Ben:   Hello,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  thank  you  very  much  for  joining  us  for  the  very  first  session  of  the  WBECS  2015  Full  Summit  Session,  and  we  have  an  incredible  session  to  kick  off  this  year’s  summit.    Today  we  have,  joining  us,  Alan  Mullaly,  together  with  Marshall  Goldsmith.    We’ll  be  having  a  super  conversation  for  you  to  listen  in.    Alan  is  an  American  engineer,  business  executive,  and  former  president  and  chief  executive  officer  of  the  Ford  Motor  Company.    He  retired  from  Ford  Motor  Company  on  July  1st,  2014.    Ford  had  been  struggling  during  the  late  2000’s  recession,  and  it  returned  to  profitability  under  Mullaly,  and  was  the  only  American  major  car  manufacturer  to  avoid  the  bailout  fund  provided  by  the  government.    Mullaly’s  achievements  at  Ford  are  chronicled  in  the  book  An  American  Icon:  Alan  Mullaly  and  the  Fight  to  Save  Ford  Motor  Company,  by  Bryce  G.  Hoffman,  published  in  2012.    On  the  15th  of  July,  2014,  he  was  appointed  to  the  Google  board  of  directors.    And  joining  Alan,  we  have  Dr.  Marshall  Goldsmith.    Marshall  has  been  recognized  as  one  of  the  top  10  most  influential  business  thinkers  in  the  world,  and  the  top-­‐ranked  executive  coach,  at  the  biannual  Thinkers50  Awards  Ceremony  in  London.    Marshall  is  the  author  or  editor  of  35  books,  which  have  sold  well  over  2  million  copies  and  been  translated  into  30  languages.      He  has  a  host  of  awards,  which  you  can  find  on  his  Wikipedia.    And  his  new  book,  Triggers,  will  be  published  on  the  19th  of  May,  2015.    He  is  one  of  a  select  few  executive  advisors  who  has  been  asked  to  work  with  over  150  major  CEOs  and  their  management  teams.    Now,  I  don’t  want  to  take  up  any  more  time,  so  I’m  going  to  hand  it  straight  over  to  Dr.  Marshall  Goldsmith.    Over  to  you,  Marshall.    Marshall:   Thank  you  so  much,  Ben.    And  it’s  my  honor  to  be  here  today,  and  I  really  want  to  thank  Alan.    Alan’s  mission  in  life  is  really  to  make  a  positive  difference  in  the  world,  and  both  of  us  feel  very  honored  to  be  able  to  talk  to  literally  thousands  of  coaches,  because  you  people  are  trying  to  help  all  kinds  of  other  people,  and  if  we  can  help  you  just  a  little  bit,  that’s  fantastic.    I  really  want  to  thank  Alan  for  taking  his  valuable  time  to  really  try  to  help  the  coaches  listening  in  on  this  call.    My  brief  introduction  of  Alan  is  that  I  met  Alan  when  he  was  at  Boeing.    In  theory,  I  was  supposed  to  be  his  coach,  but  in  practice  I’ve  learned  about  maybe  10  or  20  times  as  much  from  him  as  he  ever  learned  from  me.    He  has  been  such  an  inspiration  to  me  in  my  life,  and  has  made  a  huge  difference  for  my  coaching.    I  feel  I  am  so  much  better  of  a  coach,  just  because  I’ve  known  him  and  all  the  great  things  he’s  taught  me  about  working  with  great  people  and  making  it  about  the  client,  not  yourself.    A  couple  of  other  points  about  Alan  before  we  begin—he  was  ranked  in  Fortune  magazine  last  year  as  the  #3  greatest  leader  in  the  world.    He  was  defeated  by  the  Pope  and  Angela  Merkel,  but  #3  in  the  world  is  not  bad.    And  he  has  also  been  ranked  as  CEO  of  the  Year  in  the  United  States.    And  one  other  thing  I  think  is  even  more  impressive—when  he  left  Ford,  he  had  a  97%  approval  rating  as  the  CEO  of  a  unionized  company,  which,  as  you  know—in  any  union  company,  the  CEO  is  often  not  loved.    To  get  a  97%  approval  rating  is  just  unbelievable.    

