Mark Walton: eccentric chief executives
Do you have to be a complete nutso to run a car company? This question came to mind the other day when Ford CEO Jim Hackett gave a first-quarter financial briefing via a conference call. Hackett’s an unusual figure in Detroit: he worked for a furniture company for 33 years before becoming Ford’s leftfield choice for boss in 2017.
Why leftfield? For a start, he doesn’t follow the corporate-speak rules. Last year he sent an email out to employees that began with the immortal line: ‘2018 was mediocre by any standard. Yes, we made $7 billion…’
You can imagine the factory workers rubbing their chins, saying: ‘Hmm, yes, only $7 billion, how disappointing.’ Meanwhile Hackett was paid a mediocre $17.8 million that year.
But Jim raised more eyebrows during his recent market briefing. After being introduced, Hackett came on the line and said: ‘Thanks, Lynn and hello everyone. And Lynn, let me thank you for doing an incredible job in putting this virtual call together… I’m proud to say that Rudy and Ozzy, my two big girls, are joining me today in the call.’
What? ‘My two big girls’? Was Hackett broadcasting from a Hooters restaurant? Or was he flanked by two grotesquely tall twin daughters? In fact, turns out he has two beagles.
Then things got weird. Reporting on Ford’s $2 billion loss, Hackett said: ‘You know, the nature of the times brings to mind the notion of paradox. And I’d like to think of the definition of a paradox as two truths that compete.’ At which point everyone on the line did one of those cartoon ‘holding the phone away and looking at the receiver’ frowns.
Hackett went on: ‘There is no future if we don’t have an economic system that is always on. We didn’t realise there was an off switch. We knew it might go into a recession – more like a dimmer switch – but off.’
Riiiiiiiiggght. Of course, ‘Ford chief: “There is no future”’ was the only bit that made the headlines. One commentator said: ‘He’s the worst sort of chief executive – one who thinks he’s a philosopher.’ Ouch.
But Hackett’s just the latest in a long line of CEO eccentrics. Look at the godfather of them all, Henry Ford – known as Crazy Henry to his neighbours. Ford hated cows. He hated Jews. Ford believed jazz music was a Jewish plot to ‘invade’ American culture. To counteract this threat, Ford launched a crusade for good ol’ fashioned Oklahoma-style square dancing. In 1926 he published an instruction manual and toured America, campaigning for children to be taught it in schools, to learn ‘social training, courtesy, good citizenship, along with rhythm’.
Then there was Ferdinand Piëch, former boss of VW, father of 13 children. Piëch was a despotic genius, described as strange, creepy, a hard man to talk to. In meetings he would crush his senior executives with a laser-guided hawk-stare, like Darth Vader using the Force Choke. Author David Kiley wrote in his 2002 book about Volkswagen: ‘It’s a dangerous and destructive trait for a chief executive to think he can do everyone’s job in the organisation better than they can… This means nothing to Piëch. He makes it his business to know at least as much as every department head in the company.’
Piëch would turn up at the factory late at night, to peer over workers’ shoulders. He’d go to lowly manufacturing meetings and make his own quality checks on assembly lines. Then there were the test drives: two or three times a year, Piëch would take VW’s top brass on long, gruelling tests across deserts, ice and mountains. The pace would be furious, with Piëch leading from the front. Legend has it a car full of doctors would follow the executive convoy, waiting for some corporate bigwig to have a heart attack. Piëch, it is said, never stopped for loo breaks or lunch.
And then of course there’s Elon Musk. I wasn’t going to mention Musk, because he’s too easy a target, but then just before I sat down to write this I saw in the news that the 48-year-old has just had a son (his seventh child) with his wife Grimes. They’ve called their kid ‘X AE A-12’. Yep, like a Star Wars droid. I’m telling you – they’re all nuts.