Buick GMC general manager quits after nine days...Everyone at GM Has Been Fired (Well Almost)

Ed's Sheep!

Even the 'ink' of my below posting has'nt dried up yet and here goes another one..!

Ed Whitacre, pretty please... Spend an extra 4 hours on top of your 4 and finish this off!

Buick GMC general manager quits after nine days

Robert Snell / The Detroit News

Detroit -- General Motors Co. today confirmed Buick GMC General Manager Michael Richards has quit after nine days on the job. "We wish him the best," said Susan Docherty, GM's vice president of sales, service and marketing, who did not name a replacement.

The confirmation comes less than 24 hours after the surprise retirement of Chevrolet Vice President Brent Dewar, who had been appointed to lead the automaker's largest and most important brand five months ago.

Richards, who departed "to pursue other career opportunities," was most recently vice president of marketing and sales for the global automotive business at Trilogy, based in Austin, Texas. 

Richards, 52, replaced Docherty, who was appointed GM vice president in charge of U.S. sales in October.

Breaking: Everyone at GM Has Been Fired (Well Almost) 

By Daniel Pund | December 10, 2009

Apparently, one Mr. Ed Whitacre makes no idle threats. When he mentioned in a web chat Tuesday that current GM execs have "not long" to prove themselves (with a creepily cheerful emoticon), we didn't now he meant 24-to-48-hours not-long.

Yesterday, GM announced that Chevrolet General Manager Brent Dewar would be retiring April 1, 2010 to "pursue personal interests..." and so forth and so on. He is to be replaced by James Campbell, another current GM staffer.

Now the company is confirming that Michael Richards (pictured above) will be leaving his post as Buick/GMC General Manager to "...pursue other interests..." and so forth and so on. In what must be one of the shortest tenures since we discovered that our job at Taco Bell would entail cleaning the bathrooms, Richards lasted only eight days. The good news there is that Richards probably didn't have time to arrange his favorite Dilbert cartoons and bobble-head collection in his new (old) office. No permanent replacement has been announced but Brian Sweeney, the brands' current sales manager, will serve as interim leader.

The move leaves Bryan Nesbitt, of Cadillac, as the last general manager standing.

Anyway, uh, Happy Holidays.

GM Exec Shuffle

The weirdest story on the automotive web this morning is the shakeup inside General Motors. Chevrolet chief Brent Dewar, who just presented a lot of the message at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show, is stepping down to be replaced by James Campbell, and Buick/GMC's brand-new head is quitting after just eight days in the position. Are these aftershocks of the Henderson resignation, or is Whitacre cleaning house? Whatever the cause, there's a lot going on behind the scenes at GM these days.

Leaders of Chevy, Buick and GMC out... Shake-ups of execs keep coming at GM

BY GREG GARDNER AND BRENT SNAVELY/ FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS

The shake-ups continue at General Motors Co. under the new leadership of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Whitacre.

GM has replaced the head of its critical Chevrolet brand. In addition, it has lost the newly hired head of its challenged Buick and GMC brands.

Chevrolet chief Brent Dewar, a longtime GM executive, will retire April 1, to be replaced by Jim Campbell, who joined GM in 1988 and recently served as head of GM's fleet and commercial business.

Additionally, Michael D. Richards is leaving GM after joining the automaker Dec. 1 as the head of the Buick and GMCbrands, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. No replacement has been named.

A GM spokeswoman declined to comment about the report to the Free Press late Wednesday. 

Whitacre, who assumed the chief executive role after former GM CEO Fritz Henderson resigned Dec. 1., has made it clear that he expects quick progress from all executives.

 Here is our current interpretation of Ed Whitacre, GM Chairman & CEO.../MT

 

Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet Ranked “Among the Best” in Study

According to the latest J.D. Power and Associates Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Study, Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac all were rated “Among the Best” for the overall new vehicle purchase experience.

All GM brands ranked above the industry average and were rated “Better than Most” by the study.

"Our dealers place customers as a top priority and these results clearly prove that we're making progress,” said Susan Docherty, vice president, Sales, Service and Marketing. “As we continue to reinvent the dealership experience, I'm pleased that our Chevy, Buick, GMC and Cadillac brands all finished above average, while some of our largest competitors did not.”

SOURCE: 

Ed Whitacre, pretty please... Spend an extra 4 hours on top of your 4 and finish this off!

At least for a year Ed.... You've done it before in just 4 hours, a big-big change in the top management, last week. Now, keep going for another extra 4 hours on a day and finish it off please. You'll get your clear air(as you put it earlier as one of the few things u needed to get out there and chat) then too to speak to the media to answer questions with no replies!!!. 
Watch your step now, the cake is stale and you may be refreshing only the topping and too bad you are not going to be alone to eat that... Check minimum twice,  i suggest, to find out whether  its only the 'mismanagement' that is in the way of getting things done right. It may very well be even you, yourself in some cases. SO BE CAUTIOUS. And lets keep rolling for at least a year with the current team so that the ones that are being managed will have a chance to get clear air too!( This whole thing reminds of the good book I have read,  'On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. DeLorean')

Chevrolet Gets a New Boss... Again

Brent Dewar hasn't even made it to the 6-month mark as general manager of the Chevrolet brand. Today, though, Susan Docherty, GM's vice president for sales, service and marketing, announced that Dewar will retire effective April 1, 2010.