I’ve  met  many  leaders  in  my  life,  and  I  have  to  say,  I  have  never  met—well,  with  one  exception.    Frances  Hesselbein,  my  good  friend,  and  Alan  are  the  two  I  always  put  up  as  just  the  greatest  leaders  I’ve  ever  met.    So,  Alan,  thank  you  very  much  for  joining  us.    Alan:   You’re  welcome.    Marshall:   Now,  Alan,  let’s  begin.    When  you  went  to  Ford,  one  of  the  first  things  you  did  is  really  focus  on  leadership  behavior  and  team  behavior.    You  put  together  a  wonderful  business  plan  and  review  process.    Give  us  a  little  of  your  history  first.    Talk  about  your  life  at  Boeing,  your  history,  how  you  got  to  Ford,  and  then  we’ll  talk  about  some  of  the  great  things  you  did  in  terms  of  changing  leadership  behavior  and  the  business  plan  and  review  process.    So,  start  from  Boeing  days.    Alan:   Well,  sure.    I’d  be  glad  to  share  these  experiences.    I  grew  up  in  the  Midwest  of  the  United  States,  and  I  earned  my  Master’s  and  Bachelor’s  degree  in  Aeronautical  and  Astronautical  Engineering  at  the  University  of  Kansas,  and  then,  a  little  later  on,  my  Master’s  in  Business  from  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.    My  thesis  advisor  in  college  was  the  previous  head  of  aerodynamics  for  the  Boeing  company  that’s  headquartered  in  Seattle,  Washington,  the  largest  commercial  airplane  company  in  the  world.    And  we  had  some  contract  work  with  them.    He  took  me  to  Seattle.    I  had  a  chance  to  meet  all  these  fabulous,  talented  engineers  that  create  the  finest  airplanes  in  the  world  to  get  people  together  around  the  world,  and  I  knew  I  found  my  love  in  Boeing.    I  had  a  chance  to  serve  on  the  design  team  of  every  Boeing  airplane,  the  707,  727,  737,  747—I  was  the  leader  for  the  cockpit  and  the  flight  management  systems  on  the  757  and  the  767  airplanes,  and  then  I  was  the  chief  engineer,  and  the  director  of  engineering,  and  then  the  program  manager,  for  the  777  airplane.    And  then,  I  was  on  the  launch  team  for  the  787.    And  so,  each  airplane  had  a  point  of  view  about  the  future.      It  was  all  about  safe  and  efficient  transportation.    These  airplanes  have  nearly  4  million  parts.    They’re  one  of  the  most  sophisticated  vehicles  in  the  world.    They  fly  people  around  the  world  safely  and  efficiently.    And  at  the  peak,  when  you’re  designing  a  new  airplane,  you  have  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  literally  millions,  of  people,  working  on  the  design  of  these  fabulous  airplanes.    So,  it’s  very  important  that  everybody  knows  what  the  plan  is  for  the  plane.    They  know  what  the  strategy  is.    They  know  the  schedule.    And  then,  it’s  also  really  important  that,  as  you  progress  on  the  airplane  designs,  everybody  knows  how  it’s  going,  what’s  the  status  against  the  plan,  or  the  areas  that  need  special  attention.    And  then,  of  course,  that  needs  to  be  based  on  transparency  and  honesty  and  clear  characterization  of  what  the  status  is,  but  also  on  the  attitude  of  everybody  on  the  team  helping  each  other  confront  the  issues  and  work  through  the  issues  and  create  these  fantastic  products.    So,  I  was  then  asked,  over  time,  to  be  the  CEO  of  Boeing,  and  I  applied  the  same  principles,  the  same  management  system,  to  my  honor  to  serve  as  a  CEO.    And  that  took  me  up  to  8  years  ago,  when  I  got  a  call  from  Bill  Ford  of  the  Ford  Motor  Company,  and  he  asked  me  to  come  to  Ford  and  join  him  and  transform  Ford  into  a  viable,  profitably-­‐growing  global  corporation  again.    

Marshall:   You  know,  you  told  a  story  once  of  when  you  were  a  young  manager,  which  I  thought  was  a  fantastic  example  of—I  think  it  would  be  great  for  the  coaches—about  listening  to  the  inner  voice  of  yourself.    Can  you  talk  about  the    bad  experience  you  have,  and  then  the  good  that  came  out  of  it,  the  manager  that  helped  you?    10:14  Alan:   Well,  it  seemed  kind  of  like  a  bad  experience  at  the  time,  but  it  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  most  beneficial,  enlightening  experiences  of  my  life.    So,  a  large  corporation,  Boeing—I  wanted  to  be  the  best  engineer  I  could  be.    I  loved  being  on  the  team.    I  loved  contributing  and  serving.    And  then,  the  management  of  Boeing  asked  me  to  be  a  supervisor.    And  so,  I  asked  them  what  a  supervisor  did,  and  they  told  me.    And  so,  I  asked  them,  “Well,  why  did  you  want  me  to  do  that?”    And  they  said,  “Well,  you  like  people,  and  you  like  helping  others,  and  so  we’re  going  to  put  you  in  charge  of  some  employees,  and  we’d  like  you  to  help  them  be  the  best  that  they  can  be.”    And  so,  they  assigned  me  a  dynamite  young  engineer,  my  first  employee.    And  after  a  few  months,  my  first  employee  quit.    And  at  the  time,  the  way  we  worked,  when  you’re  a  supervisor,  your  engineering  employee  would  prepare  their  technical  work  in  a  memo  and  then  bring  it  to  their  supervisor,  and  the  supervisor  would  review  it,  offer  suggestions  for  improvement,  and  your  engineer  would  incorporate  those  and  then  bring  it  back.    And  so,  I  asked  my  first  employee  why  he  was  going  to  quit,  and  he  said,  “Well,  Alan,  you  really  seem  like  a  neat  guy,  and  I  know  you  love  engineering,  but  I  have  brought  you  my  work  14  times,  14  drafts,  and  although  I  appreciate  your  feedback,  I  think  we’ve  passed  the  point  of  diminishing  returns  for  the  detail  that  you’re  helping  me  with.    