
As someone else said "welcome to Ford"
I was personally told by my manager VERBATIM (for the 2nd time , this time around)- "Do what I said". To which I had politely said- "Different perspectives are important you know, and this is just my perspective on the topic, I think I need to know XYZ to do the job the best way"
To which I was told "You dont need that, I need to go to a meeting, dont have time to talk about this, just trust me and do what i said".
I did it her way, and next thing I know my PR for that year said that I need "significant improvement on following instructions".
Two months later I was laid off (2019). At the same time she was transferred to another job with no reporting (she had 4 reports when I worked for her).
Good luck to Ford, I am happy now.
Advice to you if you want to stay at Ford - Do not, I repeat DO NOT, ever say that company needs improvement or question/give perspectives/suggest other things to your manager,,,,, and you will be fine.
Ofcourse not all managers at Ford are like that, but most are.
Head down, mouth shut, and make sure the incompetent management can remain safe in their narcissistic cocoons. Oh...and don't forget to make sure all the new hire children feel happy, fulfilled, and stress free because they can't handle the pace. We are forced to fix their messes while management is busy providing presentations for them on how they can get ahead. Surprisingly info filled with advice on scheduling endless 1x1s, mentor sessions, and zoom check ins. NOTHING about learn your job and do great work. Pretty much tells you all you need to know about Ford and why we fail. This across PD, EPLM, and Team Edison.
HF II and WCF created the culture of boozing on the job at Ford.
This thread pretty much summarizes how dysfunctional the company is. This doesn't even include the politicking and s—ing up layers. And this is why the company is on perpetual slide to zero. As opposed to people being recognized for their professional skills/experience (be it engineering, finance, design, etc) and merit, the company has been reduced to such a low common denominator. When all else fails we blame the "system" that got us here, rather than hold the true decision makers accountable. As opposed to focus on product we have placed more emphasis on the backroom functions like HR. Newsflash, HR even though they attempt to set the procedures for managing people is one of the most dysfunctional organizations in the company. Look no further than Chicago Assembly, and that paints the picture of HR's capabilities. So we can keep on sliding down, truthfully idk who would want us, everyone says Volkswagon, but we offer more liabilities than assets.
In FMCC there were smoking rooms inside the building in the 2000s. Whenever a door to the rooms opened which was often, the smoke billowed out into the adjacent cubicle bays. The ceiling tiles in the cubicle bays were black from the smoke.
Even after the smoking rooms were opened, people still smoked at their desks. Coworkers would have to file a complaint to HR, then the smoker was written up, they walked to the smoking room for a few days, then blazed up at their desk again, HR would have to get involved again. This went on for years.
"Along with throwing phonebooks people smoked at their desks and drank at their desks. This didn’t stop until 2003."
Can't speak to the drinking, but smoking was banned (at least in my building) around 1989.
Along with throwing phonebooks people smoked at their desks and drank at their desks. This didn’t stop until 2003.
Times change. Ford finally got the memo that exposing the entire workforce to second hand smoke was not a great idea. Similarly having workers drunk on the job wasn’t the greatest idea.
Ford was decades behind other companies on having a smoke free, alcohol free and civil workplace.
The civil workplace they are still working on.
Hate it or love it, the underdog's on top
And I'm gon' shine homey until my heart stop
Go 'head envy me, I'm rap's MVP
And I ain't goin' nowhere, so you can get to know me
old guy question: did they throw the white pages or the yellow pages?
young guy question: what's a "phone book"?
@nhy+16XJiY04 You are a traitor and part of the problem as-ole. I don t need to learn which English words are offensive o people from a foreign country, or worry about printing something that compares the USA Constitution incompatibility with the kor-an. This is the greatest country and society or at least was in the drink planet. No stand up and be a big boy not a soy boy toy. Hi
I am sick of all the fluff from the perspective of happy talk without concrete actions, and fru-fru projects, and masses of people milking the system.
Don’t agree on downfalls of all PC. I do not remember the abusive good old boy days fondly.
Not saying the abuse has just gone with the PC - it is just underground and behind doors.
Ford has never been run by grownups. Yelling, screaming, throwing stuff, throwing punches and in general behaving like toddlers In the workplace was common place up until a few years ago. I never Brought my children to the office on Take your kids to work days because the office behaviors were so horrible.
Su*k it up Buttercups!!!
Maybe phone books were thrown but..... people had guts and got things done. Trry drinking out of a hose, lay out in the sun without Sunscreen, don’t expect awards unless you actually achieve something soy boy.
Undoing all the PC C-ap is American, and patriotic. Anything else is undoing American culture which is superior to others. If you don’t like my attitude leave.
I have been hearing the same fear-mongering rhetoric for twenty years. "PC, affirmative action, diversity training"... like its the red scare from the 50's. If that's the hill you want to die on, then maybe you shouldn't be working around others. Try not saying things that are offensive then? Try some empathy for people that live a different life and have different circumstances than you?
Pining for the old days of throwing phone books at others and not having to worry about offending all the 'snowflakes' is pathetic.
PC, affirmative action, diversity training will be the ruin of this Country and all that is in it if we all don’t cast it off as useless shift. We used to agree to disagree, now we are afraid to say or do anything that might offend&&! Why are the H1B foreigners not worried about offending us the citizens of the USA instead of the other way around. I’m tired of this shift how about you?
PC, affirmative action, diversity training will be the ruin of this Country and all that is in it if we all don’t cast it off as useless shift. We used to agree to disagree, now we are afraid to say or do anything that might offend&&! Why are the H1B foreigners not worried about offending us the citizens of the USA instead of the other way around. I’m tired of this shift how about you?
Welcome to Ford Motor Company
Things were way different back in the 90's. Started to get real PC and soft Y2K era. Management underwent a big change.
I remember folks throwing phone books at one another over cubical walls. I was no big deal. They juswt sent them home for the rest of the day and all was good the next day.
We don’t want to cause panic by being truthful that the ship is sinking. And the band plays on...