Disney bought Pixar. Why shouldn't GM buy Target?

GM and Target? Whaa? Apples and Oranges you say? Nah. To wend thru this sclerotic mess that is GM, maybe analogy is the perfect tool. But let's step back. Into sensibility-ville. Okay. I mean into Bentonville.

GM has a Wal-Mart problem.

On the surface, they have the tools. On the ground, they have mass. Up top, they have one functional lobe. In the chestal area, somewhere between the 2nd and 5th rib... space to let.

In the fever swamps of customer perception, there's two kinds of fauna, each with their own unique situational awareness. And talents. And blindspots. For our purposes today, those two M.O.s are Wal-Mart and Target.

With one, you get the sense that if they could give you product without the box, and still flow inventory seamlessly, they would. Surely they would. A box is overhead. The product? Check yourself, pardner--it's a SKU. And don't bug the employees, they're stacking.

With the other creature, the mindset from Minneapolis not Bentonville, broadly speaking you get a sense that someone up top likes cool stuff. The product? Ptosh. It's a prize. They get visceral and reflective design appeal and its cues (see: Don Norman.) They know why they retail, on multiple dimensions.

Okay, after those gross and grossly unfair generalizations, time for one more. One produces to make money, the other creates to make a living. A useless distinction? No. The signage sez so, the layouts say so, the hardware, flow, partnerships and marketing say so. And each of them combine to fashion an experience, and potential outcomes. In one case, the mental moire of one more readily aligns and does things to our heads.

A consumer of my aquaintance compares the two.

She bought a GE Deep Fryer from Walmart. It crapped out fast. She bought a Samsung digital camera from Target. It was crap from the get go.

She blames Wal-Mart for the fryer. She blames Samsung for the camera.

She? Aha!

Wait up. Before you Martians go off on Venus, pay heed to an Alpha-martian, David Ogilvy. "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife."

In the above comparison, the consumer, holds two graduate business degrees and is known for ruthless exclusion and for shredding seemingly-competent business plans. The Boys call her "Zena." My kids call her Mom.

She has no patience when she detects no skin in the game, or no heart. I'll leave the GE/Samsung/WMT/TGT Rashomon experiment there for now. In GM's case, up high where it really matters these days, we seem to have neither skin nor heart. Or, we have love of the wrong thing.

But what happens when your moneymaker--your mass, your distribution, your built-in legacy-market of father-to-son hand-me-down brand-preference--slowly goes bye-bye and you don't notice? What happens if you've spent a huge amount of executive energy dreaming, not of drive-ins and kansei and Laguna Seca but, instead, about vanquishing the evils of CAFE standards and the artful finagling of sport-ute classifications? (Help me out here, Financial Times.)

What happens? Death. Or deathbed conversion.

Tom Gaurriello was an early fan of Bob Lutz' Fastlane blog. But I'm familiar with Lutz's work back to when he was pumping a jack for Chrysler as he's now doing with GM. Over at Tom's blog you'll see he's been hoping for and prodding at Bob to do good things. Me? I've been suggesting that the mother ship still has too much cash. Why? Cash equals hubris. And hubris is GM's and, to be fair, most of today's DinoCos' problem.

Cash means comfort and options. And time. And, when you're already the victim of really insular choicemaking, defined by who you think you are rather than by why you do, more options is not what you need. Nor more time. You end up being very proud of all your options. You invite folks over to look at them. And you tell everbody who'll listen how hard you've been working on your collection; and that you really must get around to sorting it one day.

Then they ask "which is your favorite?"

And you do not know.

Then, they ask "why'd you start collecting?"

You don't have an answer.

Tom wanted to know why I keep saying GM has too much money in the bank. Well, 125,000 pensioners and Wagoner's pleas notwithstanding, money is not GM's problem. It's their excuse. Cash is not their bane.

Soul is. And GM's has wanderered off.