So,  it  just  doesn’t  work  for  me.”    And  I  said,  “Well,  any  suggestions?    I  welcome  your  thoughts  going  forward.”    And  he  said,  “Well,  I  think  maybe  you  ought  to  think  about  what  your  real  contribution  is  that  the  company’s  asking  you  to  do,  because  maybe  what  they  want  you  to  do,  because  you  care  about  the  bigger  picture  and  how  it  fits  in,  is  help  connect  your  employees  to  the  vision  of  the  company,  the  strategy  for  this  new  airplane,  what  the  requirements  are,  and  help  your  employees  align  with  where  the  company  is  going  their  efforts  and  their  contribution,  and  provide  them  continuing  feedback  and  help  on  what  they  need  to  continually  serve.”    And  I’ll  never  forget  how,  on  one  hand,  I  was  devastated  that  my  first  employee  quit.    On  the  other  hand,  I  was  so  thankful,  and  ever  more  so  over  the  years,  that  my  very  first  employee—and  I’ve  had  a  lot  of  them  since  then!—that  my  very  first  employee  helped  me  understand  what  it  meant,  and  what  my  real  service  was,  when  I  moved  into  supervision  and  then  management  and  then  senior  leadership  position.    Marshall:   That  is  a  great  case  study.    When  you  came  to  Ford,  one  of  the  things,  I  think,  that  coaches  would  love  to  hear  about  is  your  emphasis  on  leadership  behavior  and  team  behavior,  and  some  of  the  things  you  did  to  really  create  a  positive  environment  for  the  team  leaders,  and  how  you  worked  with  your  team  members.    Alan:   Oh,  you  bet.    So,  I  personally  really  think  the  word  “coach”  and  “coaching”  is  really  important,  and  I  also  have  found  over  the  years,  at  Boeing  and  at  Ford,  that  it  really  captures  a  very  

important  part  of  a  senior  leadership,  a  CEO’s,  service,  because  you  are  coaching  lots  of  people  to  come  together  around  a  compelling  vision,  a  comprehensive  strategy  for  achieving  it,  and  also  the  relentless  implementation  of  your  plan  to  deliver  both  of  those.    And  from  a  coaching  point  of  view,  I’ve  found  over  the  years  that  working  together  principles  and  practices  for  large-­‐scale  system  development  and  integration  and  business  leadership—it  is  so  important  that  everybody  on  the  team,  and  all  the  stakeholders,  the  customers,  the  employees,  the  suppliers,  your  lenders,  the  union—that  everybody  knows  and  embraces  these  expected  behaviors  associated  with  working  together.    And  just  a  few  of  them,  Marshall,  that  we’ve  come  to  really  appreciate  are  people  first,  and  secondly,  everyone  is  included,  so  that  we  really  are  holding  ourselves  accountable  for  a  compelling  vision  for  our  enterprise,  a  comprehensive  strategy  for  achievement,  and  that  relentless  implementation—very  clear  performance  goals,  all  being  on  one  plan,  using  facts  and  data  to  assess  where  we  are—everyone,  everyone,  sharing  with  everyone  what  the  plan  is,  what  the  status  against  the  plan  is,  and  areas  that  need  special  attention  by  us,  and  then  working  on  those  areas  with  a  “propose  a  plan,  find  a  way”  positive  can-­‐do  attitude.    Respect,  listen,  help,  and  really  appreciate  each  other,  and  maintain  our  emotional  resilience  and  trust  in  this  process  of  working  together.    And  then  also,  having  fun,  never  at  anybody’s  expense,  but  having  fun  and  enjoying  the  journey  and  enjoying  the  people  working  together—it’s  almost  like  a  zero-­‐tolerance  policy  that  we  all  are  going  to  subscribe  to  these  working-­‐together  principles  and  practices,  and  the  expected  behaviors  that  go  with  it,  and  we’re  going  to  help  each  other  further  develop  our  performance  on  using  these  working-­‐together  principles  and  practices,  and  bring  those  to  the  management  system  that  we  have  for  managing  the  enterprise.    And  in  Ford’s  case,  for  Marshall  and  all  the  other  coaches,  it  was  a  pretty  dysfunctional  management  team  and  environment  9  years  ago,  because  many  Ford  was  many  Ford  companies,  all  around  the  world,  the  way  Henry  Ford  set  it  up,  which  was  great.    But  they  had  become  very  independent,  and  there  was  no  sharing  of  the  products  and  services  that  people  want  or  the  productivity  or  the  strategy.    And  so,  we  were  competing  with  the  finest  global  companies  in  the  world,  so  it  was  even  more  important  that  everybody  be  on  the  team,  that  we  subscribe  and  commit  to  these  working-­‐together  principles  and  practices  and  expected  behaviors,  so  that  we  could  come  together  around  the  vision  and  the  strategy  for  achieving  it.    And  then,  every  week,  every  Thursday,  everybody  linked  up  around  the  world.    All  of  the  charts  are  color-­‐coded,  so  that  we  can  know  quickly  what  needs  special  attention—red  or  yellow  or  green—and  then  we  all  are  using  these  expected  behaviors  and  the  way  we  work  together  to  turn  the  reds  to  yellows  to  greens  to  achieve  our  strategy  and  deliver  an  exciting,  profitably-­‐growing  company.    Marshall:   You  know,  Alan,  a  couple  of  things—one,  I  think  the  coaches  would  like  to  know—when  you  came,  you  were  challenged  by  a  couple  of  people  about  the  issue  of  leadership  behavior,  about  the  BPR  process.    And  can  you  describe  the  support  you  did  get?—and  I  think  who  did  a  great  job  was  Mr.  Ford,  of  sticking  with  you—how  that  worked,  what  happened,  and  how  it  started  to  help  turn  around  the  culture?    

