Alan Mulally spells out the future

Ford CEO Alan Mulally is famously on-message, handing out business-card-size versions of his business plan to all and sundry, including his “One Ford” mantra.

“One Ford” covers a lot of ground, but it's shorthand for Ford becoming a single entity where the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. It's close kin to the concept of building global product platforms that spread costs for product development and parts over the greatest possible volume.

General Motors is pursuing the same strategy. It's just not as good at catchphrases. Remember “Howie Makem” in the book Rivethead? Or the lapel pins with the unachievable market-share number? How about Ignacio Lopez wearing his watch on the wrong wrist?

All kidding aside, a big part of Mulally's genius is that his entire business plan actually fits on a business card. Genius is the right word, in my opinion. In today's attention-deficit-disorder business world, you've got to keep it simple, stupid. Not for nothing, a friend of mine at Mercedes-Benz used to say the opposite impulse is abbreviated MICE: “Make It Complicated, Einstein.”

In addition to those famous “One Ford” business cards, I learned in an informal interview with Mulally at last week's 2011 Consumer Electronics Show that Mulally carries around an entire Pentagon's worth of acronyms and buzzwords in his head.

Without much prompting, Mulally turned the tables on me, grabbed my reporter's notebook and wrote a bunch of them down. “There. There's the whole story,” he said.

Here they are, spelled out where necessary: (Thanks to Karen Hampton, Ford integrated communications director, who translated for me. Mulally outran my ability to keep up after the first couple of acronyms. Besides, he had my notebook.)

Mulally wrote: --- Means:

-- Have fun: “On top of doing all these things, it's important to remember to have fun.”

-- OTHTAM 1/24/25: “Open the Highways to All Mankind,” a quote Mulally attributed to the original Henry Ford, on that date.

-- One Ford: See above.

-- FBF: Ford Brand Focus. Ford dropped a lot of nice-to-have, but not necessary-to-have brands, like Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo.

-- CF SML CUT: Complete Family: Small, Medium, Large; Cars, Utilities, Trucks. Ford was too truck-heavy. It's put a lot more resources into cars and crossovers.

BIC – QGSSV: Best-in-Class – Quality, Green, Safe, Smart, Value

-- Global: See “One Ford” above.

-- SPTRD – CMM: Size Production to the Real Demand and Changing Model Mix. Too many cars and trucks chasing too few customers leads to big incentives.

-- ADONPW+V: Accelerate Development of New Products People Want and Value

-- Finance IB: Finance the plan and Improve Balance Sheet

-- WT: Working Together

-- GP, SB, BW: Great Products, Strong Business, Better World

-- PWTAALGEFAL: People Working Together As A Lean Global Enterprise For Automotive Leadership

By Jim Henry