I once wrote somewhere that the problem with Daimler's and Chrysler's merger was that they hadn't lived in sin together. Not to any meaningful degree anyway, and, without a simple requirement: Once enough hot, rough, draining and sweaty rapid prototyping had steamed up the windows and, uh, "preferences" were known (Dirty Secret Soulmates!), the marriage (we don't do "deal" here, baby) should have been signed in blood, on a dog-eared 1969 copy of June Autoweek. Maybe cigars or Don Shermans afterwards. But definitely Jaeger. Lots of it. And Strohs. And Moet. Shooken up and sprayed wildly. Then a wild orgy of kimono-opening top to bottom with get out jail free cards from accounting and PR.

And then, something really good: Let's make catalytic converters obsolete in 20 years. While cranking out the baddest, sexiest rides since, since.... well, forever. Now go!

Sound silly? Hell no. I posted this morning on Jon Strande's big boss's pondering the idea of Organizational Maturity. Oy vey. What a disgusting concept in a time where you need a child's perfect willingness and roll-with-the-tide nonchalance. When everything is new, it makes perfect sense to believe that a sponge can talk. And if anybody needs to suspend disbelief, it's folk who've seen firsthand what "Organizational Maturity" has done to Mr. Sloan's tank factory.

That's the thing. Either two DNA chains mingle or we just stand around like preteens at a mixer.

We admit we're horny, we exalt hormones, we make "is that a torque wrench in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" jokes. Or, instead, we admire each other's supply chain. We nod vaguely at the synergy of legacy systems. We ponder the economies of scale. Who needs love? We are Transportation Professionals, dammit. With Organizational Maturity!™

Ehh. Sometimes, the estrangement doesn't even need a marriage. You stop loving yourself. It can take on Nathaniel Hawthorne's "No man . . . can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally being bewildered as to which may be the true."

It's a terrible thing to witness when you make chariots. At least, when chariotmakers forget why they make chariots.




Last year, Switzerland's Neue Züricher Zeitung called GM (and Ford) "financial firms now producing cars as a hobby." The March article which held that quote was about their restructuring of umpty-ump billions in GM debt. In May, the S&P gave them both a junk shirt to wear. The market spoke.

Funny thing is the market said the same thing as consumers: You Suck. Or maybe it just drawled what consumers were barking in showrooms and service departments. It probably said what the aforementioned Wal-Mart-blaming Boadicea above has muttered about her experiences in the last 7 years driving first, this



Then this



Now this




Averaged out, the woman who views herself this way



would, on the whole, and on a clear-blue-sky morning, rather not get a headful of dewdrops when cornering with an open window due to AWOL door water management. (One of many simple examples of absent behavioural and reflexive design care indicative of larger things and diverted attentions.) Makes a warrior or amazon cranky to show up for a morning meeting like a soaked kitty. Yeah, pissed off feral animal be spending her money with Mr. Ohno's outfit next time. Because the above rolling library of experiences and references average out to what the markets, financial and consumer, are saying.

The "suck" thing.

But the judgement isn't so much on their talent as carmakers. They're past that. It's much more of an insult. A stick right in the eye of management. Not only can you not master your craft of curve and sheen and gurgle, a thing so difficult to quantify and, therefore, forgivable for swings and misses, but also, you fail on that open-book test called fiscal discipline.

That really hurts.

To answer Tom Gaurriello's question directly, "too much money in the bank" will become Goldilocks'-just-right when Wagoner and Kerkorian and the legions armed with HP-45s have no choice but to understand their real and only true cause is as warriors for the soul of GM.

When does that happen? Maybe this summer if Moody's and S&P gets medieval on them. Or in the fall when a couple of major suppliers start pushing back, or walking. Or in January when Kirk has one of Kissinger's "lack of options clears the mind marvelously" epiphanies and accedes to the Lutz-esque WTF! Why not?

Why not what? Tar-zhay? Would make more sense than Hughes, but how the hell do I know?

But I'm sure it'll be good. Because the options are dwindling. And the suits are already looking for another host because Mr. K is taking away their bling, their collection. The hubris money is almost gone. And when it is finally all gone, along with many who live to pile it and arrange it and admire it, you're in the zone of all meaningful corporate resuscitations. You find brilliance in your poverty. And strength in your soul.

You tell "organizational maturity" you've met somebody else. And you've been cheating. And it feels gooood. And byeee.

Wagoner's lucky. I'm not saying anything Lutz doesn't already know. And, somehow, I bet he's been to Minneapolis.