Alan:   I  think  that  the  most  important  thing  about  the  management  system  that  everybody  wants  to  use,  and  what  we’ve  used  for  all  the  airplane  programs,  leading  Boeing,  and  then  subsequently  leading  Ford,  is  the  importance  that  we,  the  leadership  team,  are  going  to  hold  ourselves  accountable  for  a  compelling  vision  that  everybody  can  align  with.    It’s  a  reason  to  get  up  in  the  morning,  to  come  to  work,  to  dedicate  your  life  to.    And  secondly,  we’re  going  to  hold  ourselves  accountable  for  developing  that  comprehensive  strategy  for  delivering  that.    And  then  thirdly,  we  are  going  to  work  together  every  week  and  deal  with  the  reality,  not  the  way  we  wished  it  would  be  or  hoped  it  would  be,  but  the  reality  of  where  we  are  on  the  plan,  and  the  areas  that  need  special  attention,  and  then  work  together  to  turn  the  reds  to  yellows  to  greens.    And  of  course,  at  Ford  at  that  time,  everybody  wasn’t  on  the  team.    So  now,  everybody’s  on  the  team.    All  the  businesses  around  the  world,  all  the  skill  teams  going  across  the  world,  engineering,  manufacturing,  finance—and  so,  we  came  together  around  a  compelling  vision,  opening  the  highways  to  all  mankind,  Henry  Ford’s  original  compelling  vision,  a  really  clear  strategy  of  serving  all  the  markets  around  the  world  with  a  complete  family,  small,  medium,  large,  cars,  utilities,  and  trucks,  of  Ford  vehicles,  and  a  commitment  that  every  Ford  vehicle  would  be  best  in  class,  quality,  fuel  efficiency,  safety,  really  smart  design,  connectivity.    And  we  were  going  to  work  together  as  one  team,  worldwide,  to  create  a  profitably-­‐growing  corporation.    00:20:14  And  so,  we  started  the  business  plan  reviews,  and  I  wanted  to  do  it  in  about  2  hours.    And  the  first  ones  took  3  days,  Marshall.    And  all  the  people  wanted  to  explain  to  each  other  what  they  knew  and  what  needed  to  be  done.    And  so,  there  was  not  a  lot  of  seeking  to  understand,  but  a  lot  of  seeking  to  be  understood.    And  so,  I  just  kept  facilitating  it  to  be  simpler,  understandable,  condensed,  and  we  got  it  down  to  a  day,  and  then  we  got  it  down  to  two  and  a  half  hours.    We  invited  guests  to  watch  our  leadership  team  work.    Everybody  had  5  to  10  minutes  to  summarize  their  contribution  to  the  plan,  the  areas  that  needed  special  attention.    And  then,  we  also  introduced  the  guests  from  all  around  the  world,  guests  of  the  leadership  team.    And  then,  at  the  end  of  the  meeting,  we  had  a  chance  to  ask  the  guests  for  their  feedback.    And  then,  of  course,  on  the  wall,  we  had  the  expected  behaviors  that  we’d  previously  talked  about.    So,  you  can  imagine  how  everybody  wanted  to  demonstrate  the  expected  behaviors,  help  each  other,  especially  when  you  have  all  the  guests  watching.    So,  what  was  really  neat,  Marshall,  is  that  the  culture  change  started  immediately,  and  every  member  of  the  team—they  weren’t  going  somewhere  else  to  have  something  done  to  them,  but  they  actually  were  leading  their  personal  development,  based  on  these  expected  behaviors,  in  the  management  system  we  had  in  place.    And  they  led  the  culture  development  and  the  culture  change  that  they  wanted,  that  we  all  wanted,  that  we  knew  was  going  to  deliver  an  exciting,  profitably-­‐growing  company  for  all  of  us.  So,  that  started  on  day  one,  and  then  we  were  able  to  handle  all  of  the  crises  that  came  along,  the  financial  crises,  the  economic  crises  around  the  world,  the  most  serious  recession  we’ve  ever  been  in  since  the  Depression,  the  bankruptcy  of  our  competitors,  and  as  you  pointed  out,  those  business  plan  reviews  sometimes,  instead  of  being  every  

week,  we  were  meeting  every  day  from  12  to  1  because  of  all  the  chaos  that  was  going  on  in  the  world,  so  that  we  could  deal  with  that  reality,  and  deal  with  it  decisively.    Marshall:   You  know,  one  thing  that’s  totally  different  that  you  did,  and  it  goes  back  to  Boeing—remember  at  Boeing  when  you  had  the  video?    I  thought  that  was  a  fascinating  story.    And  the  whole  idea—if  you  can  just  share  a  couple  of  things  about  your  logic  for  having  observers—what  happened  at  Boeing  with  the  video,  and  then  the  logic  you  have  for  using  observers  for  your  team  at  Ford,  because  I  don’t  know  anybody  else  that’s  done  this  like  you,  and  I  think  it  would  be  great  to  share  with  the  coaches.    Alan:   Oh,  sure.    Well,  it  really  is  a  phenomenal  coaching  technique  or  process.    We  were  approached  by  a  movie  maker  who  was  under  consignment  with  Channel  4  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  his  name  is  Karl  Sabbagh,  and  he  loved  making  movies  about  the  creation  of  sophisticated  products.    And  he  had  had  a  very  successful  movie  about  designing  and  constructing  skyscrapers.    So,  he  came  to  us  and  said,  “I’d  like  to  make  a  movie  about  the  Boeing  team  worldwide,  with  all  the  suppliers  and  the  customers  helping  to  create  the  777,”  arguably  one  of  the  finest  airplanes  in  the  world  now,  “because  everybody’s  so  interested  in  it,”  he  said.    And  we,  of  course,  thought,  “We  can’t  do  that!    That  will  give  away  all  the  secrets  of  Boeing,  on  how  we  create  these  wonderful  commercial  airplanes!”    And  then,  we  talked  to  him.    We  finally  agreed  that  if,  when  we  reviewed  his  work,  all  of  his  hundreds  of  hours  of  filming,  if  we  saw  something  that  felt  like  we  were  violating  Boeing,  then  he  would  agree  to  take  that  out.    And  at  the  end,  out  of  all  of  those  thousands  of  hours  of  filming  the  creation  of  the  airplane,  we  didn’t  ask  that  anything  be  taken  out.    And  he  really,  really,  of  course,  focused  on  the  technology,  but  he  really  focused  on  the  people,  and  all  of  the  talented  people  that  actually  worked  together  to  create  a  commercial  airplane  with  4  million  parts.    And  one  of  the  reasons  we  decided  to  do  that  was  that  we  wanted  to  further  facilitate  and  accelerate  the  working-­‐together  environment  that  we  were  creating  at  Boeing  on  all  the  new  airplane  programs.    And  we  thought  that,  if  a  camera  was  following  all  of  our  work  in  the  design  reviews,  the  engineers  creating  products,  balancing  hundreds  of  objectives,  including  the  customer’s  input,  including  the  supplier’s  input,  including  the  engineers,  including  the  finance  input,  the  manufacturing  input,  so  that  the  vehicle  parts  could  actually  be  fabricated  and  assembled—that  that  might  have  a  tremendous  impact  on  the  behaviors  that  we  were  committing  to,  on  these  working-­‐together  behaviors.    And  oh,  did  it  ever!    With  a  camera  watching  you,  and  watching  your  interactions  with  others,  everybody  really  accelerated  their  commitment  to  these  behaviors  of  listening  to  each  other,  of  seeking  to  understand  before  you  seek  to  be  understood,  of  respecting  each  other,  of  helping  each  other,  of  being  a  positive  influence,  of  working  on  problems.    And  so,  it  exceeded  our  expectations.    Plus,  a  fabulous  movie  came  out  of  it,  and  it’s  still  used  on  public  television,  Marshall,  and  it’s  five  1-­‐hour  segments.    And  I  think  it’s  still  the  most  popular  movie  that’s  used  for  fundraising  on  public  television  worldwide,  because  people  just  love  seeing  the  story  of  creating  a  commercial  airplane.    

