Even The Harvard Boys Are Talking About The Viper
- Thread starter Obsidian
- Start date
Performance Junkie
Enthusiast
Thats a great read. Is there more beyond page one....looks like more to come but it wont let me click on the remaining pages. Lutz will be changing the future of automotive propulsion with the Chevy Volt. The guy Rocks. I'm very sure that one day the GTS will be every bit as collectible as the Shelby Cobras are today.
Chuck 98 RT/10
Enthusiast
A quote every bit as true today as it was in 1990.
RedLiner
Enthusiast
Good article Mr. Obsidian!
If I had only listen to my gut instinct in the past, I may not have wasted my time and worked for a few ***** bosses.
Its so true that you gotta go with your gut instinct. Its usually right, even when it comes to judging people.
If I had only listen to my gut instinct in the past, I may not have wasted my time and worked for a few ***** bosses.
Its so true that you gotta go with your gut instinct. Its usually right, even when it comes to judging people.
SylvanSRT
Enthusiast
great read, the article must have been written a while ago, it says he works at Exide, he has been at GM for how long now?
2000_Black_RT10
Enthusiast
A friend wrote up a study on Lutz, he went and forwarded it to Lutz's email address and this was the reply:
Mr. Lutz is in a meeting most of the day and asked that I pass along his
comments regarding your critique of GUTS. He thought the summary was well
done and caught the essential highlights of the book. He also enjoyed your
compilation of quotes and especially liked the one about disruptive people.
He forgot he had said that "even their mothers probably did not like
them".... might have been a little harsh.
Good luck with your studies.
Jim Danahy
Executive Technical Assistant to Robert A. Lutz
Here are the quotes he compiled included in his write-up:
Quotes from Guts – 8 Laws of Business from One of the Most Innovative Business Leaders of Our Time – Robert A. Lutz
QUOTES ON:
Lutz At Berkely California in the 60s – "in a tie-dyed world, Bob lutz was the guy with the buzzcut hair and the polished shoes"
Lutz’s Father mandating Bob join the Marines - reasoning – "he knew a Marine Colonel and in addition to being a great guy, used to walk around on his hands – I think maybe my father thought that all Marines walked on their hands and that any breed of people who can do that must be pretty neat!"
VW Beetle – "Instead of looking at the automotive pie and saying "Well let’s see now, there’s small coupes, there’s large coupes, there’s small sedans and there’s large sedans. In which one of these will we put our new car? VW instead said "We’re defining a new slice". They stepped outside the pie altogether and created a new type of vehicle."
Quality – In the late 90’s Ford had to recall 1.7 million trucks when it was discovered that Ford’s having put too much anticorrosion coating on their lug nuts was creating a small problem: The over-coated nuts were coming loose, causing the wheels to drop off. One imagines conversations with accident investigators that begin, "Well ma’am, the good news is your wheels are entirely corrosion-free. The bad news, though, is that they’re no longer on your car."
Disruptive People - "People who argue too vehemently, who die hard in meetings when overruled, who voice doubt about the direction the company is heading or praise the competition aren’t well-liked by senior management, some peers, and some probably aren’t liked by their mothers"
Teamwork / Idiots - "There’s one other problem endemic to teams – to any aggregation of humanity, really – that I’ve never seen discussed in business schools, in books, in military training, or anywhere else. Yet it’s so demonstrably true that it qualifies almost as a mini-law unto itself: "The percentage of idiots remains constant. The natural statistical scatter seems to provide, at any station of life and in any field of human endeavor, 20 percent who are outstanding, about 60 percent who are average, and 20 percent who you wish you didn’t have. It’s time stop the madness! It’s time to "out" the idiots. It’s time to expose fatuous phonies for what they really are…"
FDH – "I see a dreaded new disease – FDH – sweeping the land. Fat. Dumb. Happy (i.e having a sense of personal well-being totally divorced from reality!) Before FDH claims one more victim, before civilization lists any further toward chaos, before the very planet begins to wobble on its axis, I kindly Dr. Lutz, am going to prescribe an inoculation – (3) prophylactic postulates designed to revive rigor and stiffen standards - Lutz’s Corollaries"
Education – "Right now we are raising a generation of kids who cannot think inside, on top of, under or outside the box. And unless we smarten them up soon, this Generation D (the youngest, dumbest Americans) is going to compromise our country’s ability to compete economically somewhere down the road."
Service – "I wonder why the public, so demanding when it comes to the quality of cars, TV sets, and cameras, is so relaxed when it comes to situations where the product is a service" "If we want services to get better, though, we’re all going to have to be a little less tolerant, a little more courageous, a bit more insistent on accountability – in short, a bit more anal"
Being too Cautious - "What is it with CEO’s? How can people so powerful and so successful be so timid, so reticent, so given to "on the one hand, but on the other hand" waffling? For all too many, it isn’t just that they have no fire in the belly – their pilot light seems to be off!"
Managing – "Management without a leader "manages". It doesn’t lead, it doesn’t drive change. No one wants to stick his neck out. God forbid someone be responsible for making a decision without first getting everybody on board."
