No one who is actually a success in their career works here.
Anyone with an ounce of ambition realizes this and makes a plan to leave as soon as possible. Otherwise they risk ruining the rest of career by severe stagnation
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@3stt the lore of Henry I is often overdone. He did a fantastic job with the Model T and all it entailed but couldn’t see past the Model T and would have bankrupted the company with his obsession with continuing to making only the Model T as efficiently as possible.
Grandparents long gone would tell us of Henry I flying into a rage and destroying any innovation / modernization that workers came up with. Of course looking back you can see his mental health and acuity was deteriorating and he was having a series of strokes.
The Ford toxic culture was alive and well when Henry I and his henchmen were battling against Edsel’s attempt to modernize FoMoCo. In the end it was the FoMoCo family women Clara and Eleanor who saved FoMoCo from Henry I and installed Henry II as CEO. Notably the first thing Henry I did was fire Harry Bennett (Henry I’s henchman)
No person is without flaws and it is quite difficult to see your own deterioration
Is ford the next Packard, American motors, 1998 Chrysler, 2009 gm (the end of Durant gm)? Is ford shrinking or growing?
I don't think Ford has ever been an A company, even when there were A players in it. Since the biggest decisions in the company have been taken by the Ford family, and after ol' Henry no Ford family member had a good head for business, this company always trailed others.
However, at some points in its history, the Ford company was a solid B+ player. The Ford family allowed many good decisions to happen, making the Ford brand a decent one. Then it came Billy the kid to take the reigns of the company and all went to he-l.
I call him Billy the kid not because of some parallel with the Wild West gunslinger legend, but because Bill Ford truly has the brains of a kid. His ignorance of how the world works, believing in magic, hope, dreams instead of science, and his never ending search for glory, almost doomed the company in 2006, and it seems we are again in the same path of destruction.
The company is right now in the toilet. Forget about a mediocre company with C players, this is now one of the Circles of He-l. Most of the A players left (or were kicked out), the B and C players are now D players, holding their quality work because of fear or anger.
Come on, mostly University of Michigan top notch folks working here !
Get a clue...
Ford in no way has top-level leadership. They don't understand what the low-level employees do because they don't care. LL6's are only looking to move up the chain, and their only desire is to have the GSRs make them look better.
Ford is filled with mediocrity because they let the brightest go already. I've worked with people who had no clue what they were doing, asking 20 questions per day. I was doing their job and mine.
I don’t understand the claims that Ford has top quality leadership. Recall after recall, employee moral in the toilet, firing many of their best people… These are not the results expected from great leadership.
Truer words never more spoken. I stayed 20 years to long as a GSR, and I have paid the price. SIRP’d last year, and while I was able to find employment, it was the same old cr-p I always did at Ford.
Ford does not value deep specialization nor has much s career plan for those that want to become experts in afield; instead wants everyone to become generalists which leads to career stagnation.
@1hwq OMG same types of experiences as a child and at Ford. Only my father told me I could not quit the team and to just focus on just having fun and making friends. He spent his whole career making money as a cog to provide for the family. His passions where he could excel and perfect his talents were his hobbies.
I think to be at Ford long term you can’t care about your skill level or work quality - just focus on bringing home a paycheck. Mediocrity rules at Ford.
C level? Are you talking about the GSR employees or leadership?
Saying leadership is C level holds no water. Ford has hired some of the best outside talent from high tech companies in the past few years.
When I was a kid, we moved to a new town and I ended up playing one season on a baseball team below my talent level. I was never more miserable. Almost made me want to quit the sport. Parents and I started making a plan to leave and find a new team only a month in. I have had the same sinking feeling with Ford the last year. "The team" is not improving and at this point, I'm not even sure we can be relegated to another division!
Company right now needs some sound and rational engineers to make durable design decisions. How about some refreshing vehicle looks?