I just finished American Icon by Bryce Hoffman, the story of Alan Mulally leaving Boeing to run Ford right before the 2008 financial crisis. I thought it was good. At times it got a bit “through the power of friendship, they figured it out,” which glosses over the fact that the friendship came with laying off oodles of people. But there were a few takeaways I wanted to write down.
1. Structure and the weekly data meeting
When Mulally showed up, Ford was a pile of regional fiefdoms. Ford Europe, Ford of Australia, and North America each built their own cars and guarded their own numbers. He pulled it into “One Ford”: one global product lineup, one leadership team, one set of numbers everyone could see.
The engine behind that was the Business Plan Review, a meeting every Thursday where each exec reported their metrics color-coded green, yellow, or red. The famous story is that for weeks every chart was green while the company was losing billions. Then Mark Fields finally put up a red slide because a tailgate problem had stopped production of the new Edge, and Mulally clapped. After that, the reds started showing up and the team could actually fix things.
It reminded me a lot of Amazon’s weekly business reviews. Same data every week, same format, and nobody gets to hide a problem until it’s too big to ignore.
2. Keep building through the recession
When 2008 hit, everyone was pulling back spending. Mulally kept the pressure on new products: the Fiesta, a shift toward smaller fuel-efficient cars, and EcoBoost engines across the lineup. His bet was that when demand came back, Ford would have the cars people actually wanted and could leapfrog the competition.
And it worked. Pulling back feels like the responsible move in a downturn, but it’s also how you end up a step behind for the next five years.
3. More liquidity than you think, leaner than you think
In late 2006, before anyone knew a crisis was coming, Ford borrowed about $23.5 billion and put up nearly everything as collateral, including the blue oval logo. People thought it was reckless. Two years later, that cash is why Ford could skip the government bailout while GM and Chrysler went through bankruptcy.
The cuts started early too. Aston Martin was sold in 2007 and Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008. Volvo and Mercury went later. That was painful and it cost a lot of people their jobs, and it’s the part the book moves past fastest. But making the cuts early meant Ford didn’t have to make them later on Washington’s terms.
4. People skills
Mulally was relentlessly optimistic, almost to the point of corny. He learned people’s names: executives, plant workers, the folks at the dealership. He’d walk around and actually talk to people. For a company that had spent decades on internal politics, someone who seemed to genuinely like everyone changed the tone of the place.
It’s easy to roll your eyes at that, and I did a few times while reading. But the Thursday meeting only worked because people trusted that showing a red slide wouldn’t get them fired, and that trust came from Mulally himself.
Overall, worth the read if you like business books. Skim the parts where everyone hugs it out.