Word: fiat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this has a touch of Italian hyperbole, but the point is a serious one as Marchionne, 57, tackles his next big challenge: Chrysler. For at Chrysler, he's moving, just as he did at Fiat, to restructure the organization, overhaul production, revamp the lineup, motivate a beaten-down workforce and deal with prickly shareholders--this time including the U.S. government...
...Marchionne is to succeed, he needs above all to reposition Chrysler from maker of clunky, overpowered gas guzzlers to purveyor of must-own, energy-efficient vehicles. "The challenge for Fiat Chrysler is to move away from popular products and into 'pop' products, full of cool environmental technology and on the right side of history," says Carlo Alberto Carnevale, a professor of strategic management at Bocconi University's business school in Milan and a close watcher of Fiat. "In that sense, it's the same bet as Steve Jobs'. That's why Marchionne uses that metaphor...
...jazz-loving Marchionne, who left Italy as a teenager to move to Canada and for a while lived just across the river from Detroit, is not a micromanager. He declined to be interviewed, but in a first-person account of the Fiat turnaround published in Harvard Business Review, he talked about how he had abandoned the "Great Man model of leadership" that long characterized the Italian firm. Fiat's Great Man was the late Gianni Agnelli, grandson of founder Giovanni, whose family was nothing short of Italian industrial royalty and still controls the firm...
Marchionne has no such regal aspirations. He doesn't even own a soccer team. He's not a flashy dresser, sporting casual, open-necked shirts and spending his free time quietly with family by Lake Geneva. He's at the firm to manage Fiat, not rule it. "My job as CEO is not to make decisions about the business but to set stretch objectives and help our managers work out how to reach them," he wrote. It worked at Marchionne's previous job, as head of a Swiss inspection and verification company called...
Marchionne's most interesting challenge is that Chrysler's new owners, postbankruptcy, are his employees--the United Auto Workers, which holds a 55% stake through its retiree trust fund. His other bosses include the U.S. and Canadian governments, which hold 8% and 2%, respectively. Fiat will start with a 20% stake, which could reach 35% if Chrysler succeeds. "Politics and unions are Marchionne's biggest risks," says Carnevale. "Having politicians on the board of directors will require very complex management...