英文原文

GM's challenge - Survive and save Detroit
No city in America has been more entwined with the fortunes of a single industry as Detroit with autos. The nicknames "Motor City" and "Motown," coined years ago, have stuck for good reason.

Most of the industry pioneers -- names like Wayne and Hupp, Packard and Maxwell -- have long since disappeared, and foreign automakers are expanding not in Michigan but farther south. Yet Detroit remains the home of the Big Three.

In Detroit, GM is the biggest game in town. Even after Chrysler fled to a northern suburb and Ford (F, Fortune 500) retreated to its Dearborn, Mich., campus, GM doubled down on the city.

In the mid-1990s it moved its headquarters to the city's most prominent landmark on the Detroit River, known appropriately as the Renaissance Center. After the investment of several hundred million dollars, GM's headquarters has become the centerpiece of the city's efforts to revive its downtown and develop its riverfront.

General Motors and Fortune have grown up together too. As Time Inc. founder Henry Luce was creating the modern business magazine at the end of the 1920s, GM was passing Ford to become the world's largest automaker.

In 1930, when -- Depression be damned -- Luce launched Fortune, GM showed its grit by introducing the first Cadillac with a 16-cylinder engine. When GM's legendary CEO Alfred P. Sloan published his landmark memoir, "My Years With General Motors," in 1963, the title page bore the name of his collaborator, a Fortune editor named John McDonald.

With this issue, Fortune commences its contribution to Time Inc.'s "Assignment Detroit" series with a look at two sides of GM: its management under the new leadership of president and CEO Fritz Henderson, and its manufacturing, as seen in the Poletown plant, one of two factories still assembling cars within the Detroit city limits.

Poletown, symbol of decades of strategic misdirection, represents the actions of an arrogant company that still believed, long after it had any reason to, that what was good for GM was good for the city of Detroit and the country.

Henderson's strategy for GM is simple: to focus on the car business again. Past CEOs were distracted by corporate debt and legacy costs, work rules, and franchise laws. Now those concerns have been mostly eliminated, stripped out during the bankruptcy process, and Henderson can apply his energy where it is most needed.

Henderson will be finding out what customers think by going out and talking to them, forcing his executive team to pay more attention to the competition, and applying more intellectual and financial capital to the creation of new products. Board chairman Ed Whitacre has given him his orders: GM needs to generate more revenue and more profit. There is no question where the buck stops.

Now that GM has decided to focus on four brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC -- Henderson's challenge is to persuade customers to take a look at them. The new model to watch next year won't be the overpriced Chevy Volt but a small car called the Chevy Cruze.

Since the 1960s GM has failed to build a small car that could compete with foreign brands. If it can't compete with the Cruze, it might as well throw in the towel. So far, reports on its design, fit, and finish are encouraging.

Henderson's biggest challenge is to find a way to change GM's thinking. Bankruptcy notwithstanding, there remains a tendency to explain away shortcomings.

GM could use some outside talent, but so far it has found none. Henderson promises to recruit managers from other companies but says government restrictions on compensation have prevented him from doing so.

GM's CEO won't like to hear it, but he could learn a thing or two from Alan Mulally, his competitor across town at Ford. Mulally has identified a clear vision of the future, gotten his managers behind it, and created a no-excuses culture. Ford executives today are dealing with the world as it is, not as they wish it would be.

Can Henderson do it? Yes, he can. I have never met an executive who was better prepared for his job. But can GM do it? There, I'm not so sure. With a few exceptions, there haven't been enough signs of fresh thinking or new ways to convince me that the new GM is a winner. All the ingredients are there, but they have to be successfully mobilized for GM to succeed. For the sake of Detroit, all of America should hope that it does.