 Brent Dewar

James Campbell , most recently GM's vice president of fleet and commercial operations, will take his place at the top of Chevrolet.

And how long will Campbell have to show tangible results in his new role. Oh, if we had to guess, we'd say "not long :-)".

 By Erin Riches | December 9, 2009

Brent looks new to me and so is the Chevy Cruze... If this guy is facing a retirement in the next 6 months then what can we say really; other than wish him "bonne voyage" to a cruise off Miami. Thank goodness Bob(Lutz) is staying on....  

I will further-comment:- my self here
The "New" GM seems to have stapled itself to the 'Change is unavoidable' cliche and looks like a bit overdoing it to me. 
Look here, they even changed the name of the change; first thing post-bankruptcy!!! FIRST they named it 

 and 'taped' it on the RennCenter-

Then the next it was(within a  couple of weeks) "ReInvention of GM"

CLICK HERE

If you've gone far enough to change even the 'change' then I am afraid, you will start reinventing the "change fatigue."

Fine, if an organization is once labeled as a "Definitely Needs To Change" one then there can be nothing that stops or slows it. 
BUT usually the 'back bone' stays there all solid and the occuring Tsunami's keep washing away off the top. The objective of the change has to find itself affecting,towards the better, within the dynamics, tools, standards and qualities that are encompassing  the day-to-day routines/ways of doing business. 
Every new leader, be it a team leader at the line, a department head or a manager simply means a "restart button pushed", a "new phase of trial and error" allowance set to be spent or at least a hand brake is being pulled. This is like regenerative braking related to electric motors. Yes, very safe but darn slow to get there! One must be assured that who ever has been appointed to lead must have gone thru the corporate strainer to be there... So why not just try a little more harder to utilise him/her effectively and keep going fast enough if not accelerate.

Change NEEDS to bring in new substance for good and immediate use other than just the person/body replacing the former...

Just leave it to cool off Ed; and let's roll on for a year at least.../MT

Ed Whitacre's Secret Plan To Save GM..??

"Taxpayers looking for answers may have to wait awhile."
Forbes-Editorial

New General Motors Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. was quick to dismiss the automaker's former chief executive after just eight months on the job, saying GM wasn't moving fast enough. But if Whitacre, who took over as CEO while GM searches for a permanent replacement, has a better idea of how to run the company, he's not sharing it publicly.

And for American taxpayers who now own 60% of the automaker by virtue of a $50 billion federal bailout, that's reason to worry. Since forcing out Frederick "Fritz" Henderson as CEO on Dec. 2, Whitacre, the former chairman and chief executive of AT&T ( T - news - people ), has had three opportunities to publicly share his strategy for fixing GM. But instead of demonstrating the kind of public accountability he demands from others within GM, he seems to be avoiding it so far.

Whitacre called a news conference Dec. 2 to announce Henderson's departure, but he refused to take any questions. Then, on Tuesday, he backed out of a conference call with reporters, opting instead for a carefully controlled "Web chat" later the same day, during which he could choose which written questions to answer. He ignored four or five questions about his strategic priorities but did answer when asked where he was (in a conference room at GM's Detroit headquarters, he wrote. "It's kind of cold in here.")

Maybe that explains his icy responses to questions about the challenges GM still faces, five months after emerging from bankruptcy.

No, he's not satisfied with GM's 2009 performance, but he wouldn't share the company's objectives for 2010 sales and market share--"as much as we can get," he wrote.

A stock offering, he wrote, will occur "when we're ready." There are no plans for further job cuts. He does not want a chief operating officer or president to serve as his right-hand man. Negotiations to sell Saab are continuing. The company has "a real good candidate" for chief financial officer. His new management team will be "terrific." The future in Europe looks "great." GM will continue to do well in the Asian market, which is "big and growing."

What he didn't address: exactly how he intends to speed up GM's mission "to design, build and sell the world’s best vehicles” now that he's in charge, or how he'll measure the progress of his newly appointed management team. When asked how long the young cadre of executives has to show results before their jobs are in jeopardy, Whitacre wrote, "Not long. :-)"

Yes, Whitacre and his new board of directors have pushed through some major changes since GM emerged from bankruptcy on July 10. They reversed a decision to sell GM's European Opel division, citing its crucial engineering value. And after pushing out Henderson, Whitacre chose Mark Reuss, an engineer, (not a finance specialist as in the past) to be president of GM's core North American operations.

He's also urged GM to be more aggressive in its marketing efforts, which is yielding results.

But GM, which reported a net loss of $1.15 billion for the shortened third quarter (July 10-Sept. 30), still has a long way to go.

"We want to make this country proud of this company again," said Reuss, who, along with Susan Docherty, vice president of sales and marketing, filled in for Whitacre on the media conference call. "The only way I know how to stabilize this company ... is to make, sell and develop better vehicles than anybody else," Reuss said. "I've told our engineering folks, and now I'm telling everybody in North America, we need to focus on being the best. The words 'competitive' and 'good enough' are gone from our vocabulary."

If GM does that, Reuss said, its other problems "will take care of themselves."


SOURCE: 

Consumer Reports: Cruze most significant car of L.A. car show

Chevrolet Cruze at 2009 LA Auto Show

CLICK BELOW ICON TO LEAD TO A VERY INFORMATIVE CR REPORT ON CHEVY CRUZE