Ethics – ask yourself "if this were my very own company, with me personally owning every share of stock, would I be engaging in this activity at this time" If the answer is no – kill it."
Natural Leaders – "Are strong leaders born or trained – both of course, yet there is no question in my mind that almost anyone of normal intelligence – those born with or without these attributes – can be trained to be a far more effective leader than he or she could ever have been naturally. Training makes the bad less awful, the good better, the better best"
Flexibility – "a lot of discussion about leadership style sounds to me like carpenters arguing about whether saws are better than hammers or artists arguing about whether red is better than blue. All styles are potentially useful. Since no two situations are alike, the leader must use whatever style is appropriate."
Communication – "the most effective communicators are those who offer audiences a glimpse of their soul and who engage in the give-and-take. If their gift of gab is their only skill, they’ll never make the grade."
Courage and Tenacity – "All leaders display courage. In Business it usually takes the form of a man or woman being willing to challenge the all-too-seductive groupthink, to take intelligent risk, to accept responsibility – in short, to do the exact opposite of those craven executives who immediately embrace whichever "solution of the moment" seems to be winning!"
Humility and the Common Touch – "I’m suspicious of leaders whose only friends seem to be well-known celebrities (at whatever level of life); it sounds as if they’re members of a support group for the insecure. The leader ought to view himself as different from the troops – but not better"
Integrity – "Fish begin to stink at the head - say the Greeks meaning corruption in an organization usually starts at the top; and it’s true. Leaders must set the tone – morally, ethically, in every other way. You must impress subordinates as being not just as good as they are but better. By better I mean superior in those qualities that entitle a man or woman to lead: intelligence, resolve, tenacity, loyalty to subordinates, and above all, honesty and integrity"
Fairness – every employee must believe he or she is being evaluated purely on merit. "My favorite example of fairness misapplied comes during budget cutting time. Let’s give everyone the same 10 percent cut right across the board so it will be perceived as being fair – how can this be fair when you know some of your direct reports have padded their numbers by 10-15 percent?
Optimism and Esprit de Corps – "When the going gets tough and the situation appears hopeless, that’s when inspirational leadership is the most needed and the most effective"
Command Presence and Bearing – "a body language that is neither cocky nor aggressive, but quietly self-confident, a facial expression that is neither overly friendly nor overtly challenging. A gaze that is steady and focused, respectful, but unflinching. And a posture that doesn’t slouch apologetically or shuffle around or involve hand-wringing or palm-wiping on one’s trousers."
Change - "F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function"
Bob Lutz’s Immutable Laws of Business are as follows:
Mr. Lutz is in a meeting most of the day and asked that I pass along his
comments regarding your critique of GUTS. He thought the summary was well
done and caught the essential highlights of the book. He also enjoyed your
compilation of quotes and especially liked the one about disruptive people.
He forgot he had said that "even their mothers probably did not like
them".... might have been a little harsh.
Good luck with your studies.
Jim Danahy
Executive Technical Assistant to Robert A. Lutz
Here are the quotes he compiled included in his write-up:
Quotes from Guts – 8 Laws of Business from One of the Most Innovative Business Leaders of Our Time – Robert A. Lutz
QUOTES ON:
Lutz At Berkely California in the 60s – "in a tie-dyed world, Bob lutz was the guy with the buzzcut hair and the polished shoes"
Lutz’s Father mandating Bob join the Marines - reasoning – "he knew a Marine Colonel and in addition to being a great guy, used to walk around on his hands – I think maybe my father thought that all Marines walked on their hands and that any breed of people who can do that must be pretty neat!"
VW Beetle – "Instead of looking at the automotive pie and saying "Well let’s see now, there’s small coupes, there’s large coupes, there’s small sedans and there’s large sedans. In which one of these will we put our new car? VW instead said "We’re defining a new slice". They stepped outside the pie altogether and created a new type of vehicle."
Quality – In the late 90’s Ford had to recall 1.7 million trucks when it was discovered that Ford’s having put too much anticorrosion coating on their lug nuts was creating a small problem: The over-coated nuts were coming loose, causing the wheels to drop off. One imagines conversations with accident investigators that begin, "Well ma’am, the good news is your wheels are entirely corrosion-free. The bad news, though, is that they’re no longer on your car."
Disruptive People - "People who argue too vehemently, who die hard in meetings when overruled, who voice doubt about the direction the company is heading or praise the competition aren’t well-liked by senior management, some peers, and some probably aren’t liked by their mothers"
Teamwork / Idiots - "There’s one other problem endemic to teams – to any aggregation of humanity, really – that I’ve never seen discussed in business schools, in books, in military training, or anywhere else. Yet it’s so demonstrably true that it qualifies almost as a mini-law unto itself: "The percentage of idiots remains constant. The natural statistical scatter seems to provide, at any station of life and in any field of human endeavor, 20 percent who are outstanding, about 60 percent who are average, and 20 percent who you wish you didn’t have. It’s time stop the madness! It’s time to "out" the idiots. It’s time to expose fatuous phonies for what they really are…"
FDH – "I see a dreaded new disease – FDH – sweeping the land. Fat. Dumb. Happy (i.e having a sense of personal well-being totally divorced from reality!) Before FDH claims one more victim, before civilization lists any further toward chaos, before the very planet begins to wobble on its axis, I kindly Dr. Lutz, am going to prescribe an inoculation – (3) prophylactic postulates designed to revive rigor and stiffen standards - Lutz’s Corollaries"
Education – "Right now we are raising a generation of kids who cannot think inside, on top of, under or outside the box. And unless we smarten them up soon, this Generation D (the youngest, dumbest Americans) is going to compromise our country’s ability to compete economically somewhere down the road."
