Sixty to zero : an inside look at the collapse of General Motors, and the Detroit auto industry / Alex Taylor III ; foreword by Mike Jackson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Taylor, Alex, 1945-

Contributor:

Jackson, Mike, 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

General Motors Corporation--Management.

General Motors Corporation.

Automobile industry and trade--Michigan--Detroit--History.

Automobile industry and trade.

Bankruptcy--Michigan--Detroit--History.

Bankruptcy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The collapse of General Motors captured headlines in early 2009, but as Alex Taylor III writes in this in-depth dissection of the automaker's undoing, GM's was a meltdown forty years in the making. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience and insight as an automotive industry reporter, as well as personal relationships with many of the leading players, Taylor reveals the many missteps of GM and its competitors: a refusal to follow market cues and consumer trends; a lack of follow-through on major initiatives; and a history of hesitance, inaction, and failure to learn from mistakes. In the process, he provides lasting lessons for every executive who confronts the challenges of a changing marketplace and global competition. Yet Taylor resists condemning GM's leadership from the privileged view of hindsight. Instead, his account enables the reader to see GM's decline through the eyes of an insider, with the understanding that corporate decision-making at a company as large as General Motors isn't as simple as it may seem. Taylor's book serves as a marvelous case study of one of the United States' premier companies, of which every American quite literally now holds a share.

Contents:

GM at the peak

Growing up in the car-crazy fifties

Cracks in GM's edifice

Insecure colossus: the Roger Smith era

Ford speeds up

The Saturn moonshot

Lee Iacocca, blemishes and all

Bob Stempel and the crisis of '92

Jack Smith's unfinished revolution

Bob Eaton's big score

GM on cruise control

Succession battles at Ford

Wagoner takes over

Nasser, Ford, and Mulally

The legend of Lutz

The uneven legacy of Lee

GM's inexorable collapse

The end of the road.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0-300-15888-2

OCLC:

1024061628