中文翻译

底特律与汽车行业的命运息息相关，美国没有哪座城市像它这样与单个行业的命运联系如此紧密。于数年前创造出的绰号“汽车城”（"Motor City"）和“汽车镇”（"Motown"）流传至今并非无缘无故。

汽车行业内大部分先锋——例如Wayne and Hupp以及Packard and Maxwell等——很久以前就不复存在，而外国汽车制造商不在密歇根州，而是在更南部扩张。不过底特律仍然是三巨头（Big Three）的大本营。

在底特律，通用汽车（GM）是最大的公司。即便当克莱斯勒（Chrysler）逃往北部郊区而福特（Ford）撤退到其位于密歇根州迪尔伯恩的地盘，通用汽车还是加大了在底特律城的投资。

在上世纪90年代中期，通用汽车将其总部搬到底特律市底特律河最著名的地标建筑——复兴中心（Renaissance Center），这个名字可谓恰如其分。在投资数亿美元后，通用汽车的总部已成为底特律市复兴其商业区、开发其河畔地区之努力的主要成果。

通用汽车和《财富》（Fortune）已经一同成长。上世纪20年代末，时代公司（Time Inc.）创始人亨利•卢斯（Henry Luce）筹办这本现代商业杂志之时，通用汽车正超越福特成为世界第一大汽车制造商。

1930年——该死的大萧条，卢斯创办《财富》，同年，通用汽车推出第一款配置了16缸引擎的凯迪拉克，展现出极大的勇气。当通用汽车传奇性的首席执行官艾尔弗雷德•P•斯隆（Alfred P. Sloan）于1963年出版其标志性的回忆录《我在通用汽车的日子》（"My Years With General Motors"），封面页上印有其合作者——《财富》一位名为约翰•麦克唐纳（John McDonald）的编辑——的名字。

从这本书开始，《财富》开始促成时代公司的“底特律任务”（"Assignment Detroit"）系列，从两方面来审视通用汽车：其在新任总裁兼首席执行官韩德胜（Fritz Henderson）领导下的管理，以及其制造业——如在波兰镇工厂中所见。波兰镇工厂为仍在底特律城边界内组装汽车的两家工厂之一。

波兰镇是数十年战略错误的标志，代表了通用汽车这家傲慢的公司之行为，该公司仍然相信——尽管它早没有任何理由这么做——对通用汽车好的就是对底特律城乃至美国好的。

韩德胜为通用汽车制定的战略很简单：再次致力于汽车业务。过去的首席执行官被公司债务、遗留成本、工作规章以及特许权法分散了注意力。现在，上述忧虑大都在破产过程中被消除，因此韩德胜可将其精力用于最需要的地方。

韩德胜将通过出去与顾客交谈了解他们的想法；将强迫其高管团队更多的关注竞争对手；还会将更多的智力和财务资本应用于创造新产品。董事长埃德•惠特克（Ed Whitacre）已经向韩德胜下达了他的命令：通用汽车需要创造更多的收入和利润。责任在谁毫无疑问。

既然通用汽车已经决定专注于四个品牌——雪佛兰（Chevrolet）、凯迪拉克、别克（Buick）和GMC——韩德胜面临的挑战在于说服顾客考虑上述品牌。明年值得关注的新车型将不是标价过高的雪佛兰Volt，而是一款名为雪佛兰科鲁兹（Cruze）的小型车。

自上世纪60年代以来，通用汽车一直未能打造出一款可与外国品牌抗衡的小型车。假如这款科鲁兹还是不具竞争力，通用汽车还不如直接认输。不过，迄今为止，关于科鲁兹的设计、配备以及精加工的报道都令人鼓舞。

韩德胜最大的挑战在于找到改变通用汽车思维的方法。尽管已经历破产，但通用汽车仍然惯于为任何缺点辩解。

通用汽车可以启用一些外部人才，但目前它一位都没找到。韩德胜承诺从其它公司招聘经理人，但他表示美国政府对薪酬的限制使他无法招募人才。

通用汽车的首席执行官不会喜欢听下面这话，不过他确实能从艾伦•穆拉利（Alan Mulally）——在城市那头的福特公司里韩德胜的竞争者——身上学一两招。穆拉利为将来确定了清晰的愿景，使该公司经理人接受了此愿景，并创造出不找借口的文化。现在，福特高管正应对真实的世界，而不是他们所希望的世界。

韩德胜能做到上述这些吗？是的，他没问题。他是我遇到过的最适合该职位的高管。但通用汽车能做到这些吗？关于这一点，我不太确定。除了少数例外，尚没有足够多的新思维或新方法的迹象令我相信新通用汽车是赢家。所有要素都齐全了，但通用汽车要获得成功，必须成功的调动这些要素。为了底特律，所有美国人都应该希望通用汽车成功做到这一点。