Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

•  
  1

  krisnodoubt@...

  11/20/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  CBS Good Morning America did a total hit job with this story check out their site

•  
  2

  rungsun

  11/20/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  Bravo, you're right on target. I could not agree more.

•  
  3

  prmavencolorado

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  Why didn't it occur to at least one of these mental midgets to drive one of their cars to DC? Perhaps a fuel efficient model, to demonstrate that American cars are improving, etc. etc.?

•  
  4

  ennyman

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  I had a beer with a CEO friend last night who put it this way: "These guys are giving CEO's a bad name."
  
  It shows how out of touch people can become when they get away from the street. I am sure it did not enter their minds how this would be perceived.
  
  e.

•  
  5

  jongreer

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  I agree with all of you. In hindsight -- and I admit, this is pure hindsight -- they should have done a rolling caravan of American cars, stopped in all the industrial towns along the way that depend on the business, brought families that have bought 7 generations of Fords or Chryslers to sit in the hearing room, etc.
  
  What I think their performance showed was that they thought it was 'business as usual' for top CEOs, and totally missed the extraordinary change that has happened in this country over the last 2-3 months surrounding the crisis.

•  
  6

  cespinosa

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  Executives of InBev (the guys who just gobbled up Anheuser-Busch)fly COACH.

•  
  7

  Cheryl Wolhar

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  When they sell their private jets and make other business and more personal sacrifices, THEN they can have our money... Oh! and we want to see a detailed plan on EXACTLY how they will spend it.

•  
  8

  ghowe

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  Devil's advocate here.
  
  I don't know about Ford or Chrystler, but GM has made significant cuts and technological developments in the last couple of years (http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/07/news/companies/gm_turnaround.fortune/index.htm).
  
  While flying on private jets at this time is idiotic for PR's sake, it (like massive CEO bonuses and golden parachutes) costs these companies an extremely minute fraction of their total budget.
  
  If companies in a free market economy want the best talent up front (much like baseball teams), they have to shell out the big bucks (http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/10/01/penny-wise_politics). It's been argued that this is the reason we suffer at the hands of incompetent politicians-the real talent stays in the private sector.
  
  To conclude, at least GM has been "tightening its belt and truly economizing" and only deserves a reprimand for its poor grasp of public sentiment...and its overly-generous pension plan.

•  
  9

  jongreer

  11/21/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  I actually agree with ghowe, for the most part. But besides their 'poor grasp of public sentiment' that also acted like coming to Washington was pro forma, rather than a sell job.

•  
  10

  clarkm

  11/24/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  I don't agree with ghowe at all. The argument that you have to pay the big bucks for good talent has been a mainstay argument of the pompous for years, along with the sports analogy. As if these guys are mental athletes accomplishing intellectual feats on a daily basis. Professional athletes make the money they do because precious few people can do what they do and people are willing to pay to see it. I'm sorry, but it is not the same for business leaders. Particularly when you talk about the leaders of failing businesses. And to further make the excuse that GM need only be 'reprimanded for its poor grasp of public sentiment... and it's overly generous pension plan.' As business leaders is your point that they should only be blamed for making the most obvious and egregious mistakes on the simplist of matters like basic PR, not the real difficult ones that they are so highly qualified for? And don't even start with pensions, I've been hearing that excuse for decades. How long till the high-paid genius' actually get that corrected? I'm confident that this nation has at least 100 extremely competent leaders that could be candidates for the top positions at the Big 3, and 10,000 more to fill their ranks. You may argue that point but the evidence strongly supports that it would be hard to do much worse.
  
  The industry needs a major overhaul if it is to survive in the long run not a simple "tightening of the belt and economizing". That is normal business for good companies, not an effective managment initiative for a company that is going in the tank. Helping them out now only prolongs the inevidable.

•  
  11

  ghowe

  11/27/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Big Three Auto Chiefs Fly Into PR Turbulence

  The blame lies with incompetent/misguided boards of directors.