And  also  at  Boeing  and  at  Ford,  to  your  other  point,  there  was  another  reason  that  we  wanted  to  invite  the  guests.    And  the  guests  are  from  the  factory  floor,  from  engineering,  from  manufacturing.    They’re  invited  by  the  leadership  team.    And  of  course,  it  was  fabulous  to  spread  the  working-­‐together  behaviors,  but  also  to  network  and  help  everybody  understand  how  everybody  could  participate  in  their  business  plan  review,  wherever  they  are  in  the  corporation,  and  allow  the  flow  of  information  going  up  and  down  and  back  and  forth  across  the  corporation.    And  again,  when  people  are  watching  you,  people  just  move  to  operate  in  the  light,  as  we  all  know,  because  it’s  effective.    It’s  the  way  you  should  treat  people.    It’s  the  way  we  all  want  to  be  treated.    So,  having  the  guests  there  at  every  business  plan  review,  and  them  giving  their  feedback  at  the  end,  not  only  accelerated  the  culture  and  the  expected  behaviors’  development,  but  also  was  actually  inspirational,  because  they  would  go  back  to  their  team  with  a  commitment  that  “I’ve  seen  my  part  discussed  at  the  senior  leadership  team  meeting.    I  had  no  idea  it’s  so  big.    My  part’s  really  important.    I’m  going  to  enhance  my  leadership  and  my  business  plan  review  process,  so  I  can  contribute  even  more.”    But  it  really,  really  accelerated  the  culture.    And  Boeing  uses  it  still  today,  this  process,  and  Ford  uses  it  every  week  at  Ford.    Marshall:   Well,  one  thing  I  think  would  be  great  for  the  coaches  to  learn  is  the  priority-­‐setting  process,  the  red,  yellow,  green—how  it  worked,  your  experience  at  the  beginning,  and  then  when  people  finally  started  openly  confronting  and  dealing  with  the  real  issues,  how  that  happened.    I  think  it’s  a  wonderful  story.    Alan:   Well,  Marshall,  clearly  this  is  such  an  important  question  you’re  asking.    It  was  absolutely,  and  continues  to  be,  the  key,  I  think,  of  leadership  development  and  teamwork  and  creating  sustainable  long-­‐term  profitably-­‐growing  enterprises.    And  the  key  is  a  safe  environment  in  the  business  plan  review  process,  because  we’re  asking  each  other  to  share  what  the  real  status  is.    So,  let’s  say  we’re  looking  at  the  launch  of  the  new  vehicles,  or  the  revenue  stream,  or  the  productivity  measures,  or  the  leadership  development  and  the  people  development  processes.    All  of  them  can  be  measured.    And  we  look  five  years  out,  in  the  trends  that  we  want  to  deliver.    And  so,  when  I  joined  Ford  in  September  of  2006,  we  started  the  business  plan  reviews.    And  the  first  forecast  that  now  we  were  sharing  with  everybody  on  the  team  in  September  of  ’06,  for  the  full  year  of  ’06—the  forecast  was  that  we  were  going  to  lose  17  billion  dollars  for  the  year.    And  three  months  later,  we  actually  did  lose  17  billion  dollars.    So,  it  was—    Marshall:   You  hit  your  target!    29:58  Alan:   So,  it  was  not  a  forecast  accuracy  issue.    It  was  that  we  needed  a  fundamentally  different  vision  and  strategy,  going  forward.    And  so,  we  had  about  320  charts.    Everybody  is  on  the  team.    I’ve  shared  with  them  that  it  will  really  help  for  all  of  us  to  understand  quickly  and  very  effectively  if  they  just  go  ahead  and  color-­‐code  each  of  their  charts,  whether  it  was  launch,  or  whether  it  was  

productivity,  or  whatever  element  of  plan—just  color-­‐code  it  green,  yellow,  and  red.    And  yellow  is  an  issue,  but  you  have  a  solution  in  place.    Red—here’s  an  issue,  but  you  don’t  have  a  solution  in  place.    And  that’s  something  that  we  really  need  to  pay  special  attention  to.    Well,  the  wonderful  core  team  at  the  time  had  no  idea  how  to  color-­‐code  their  chart,  because  that  meant  they  were  color-­‐coding  themselves  red.    And  in  the  old  Ford  culture,  things  happened—you  disappeared  if  you  brought  a  problem  and  you  didn’t  have  a  solution.    That’s  one  of  the  worst  management  tenets  ever,  because  now  you’re  trying  to  manage  a  secret.    So,  we  started  the  process,  and  all  320  charts,  Marshall,  are  green.    And  we’re  losing  17  billion  dollars!    So,  I  stopped  the  meeting  one  time,  and  I  ran  a  roundtable.    Everybody  networked  on  the  Internet,  all  around  the  world.    And  I  said,  “Is  there  anything  that’s  not  going  well—just  one  little  thing  that’s  not  going  well?”    And  of  course,  they  were  concerned  that  color-­‐coding  it—so  eye  contact  goes  to  the  floor.    No  one  says  anything.    So,  I  just  shared  again,  “We’re  not  going  to  be  able  to  manage  a  secret.    And  the  more  we  can  share  with  each  other  what  the  real  situation  is,  then  we  can  help  each  other.    We  can  work  together,  and  we  can  help  each  other.”    And  so,  I  didn’t  know  what  I’m  going  to  tell  you  here  until  I  read  the  American  Icon  book  that  was  mentioned  earlier.    And  it  described  a  situation  where  Mark  Fields,  who  was  the  leader  of  the  Americas  business,  North  and  South  America,  was  doing  his  business  plan  review  the  night  before  we  do  the  one  for  the  corporation.    And  he  had  just  stopped  production  in  Oakville,  Canada  on  the  new  Edge  vehicle,  because  they  had  an  actuator  issue  on  the  lift  gate,  and  we  were  only  going  to  deliver  our  vehicles  if  they  were  absolutely  the  finest  quality  and  met  all  the  requirements.    So,  he  stopped  production.    