MR. FIX-IT
Facing stock price issues and a self-driving car push, Ford taps Jim Hackett to reshape the company,
ANN ARBOR, MICH.— Jim Hackett made his career by turning Steelcase, an office furniture maker in Michigan, into one of America’s most admired companies.
More recently, he rejuvenated one of the country’s most storied college athletic programs at the University of Michigan and hired its high-profile football coach Jim Harbaugh.
Now, he is embarking on a more prominent fix-it job in Michigan: Ford Motor Co. On Monday, Ford announced Hackett, 62, as its chief executive, saying he would be able to reshape the company to compete in the next generation of automobiles.
Hackett replaces Mark Fields, who had led the company for three years. Fields had come under pressure because of a decline in profits and Ford’s sagging stock price, as well as concerns about whether Ford was falling behind on self-driving cars.
In Hackett, Ford is taking on a chief executive with a track record of refocusing a manufacturing company through several downturns and sharp shifts in its industry. But the scale of Ford, the No. 2 automaker in the U.S. behind General Motors, dwarfs that of Steelcase, the furniture maker he ran. Last year, Steelcase had revenue of $3.1billion (U.S.); Ford had revenue of $151 billion.
There is no doubt Ford is changing the personality at the top of its ranks.
Fields was known as a polished salesperson and marketer. Hackett is known for his blunt talk about performance. Friends and colleagues described Hackett as a direct manager who calls out those who fall short.
“He’s a visionary,” William C. Ford Jr., the company’s chairperson, said at a news conference on Monday.
“But he’s not just a futurist. He’s a very good operating executive.”
Hackett has said those qualities stem from his days as an offensive lineman on Michigan football teams in the 1970s and the influence of the team’s coach, Bo Schembechler.
At Steelcase, Hackett recommended that managers read Bo’s Lasting Lessons, a book by the coach on leadership. A regular email to Steelcase employees was called “Hackett’s Huddle.” He often told colleagues, “You either get better or get worse” — and attributed the quotation to Schembechler.
Under his leadership, Steelcase introduced lines designed for openplan offices, video screens and work teams. Hackett built up a network of contacts, especially in the technology industry, relationships that would come in handy later at Ford.