Re: Lee Iacocca and GenI Dak SUVs (was: economics)

From: Andy Levy (andy.levy@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Feb 06 2008 - 22:16:30 EST


On Feb 6, 2008 9:35 PM, <jon@dakota-truck.net> wrote:
>
> Steve Preston <steveophonic@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe the ultimate "correction" will occur when the
> > CEO is chairman only of himself? Well,him and the
> > secretary. Forgot about her. People like Lee Iacocca
> > don't answer their phone!
>
>
> For sure. :-) I recently finished reading a book written
> by a former Chrysler engineer, and in it he mentions that Lee was
> basically treated like royalty. You did not speak to him (avert your
> eyes!), and whenever he visited a plant, they would basically cordon
> off the hallways where he would be walking; bizzare stuff. I don't
> know if any of that was exaggerated, but that is what he wrote.

That's not unique to Chrysler, and my own experience leads me to
believe it was not exaggerated.

At the place where I worked in Syracuse, we got a visit from the
C-level people once (they worked in NYC). Everyone was required to
wear suits, even though we were business casual - because everyone in
NYC wears suits.

They were touring the building; we were given instructions a week in
advance to have our cubes spic & span, NO paper on our desks. Made it
very hard to get anything done.

In short, we were to make the Syracuse office life look like NYC
office life - even though it was nearly the polar opposite.

An advance party went around ahead of the entourage to make sure
everything was clean, then herd each person on the floor into a
receiving line. The entourage would step off the elevator, come around
the floor, shake hands, then disappear.

In the 5 1/2 years I worked there, that group was there for 4 years
(before we got bought out). That event was in my first 6 months. I
never saw them again.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Mar 02 2008 - 02:10:10 EST