American Icon (16 page)

The Boldest Move Yet

O
n Tuesday, September 5, 2006, the man hired to save Ford Motor Company pulled up to its world headquarters at One American Road in Dearborn in a Land Rover driven by Joe Laymon. Charlie Holleran was in the truck with them. The plan had been to drive into the executive garage and sneak Mulally into the building without anyone noticing. But when Mulally saw the slab of sky-blue glass that housed Ford’s corporate offices gleaming in the late summer sun, he asked Laymon to pull into the main driveway so that he could take it all in. Locals called it the Glass House. A semicircle of flags flapped at its base, each one representing a country where Ford operated. Mulally asked Laymon to circle the parking lot so that he could see all forty-two of them, starting with that of the United States and then following the alphabet to Venezuela. It looked like the United Nations had been picked up and replanted in the middle of Michigan. When it opened in 1956, the edifice was a sparkling tribute to the bright future Ford had come to view as its birthright. To the employees who labored inside, it had since become a reminder of better days that were unlikely to be repeated. But to Mulally, it retained its magic. Mulally tended to see things in epic proportion, and this was no exception.

There it is
, he thought.
An American and global icon!

Mulally had saved Boeing. If he could save Ford, too, he knew he would be regarded as one of the greatest business leaders of his era. Maybe of all time. Mulally had been rolling that thought over like a shiny stone ever since Ford had surprised him with that first
phone call. More than the money, this was what had convinced him to come to Dearborn—this and the desire to make a difference that had driven him since that day forty-four years before when President Kennedy had challenged his generation to do what was hard. Mulally knew that everything he had accomplished would mean little if he failed now. Instead of being remembered as the guy who saved Boeing, he would be the guy who lost Ford. But Mulally banished that thought from his mind as he looked up at the big Blue Oval that crowned the edifice.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

O
nly a handful of people inside World Headquarters knew he was coming.

Bill Ford had begun notifying his senior executives on Friday, September 1, starting with Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair, and then the heads of Ford’s American and international operations. Mulally followed up with calls of his own over the weekend. Ford knew the news would be particularly disappointing to Mark Fields, who was widely viewed as his heir apparent. He was also the man who had been tapped to fix Ford a year earlier. Fields was only forty-five—still young enough to have a shot at the top job once Mulally was done. But the decision to bring in an outside turnaround expert could be seen as an indictment of his own ability to address Ford’s woes.

“Mark, this is the guy who can make you a CEO,” Ford told him. “I really need you to support him. I think he’ll provide the right leadership for the company and help you and your team be successful in continuing the turnaround.”

In truth, Fields was not really surprised. He had noticed the tension at recent board meetings and assumed something was going to have to change soon. He may have been disappointed, but he was also amazed that Ford was willing to put aside his ego and ask for help. So he Googled “Alan Mulally” and started reading up on his new boss.

Mark Schulz, vice president of Ford’s international operations, thought he, too, was in line for the chief executive’s job. When he got the call about Mulally from Bill Ford, he felt slighted. Though he
understood why the board might like the idea of an outside CEO, he took it as a snub to the company’s senior leaders. The message it sent was that none of them was up to the challenge. Now, he realized, he would never have the chance to prove the board wrong.

More executives were notified Tuesday morning. Most were surprised by the news initially. Some said they saw it coming. All of them were moved by Bill Ford’s apparent lack of ego, even if it defied the rules of their world. Power was an end unto itself in the automobile industry, and the idea that someone of Ford’s stature would voluntary give it up was almost unimaginable.

A
t 2:20
P.M.
, Laymon finally pulled into the garage beneath World Headquarters like a smuggler, his eyes darting down the rows of washed and waxed Jaguars and Land Rovers that were the preferred rides of Ford’s executives to make sure none of them was around. Mulally noted the lack of Fords and Lincolns.

Bill Ford was waiting when they pulled up to the entranceway. He was a little surprised to see his new CEO emerge from the Land Rover wearing a blue blazer, olive slacks, a blue button-down shirt, and a yellow tie. This was Dearborn, Michigan, not Silicon Valley. Men still wore suits to work here, as Ford’s own bespoke gray one ably demonstrated. But Mulally was about to establish a new normal. He was wearing what would soon be recognized as his customary uniform. In the days to come he might mix it up a bit with a white shirt and red tie—maybe even gray trousers—but Mulally would not put on a suit, even when he visited the White House.