He  had  5,000  Edges  sitting  on  the  tundra.    And  each  one  of  the  launch  charts  has  three  columns,  one  for  scheduled,  one  for  technical  quality,  and  another  one  for  financial  impact,  and  all  three  of  the  columns  were  green  for  this  Edge  launch!    And  Mark  says  to  the  team,  “You  know,  this  looks  like  one  of  those  red  things  Alan’s  talking  about.”    And  somebody  said,  “Well,  what’s  your  point?”    He  said,  “Well,  I  think  my  point  is  that  we  should  probably  color-­‐code  this  red,  because  that’s  the  way  it  is,  and  even  though  we  don’t  know  an  answer,  then  everybody  can  start—we  can  get  that  in  the  open,  and  everybody  that  can  help,  can  help.”    And  somebody  said,  “Mark,  good  luck  to  you,  but  I  think  that  could  be  really  detrimental  to  your  career  to  do  that  without  having  an  answer.”    So,  he  said,  “Well,  I  think  we  need  to  trust  Alan.    It  makes  sense.    And  so,  let’s  color  it  red.”    So,  we  walk  into  the  business  plan  review  meeting  the  next  day  and  start  out,  and  green,  green,  green,  and  wham!    Up  comes  Mark’s  chart  on  the  launch—red,  three  columns  of  red.    And  Mark  explains  the  issue  in  one  sentence,  and  I  start  to  clap.    And  I  looked  around  the  room,  and  I  could  see  it  in  everybody’s  eyes—there’s  the  sign  from  Alan.    The  two  big  doors  behind  us  are  going  to  open.    Two  large  people  are  going  to  come  in,  whisk  Mark  out  of  the  meeting,  and  Mark  is  gone  as  we  know  him!    And  so,  I  said,  following  my  clap,  “Mark,  that  is  great  visibility.”    And  I  looked  around  the  team,  and  said,  “What  else  can  we  do  to  help  you  out  on  this?”    And  before  Mark  could  say  anything,  Bennie  Fowler  had  something.    He  said,  “You  know,  Mark,  I  think  I’ve  seen  that  on  such-­‐and-­‐such  a  launch.    I’m  going  to  get  

that  data  over  to  you  right  away.”    Bera  Kusak  was  the  head  of  engineering  at  the  time.    He  said,  “I  think  I’ve  seen  that  engineering  issue.    I’ll  get  you  that  data.”    Joe  Hinrichs  is  now  the  head  of  the  Americas,  but  was  the  head  of  manufacturing  worldwide.    He  said,  “You  know,  we’re  going  to  figure  this  out.    We’re  going  to  find  a  solution.    You’re  going  to  need  some  manufacturing  engineers  to  swap  out  these  parts  and  get  the  production  going  again,  so  I’ll  get  them  identified,  and  I’ll  get  them  up  to  Oakville,  Canada,  right  away  to  support  you.”    That  interchange  took  8  or  10  seconds.    And  then  I  said  “thank  you”  and  went  on  to  the  next  green,  green,  green  chart.    The  next  week,  I  think  we  had  one  red,  Mark’s  red.    The  next  week,  I  think  he  turned  it  to  yellow,  found  the  issue,  found  a  solution.    The  next  week,  it  turned  to  green.    The  parts  were  flowing,  and  the  vehicles  started  to  flow  around  the  world.    And  guess  what,  coaches?    Guess  what  the  colors  of  all  320  charts  were  the  following  week?    No,  not  all  red,  but  it  was  clearly  a  rainbow.    And  everybody  now  knew,  everybody  knew,  what  the  real  situation  was,  why  we  were  losing  17  billion  dollars.    And  now,  with  those  expected  behaviors,  everybody  knew  that  the  expected  behavior  was  that  we  were  going  to  turn  the  reds  to  yellows  to  greens  by  working  together.    And  for  me,  it  was  the  most  exhilarating  moment  of  my  short  career  then,  at  that  time,  at  Ford,  because  I  knew  now  that  not  only  me,  but  everybody,  knew  what  the  situation  was.    Everybody  knew  what  areas  needed  special  attention.    And  everybody  was  committing  to  help  each  other.    And  if  we  wouldn’t  have  made  that  breakthrough,  so  that  we  could  then  further  develop  a  culture  of  working  together,  we  never  could  have  delivered  this  fantastic  growing  Ford  company  today.    Marshall:   You  know,  Alan,  one  thing  that  you  taught  me—remember,  years  ago,  when  we  worked  together,  you  said,  “Marshall,  don’t  make  coaching  about  you.    Make  it  about  the  great  people  you  coach,  how  hard  they  work,  and  how  proud  you  are  of  them.”    That  totally  changed  my  life.    And  one  thing  I’d  like  you  to  share  with  the  group  is  the  idea  of  leader-­‐facilitator.    One  thing  I  love  about  what  you  do  is  that  you  never  have  to  be  the  guy  that  provides  all  the  answers.    You’re  much  more  of  a  facilitator.    I’ve  never  seen  a  leader  do  this  quite  like  you  do.      If  you  don’t  mind,  if  you  could  share  a  little  of  that  with  the  group,  of  how  you  play  the  role  of  leader  as  facilitator,  and  you  fight  the  urge  to  always  provide  the  answers?    Alan:   I’d  be  glad  to,  Marshall.      And  I’ll  always  treasure  working  together  with  you,  also.    It  really  is  maybe  a  little  bit  different  than  the  way  a  lot  of  people  are  operating  today,  although  I  know,  from  all  the  CEOs  that  have  approached  me,  and  the  educational  institutions,  that  people  really  want  to  further  develop  this  dimension  of  leadership  and  management,  because  it  seems  like  a  lot  of  times,  the  things  that  we  were  promoted  for,  firefighting,  quick  decisions,  taking  action,  telling  people  what  to  do,  helping  people  understand—I  believe  that  the  more  senior  a  position  you  have  to  serve,  the  more  you  need  to  move  into  a  role  of  facilitating,  of  coaching,  of  helping  others  and  yourself  understand  what  the  situation  really  is.    What  is  the  real  plan?    Does  everybody  understand  the  plan?    Does  everybody  know  what  the  areas  are  that  need  special  attention?    

