Word: schrempp
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...Americans' influence with the Germans. He "abdicated," in the words of a DaimlerChrysler official. At a top-management seminar in Seville, Spain, last December, Eaton delivered a passionate speech on the new company and how its leaders had to band together to make it work. The oration left even Schrempp uncharacteristically at a loss for words. But by February the Germans were referring derisively to the speech as "Eaton's farewell...
From the outset, the German obsession with planning has kept everyone on edge. No sooner was the merger announced last May than Schrempp's phalanx of strategic thinkers began issuing reams of organizational flow charts. Every phase was delineated with titles like "synergy tracking"; every group had its weekly meeting schedule, from last year until 2001, when the integration is to be complete. The process is directed by Rudiger Grube, the tireless tactician who helped Schrempp restructure Daimler-Benz...
...Seville conference, American managers politely wondered out loud whether they were wasting time reporting to Grube's PMI teams. Schrempp's response was less than polite. "What?" he barked at one point, gesturing so hard his momentum nearly carried him off the podium. "You have a problem, you call me and we fix it." Schrempp has been convinced all along that unless one side took the initiative, the union would fail. "I must have studied 50 mergers," says Schrempp. "And I learned that to avoid others' mistakes the only answer is speed, speed, speed...
Speed kills careers. In the scrimmage between Germans and Americans for jobs, Schrempp lost his top legal counsel, a senior manufacturing executive and a handful of others. Dennis Pawley, the man who revolutionized Chrysler's manufacturing operations, retired as he had planned--even though Schrempp tried several times to change Pawley's mind. In February and March a series of top Chrysler executives defected to Ford and General Motors. Although company officials have downplayed the departures, they hurt; all were part of the winning team...
...effect, Schrempp may have saved Chrysler. Even before the merger, Lutz and Castaing had resigned, and the camaraderie was fading. "We were in a transition that would have continued, in part because of Bob's age," concedes Stallkamp. "[The merger] gave us a very strong leader and solved the problem sooner rather than later...