Service – "I wonder why the public, so demanding when it comes to the quality of cars, TV sets, and cameras, is so relaxed when it comes to situations where the product is a service" "If we want services to get better, though, we’re all going to have to be a little less tolerant, a little more courageous, a bit more insistent on accountability – in short, a bit more anal"
Being too Cautious - "What is it with CEO’s? How can people so powerful and so successful be so timid, so reticent, so given to "on the one hand, but on the other hand" waffling? For all too many, it isn’t just that they have no fire in the belly – their pilot light seems to be off!"
Managing – "Management without a leader "manages". It doesn’t lead, it doesn’t drive change. No one wants to stick his neck out. God forbid someone be responsible for making a decision without first getting everybody on board."
Ethics – ask yourself "if this were my very own company, with me personally owning every share of stock, would I be engaging in this activity at this time" If the answer is no – kill it."
Natural Leaders – "Are strong leaders born or trained – both of course, yet there is no question in my mind that almost anyone of normal intelligence – those born with or without these attributes – can be trained to be a far more effective leader than he or she could ever have been naturally. Training makes the bad less awful, the good better, the better best"
CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT LEADERS
Flexibility – "a lot of discussion about leadership style sounds to me like carpenters arguing about whether saws are better than hammers or artists arguing about whether red is better than blue. All styles are potentially useful. Since no two situations are alike, the leader must use whatever style is appropriate."
Communication – "the most effective communicators are those who offer audiences a glimpse of their soul and who engage in the give-and-take. If their gift of gab is their only skill, they’ll never make the grade."
Courage and Tenacity – "All leaders display courage. In Business it usually takes the form of a man or woman being willing to challenge the all-too-seductive groupthink, to take intelligent risk, to accept responsibility – in short, to do the exact opposite of those craven executives who immediately embrace whichever "solution of the moment" seems to be winning!"
Humility and the Common Touch – "I’m suspicious of leaders whose only friends seem to be well-known celebrities (at whatever level of life); it sounds as if they’re members of a support group for the insecure. The leader ought to view himself as different from the troops – but not better"
Integrity – "Fish begin to stink at the head - say the Greeks meaning corruption in an organization usually starts at the top; and it’s true. Leaders must set the tone – morally, ethically, in every other way. You must impress subordinates as being not just as good as they are but better. By better I mean superior in those qualities that entitle a man or woman to lead: intelligence, resolve, tenacity, loyalty to subordinates, and above all, honesty and integrity"
Fairness – every employee must believe he or she is being evaluated purely on merit. "My favorite example of fairness misapplied comes during budget cutting time. Let’s give everyone the same 10 percent cut right across the board so it will be perceived as being fair – how can this be fair when you know some of your direct reports have padded their numbers by 10-15 percent?
Optimism and Esprit de Corps – "When the going gets tough and the situation appears hopeless, that’s when inspirational leadership is the most needed and the most effective"
Command Presence and Bearing – "a body language that is neither cocky nor aggressive, but quietly self-confident, a facial expression that is neither overly friendly nor overtly challenging. A gaze that is steady and focused, respectful, but unflinching. And a posture that doesn’t slouch apologetically or shuffle around or involve hand-wringing or palm-wiping on one’s trousers."
Change - "F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function"
Bob Lutz’s Immutable Laws of Business are as follows:
- The customer isn’t always right – mainly because the customer doesn’t always know what they want.
- The primary purpose of business is not to make money – great profits are produced only one way – by great products. Companies that do make a lot of money almost never have a goal to make a lot of money.
- When everyone else is doing it, don’t – Once a company has a successful product, don’t try to copy it. Come up with your own successful product. Examples of fads such as talking cars, or digital speedometers were short-lived and not profitable.
- Too much quality can ruin you – if you focus too much on quality, you may end up either losing sight of customer delight, or even worse, pricing your product out of market acceptance to attain quality, which may not be required or desired.
- Financial controls are bad – tight controls do harm in two ways: jeopardize an organizations ability to exploit big opportunities, and tend to reinforce the status quo.
- Disruptive people are an asset – people who have the confidence to challenge the status quo, as opposed to being "yes men/women" are far more beneficial to an organization; but there is a fine line between disruptive and counterproductive.
- Teamwork isn’t always good – "We can all love one another, but what good is that if the amorous lemmings are all running off the same cliff together?" (Lutz, 2003, p. 105)
Last edited:
Warfang
Enthusiast
We miss u Bob... come back!
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