And  it’s  not  for  you  anymore.    It’s  for  everybody.    And  your  most  important  contribution  is  going  to  be  that  you  hold  yourself  accountable,  as  the  leader,  and  you  hold,  especially  starting  with  your  senior  leadership  team  and  the  board  of  directors—accountable  to  define  that  compelling  vision  and  the  comprehensive  strategy  for  delivering  it,  so  that  everybody  understands  it.    If  it’s  not  understandable,  it’s  not  a  compelling  vision  and  a  comprehensive  strategy,  because  the  way  you’re  going  to  get  great  things  done  with  lots  of  people  is  if  everybody  understands  it.    And  then  holding  yourself  and  your  team  accountable  for  relentless  implementation  of  the  plan—those  Thursday  business  plan  review  meetings—it’s  not  a  warm,  fuzzy  thing.    We’re  going  to  be  authentic.    We’re  going  to  be  transparent.    We’re  going  to  help  each  other.    And  that’s  going  to  be  the  expected  behaviors.    And  you  combine  that  with  the  expected  behaviors—it’s  exhilarating.    It’s  fun.    No  one  misses  a  Thursday  meeting.    And  so,  I  talk,  as  the  leader  sitting  at  my  position  at  the  roundtable.    I  am  facilitating  this  review.    I  keep  it  on  time.    I  keep  everybody  inside  their  allotted  time.    I  lead  a  question  for  clarification,  or  looking  around  the  room  to  ensure  that  everybody  was  participating,  was  listening,  that  we  haven’t  missed  anything.        40:03  So,  you’re  really  moving  to  a  place  where  you  are  now  facilitating  your  coaching.    You’re  ensuring  that  everybody  knows  what  the  situation  is,  everybody’s  being  appreciated,  and  then  the  team  now—the  knowledge  is  just  glowing.    People  aren’t  trying  to  seek  to  be  understood.    Their  questions  are  seeking  to  understand.    They’re  here  to  help  each  other.    They’re  not  giving  lectures.    They’re  not  giving  speeches.    And  everybody’s  not  perfect.    We’re  all  going  to  continue  to  further  develop.    So,  in  between  the  meetings,  we  might  help  each  other,  and  we  ensure  that  there’s  no  Blackberrys.    There’s  no  iPhones.    There’s  no  working  on  your  computer.    You’re  paying  attention  to  each  one  of  the  members  who’s  presenting  their  status  and  stuff.    And  so,  it  is  a  further  development  of  the  leadership  model  and  the  behaviors  to  go  with  that.    If  you  run  into  a  situation  where  there’s  a  crisis,  something  has  to  be  done  right  away,  and  safety  or  something  like  that  had  to  be  dealt  with,  of  course  you  would  do  it  the  same  way,  but  you’d  also  include  everybody,  just  like  you  do  on  everything.    And  I  just  think  what  happens,  Marshall,  is  that  everybody  continues  to  move  and  improve  as  a  leader  and  as  a  working-­‐together  contributor  of  the  team.    Marshall:   And  just  two  final  question.    Question  #1—I’ve  known  you  for  I  don’t  know  how  many  years,  20-­‐something  years,  a  long  time.    I’ve  never  seen  you  be  down.    I’ve  never  seen  you  complain.    Why?    You  and  Frances  are  the  two  people  I  would  say  this  about.    Give  the  group  some  ideas,  as  coaches,  of  how  you  do  it,  and  your  ideas  for  other  leaders,  to  keep  them  always  being  professional  and  positive.    I  was  with  you  after  9/11,  which  had  to  be  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world,  and  you  just  made  such  a  comeback.    Can  you  talk  just  a  little  bit  about  how  you  do  it?    Alan:   Oh,  boy,  9/11  was  really  something.    Of  course  it  was  really  something,  but  as  an  airplane  designer,  I  never,  ever  thought  a  commercial  airplane  would  be  used  as  a  weapon.    And  it  changed  our  world  in  every  aspect.    And  we  had  to  move  decisively.    Travel  dropped  by  50%.    All  the  

airplanes  that  we  were  making  were  not  needed.    And  we  had  to  really  pull  together  and  work  together  with  all  the  stakeholders  to  get  through  that  and  save  our  company,  and  at  the  same  time  continue  investing  in  the  products  that  the  people  would  really  want  and  value,  going  forward.    And  my  thought  about  that,  Marshall,  is  that  I  just  start  with  that  it  is  an  absolute  honor  to  serve.    When  we  have  been  asked  to  serve,  at  whatever  level—we’re  all  serving.    We’re  all  an  example.    We’re  all  moving  forward.    We’re  all  making  a  difference  by  what  we  do  and  how  we  act.    And  the  shadow  of  that  service  gets  so  large  with  the  more  senior  positions.    And  leadership  is  important.    Everybody  wants  to  know—are  we  OK?    Back  to  the  things  that  we  hold  ourselves  accountable  for—holding  ourselves  accountable  for  that  vision  that’s  meaningful,  that’s  understandable—I’ll  commit  my  life  to  this  strategy  for  achieving  it—holding  ourselves  accountable  for  the  relentless  implementation  every  week—that  is  such  an  honor  to  serve.    