Waiting next to Bill Ford was Karen Hampton, a young communications executive who would become Mulally’s media handler and minder. She slapped a Blue Oval pin on his lapel and led the two men upstairs for a photo shoot in the company lobby. Once again Mulally was overcome by a sense of history and felt a lump in his throat as he surveyed the Model Ts, Mustangs, and other vintage Fords that filled the marbled main floor. He smiled at a portrait of Henry Ford. Curious employees walked by wondering who the grinning guy was posing with Bill Ford. Holleran knew it was a risk for them to be
seen together before the news was announced, but he needed to get pictures for the press packets his team was putting together upstairs. Mulally, however, had little tolerance for secrets. He wanted to shake hands with everybody who walked by, introduce himself, and ask them what they thought he should do to fix the company.

When they were done, the group hurried into the executive elevator and rode it to the twelfth floor. Mulally followed Ford to his office, which occupied the southeast corner. He pointed to Mulally’s own office just a few steps away in the northeast corner. The two suites were separated only by a waiting room.

“I’ll be right here when you need me,” Ford promised.

The company’s senior executives were crammed into Bill Ford’s private conference room. The overseas chiefs were listening in on speakerphone. At 3:30
P.M.
, Ford and Mulally walked in and the room fell silent. Ford explained that he was resigning as CEO and introduced Mulally as Ford’s new chief executive. As he talked, all eyes were on the Boeing executive. Mulally did his best to smile back, despite the growing intensity of their stares. He had never felt so scrutinized. Mulally thought about shouting, “Boo!” and then telling the serious-looking executives, “Don’t worry—it’s going to be okay.” But he restrained himself.

Fields eyed Mulally’s outfit.

He’s here to meet the press and he’s wearing a sport coat
, the dapper executive thought acidly.
Well, this is sure going to be different
. Fields’ first impression of Mulally was that he was a bit corny. And he was not the only one who felt that way. Mulally’s farm-boy demeanor surprised many in the room.

He doesn’t look like he’ll be a hammer
, thought Ford Credit CEO Mike Bannister. He had gotten the news that morning and Googled Mulally before heading over to Bill Ford’s conference room. Bannister was hoping for somebody with a bit more gravitas. He was fed up with the infighting in Dearborn and thinking about quitting. He liked Mulally but wondered if he was tough enough to do what needed to be done.

Mulally seemed more like a politician to Mark Schulz, who was put off by his backslapping and arm squeezing.

“Why did you leave Boeing?” he asked.

“This is an opportunity for me to help another American and global icon,” Mulally replied.

At least one person rolled his eyes.

It was not a warm reception. Ford’s senior executives were products of a cutthroat corporate culture. Like courtiers of old, they were accustomed to smiling at the new king even as they plotted his demise. Mulally was an outsider whose very presence testified to the fact that Bill Ford had lost all confidence in his management team. It did not take long for someone to note that Mulally knew nothing about the automobile industry.

“We appreciate you coming here from a company like Boeing, but you’ve got to realize that this a very, very capital-intensive business with long product development lead times,” quipped Ford’s chief technical officer, Richard Parry-Jones. “The average car is made up of thousands of different parts, and they all have to work together flawlessly.”

“That’s really interesting,” Mulally replied with a smile. “The typical passenger jet has four
million
parts, and if just one of them fails, the whole thing can fall out of the sky. So I feel pretty comfortable with this.”

That shut them up, but Mulally got the message.

They don’t believe I can do this
, he realized.
I need to convince them that I get this
.

F
ord’s executives were not the only ones who needed convincing. As Mulally met with his new leadership team upstairs, Holleran was meeting with his own team a few floors below in the communications department.

On the previous Wednesday, Holleran had summoned three of his top managers—Hampton, Jon Pepper, and Oscar Suris, a former
Wall Street Journal
reporter who was in charge of corporate media relations—to his office to let them know what was about to happen. They spent the rest of the week putting together the press releases and internal memos announcing Bill Ford’s decision.