Duke grad and former hoopster Rick "station" Wagoner, who now heads
up General Motors as you probably know, is struggling mightily to turn the
company around. He announced massive job cuts on Monday and is dealing
with the enormous costs of health care as well.
There are no guarantees for G.M., and it could go the way of former behemoth
AT&T, or it could do what IBM did and engineer an impressive turnaround.
As bad as things seem for G.M. now, they were worse for IBM in the early
90s. That company was a disaster. Their recovery has been
impressive.
Wagoner is up against it and the odds may be against him. But we like
his willingness to step up and take the heat, and we also like his willingness
to pursue hydrogen technology.
You never know where things are going, and as Matt Christensen's dad Clayton
tells us, disruptive technologies can remake the economy - and destroy
industries - in no time. In South Africa, synthetic
fuel has quietly advanced, and in the U.S., with vast reserves in coal
and shale oil, research
continues.
Dr. Christensen said that great change is most likely to come from smaller
companies, and he pointed to golf cart makers as a potential example.
In retirement centers, a lot of people get around in electric golf
carts. He argued that an electric car was much more likely to evolve from
a golf cart company than it was from, say, G.M.
Wagoner, like most modern CEOs, is no doubt fully aware of the potential of
disruptive technologies and that he is in many ways riding a tiger.
Here's hoping he can pull it off and remake GM. If he does it with
hydrogen, it'll be one of the great turnarounds, if not the greatest, in the
history of business.