And  there  is  just  nothing  that  is  down  about  that.    There  is  nothing  that  is  negative  about  that.    And  so,  on  the  other  hand,  if  you  make  it  negative,  or  you’re  scared,  or  you’re  coming  from  a  position  of  fear,  and  you  feel  like  you  need  to  know  everything,  and  you  can’t  include  everybody  and  tap  into  all  the  knowledge  around  your  entire  team,  then  you  are  going  to  get  really  scared,  and  you’re  going  to  act  in  very  detrimental  ways,  because  what  people  are  going  to  respond  to  is  if  they  know  what  the  situation  is.    All  those  reds  are  gems.    They  are  gems.    I  can’t  wait.    All  of  us  cannot  wait  to  get  to  that  Thursday  morning  review  and  see  the  reds  that  have  turned  to  yellows  that  turned  to  greens.    But  also,  we  are  really  excited  to  see  the  new  reds,  because  here  is  a  gem.    Here  is  something  that  we  know  now,  that  we  can  all  work  on,  that’s  really  important.    And  it’s  going  to  be  critical  to  the  success  of  our  enterprise.    And  so,  it’s  exciting.    I  can’t  think  of  anything  that  is  more  exciting.    The  only  time  it  would  not  be  exciting  is  if  you  didn’t  know  what’s  going  on,  and  not  just  me,  but  if  everybody  didn’t  know  what  was  going  on.    That  would  be  absolutely  terrifying,  and  you’d  probably  act  the  same  way.    So,  you  want  to  love  the  process.    You  want  to  love  the  participants,  because  everybody’s  going  to  do  whatever  it  takes,  when  everybody  knows  what  the  vision  strategy  and  the  plan  is,  to  deliver  the  plan,  to  deliver  the  strategy,  to  deliver  that  compelling  vision.    Look  at  Boeing.    Look  at  Ford.    Boeing—getting  people  together  worldwide.    What  we’ve  found  is  that,  if  you  get  people  together  in  these  wonderful  commercial  airplanes,  and  they  get  to  know  one  another  around  the  world,  you  find  out  you  have  way  more  in  common  than  you’re  different,  and  usually  you  choose  to  work  together  for  the  greater  good.    Ford,  Henry  Ford—113  years  of  innovation,  getting  people  together  safely  and  efficiently  around  the  world—that  is  just  exciting.    And  to  get  a  chance  to  be  asked  to  serve,  to  help  continuously  improve  the  products  and  services  and  the  productivity  and  efficiency  and  create  an  exciting,  sustainable  business—it  supports  so  many  people  and  deals  with  the  big  issues.    We  all  care  about  economic  development,  energy  independence  and  security,  environmental  sustainability—that  is  really,  really  fun.    Marshall:   Well,  Alan,  just  one  final  question.    Any  final  words—now  that  you  have  a  chance—you’re  no  longer  in  that  CEO  role,  you’re  kind  of  coming  to  coach  yourself.    Any  final  words  for  all  the  coaches  listening  right  now?  

 Alan:   Well,  first  of  all,  thank  you  for  each  of  you.    Coaching  is  just  one  of  the  highest  orders  of  service,  because  you’re  helping  people  that  really  care,  that  want  to  continuously  improve  their  leadership  and  their  management  performance.    And  at  the  foundation  of  that  is  going  to  be  the  behaviors,  the  way  you  treat  each  other,  and  the  two  elements  are  what  leadership  management  process  we’re  using—and  in  our  case,  I’ve  explained  the  management  system  that  we  use  of  everybody  getting  together,  coming  together  around  the  vision  strategy  and  the  plan,  the  relentless  implementation  of  the  business  plan  review—but  combining  the  process  with  the  expected  behaviors  and  helping  everybody  further  develop  the  behaviors  that  enable  working  together  and  transparency  and  helping  each  other,  and  doing  it  in  real  time  inside  the  business,  and  being  a  coach  to  help  them  do  that,  to  sit  in  the  meeting  and  watch  people  work,  to  share  with  the  different  participants  how  these  behaviors  are  affecting  each  other  and  what  they  can  do  to  enhance  that  effectiveness—that  is  just  a  phenomenal  opportunity.    And  I  love  coaching.    I’ve  loved  coaching  for  45  years,  as  a  program  manager  and  a  CEO,  and  I  love  being    a  partner  to  the  CEOs  and  their  teams  to  help  them  further  improve  their  process  and  their  commitment  to  the  expected  behaviors,  and  to  create  exciting,  viable,  profitably-­‐growing  companies  for  the  good  of  all  of  us.    Marshall:   Well,  the  final  thing,  Alan,  again,  is—thank  you  so  much  for  doing  this.    I  know  how  busy  you  are.    You  have  a  zillion  requests.    I  really  appreciate  you  taking  the  time  to  help  all  of  us.    And  speaking  for  all  of  the  coaches,  I  just  want  to  say  thank  you.    Alan:   Thank  you,  and  best  of  luck  to  all  of  the  coaches.    What  an  honor  to  serve  with  you.      50:15  Marshall:   Bye.    Thank  you.